We argue about Healthcare, meanwhile, the Elephant laughs (pls read!)

I won't be voting for Romney, so please don't take this as an endorsement of him, but I suspect that we would be marginally better off from a health standpoint with him at the helm. Allow me to explain.

Much of the direct sales industry is headquartered in Utah. Billions of dollars worth of nutritional supplements are sold each year, direct to consumers, from these Utah companies.

Granted, some of this stuff is get rich quick garbage, but much of it is not. I purchase roughly $3 per day worth of these supplements from one of these Utah based companies for personal consumption. I haven't had to visit a doctor due to illness for 12 years. I rarely even have a cold. My story is not in the least unusual.

One shouldn't have to work too hard to connect the dots between Romney and Utah. I would venture that the majority of these companies are headed up by LDS followers. Men with money and clout both in business and in Romney's chosen faith. Men who are in many ways responsible for Romney's status today.

Senator Orrin Hatch has been the leading champion of this industry for decades, staving off total eradication (if the FDA were to get its way). Again, I am not intending to make this political. Just shedding some light on the reality of the situation. Because of religious ties, Romney may be the best friend that this industry can hope for.

I have no links here. If someone can point out where I am in error, I am open to reviewing such information. Business, politics, and religion are a sticky mess. Romney may be just enough of a sociopath to turn on his "brethren" without a care. But my gut tells me that, like all politicians, he will be inclined to do favors for those to whom he is beholden. In this case, some of that may actually work in our favor.

I could not agree more.

My perspective comes from that of a healthcare professional. I'm an RN, and see firsthand what a crap diet will do to you. Much if not all of what I see is a direct result of eating crap. What's more amazing is that you can tell people that until you are blue in the face, and they won't change. Crap food is addictive. We eat for what I like to call "mouthertainment". We eat as a form of entertainment for our mouths. We have to stop that.

That being said, what do you eat? There's LOTS of bad info out there. You can't read Womens Day, Redbook or Cosmo and take their advice. They have advertiosers to keep happy. And there's no money for big corporations in eating healthy.

I've researched diet for the last 6 year. I cured my growing blood sugar problem in 4 months after spending a couple of years getting worse doing what "a good nurse" would teach their own patients. I finally figured out advice from the ADA (American Diabetic Association) is BAD advice and won't work, and in fact makes you worse. But what shoul dI have expected? They get milliuons of dollars a year from pharmaceutical companies.

So here's what I did:
NO:
1. No vegitable oil
2. No margarine
3. No sugar
4. No processed foods
5. No store bought milk
6. No grains. None. At. All. Ever. Even "wholegrains" which in fact are very bad for you.

YES
1. Raw, unpasturized goat milk or cow milk from Jersey or Gurnesy cows.
2. Real butter from cows grazing on grass
3. Grassfed beef only. No meat from the store.
4. Eggs from a local farm. Next spring I'll have my own chickens.
5. Cold pressed virgin coconut oil for cooking.
6. Make your own salad dressing from olice oil spices and herbs and apple cider vinigar, or balsamic vinigar
7. Wild caught salmon only, no farmed or "Atlantic" salmon (all Atlantic salmon is farmed)
8. Get fat from my local grassfed butcher and render my own tallow for cooking
9. Lots of vegitables of all colours. I get some from local sources, some I grow myself. That was a real learning process...
10. LEARN HOW TO COOK. AND TAKE THE TIME TO DO IT!!!!
11. Sunlight exposure to increase vitamin D production. I also take 10,000Units of D3 a day. Don't take to the dose, titrate to the level of 40-75 ng/ml. You can avail yourslef to test for vitamin D3 online.
12. Vitamin K2 complex. You 'll get this from grassfed raw milk and butter. Supplimenting is good too. D3 will make calcium more bioavaialble and you want that calcium to go to bones and not soft tissue. K2 tells that calcium to go to bones and not soft tissue. I think this is why women have caught up with men as far as heart disease goes. They take lots of calcium thinking that it's doing their boes good, when in fact it goes to soft tissues (cacification in arteries) due to lake of K2.
13. Iodione. This is a "whole 'nother story". Withough going into lots of scientific detail, we don't get NEAR enough. I bought lugosl soluition (iodine and iodide) and put one drop in my drinking water each day. Lack of iodine is why we have such an epidemic of fibrocystic breast disease and prostate problems (BPH). Many people are toxic with bromides, so you may need to consult with an alternative health care professional as you add iodine to your diet.
13. Whole house (or at least at the source) water filter to eliminate flouride and chlorine in your water.
14. You won't have to worry about fish oil. Grassfed beef has as good a omega three profile as wild caught salmon. And that's what fish oil is all about anyway, trying to balance out our excessive omega 6 intake (which comes from vegitable oils and margarine (which are not fit for human consumption.

This diet is pretty high in fats. That's intentional. Eating fat does not make you fat. It does not make your cholesterol go up. The whole cholesterol thing is the biggest scam going. Your body needs it and creates it. Your brain especially needs it. Statin drugs? Stop taking that @#&%, in my opinion.

