Slowly Killing Ourselves

It has been coming to my attention that we as humans are slowly killing ourselves for the sake of convienience. We put substances in our food and everything around us that we know is bad for us, yet we still keep doing it.

Why do we do it? Who keeps pushing these things? Obviously some group must be behind it making a profit. All of these chemicals may make our life a little more convienient, but it also shortens our life by decades.

For example:

Lead - Found in everything from glass, paint, and ceramics to the plastic coating on headphone wires. I bought a pair of headphones that warned "This product contains lead, recognised by the state of California to be a known cancer/birth defect causing substance. Wash hands after every use."

A small list of other things that are cancer-causing/toxic/just plain bad for you, obvious and not-so-obvious:

Alcohol
Tobacco
*Combination of Alcohol and Tobacco together even more dramatically increases chances of cancer.

Obesity

Preserved meats/Nitrites

Pesticides/Herbicides

Heterocyclic amines - Develop in meats when overcooked

Peanut butter - contains cancer-causing aflotoxins

X-Rays

Asbestos

Coal

Tar

Nickel

Silica

Wood dust

Smoke

Plastic Wrap/Bowls - Microwaving food with plastic may leech carcinogenic substances into food.

This is just a small list. If anybody has any more really bad ones that I have forgotten, feel free to share.

So basically what I'm wondering is..... why do we have to do very detrimental things, when there must be some much safer alternatives. What is the difference if we commit suicide (socially unacceptable), or knowingly and slowly kill ourselves over a long period of time (apparently quite acceptable and in practice). And on a weird side note, look under your sink and see if you have anything that says "WARNING: DO NOT MIX WITH BLEACH, THIS WILL CREATE A POISONOUS GAS etc etc" Sitting right beside a product containing bleach. I noticed that I do, I don't know about other people. Seems kinda dangerous though.

Links:

Canadians found to be carrying scores of toxic chemicals in their bodies

The average Canadian has more than hockey in his blood; there are also flame retardants, stain removers, heavy metals, PCBs and volatile organic compounds, says an environmental group.


Blood and urine tests of 11 volunteers from Saltspring Island, B.C., to St. John's, NL, found scores of toxic chemicals suspected of causing everything from cancer to learning disabilities, says a report by Toronto-based Environmental Defence.
On average, each of the volunteers showed blood contamination by more than 40 compounds, as well as urine contamination by a number of pesticides.

I assume the same applies for Americans, and anyone else.

National Toxicology Program

Cancer.org

Cancer.gov

[edit on 12-11-2005 by Yarcofin]

This is very true, and the sad thing is that we don't do anything about it because we think that an individual change won't change the collective.

The truth however, is that any change must first take place in the individual, and only then can the collective as a whole change.

P.S. Nice VM Samael Aun Weor avatar.

[edit on 12/11/2005 by AkashicWanderer]

Why worry about being healthy? If I get sick, the Government will take care of me. I'll get free medical care and a social security disability check.
Beats working. If I go to the buffet restaurant eveyday for two years, I could maybe get so fat that I get arthritis or a bad back. I could get hurt at work and get workmans comp , then SSD. All I gotta do is gain about 200 lbs. All you can eat for 5 or 6 bucks everyday will save me money too.
Hey, this is America, I'm allowed to be a nit wit. It's expected of me. You know what happens to people who think for themselves. Don't expect me to do that.

I know a lot of stuff is bad for us these days but didn't a few hundred years ago many people die from eating spoiled foods because there were no refrigerators? I always say for everything gained there is something lost. I don't even drink beer on an every day basis. I might smoke a cigarette every five years. I might chew some tobacco two weeks out of five years, but thats about it. I know I could eat better but one would just about have to grow your her own food for it to really do any good wouldn't she? There just isn't a lot of time for that kind of stuff.

Originally posted by TgSoe
I know I could eat better but one would just about have to grow your her own food for it to really do any good wouldn't she? There just isn't a lot of time for that kind of stuff.

Or you could just buy your food fresh. You go to the grocery store every week probably anyway. Just buy all fresh food and buy less of it, instead of stocking up on a massive amount of preserved stuff that will stay good for months. Just make sure you wash all the pesticide off first .

I know a lot of stuff is bad for us these days but didn't a few hundred years ago many people die from eating spoiled foods because there were no refrigerators?

I don't know exactly, but I'm assuming they didn't have grocery stores like ours either then. So they didn't have an opportunity to buy it fresh every week.

