Monday Moaning: Health Tax!

 

Monday Moaning: Health Tax!

Let me begin with the fact I am not the most sporty guy and love to eat delicious food. Though I say these things it does not mean I am by all means unhealthy or do not take responsibility. Ever since we work less, and that includes me, we have become obsessed with health. More specifically, the healthy eating.

All good if you ask me. We do need to understand the kind of food we eat and make sure we pay attention to how much. Now the thing is that quantities are not so much an issue. For us it is the amount of sugar. Yes we eat to much of it and we know it. We eat more of it than fats though it may not differ by much, we already have changed our eating habits more than we think.

The one thing we cannot leave is the sugar. In every ready made meal, cardboard box we pick up from the super contains sugar. All cans and even processed meat contains a certain amount of sugar. Pay attention to the fact I said processed meat. The sauces, marinades and spiced meats. Precooked, grilled or dried.

Not forgetting the loads amount of drinks. Not just the bubbly soft drinks, your average soda but also the seemingly healthy fruit drinks contain sugar.

This is then also the reason why we have invented ‘Sugar Tax’. Have companies pay extra taxes based on the amount of sugar that they put in the drinks. Not he foods as of yet, u surely that to is on its way. One can be sure of that since the talk about ‘Fat tax” is also doing its round through the chambers among some high officials in parliament.

Smart people have come up with this kind of point the other way I-am-not-responsible-finger. Ever since people started protesting (can be good) for healthier food (wonder why) the government has started to stick there nose into our daily life and see an opportunity to cash in more tax. Yes because in the end they all know we people are stupid, hooked on sugar and the tax will be paid by the consumer since companies will definitely charge their tax to us.

But go back just a little. We protested because we wanted healthier food? WE pointed a finger and di not take responsibility. We could have gone to a super market and bought healthier food. It is just that we are to lazy to actually cook so we take prefab packaged food.

Should we not have taken responsibility and started eating healthier ourselves in staid of blaming companies for putting sugar in there. When is it a companies job to make sure our children eat less candy? Does a CEO really have that much power in our lives or are we just blaming someone else since we know we were wrong to begin with.

Health tax is what I call it. And though In a way I can see how it works. We are stupid enough to pay the extra 10 cents on a can because we can always blame the manufacturer for putting to much sugar in it. So we humans are more than happy to pay for the extra sugar as at that moment it isn’t our responsibility anymore to eat healthy.

It is the job of the CEO of major companies o make sure we get healthy drinks in our hand.

This kind of shift is not very healthy.

We pay that tax so we can have a cheaper health care as well. Or so they say. But how much healthier will we be if we do not take care of our own body and rely on others to do our thinking. If we do not get healthier ourselves taxes go up on unhealthy food, that I still the easy kind. And we might change our ways, it is just that we have gone a bit lazy.

The food industry was thriving on our sugar rush, and they were at fault. But was it not you who could have left it and not eat it.

Our way of thinking is distorted in that way. Just because it is here does not mean we need to eat it. Just because a gun can kill people does not mean we have to.

So if we can choose not to fire a gun and kill a person. We can also choose to eat healthier just so that we do not kill a person (our kids)

This recent shift in responsibility is happening more and more but the reason why is lost in all translations. It is as if we do not want to have responsibilities and just life A life. A controlled life. As if we need guidance from other people.

None of that sounds very healthy.

One might ask if this responsibility shift is not also a power shift. The less we want to be held accountable the more we want someone to take the lead and guide us so that we can have on person to yell at. Kind of like the president.

Just how much is he accountable for what you do in your daily life. Should we blame him that you a microwave food and had a fizzy drink with loads of sugar. Is he responsible for the fat and juicy burger you shove down your throat. Do we really need to ask him to control the food industry or do we have a healthy way of thinking and come up with a plan t do it ourselves.

Soon as we stop spending money on sugar you gradually see them disappearing. Though the only person who can do that is YOU and your neighbour and local community. And so on.

Take responsibility for a change and get of your ass and start moving ( me included) eat smart and one can live a healthy life.