There. Now you know more about nutrition than most doctors.

And that being said, based on my experience, exactly nobody will take that advice and optimize their health. Nobody wants to go to the trouble it takes (or a myriad of other excuses). I know someone who is on the verge of getting her colon removed. I'm certain that she has a very good chance of avoiding that fate. I've told her what to do. She won't do it. As I said, wheat and sugar are EXTREMLY addictive. When you eliminate those you WILL go through withdrawl symptomes and feel like crap for a couple of weeks.

No go get busy and optiomize your health and avoid diabetes, heart disease, obesity, arthritis, chrones disease, leaky gut syndrome, auto immune disorders, senility, the list goes on...

Or keep on doing what you're doing. And perhaps we'll meet someday when you're my patient, and your falmily is trying to "manage" your disease processes, and figure out how to pay for it all.

reply to post by davjan4


Thank you for your well articulated response! That's a lot of great information.

Personally, I have been working on my diet for the last 2 - 3 years, although the last year and a half has had some of the biggest leaps for me.
I have moved to a (97.5%) vegetarian diet (The occasional chicken breast is hard to resist!) (I realize vegetarian is not the best option for everyone, but for me, it's done wonders. The closer I've followed the Blood Type diet the better i have felt.)
I have removed all preservatives and additives. We cook our dinner at least 5 to 6 nights out of the week, mostly from local, organic products from our local health food store.
I supplement with Brown Rice Protein (BRP) twice a day for breakfast and late night snack. (I am in the middle of strength/muscle training, so I realllly need the protein.) I make a shake with BRP, Almond milk, and powdered Maca Root (which is a GREAT super food.)
I am in the process of cutting back on wheat. I've moved mostly to Ezekiel breads, sprouted grains, and either brown rice flour or buckwheat flour for cooking/baking.
I also drink a TON of water every day. Aside from my shakes and the occasional tea or occasional glass of red wine, water is pretty much all I drink.
Speaking of water, what system do you use to eliminate chlorine and fluoride from your drinking water? I have been trying to learn more about this. Although, unfortunately, most of the systems I have read about are out of my current price range.
I too take daily Vitamin D3, and alternate throughout the week with other supplements and daily vitamins such as vitamin C, a one-a-day vitamin and magnesium. Magnesium, as I am learning, is also VERY important and is one mineral that most are very deficient of.

It is my goal to become a Nutritionist/Health Coach. I graduated college 2 years ago with a degree in Creative Writing...but now can't wait to go back for nutrition and holistic health! It is my goal to keep learning, because the more I learn...the more I realize how MUCH there is to keep learning!

Thanks again for your post, and if you could please let me know about that water system, that'd be great.

reply to post by eleven44


Did you know that vitamin C cures scurvey? Of course you did, we've all heard that the British salors ate limes to prevent it, and thus were called "limeys"
Here's what you don't know: vitamin C, in isolation like a suppliment you take, can't cure scurvey. Only limes and other natural forms of vitamin C do.
The takaway is trust real food more than suppliments. D3 is all I do because it will raise your blood level of D3. K2 from Real Food is best, like grass fed butter and raw milk. Take the money you spend on suppliments and spend it on real food. to ge more K2 you can take cod liver oil and butter oil. It's just food. Do a search and you'll run across "blue ice" butter oil. It's the best available.
And yeah, I can't recommend a vegitarian diet unless it includes eggs, and raw milk. The body needs fat. Lots of it. You can't get that from vegitables. DON'T DO A LOW FAT DIET!!!!! Those who feel good on a vegitarian diet do so becuase of what they stop eating (standard processed crap). Later it can catch up with you. Don't be afraid of meat rasied like it was supposed to be (on pasture eating grass, not in a feed lot eating grain). And don't beleive those so-called studies about red meat causing cancer. I've read those and they aren't studies at all. They are questioneers. And the recent "study" about eggs being as bad as smoking? Pure crap. Two of the three "scientists" involved work for statin drug companies. ANY studies you read take with a grain of salt. Most are pure crap. Follow the money...
You cannot go wrong eating only real food. I'm 52 and I feel better and have more energy than I did when I was in my early 30's.
Here's more. D3 prevents many kinds of cancers. Go to grassrootshealth(dot)org and you'll find a chart in there. Want to prevent 85% of breast cancers? Just get the blood level of D3 up to at least 50ng/ml. Don't expect to here that from The Komen people. Theyh are far too interested in selling mammograms (proven to actually cause cancer) and raising money and selling all kinds of merchadise with those pink ribbons on them. Biggest scam going besides statin drugs.

What a great thread. As a legal alien living in America (originally from the UK, and travelled extensively throughout Europe) I have a great view of the US system...