Why worry about being healthy? If I get sick, the Government will take care of me.

Then I guess we need to eliminate that service and weed out a lot of people, and save a whole lot of money in the process. We can monitor who is purposefully ruining their health and stop funding them.

I'll get free medical care

You guys have free medical care? Here in Canada we do, but I was under the impression that you had to pay ridiculous amounts for everything, like hundreds of dollars just for a check-up at the doctor's.

And I assume your whole post was being sarcastic anyways, although very sadly true. Some things are okay in moderation, but realize that in large amounts they could be deadly.

I used to bite lead weights to fasten them to my fishing line, I bet that wasn't helpful. I'm probably gonna die of cancer as much concerete as I have sawed in my life time. Experts say when you saw concrete the dust coming off the blade is callled silica and it gets into your lungs and doesn't come out. Eventually causing cancer to some unfortunate ones. If that doesn't get me welding will, the smoke and fumes coming off a welding rod couldn't be beneficial to the welder.

Interesting thread, Yarcofin

There's so much in our environemt these days and so little of it we can excape *sigh*
It's why I don't go out of my way to buy organic. Why should I? It costs more. As my chiropractor says, how can it be organic if they use regular water, regular dirt and regular air? UNless all these are free of pollutants, it's not completely organic.

Here's another "baddie" in our environment.
xenoestrogen ( I include a definition becasue I dont' think most of use know what xenoestrogens are or how widespread they may be in our environment.)

Xenoestrogens are synthetic substances that differ from those produced by living organisms and imitate or enhance the effect of estrogens. The estrogenic stimulation is an unintended side-effect of these agents or their metabolites.

Xenoestrogens are part of a heterogeneous group of chemicals that are hormone or endocrine disruptors. They differ from phytoestrogens (estrogenic substances from plants), mycoestrogens (estrogenic substances from fungi), and pharmacological estrogens (estrogenic action is intended). External estrogens from a variety of sources may have a cumulative effect upon living organisms, and xenoestrogens may be part of a larger picture of a process of estrogenization of the environment. Xenoestrogens have only been recently (less than 70 years) introduced into the environment, as produced by industrial, agricultural, and chemical companies.

en.wikipedia.org...

I suppose its how you look at it.

I believe the soul goes on regardless. You may be reborn or decide to reside elsewhere but death is not the end. You will go on to other things.

This time around I won the damn universal lottery. I made it into a world and society that provides good food, plenty of booze and loose women. HOW AWESOME IS THAT????????

Now your saying I should take it all in moderation and live to be 90. Nope, I'm like a kid at a carnival. I want the candy apples and thrilling rides and hot dogs and flashy lights. I know this will end all too soon anyway so i'm going to enjoy every single moment while I can. Even if it means I have to leave at 65 instead of 90.

Go rain on someone elses parade, i'm off to get a snowcone

Love and light,

Wupy

Interesting thread yarcofin - great xenoestrogen stuff DontTreadOnMe. Thanks.

mrwupy - You are a funny guy and I often agree with you. But NOT on this one! ...We are being systematically poisoned. Why should we just passively accept it? Life can be lusty, fun, and dynamic without synthetic chemicals or concentrated heavy metals. And I know you know that.


.

Originally posted by mrwupy
I suppose its how you look at it.

I believe the soul goes on regardless. You may be reborn or decide to reside elsewhere but death is not the end. You will go on to other things.

This time around I won the damn universal lottery. I made it into a world and society that provides good food, plenty of booze and loose women. HOW AWESOME IS THAT????????

Now your saying I should take it all in moderation and live to be 90. Nope, I'm like a kid at a carnival. I want the candy apples and thrilling rides and hot dogs and flashy lights. I know this will end all too soon anyway so i'm going to enjoy every single moment while I can. Even if it means I have to leave at 65 instead of 90.

Go rain on someone elses parade, i'm off to get a snowcone

Love and light,

Wupy

Oh I love your post, wupy, I feel the same way. Merry do we meet, merry do we part and merry will we meet again! Life, experience it! I just like the smell of a carnval, let alone all the lights great food and drink, make your life a carnival and forget about the rest of the downers...

Light and Shadows,

LGM

Man has been "killing himself" ever since he discovered fire. But, now, we are doing it at an alarming rate.

We'll be extinct by the year 3000...if not sooner.

