I will try to get through the third section of the book with more than a cursory reading, but I get awfully unhappy when reading yet again about profits that can shut down prophets. Money (or better qualified, the love of money) really is the root of all evil. Even in the face of enormous evidence to the contrary, systems that thrive on money will continue to provide the same misleading or just plain wrong information to an unsuspecting populace -- if upsetting the system will decrease profits for those who benefit from maintaining the status quo. How sad! How frustrating!
Here we go. Animal products are bad for your health. Vitamin supplements cannot replace whole foods. Foods cannot be reduced to individual nutrients. Your body is a system that cannot be reduced to parts. What you eat has a far greater impact on your health than your genetic predisposition. Everything is connected. The interactions, and reactions of foods that you take in to your body with your intricately fashioned bodily systems is much more sophisticated and complex than today's health care advocates are able to accept. A pill will not cure all of anything. More pills are less likely to cure a disease. Until medical science puts a priority on prevention, people will keep getting sick, while doctors and hospitals get paid, medical insurers make decisions irregardless of patient needs, pharmaceutical companies get richer, and medical research continues to be funded by those who make the biggest profit on illness and disease. However did this system arise and why in the world do we keep it in place?
Every year there is a race or two for the cure of some disease or chronic ailment, heart disease, diabetes, cancer etc. I have for sometime refused to participate until some group wants to sponsor a run for the Prevention. Cures take place after a person is already sick. Prevention stops the development of disease. I once read that there is no money in prevention which is the reason most people interested in health care go into medical practice or related areas rather than public health. It makes sense when I think about it. If you discover a means for prevention, you can eradicate the disease. The End. If you find a cure you can keep on selling it to those who get sick and as long as people keep getting the disease you can cure it. If the disease is eradicated from the public the money stream is gone. Think about it. Some cancer medications cost thousands of dollars per pill and treatments that involve radiation and surgery are even more lucrative.
So I will stop ranting at this point. I just want to make a few last comments about the way people eat. The Standard American Diet (SAD) really is sad and it fosters a climate for illness rather than health for many millions of people. People believe they are doing the right things for their families and themselves when they follow the dietary guidelines given to them by their doctors or taught in school, but the sad truth is that the guidelines are faulty. Not only are we harming our collective bodies, we are damaging the earth, and harming untold millions of animals raised solely for the purpose of providing food. The earth, the animals, the climate and all the poor around the world would benefit if people would stop eating animals and animal products like dairy and eggs.
For breakfast today I had a nice bowl of Tasty Cereal (Bob's Red Mill/gluten free multi grain) with a dash of soy milk, raisins, walnuts, flax seed meal and applesauce. It was yummy and filling. A plant based diet is healthy and satisfying.
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