My Nutrition Class

I decided to expand my mind a little bit.....I signed up for an online course, Nutrition and a Healthy Lifestyle.  The first class was all facts and figures and rather depressing. It seems since the year 2000, most of us in this country are getting larger......in the south where I live, our obesity rate is at 30 percent and growing.  It seems our consumption of processed foods, high fat, high sugar and our thirst for soft drinks ( an average of 53 gallons a year, for the average person) is taking us down the rabbit hole.  Scary stuff.

Rick and I eat very little processed or fast food......about the only time I  drink soda is when the serum sickness hits and I sip ginger ale.  But as I look around when I'm shopping or out and about, I realize that we are not the norm.  Our county, is poor not only economically, but health wise......I want to do something to help.  I teach free yoga classes, I talk about food, healthy eating habits.....but honestly, most of those who come to class are already pretty healthy.

It took this country many years, and many people dying before we and our government  realized how bad tobacco was for our health.  I am not sure how long it will take, before we realize how our diet of processed foods, sodas and lack of fruits and vegetables is creating disease in our bodies and slowly killing us.  I understand that in urban areas obtaining fresh food is difficult and can be expensive.
But living in rural areas, fresh food can be grown in your back yard.   It is a hard battle, processed and fast foods are loaded with sodium, sugar and fat.......all things that appeal to our taste buds.

We have fooled ourselves into thinking we don't have time to cook, or prepare fresh wholesome food.
I encounter people every day who do not know how to cook.  If you can read, you can cook.
Our lives, and the generations to come depend on healthy diets.......yes, our life expectancy is great, but mostly because modern medicine can keep us alive.  Is that what we want? To gorge ourselves, destroy our joints, our hearts, our bodies......just so medicine can keep us alive.