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Have you ever noticed that today's labeling of junk food restaurants as "fast food" is kind of a misnomer? I don't know how often my readers eat out at these places. I would suspect it is or has been in the past, often as America is indeed the fast-food nation. It is my belief, however, that today's "fast" food is neither fast, inexpensive, or even really what I would call FOOD, as much of the meat at these places is nothing short of processed pink slime, most likely from cows treated with rBST or rBGH (these are both growth hormones given to cows to increase their size and milk production) as well as being overfed on corn feed, which leads to obesity in all animals, including US, as humans, in excess consumption. "Fast" food joints are generally known today to be the distribution arm of the industrial food operation, complete with CAFO's (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations), GMO additives, and inhumane treatment of the animals that are meant to be food, be it cows, pigs, or chickens, as these are the primary meats of the majority of the human diet, well at least in the U.S. Despite the convenience of the "fast" food industry, the overall health and well-being of the American populace has suffered immeasurable consequences, the least of which is obesity, although that opens up a whole new portal for heart disease, a whole slew of cancers, free radicals, and diabetes type II. Yet, not enough people actually seem to care. We pump billions of dollars a year into these massive food conglomerates like BioNTech (formerly known as Monsanto, now owned by Bayer pharmaceuticals), Tyson, and Cargill. These companies even get government subsidies, meaning that the government pays our tax dollars to allow them to poison us. It seems to me like the more we keep buying into it, the more these companies throw out the regulations, buy up the politicians, and continue to openly and blatantly poison the populace, generally without remorse. I have the solution though, if you want to hear it... Are you sure? Really sure? Okay, since you scrolled down, I will tell you the obvious answer. Large multi-national companies will change their policies and standards of operations ONLY if they are hit where it hurts them the most... got a clue? THEIR POCKETBOOKS OF COURSE!!! If you STOP buying their products and DEMAND a healthier better alternative and YOU as the consumer must be willing to PAY the higher cost of better-quality food. This includes your plant-based alternatives and fresh organic produce, plant milks and products free of dairy, eggs, and meat and their various byproducts. How can we do this, you ask? Well, I keep telling my readers that EVERY single dollar you spend is a vote for policy. I KNOW that it is cheaper to buy a cheeseburger for 2 dollars at McDonald's or a cheap burrito at Taco Bell than to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. I KNOW. But the truth is that you really DO get what you pay for: Government subsidized BULLSHIT! My theory is that the government WANTS you to be fat, stupid, lazy, obedient, and stuck in front of the propaganda spewing idiot box. It also doesn't really take a rocket scientist to figure out that THEY WANT the system to be this way. How can this be? Well, there are at least 3 factors involved... 1) There is a LOT of money in the food industry as human beings eat at least 2 to 3 times per day on average and snack a whole bunch in between meals. In ANY system that there is SO MUCH money, much like the gov't itself, it is prone to corruption and cutting costs to make more money. 2) If the government actually WANTED you to eat healthy then they would subsidize farmers that grow fruits and vegetables rather than products containing processed and refined sugars, both whom cause obesity as they are put in EVERYTHING that is pre-packaged in a box, cellophane wrapper, or can at the grocery store/fast food joints. 3) Once you are obese from eating this food, then you are a slave to the pharmaceutical industry that makes BILLIONS to watch citizens slowly die from the poisons (hormones, chemicals, poisons, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, etc.) in the food, which we ALL eat in abundance. The moral I suppose once again is that you get what you pay for. Crap in = crap out. Every single dollar is a vote for policy and so far, our voting record has been EXACTLY where the industries with the biggest profits to protect want it to be. How can it be any other way when our livelihoods have been destroyed and we cannot afford to eat healthy? Or can we? It seems that we either pay the UP-FRONT cost of healthy, organic, locally grown foods... OR... we pay the cost on the BACK END with elevated health care expenditures, over-inflated pharmaceuticals, and funeral costs. It is my personal opinion of course that it would be a healthier alternative to eat at a place, if you must eat out, go to a place that cooks the food fresh and uses locally sourced ingredients. Or just eat at home, I suppose that would just be the over-all best choice. Ultimately it comes down to the consumer to change the personal and political policies that have been set up against our will and with no vote or say in the outcome. Spend your money wisely. You really DO get what you pay for. At the end of the day it is your right to choose what options you decide for the wellness of you and your family. Helpful tip is to prepare snacks ahead of time for you and your kids in the car for times when there aren't convenient places to get a healthier meal option besides fast food. Thankfully, there are a growing number of options in restaurants and fast-food establishments that are offering healthy alternatives such as Chipotle, Baja Fresh, Del Taco, Panera, Subway, Panda Express, Starbucks, etc. Many chains now carry the Impossible and Beyond brands of burgers, sausages and chick'n products, like KFC, however, most of the time the plant-based burgers and fried foods are cooked on the same surfaces or in the same fryers as the meat items.

