It seems so far off to think by staying healthy and getting off medicine, you can impact the health of the planet. It is true. I watched Dirt The Movie with the kids to support local green movement but was surprised to fall into the emotion of the movie. I am well versed with the ins and outs of human life and traditional and alternative ways to live. I know alot about the pharmaceutical industry, a good amount about organic and local farmers. I had no idea about how we impact the life of the planet (including greenhouse gas and global warming) by choosing to purchase a box of sugar coated cereal instead of organically grown fruits and vegetables. Tearing down centuries old mountains for minerals to serve a small fraction of the humans on the planet, destroying vast praries to plant one form of vegitation (wheat) that the majority of the US is now allergic to or to push on the public that milk a protein from another animal species is ok to drink until we are well into cancer age (although now cancer doesnt attack 60 and above-I am seeing 40 year olds with new diagnosis being placed on chemo therapy and told "diet doesnt matter, its just your genes")
I have to refer back to a common source, Samuel Kaymen CEO of Stonyfield Farm has fought through conventional dairy industry to maintain organic status and put out non pesticide laden food products because he believed in a product concept that would be healthier for people and an agriculture concept that was being battered by big industry and politics at the sacrifice of the taxpayers health. The average tax payer, supports without knowing it, the companies that produce and process wheat. The same companies that process the seed for the single crop, have to battle the insects that eat the vast fields of wheat so what better way to fight a bug than to put the pesticide in the dna of the seed!!!! Yay.....if the wheat seed was "friendly" to the pesticide, a plan could spray the nastiest chemical (think of the rat poisons in your basement and crawlspace) on the field and not have the plant die. The only thing that dies is the insect!!!
Wait.....the seed the blossoms into a wheat plant has DNA spliced into its gene that tells it "pesticide is ok". The plant that is sprayed with pesticide recognizes the chemical and is not affected by the poison. The insect and rodent that eat the plant laced with poison die since their DNA dont recognize the poison. But then the human will eat the same plant as the insect and rodent? Oh....the pesticide is safe for human consumption since humans are complex and have smart livers that break down anything. Oh ....wait, those are the same livers already breaking down tobacco, alcohol, prescription drugs, tylenol and dealing with high processed sugars. Oh wait....those livers belong to a society of humans working 50-60 hours a week, sedentary, obese and dealing with stressed lives by drinking, smoking, not exercising for lack of time and hunting for processed food high in fructose and wheat. Oh wait....isnt that eating more of the wheat that is Genetically Modified with foreign DNA and laced with pesticide?
Kathy told me of her mother in law who didnt like to visit doctors but was taken to the ER for hip pain. The xrays, MRI and physical exam all were normal. Because she was screaming the Ortho gave a pain shot and great results!!! She felt great, finally no suffering from what the doc said was not a fracture. She is a complex lady, 70 years old with other medical and mental stressors that had pain. Doc listened to the screaming, looked at her hip and gave a powerful medicine for the screaming. No more screaming is a good thing....until the medicine wears off. Screaming again, hip is the same, give the same medicine. By the time she was hooked on the pain medicine, still with screaming as it wore off, the nurses had to transfer her to a single "quiet" room then off to a rehab center since they couldnt handle her. And the nursing home will take her since she has medicare/ the chronic pain center or the drug withdrawal treatment center dont take government insurance. No one checked into other medical problems or mental stressors....they just focused on her hip being normal.
It seems like a strong chemical took care of an annoying problem that continued to surface itself but no one looked at the long term effects of how that chemical impacted the person eating it, the people caring to the person eating it, the healthcare insurance (our taxed paychecks) that pays for the place that will care for her and the medicines we will pay for to feed the addiction she has developed. If we dont pay attention to health (Grow organic/Stay healthy), If we only take shortcuts (Pesticides/Treating the Pain not the Person), If we dont look for other natural solutions (continue spraying more bulletproof fields instead of growing organic farms/continue giving medicine to quiet down screaming not treat the addiction and true source of the suffering) We will only add to the problem of pesticides in our food, deforestation, global warming, nuclear energy dependance/rising healthcare costs, pharmaceutical dependance, and the highest rate of obesity and cancer in the history of mankind.
I cannot speak for the global impact to the planet but I am confident that since I have made the decision to eat healthy, exercise, care for others and help my environment, I will probably outlive some of my childrens friends who are not doing the same. Watch these films:
Dirt The Movie
Food Inc
The Future of Food
Food Matters
Supersize Me
