We "Americans" are gullible. In general, as a population we want to believe the best of people. I am one of those naive people. I think Americans as a whole largely want to believe in our government. We believe that institutions like the Food and Drug Administration are here to protect us. No matter how much data or how much information is put in front of you, sometimes it is hard to accept the truth. I mean-really let it sink in, that we are on our own.
There are people in our society who have clearly said there is something wrong with our food supply. Read a Michael Pollan book to educate yourself. After gathering a little knowledge you might not walk into a supermarket again. As a society, sometimes we are not able to capable of holding the truth. We like to hang out at the water cooler drinking the liquid of denial. We are so comfortable and cozy in our make-believe world. We hope things are as we wish them to be.
Telling the truth can sometimes come at great personal risk. People can begin to label you part of the anatomy of a chicken. We are fearful that we can catch something from an opinion or idea. As if ideas can generate shifting peoples minds without their control. Left wing, right wing -- when did knowledge become so unappetizing? Public figures who try to make a difference, even people like Oprah Winfrey, one of the most powerful and influential leaders, can get into trouble.
Remember back when Oprah made a comment during her show after a meat scare? She said something completely honest about her fear of our food supply. She said she had been "Stopped cold from eating another burger." http://prwatch.org/prwissues/1998Q1/oprah.html. The Texas Cattleman's Association was outraged and sued her. Was what Oprah said incorrect ? No, how could it have been? She expressed her fear about the state of hamburger in our food supply.
When Oprah spoke out, it became a huge legal mess. It makes lesser mortals fearful -- if even Oprah gets in trouble, we should keep our mouths shut. The lesson we take away from that experience is, if you tell the truth, someone will sue you. Wow, think about that. In actuality you can't tell the truth if it affects the money supply. Because here in the "land that I love", what makes the merry go round...is the money.
I've spent the last week at We Care Spa in Desert Springs, California. This visit has changed my life. I am a progressive independent on social issues, conservative on budget and spending particularly in our current climate. My political beliefs don't fit into a traditional two party box; they resemble the scrambled eggs that I love so much. Yes, truly I could care less if someone was a Republican or Democrat, those "labels" are pitting people against each other in a very destructive way. Can we all agree that our country is in a serious mess?
My blog today will probably use many food analogies as I am coming off of a food fast and dreaming of the very items that helped me to get sick in the first place. Foods like French fries, those crisp salty sticks that even now make my salivary glands start to wag like an excited puppy's tail. Yesterday, while I was exercising, I swear I smelled a medium rare cooked cheeseburger. No such luck.
Let me give you a brief history of how I got here. It's been almost two years since I ended up in prison in Zimbabwe. A prison overcrowded and filled with disease : One of the requirements of that particular prison is that inmates must go barefoot. Apparently this rule was created so that the guards could clearly distinguish between the prisoners and their guests. Guests were the only source of provided food for inmates. If you do not have a guest coming to bring you food and water, you will die. Being barefoot, and bra-less (another rule) I stepped in feces and was urinated on from above through a gaping hole in the ceiling. Never mind what I was breathing in, I can't go there.
Two years later, after ending up with parasites from this experience and reducing my immunity, I contracted Lyme disease too. Because of my current medical situation, and the large amount of drugs that I continue to use to get well, I am fearful of the long term side effects. I had gained a lot of weight from the swelling of the infection and have been very uncomfortable. In my mind, the disease was in a holding pattern because of the drugs. I would have to continue to take these drugs for years to get rid of the disease. I don't want to take drugs the rest of my life. Desperate, a friend recommended that I go to We Care Spa. Her friend also a "Lymie" swore that she stays healthy by visiting the spa once a year.
We Care Spa is not a plush spa with servants and people fawning over you. No, you are there to work on getting your body healthy and understanding the state of our current food supply. It is nestled in the balmy desert of Palm Springs. In the mornings you wake up, take your minerals, your detox and drink plenty of fluids. A colon cleanse is part of the daily regime to rid your body of toxins and bad food. A few weeks after the recommendation, I found myself sipping tea in a little white robe, drinking detox drinks and aggressively cleansing my body.
As Congress and the White House struggle to fix a broken health care system, we have a bigger problem with our country's medical system. The United States is doctored by an allopathic medical approach. Many dictionaries define the term allopathic medicine as the treatment of disease using conventional medical therapies. In this system, we use symptoms to determine illness and antibiotics to get rid of the illness. A key part of what is missing in this system is preventive care. Our doctors are not trained in preventive care. Nor do we spend much time in our current system looking at alternative methods of staying healthy.
Being at "We Care Spa" has changed my life. I finally have come to accept the following:
• Our medical system is broken. The basis of our health care system is the use of pharmacology to address illness. This system actually creates more illness. There are many ways in which the system keeps people alive -- particularly in crisis illness. The use of extensive pharmacology and non-alternative treatments is weakening the body. This weakness allows for other diseases to flourish.
• Our Food and Drug Administration is not designed to protect us. The system is corrupt and focused on capitalism. Somewhere in time, the FDA has chosen money over health.
• Many food products in America are bad for you. We use chemicals and preservatives in much of our food chain. Our government states that toxic chemicals are okay in limited amounts. What they do not tell you is that toxicity builds up in the tissues of your body. In a single lifetime, it is remarkable easy to build up toxins and face a serious disease.
Take the mercury argument. There has been great controversy over the role mercury may have played in the increase of Autism in the United States. The role of mercury in our lives is far greater than the inoculations given to our children. This is just what we know about. Did you know that in the process of making corn syrup we use mercury? Try to find a product for kids without corn syrup in it!
Just in case you start thinking that my brain accidentally got sucked out in a colon cleanse gone awry, read this. Remember, your skin is the largest organ protecting your body.
I have returned from the spa, ten pounds lighter. My supply of daily pills is being packed up and put in my closet, much to my doctors protests. I refuse to continue to pump roughly 50 pills a day in my body to stay healthy! When I go to the grocery store, I read the label on every single item. If I don't understand what an ingredient is, the product stays on the shelf. I eat organic and fresh. When I see an FDA label, I quickly put the food back. The FDA label to me is synonymous with poison.
Here is something for all of us "gullible ones" to think about. We have to realize we have the power to create change in our food supply. We can stop being the suckers of capitalism. If we don't purchase the products, companies will be forced to change what they manufacture.
As the merry-go-round moves:
Ring around the rosy,
A pocketful of posies,
Ashes, Ashes
We all fall down!"
Follow Michealene Cristini Risley on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@mcrisley
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