trying to live healthier...

[MtnT4R]

I stumble across documentaries and whatnot all the time- if I don't have something to keep my mind active at work besides the generally mundane tasks that consume my week, I would lose my mind.

Most people I know don't really care to learn about all the ways our modern society is slowly killing us, and ignorance is bliss to a certain extent. Panicking and worrying yourself to death would probably the opposite end of that spectrum. Whenever I learn about something in my daily life that nobody ever told me was dangerous, I try to at least learn what I can do to limit my exposure. I find this stuff interesting and compelling, thought it was worth its own thread...

Here's one I ran across today. Pretty interesting:

 

[BrianSD_42]

trying to live healthier...

Good video. My quick advice for healthy living is to give up all processed food, or at least as much as possible.


You may also be interested in this article:

The Scary New Evidence on BPA-Free Plastics
----> http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/03/tritan-certichem-eastman-bpa-free-plastic-safe

 

[MONTYMTB]

I stumble across documentaries and whatnot all the time

Seems like every day there is something discovered to be hazardous to our health that at one time was thought to be good for us or our safety. I try to stay away from chemicals as much as possible - threw away most of the cleaning stuff I had long ago and started using a vinegar and water mix instead.

Have you ever seen Food Inc.?

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/QqQVll-MP3I" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[MyHigh]

It's funny you mentioned cleaning with vinegar and water. Have you ever looked into the many uses of hydrogen peroxide? It's amazing the things that can be done with it. I have such a horrible memory but there was one about cleaning and it was apparently the best disinfectant. Let me research it again and I will get back to this thread, might be something worth looking into for you guys as well.

 

[1engineer]

Most people I know don't really care to learn about all the ways our modern society is slowly killing us, and ignorance is bliss to a certain extent. Panicking and worrying yourself to death would probably the opposite end of that spectrum. Whenever I learn about something in my daily life that nobody ever told me was dangerous, I try to at least learn what I can do to limit my exposure. I find this stuff interesting and compelling, thought it was worth its own thread...

Here's one I ran across today. Pretty interesting:

Life expectancy in the US in the year 1900 was around 47 years old. Last year its around 78 years on average. Point is, while there are bad things out there that COULD be slowly killing you, overall all those things put together (better pre natal care, antibiotics, vehicle safety, water quality, treated sewage and the list goes on) has dramatically increased our life span.

My philosophy on living the best and highest quality of life possible? One word: Moderation. Want to eat doughnuts? Eat one not a dozen. Want to eat meat? Mix it up and eat all kinds, not just red. Want to exercise? Great idea just don't run a marathon every day or you won't have any joints left. Want a drink? Drink a few beers instead of a liter of Vodka every now and then. Moderation is my story and I'm sticking to it lol.

 

[KidVermicious]

Moderation is my story and I'm sticking to it lol.

That's boring.

 

[1engineer]

That's boring.

I'm an engineer, what do you expect?

 

[WRWhit93]

This is an interesting documentary on the dangers of bottled water to people and the environment, but mostly on people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72MCumz5lq4

 

[MtnT4R]

I would 'like' every post on here so far but that would be obnoxious. You all posted some great links and insight!

My friends think some of my habits are a little weird, but then again I watch my roommate microwave his TV dinners every night with the plastic melting into his food and wonder about his sanity.
[MENTION=66316]1engineer[/MENTION] you're right on; moderation is key with everything. Is that tasty greasy burger with fries once or twice a week gonna kill you? probably not, but I've slowly realized that we are up to our eyeballs in toxins and unhealthy habits and we wonder why nearly half of our population is expected to develop cancer within their lifetimes, while the going rate was around 7% at the turn of the last century. Not sure about the exact source of those numbers, but its right around those percentages.


Great question: why do we typically keep our cleaning chemicals in the same area we cook our food and bathe?? And store raid and mouse/rat poison in the garage right next to the cupboards with canned food...what?

You guys are right- I started cleaning everything with vinegar and baking soda, and it scours off soap scum, food scraps, burned food on the grill and oven, etc etc. Its cheap and you don't have to spray everything with lysol or bleach.

 

[MtnT4R]

Have you ever seen Food Inc.?

That documentary was pretty eye opening. Growing up I was exposed a little bit more to butchering animals and what it takes to actually deliver food to the table, but factory ranching and agriculture is a totally diseased and disgusting industry.

Another huge takeaway I got from that documentary; does anyone else have a problem with the face that monsanto genetically modified a version of soybean so they can spray their crops with Round Up? Blew me away that round up is basically a watered down version of agent orange.

[MENTION=65101]BrianSD_42[/MENTION], thanks for the BPA article. Reminded me of why I'm buying a reverse osmosis filter for under the kitchen sink. Anyone ever wonder about fluoridated drinking water?