I agree with you that life should be enjoyed MrWupy. Everybody likes to pig out and go crazy once and a while. But do we really need to make things drastically more dangerous?
You can have hot dogs without filling them with preservatives and who-knows-what, flashy lights without lead, thrilling rides that don't give off carbon monoxide/dioxide, etc etc. More than just worrying about our own lives, we are also ruining and degrading the quality of life that our children and great great great grandchildren will have. We only have so much fresh water and soil. When we pollute it all, that's it. We aren't just killing ourselves. We are killing our future. So I'm sorry to rain on your parade, I won't take offense if you don't listen, but if you are reborn on Earth again, wouldn't you rather it was as unpolluted as possible? I think you owe it to yourself . And weren't you the same person who said you will have to be dragged tooth-and-nail to the grave? Then why accelerate the process?
I do understand though that it is better to have a shorter and more fulfilling life than a boring and dull long one, but there must be some middle ground. Moderation is the key.

[edit on 15-11-2005 by Yarcofin]

Originally posted by Yarcofin

Plastic Wrap/Bowls - Microwaving food with plastic may leech carcinogenic substances into food.

www.snopes.com...


I just wanted to point out that has been proven false, but it does sound somewhat believable.

Not to play devils advocate but some things like smoking and drinking have been shown to have some health benefits in some people when used moderately. Peanut butter causes cancer?? I would like to see the research behind that claim. Did they feed some tiny lab mice 500 lbs of peanut butter in 2 weeks and it developed cancer? I think the whole key to any of it is moderation. You could go crazy and probably do more damage than good worrying about how to be perfect. Heck too much exercise or studying can be harmful.

Originally posted by Yarcofin
It has been coming to my attention that we as humans are slowly killing ourselves for the sake of convienience. We put substances in our food and everything around us that we know is bad for us, yet we still keep doing it.

Parden the messiness of this post but I haven't really gathered all my thoughts together as I have only recently started to think about it. And some of the ideas are more about flavor than any unhealthily effects they may or may not have.

It's not just added substances in our food, it's the food itself that's becoming unhealthy. It's Factory Foods vs Real Foods.

Lets say your working on your turkey day meal and you need some tomatoes for a cooked dish and you have these choices what would you choose? (Not counting price)

Fresh tomatoes from your local megamart.
Fresh organic tomatoes from megamart
Canned tomatoes from megamart.
Canned organic tomatoes from megamart.

The first thing to note is to many people when you mention organic foods, they tend to think of healthy food grown on small farms by hippies. And many think they are helping the "little guy" when they buy organic food. That may of been true in the past, but not so now. Organic food is big biz, regulated by the FDA and most of the small farmers who started the whole organic thing now can't sell anything labeled organic simply because they don't want or cant afford to pay the fees to be certified organic. So as it stands now most of the organic produce is created by the same folks who produce the factory food, and are processed to show up in your local megamart the same way. This will only increase in the future as it's big bucks.

Health benefits and taste of organic produce, as far as I can tell assuming you wash before eating and it's the same type/hybrid/breed there is no nutritional or taste differences between the two types.

Canned vs fresh, this might suprise some people, but the canned product will taste better. Why? it's simply how the produce is grown, Most canning plants are located close to where the produce is grown so the produce is allowed to ripen (more) naturally and is picked and canned in a relatively short amount of time. The verities of produce that is grown for the fresh food market is picked unripened shipped long distances, then artificially ripened before it arrives at your megamart.

The thing to keep in mind is that factory foods are not produced for flavor or nutritional value. The hybrids that are used are created primarily for these reasons. Increasing the yield (pest resistance, growth, pesticide resistance, etc..), and shipability (slow ripening, less bruising, etc..).

I sure you have heard of or even said yourself about how good g-ma's or great g-ma's food was. No offense to g-ma but it wasn't her cooking it was the food!

I'll stop now, but I can go on with animal products, and environmental issues is there is any interest.

any comments?

Im sure im not the only one whos heard the figure '80% of the things we consume on a daily basis have only been around for 25 years or so', ive heard slight alterations to the figures

Now I know this is a stretch but where does the line get drawn? Which generation was the first to be exposed to this mass amount of preservatives that have unknown longterm effects?

I have even heard reports of the manganese in water slowly builds in your brain after so many thousands of hours in the shower.

Another factor in this whole thing is drugs. Cocaine and ecstasy have been proven to get down into the users DNA and permanently alter it. Cocaine has been around for hundreds of years, but only has been widely consumed in its current form for the last 50 or so. The long-term effects of Ecstasy, being as new as it is, wont even fully be understood untill the current generation of addicts has children.

either well all grow ear tumors from our cell phones, or well evolve to deal with these foreign substances.