Hi there to all readers! I just want to write a quick little blog to say a message about cooking at home. I know there are generally 2 types of people (for the sake of argument): eaters and cooks :) Now I will bet dollars to donuts that many would agree with me in saying that food always tastes better when it is homemade with LOVE. I will admit that the stuff from the store is okay, usually, but the sad fact is that it is usually loaded with fillers, preservatives, and things you quite frankly can't pronounce or don't have a clue what it is. Making food from scratch is a wonderful way to spend time with the family and bond over the holidays, or really ANYTIME for that matter. Point being is that we all have to eat and prepare food for ourselves and our loved ones. While I will admit that it is very enticing to go out and have someone prepare the food for you to save on time and energy. I get that. And I know without people willing to eat out, Taco Bell would go out of business, along with many other fast-food places too, well we could even say the entire American economy if you want to be brutally honest about it... but that is not for this blog, but another. I am just stating that the nutritional value and energy that we get FROM the food is proportional to the LOVE that we PUT INTO the creation of that food. Fast food just doesn't fill you up or leave you satisfied afterwards in the same way as a home cooked meal because the process is mechanical in the production... and of course we go back to the fillers and short cuts they take to stretch their food values, like using maltodextrin and high fructose corn syrup. Buying your own food and being informed about your diet has many benefits including lowering weight and cholesterol, higher metabolism, and living consciously about what we put into our bodies... we don't need aspartame and monosodium glutamate MSG folks. We certainly don't need a bunch of preservatives that can keep something on the shelf of a grocery store for years. We most certainly need to read labels and know what is going into the food products we consume and feed our families. I applaud the nations of the world standing up and saying "NO" to this garbage that is polluting our natural food supply. I urge EVERYONE to buy organic when they can, foods FREE of pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides and whatever other chemicals they pollute our food with. Also, grow your own food! Seriously... if the economic troubles alone haven't got you out on your hands and knees in the garden... perhaps the sad state of commercialism and industrialization of YOUR food WILL !! It just flat out tastes better from the garden, cooked at home with love and POSITIVE energy. I'll do the Pepsi challenge any day of MY food, my recipes, and my meals vs. fast food.

Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson. Follow the three R’s: - Respect for self, - Respect for others and - Responsibility for all your actions. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great relationship. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it. Spend some time alone every day. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past. Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality. Be gentle with the earth. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it. If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. This lesson is brought to you by the Dalai Lama himself, I am only the messenger passing on the words of a great man. I hope this may help some feel better and perhaps begin the healing process of treating one another better as a culture and a species: human being.