 

[1engineer]

I would 'like' every post on here so far but that would be obnoxious. You all posted some great links and insight!

My friends think some of my habits are a little weird, but then again I watch my roommate microwave his TV dinners every night with the plastic melting into his food and wonder about his sanity.

[MENTION=66316]1engineer[/MENTION] you're right on; moderation is key with everything. Is that tasty greasy burger with fries once or twice a week gonna kill you? probably not, but I've slowly realized that we are up to our eyeballs in toxins and unhealthy habits and we wonder why nearly half of our population is expected to develop cancer within their lifetimes, while the going rate was around 7% at the turn of the last century. Not sure about the exact source of those numbers, but its right around those percentages.


Great question: why do we typically keep our cleaning chemicals in the same area we cook our food and bathe?? And store raid and mouse/rat poison in the garage right next to the cupboards with canned food...what?

You guys are right- I started cleaning everything with vinegar and baking soda, and it scours off soap scum, food scraps, burned food on the grill and oven, etc etc. Its cheap and you don't have to spray everything with lysol or bleach.

I'm not going to try to change your mind about anything but my opinion on cancer, at least in North America, is simply increased age. If the people back in the 19th century would have lived longer they would have developed it too. I also think cancer killed a lot of people back then but our knowledge of the body was so primitive that it was misdiagnosed. Japanese have the longest life expectancy and always have. In 1900 it was 6 years longer on average and in 2000 it was 4 years longer than us.

The most important thing is not how long we live but the quality of life we have while on this planet. Let's face it - nobody gets out of here alive. Some last longer and some don't. I know people who smoke 3 packs a day and are fine up in their 80's. A friend of mine's child died of cancer at 4 years old. Genetics play a huge role in this too.

Environmental exposure (like your cleaning chemicals) is not good, but in the greater scheme of things it is nowhere near as bad as sitting behind a desk all day and then going home and laying on a couch and then going to bed, all the while drinking Coke and eating Doritos. That's what will kill you faster than Scrubbing Bubbles or DEET will. Just my .02.

 

[MtnT4R]

Environmental exposure (like your cleaning chemicals) is not good, but in the greater scheme of things it is nowhere near as bad as sitting behind a desk all day and then going home and laying on a couch and then going to bed, all the while drinking Coke and eating Doritos. That's what will kill you faster than Scrubbing Bubbles or DEET will. Just my .02.

:snacker:



but seriously though, I agree. unless you spray the scrubbing bubbles on your doritos and mix the DEET with that classic coke?

 

[MONTYMTB]

... in the greater scheme of things it is nowhere near as bad as sitting behind a desk all day and then going home and laying on a couch and then going to bed...

One of my all time favorite quotes:

We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing ~ George Bernard Shaw

Gotta keep moving.
:zoom:

 

[MtnT4R]

[MENTION=88597]MyHigh[/MENTION], thought I would repost this here haha:
"What do you guys think about fruit and veggies?

Is the recent push to buy organic stemming from the grocers to fear us into purchasing the more expensive produce, or are the chemicals and pesticides used in contemporary produce truly endangering our health. I guess, what would be healthier, eating the right amount of mainstream produce or eating less organic veggies considering the price difference, let's say eating on a budget?


My Ma taught me this little saying when buying produce, it has to do with the stickers placed on them "9 is Devine, 4 is a bore" 9 being organic while 4 being regular. Which these numbers would be the first in a series on the sticker."

I've debated the whole organic thing and how some produce companies definitely do take advantage of it. I think that by and large, you are getting better quality produce than the stuff injected with hormones, antibiotics and insecticides. There have been studies that show organic produce grows healthier and larger than their counterparts.

Personally, the farmers markets in the summer around here bring in produce that is nearly twice the size of the store bought stuff. Even in the store, the organic asparagus is much larger(and waay more expensive) and the broccoli I picked up on Monday were seriously like little trees.

As far as whether you can get away with regular veggies and whatnot, I found this pretty useful:
The dirty dozen and clean 15 of produce | Need to Know | PBS

Produce with uniform skins-apples, mangoes, grapes, etc are easier to wash clean than the leafy stuff that is more likely to absorb the pesticides. If you want to mix and match to suit your budget, that link is a great resource.

 

[BrianSD_42]

what would be healthier, eating the right amount of mainstream produce or eating less organic veggies considering the price difference, let's say eating on a budget?

You want to eat as LITTLE of any food that contains residual pesticides as possible.

Pesticides, like lead, mercury and Uranium don't leave the body. They build up over time and cause all kinds of problems.