* You pay insurance premiums. They are very high. Higher still if someone in your group is sick...
* You visit the doctor, and you pay a 'co-pay' to see him/her. Lets say about $75. The visit is 'charged' by the insurance company at $75. They are not out of pocket at all yet.
* Any treatment and you need to pay a 'deductible.' This means that you pay a portion for the treatment that you've been paying for by your premiums. Up to a certain amount (to keep premium costs down), of course. You pay to stop the insurance company paying - even though you've been paying them to cover it!
* You then get a bill showing itemized charges. I won't go into the whole "$75 for a cotton swab" thing. Let's say, for example, a colonoscopy. The bill says, "It was $16,000.00. You pay $4,000.00." Not bad, you only paid a quarter. However, your insurance carrier tells the hospital that they only pay $6,000.00 for a colonoscopy. The hospital says, "Okay." However, the hospital only charges the $15,000.00 amount because it has overheads such as "liability insurance." If you didn't have insurance and said to the hospital, "Oh, I'm only going to pay you $6K for the colonoscopy!" you'd be in court quicker than you know! You'd pay the full $16k. Why? Because the insurance company threatens to up the liability insurance premium to the hospital if they don't play ball. The consequence is that you don't pay just 1/4 of the bill. You pay 2/3 of the bill. If you have a $2K deductible, you pay the whole bill. The insurance company takes your premiums as pure profit.

Your health is in the hands of the bean counters, not the doctors. You don't have the coverage, you don't have the treatment. Simple. You need to pay out of your pocket? Okay, you leverage your house against it. They'll take all the money you can find. You scoff at the countries with 'socialised medicine' but they pay taxes to cover it. They pay out of their taxes. Nothing precludes them from buying additional insurance for 'better' coverage. Let's say they pay $10,000 in taxes, plus another $5,000 to have 'private coverage if you must.' That's $15K a year. You pay about $1400 a month for completely private insurance (less co-pay, less 'deductibles'). $16,800. Better off? No. Better healthcare? Not really. Longer life expectancy? No. All of your payment goes to the insurance company. In Europe, only $5000 a year does. The rest guarantees you health coverage with no copay or deductible.

In 2009 an independent study showed that universal health care in the USA would cost about $70million a year.
$71million a year is about what it costs to keep the religions tax free. If they were the 'charitable' organizations they claim to be, everyone could have health coverage. Instead, the US has a terrible rate of poverty.
Every time I see a big foam finger saying, "We're number one!" I think, number one in not giving a crap about the poor. Number one in stealing from the middle class. Number one in making the poor poorer. Number one in palling up to the millionaires club (from which most have been excluded).

If the insurance companies, big pharma, big oil, and the churches are all on the up and up, why do they spend so much money lobbying to have the laws changed to make it easier for them to take your money?

Tax the churches.
Abolish lobbying.
Audit the insurance companies.
Otherwise it's not about 'we're number one' it's about "we are crooks and we don't give a crap about anyone else."

But if I say that, I'm labelled as a socialist (which makes me laugh because 90% of the US couldn't give the definition of 'socialist' if their life depended on it), an extremist, unpatriotic...

Stay away from processed foods, drugs (I mean pharmaceuticals), GMO foods, and doctors who get kickbacks from the drug companies. Love, live, and laugh.

We the people? Nope. Them, the rich people.

Something I get alot is "eating like that is tooexpensive". So I did some looking. Sure it's more. I pay $6.00 a gallow for my raw milk. I drive 22 miles to buy. But...

I'm paing no more than my grandparents did in 1940 for anything. How? I just put in how much I pay for several diffrent foods (raw milk, grassfed beef etc) into the governments own inflation calculaotr online. What I pay comes out to the same, or actually substantially less (for pastured eggs) than 1940 prices.

It's just that crap food is so darn cheap. Most is made from corn and wheat ans sugar and soy. All have nice hefty subsidies from the government. It's almost like they want us to eat crap.

Oh, wait...

I just don't know where to begin. Obamacare sucks because everyone has to buy it or pay a penalty tax. Secondly, you don't get to ask for treatment, they tell you if they will pay for it, and if not, just take the pill and shut up. A better approach is the free enterprise system where insurance companies have to compete for customers. But that will take allowing for interstate sales of health insurance which is not legal now.

reply to post by Fromabove


I deal with insurance comanies in my job. I help negotiate how things are done and how to increase profits). Let me assure you it's ALL about making as much money as possible. To make the maximum amount and making their boses happy and the investors happy. The ONLY way to do that is to figure out how to deny care. That's how the insurance companies make $$, by NOT paying for things. They DO NOT make money by providing care. They make it by how much care you DON'T pay for.

PLEASE take charge of your own health. Read my post on how to eat. Otherwise, you are at their mercy. And if you are not now, you will be. Eat Real Food. Take the trouble to find it. Understand that it will cost more than crap food at the grocery store. Understand that the while cholesterol thing is a giant money mainking SCAM. Break your addiction to sugar and wheat and corn. Learn how to cook and prepare real food like beef and chicken and fish stock and broth. Know that processed CRAP is much cheaper than processed REAL food. You MUST make this a priority. And STOP listening to conventional wisdom when it comes to diet and health. Low Fat diets are a shortcut to the diseases of civilization. You being sick and infirm is how they make money. And it's a billion $$ industry. Don't be a part of it.

And again, that being said, 99.98% of you will do nothing.
Enjoy your infirmity.