It has come to my attention recently how much I hear others complain about getting sick when they eat out at restaurants. At first I took all the input with a grain of salt. Having worked extensively in the food and restaurant industry I wrote much of these complaints off on poor food handling and spread of foodborne illness. After all, the food industry (especially not-so-fast food) is notorious for hiring young people that have little experience and knowledge of proper food-handling procedures, safe storage of food, and food temperature control. As I peeled back the layers of the onion, the answer actually came after having a conversation about the subject with my wife, a.k.a. Hunny Bear. She and I have both overheard co-workers complain of these issues recently regarding diarrhea, cramping, and bloating, and a few times vomiting after eating at a few places that are "notorious" for similar complaints. Again, I could have wrote this information off as heresay and conjecture, but a light bulb went on, rather, above my head, and the issue became clear. It occurred to me that much of the same complaints about eating out were the same complaints others had made about their dietary choices in general. Almost as if I had a tray of puzzle pieces with no picture, it all came together. It was WHAT they are eating that is making them sick, NOT WHERE. Greasy fatty foods made from meat, cheese, and other forms of dairy (like sour cream and nacho cheese), with little or no fresh vegetables or nutritional value. This leads to an imbalance in good bacteria vs bad bacteria and yeast in the gut, which leads to inflammation and illness. I discovered in all too many people that poor dietary choices are often blamed on the restaurants rather than on SELF. Processed foods, refined sugars, trans fats, overused salt, and empty carbs can be found in a LOT of restaurant fare and on the shelves of your local grocers. You really are what you eat and your body is like a machine. Garbage in = garbage out. This is especially true for children who need fresh foods like fruits and vegetables to provide energy for the mind and body. Adults too. Imagine your body like a racecar; a real high performance machine. You wouldn't want to put crappy fuel and oil into that engine, so why would you cram your stomach full of crappy fuel? Not all calories are made the same. Processed sweeteners, refined carbs, and greasy, fatty animal products and byproducts are slowing down the performance of your machine, the human body. Countless illnesses, scientists are discovering, are DIRECTLY linked to the diet we consume. Heart disease, high cholesterol, a multitude of cancers, obesity, liver disease, asthma, diabetes, thyroid disorders, g.i. disorders (IBS, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, cramping, bloating, GERD, colitis, etc.), mental health disorders like ADD and ADHD, autism symptoms, etc... and that's all on top of the rise of foodborne illnesses like botulism, salmonella, and e. coli, for example, due to improper handling of food, especially meat and dairy, most often from cross-contamination. Animals that are raised for meat are one of the biggest lies currently happening on this planet as rain forests are being torn down for animal agriculture that is wasteful, destructive, and cruel; the lie that humans must eat the flesh of animals to survive. The amount of food and water it takes to raise one cow, for example, could feed dozens of people, but only 1 animal that is up to its knees or higher standing in its own feces/shit. This animal is cancerous, full of sores, welts, pus pockets, and disease, yet this "food" is just washed off and deemed fit for human consumption by corrupt government agencies like the FDA and USDA (owned and buying off politicians since the inception of this country) that are PAID to look away from the abuse, disease, and horror of modern animal agriculture. These animals are pumped full of cheap filler, then hormones and antibiotics given to stave off illness the animal gets from standing in tight spaces with thousands of other animals all shitting where they eat and sleep. Again, you are what you eat. Eating obese disgusting animals filled with cancers and disease is turning our population into obese disgusting animals filled with cancers and disease. This isn't rocket science, my friends. This is just logic; facts that our own negligent government has been trying to hide for years. Thanks to the Internet and millions of concerned citizens of other nations, the REAL science is coming out and it is HORRIFYING! This is an epidemic AND a scam of vast proportions and we, as humans, need to wake up to the reality that this system of lies and garbage we are ingesting, both in our minds and bodies, is going to be the death of us all. Animal agriculture is killing our rivers, lakes, and oceans with toxic chemical waste and feces. And it's killing our minds and bodies with toxic side effects you don't get from eating your fruits and vegetables. In addition to the health issues from eating an animal based diet, animal agriculture produces more greenhouse gases annually than ALL automobiles COMBINED!!! Plus then you add in all the food, that could be fed to humans directly, >70% that is wasted feeding it to another animal, then to eat that animal, just to get recycled proteins that the consumed animal originally got from the organic produce it originally ate. Why can't we just skip a step and feed the food directly to the millions of people that are malnourished and hungry? MONEY IS WHY! Because feeding the hungry masses might just be something Jesus would have done. Not here in America, though... destroying the planet for a profit to grow animals for us to eat when we could just eat the plants instead of feeding them to the animal first. Sheer insanity. And if meat tastes so good, why not consume it raw? Why the need for cooking? Spices and seasonings? Marinades and other sauces to COVER the taste of the meat? This is the end of my discourse. I'm sorry if I've offended anyone. I really just want to open up the minds of others to different ideas other than what the system teaches us to regurgitate on command. We've been duped, lied to, and poisoned for far too long. It's time to become "WOKEN" and heal the planet by eating plants, not animals. By planting trees and gardens; growing our own food and giving the middle fingers to the same system that is lying to you about war, animal agriculture, diseases, and "healthcare" via endless doping from the pharmaceutical industry. YOU CAN EITHER HAVE THE PHARM-ACY or the FARM-ACY. Choose wisely my friends. Read and educate yourself about how to start small and incorporate more plant based foods into your diet rather than meat, eggs, dairy, cheese, butter, lard, hydrogenated oils, refined and processed sugars, HFCS, and empty carbs. P.S. When you first start a plant based diet you will be very bloaty and gassy, at first. There is an adjustment period as your body gets retuned to eating what nature intended. Stay with it. Save the lives of thousands of other animals. Save the rainforests. Save the lives of yourself and your family.