And now Teflon is proven to cause cancer :O.

Makes me wonder how many more things out there are secretly bad for you but remain hidden from the public. Well, like entropy said, probably 80%+ of things. Anything new and unnatural is probably not good for you. lol.

"All of these chemicals may make our life a little more convienient, but it also shortens our life by decades. " == Yarcofin

I would really be interested to see the data reference you are using. Most of my data finds in this area go something
like the reverse of your statement. Example:

en.wikipedia.org...

"Timeline for Humans

Neanderthal, 20

Neolithic, 20

Classical Greece, 28

Classical Rome, 28

Medieval England, 33

End of 19th Century, 37

Early 20th Century, 50

Circa 1940, 65

Current (in the Western world), 77-81 "

Chemicals only play a partial role in the overall standard of living. What you say is correct, live expectancy has increased dramatically over the past few thousands of years. The thing is though, if we didn't have all of those harmful chemicals, we would all be living to 100. I don't have anything to back that up, except the growing numbers of cancer, products that cause cancer, and people younger and younger developing cancer more often. On top of that, having heart disease, something preventable, as almost a North American epidemic, killing more people than most other things. And plenty of people are having heart attacks at 30, it's not just for the old people any more if you don't take care of yourself.

Sometimes they help you in the short run, but most chemicals out there have dangerous side-effects and are plastered with warnings. There is no denying that.

Originally posted by Yarcofin
And now Teflon is proven to cause cancer :O.

Makes me wonder how many more things out there are secretly bad for you but remain hidden from the public. Well, like entropy said, probably 80%+ of things. Anything new and unnatural is probably not good for you. lol.

One drug science company controls 80+% of the SEED in the world. ??
among many other things including the USG...
hello?

Teflon has only been proven to cause cancer in 'official' labratory test animals. (lab-rats)
And since it would be impossible to isolate the source of a tumor in a human being, because we have all been exposed to so many different toxins...
Dupont is not going to acknowledge that PFOA's are harmfull to humans, but they are going to "virtually eliminate the sources of exposure to PFOA from our manufacturing operations and products by 2015."

Why would a drug company admit to causing cancer in humans when it cannot be proven in a court of law?

The people who provided the USG with "Agent Orange" has determined that the approx. 100,000 U.S. Soldiers and allied troops who were exposed to this chemical during Vietnam "had not suffered any side effects".
The VA claims " face rash is the only disease associated with Agent Orange"
It's a blatant slap in the face and it scares me that they could keep all of our diseased Veterans quiet about this 'conflict of interest'.

Basically, Dupont will just phase out the use of this product under the Teflon (R) name and come out with some *new & improved* product that does the same thing. That way it will be another 20 or so years before enough studies are done on lab-rats to actually PROVE that another one of our household products are obviously deadly..
to lab-rats that is.

Here is Dupont's media advisory.

A scientific study holds about as much weight as your opinion, if a million different scientist conducted independent studies showing that "synthetic hormones (steroids)" causes cancerous tumors and lymphnomas in lab-rats, the supplier of the chemical will provide a million more 'studies' to contradict their findings.
'Officially' there are no viable 'human' test subjects to conduct their studies on ... while they continue to experiment on all of us on a daily basis.
WITH the full support of the same government that sold "the people" as lab-rat's to the drug companies.
It's the world's greatest military operation, all this government has to do is 'provide the cover' for the drug dealers so they can make billions of dollars from the deadly and in some cases useless chemicals they inject into our food supply. Naturally they make billions more on the pharmacuticals to make us feel better about the diseases we have... and all it cost is a few hundred thousand lives a year.
It's a shame that 'the people' do not have representation that would amount to the compassion found at PETA.
What role does our food and environmental 'protection agencies' play in all of this?
Their offices are filled with former Dupont and Monsanto employee's... that's how the drug companies bought us, their un-official lab-rat's, at such a discount price.

We are not killing ourselves, we are watching the USG and our industry do it to us... slowly.
Your right.

If you read my other post at ATS you will see that I have identified a feasable 'target' to pursue.

I'll be back next week and we can get down to it, if anybody else is ready.

I will tell you what is slowly killing ourselves...worry, stress, etc.
Stop the stress, live in present, and live

Peace

dalen