 

[MyHigh]

Thank you guys for relocating my post! :frusty:

Another problem we as a society are facing is the number of children being born with food allergies, or celiacs disease, and I attribute that to the chemicals we put in our food, how just about every crop out there has been genetically modified to grow bigger, produce more and so on. I recently read a book on kindle called "wheat belly" and it talks about how our farmers have gone from the traditional wheat plant to a GE one that's more hardy, grows shorter, resist dry spells and bugs. The only problem is this new GE plant has an extra chromosome that our bodies weren't designed to digest. So people who are more sensitive to this extra gene have problems. Well I'm one of them! I actually have many food allergies that of which some I deal with like wheat but others I can't such as cow dairy, think of all the hormones we pump into cows to produce milk? I've successfully sustained from eating dairy for 10 years now. When I first eliminated it from my diet I lost 40 pounds in 2 months, basically my body getting rid of all the crap it couldn't do anything with.

Has anyone ever heard of the great mercury disaster coming our way?
Basically during the gold rush of California miners used mercury to separate gold. Well it worked very well and so it was mainstream to use it and dump once you were done. Now it's been discovered that the mercury in the mountains of Cali. Is starting to seep down to the growing fields of California.
I'm not sure the exact number but I've heard that California produces something like 70% of our nations nutritional needs. Now if that's right, we can possibly be facing a dangerous future.

 

[BrianSD_42]

Basically during the gold rush of California miners used mercury to separate gold. Well it worked very well and so it was mainstream to use it and dump once you were done. Now it's been discovered that the mercury in the mountains of Cali. Is starting to seep down to the growing fields of California.

I don't get it. Why is this year different than 50 years ago?

 

[MyHigh]

Well from what in understand the mercury has basically made its way deeper into the soil. To the point were it now is seeping into many of the local rivers. Where as 50 years ago the majority of the mercury was still in transit I guess. I agree 50 years ago mercury was known to be in many of the mountain ranges but but it's only now becoming a concern. I have to admit, I got this information from watching a show on discovery about gold mining, so who's to say there isn't once again an agenda behind the whole mercury scare. Also I think another reason is the encroachment of agriculture toward the mountains.

I don't know I guess what your saying is it's no surprise to you, I however never had it cross my mind. To be honest I thought a majority of our farmland was in the Midwest, not California.

And sorry I didn't make it clearer before but it's not a warning of this year, but rather a pending problem. They actually said it would take many, many years for the mercury to make its way toward the flatlands. One thing they did mention was whenever there is a heavy winter that creates abnormally high springtime runoff, that increases the rate of travel for the mercury.

 

[JB.]

1engineer saved me some writing.

The scope of the principal of moderation is amazingly wide when analyzed. Moderation for both inclusion and exclusion.

The possible effects of most of these things is very small. Further, even when the possible effect might be a little larger, it takes a massive amount of study to try to nail it down. Consider the large effect of smoking and how much time, study, and information collection it took to reliably nail it down with reasonable certainty. Few of these things are likely to have even a fraction of the effect that smoking has. What do you think the chances are of reliably establishing the effect of even ONE of these things, not to mention trying to include the combinatorial effects. Life span is a very stable property, meaningfully affected only by a very few large interventions (reduction in infant mortality, sanitation, suppressing epidemics, etc). Doesn't mean the policy issues should be ignored, but acute worry is usually not productive.

Much better to apply some broad principles of healthy living and not obsess on the newest danger of the week. Health wise, there's probably much more bang for the buck to be had by trying to minimize iatrogenic harm by resisting the medical marketing attempts to make everyone a patient.

If anyone is overly anxious about cancer, I highly recommend a book called "Should I be tested for cancer? Maybe not and here's why". Extremely well written and accessible, and a book I'm extremely glad to have come across. Cancer is about that last thing any young people should have on their mind.

 

[sportrunner2001]

I'm not sure the exact number but I've heard that California produces something like 70% of our nations nutritional needs. Now if that's right, we can possibly be facing a dangerous future.

This is true for fruits and vegetables mainly. Things people eat by themselves or raw and not processed (in the least bad sense of the word) into another product. The midwest leads for a lot of other very important crops.

Even my own state, North Dakota, is the number one producer in: (putting on my boasting hat)

spring wheat
durum wheat
sunflowers
barley
all dry edible beans
navy beans
pinto beans
canola
flaxseed
dry peas
lentils
honey

You said nutritional needs so I'm assuming crops that have a lot of vitamins in them. That may be true but I doubt that all the farmland is in danger of Mercury creeping into the soil.

Not to say Cali doesn't produce a good amount of food but its not the top for everything out there and I'm not going to be too worried about it until theres an imminent problem. Not saying mercury isn't bad but for now theres no way to know how bad it can get until it starts to happen.