Hello once again my friends, we're back to reshape your minds and open your eyes to the REAL world that is around you EVERY day. Lets jump right in by getting a glass or a mug, any kind of cup will do. Fill up your cup with good old H2O and have a drink. It's on me :) Actually, it's on all of us... I should have been more specific before. See it's a special thing that we just ingested. It is our main life source, this water. Our human bodies are composed of 70 to 75% WATER. What is water? We all know right? 2 hydrogen atoms atoms attached to one oxygen atom to form a molecule of water. But what does that mean? Why is that important? Well, that oxygen is important to our body as humans. We need it to breathe, but ALSO, our tissues need oxygen to rebuild and regenerate. Our bodies NEED water for this rich, important oxygen. Due to our diets, particularly in the U.S.A., we are consuming more alcohol and soda, juice, and modified water drinks (which are just filled with sugar, look for the hidden HFCS) than actual water. Water removes toxins from our system and literally, you just piss them out, or sometimes #2... The problem is that we eat too much meat in general. Red meat to be more precise if you want to get technical. And I know, I know... A LOT of people love their steak or cheeseburger. Don't get hung up on the meat. Water is primed up to flush the toxins and carcinogens found in this red meat out of your colon before it can give you CANCER. Water is primed to flush your kidneys and remove all the toxic HFCS waste from your system, provided we can wean ourselves from the ADDICTION of CAFFEINE. Our brains need water because water makes up the majority of our blood. The blood is rich with hemoglobin that suck up what? OXYGEN from the lungs when we inhale the air, which is actually mostly Nitrogen. Part of the problem we have as a culture is our addiction to things that are SWEET. We have a sugar addiction. We are addicted to ANYTHING that tweaks the system, be it caffeine, tobacco, sugar, alcohol, cannabis, magic shrooms, chocolate... all the way to crackheads and huffers! But on a happier note, I really believe everyone NEEDS to break away from the waste of plastic bottles. A small $10 investment buys a reusable water container that can be taken ANYWHERE. Mine even has a belt clip, lol... Let me break it down even simpler than I have before. Toxins build up in your system in what we call "stress areas" Water, along with stretching exercises like Pilate's or YOGA will release these toxins so they can be flushed out of your system and rid your body of unwanted stress. A proper balanced diet would help too. NO amount of water and exercise will HELP if you keep poisoning your system with alcohol, tobacco, milk, and red meat. Speaking of the notorious MILK... it is the #1 cause of osteoporosis. But that's not what we were told... By WHO? The dairy farmers? THEY want you to buy their milk, kind of keeps their revenue flowing. After all, they DO have a surplus of milk since the corn they feed the cows makes their udders swell until the poor beast can't even stand up. Human beings are NOT SUITED to digest bovine products. Even whole milk only has only about 15% calcium. Too much cow milk leads to the hardening and ossifying of the cartilage on your bones which leads to arthritis and osteoporosis. This is compounded by the fact that most Americans are magnesium deficient and without magnesium, our bodies can't absorb the calcium from our foods. You can get all the calcium you need by eating fruits and vegetables. I'm talking about the colored ones. White is generally a sign of LESS nutrients. The MORE color = more nutrients as a general rule. Calcium can be gained by eating strawberries and oranges Anyway, off the ranting for a bit so I can be a little more serious. The WATER is disappearing at an alarming rate in the world. I know that people see the oceans and rivers and think we have plenty of water, but this is a mistaken misnomer. WE have POLLUTED the majority of water on this planet we inhabit. There are plastic "rafts" in the middle of the oceans where the plastic waste we have produced sits large as the state of Texas and there are growing in number and size. Water is our most precious resource. Forget about GOLD. Forget about Platinum or Silver, Copper, Nickel... all of that. The next World War will be about food and WATER. The water we have now is just constantly recycled, chemicals added to kill what was once waste to become palatable once again. We can filter out most of these chemicals now with a Brita or PUR filter now. But even with chemicals in the water, it is still SAFER to drink H2O than the FAR MORE POLLUTED soda and doctored up juices and alcoholic beverages. Just something to think about. Drink water to cleanse and revitalize your body. Stretch your muscles and rid yourself of toxins that cloud your mind and physical stamina.