Best Wishes
Ranting Crow

Can’t wait for the Sugar Police to start walking the isles with a doughnut in their hand. And write out a ticket on their belly for having to much fatty food in your trolley.

Monday Moaning: Medicinal Health!

Monday Moaning: Medicinal Health!

Finally I am back! It has been a shitty week. For real. Now Just in short I was spending most of the time on a porcelain throne trying to dull the enamel with crap. Or maybe it was more like a brown wash due to the food poisoning. Yeah I got unlucky this time, there is a first time for everything.

Either way it is moments like these where I am cramping up on a seat that I am reminded how fragile we are. It is that frail superiority we have. Thinking it won’t happen to us or never will. Beside that we do everything we can to live a healthy life after all.

It is this that bothers me and I mentioned it before, how we have started arguing for the sake of using biological and or organic foods. It is confusing for a person like me who always used to when I was little, still did when growing up since we had a veg garden. And even now still do try to find my food straight from a farmer if possible.

This does mean you can only eat what the seasons bring you.

But back to the point we push people these days to eat more organic and the likes.

Promoting it as health food. Able to stop or slow down you cancer. Reducing the change on heart failures or other related problems.

I smile because I remember moments people would laugh at anyone who said that and called them frauds. In ancient times we had witchdoctors with their herbal meds or a shaman. It is in a way fun to see how perspectives changes again and again.

This is all very promising as in that time we are growing everything in greenhouses we altered the veggies and fruits to stand up against the harsh environments and he bug they may encounter when growing out in the open and become organic. With this though lots of taste has been altered as well. Sugars that have been added, vitamins increase and the sorts.

Remembering my childhood, I can say I disliked chicory a whole lot. I had to have it with applesauce and mesh with an extra potato due to its bitterness. I kept ding that even up to my adulthood.
These days it changed, the bitterness is gone and I won’t use the apple sauce any more and yet Ii am not satisfied. Not happy with he way it tastes. I do not like the extra added sweetness to the chicory or cauliflower. I hate the fact the sprouts taste sweeter. In what way are they healthier?

Another example I ate yesterday. A clementine. The juiciness is delightful its tangy flavour tingling on your tongue with just the right amount of acidity of sourness. Now a new product if you will call it that has the flavour of an apple mixed in. A sugary grainy apple or the likes mellowing that tanginess.

So what is up with all these changes in taste and vitamins and god knows what they done to my beloved sprout.

I get these changes are done for reasons like growing in the environment we put them in and also to have more people like their produce and eat more of it. Surely we need to wonder how healthy they have become. And if times goes on we might revert back to using some kind of sprays to protect our plants that will undoubtedly become bad for health and we start growing our veggies in greenhouses again.

On roofs of flats or something. Since we also might be struggling with the amount of land available for growing food.

This is only half the part of this moan on medicinal health. This was just the part we eat every day or are told to eat. Either way the impact has become so big that insurance companies are thinking of refusing people to clinic if they do not eat healthy. Not sure how they would monitor that but apps are on the market that keep track of everything you do these days.In return you get a discount at your insurance.

And that brings me on the other kind of medicinal health.

The one controlled by insurance companies who keep you alive or functioning with what ever med they tell you to take. This is for them to make money.

Now there is not much we can do about food poisoning. Other than rest and drink. Sure an antibiotic might be useful if one knows what caused it And is easy to prescribe is it not.Same goes for more common illnesses like a flu or cold. So much crap is being sold we almost get addicted to them when ever we sniff our nose.

Cruel to say maybe but we westerners are hooked on pills for everything. Soon as  a fart is uncooperative to come out we reach for our medicine cabinet.

When it comes to medicinal health we might have to think about what makes a medicine and what is health or even healthy.

And because we can’t look into the future you often see what once was healthy becoming unhealthy. Still does that only apply on what is out there in nature. It is funny we create so much to fight nature and hardly ever make effort to cooperate with nature.

It might just be the case we fight so hard with artificial medicine because we don’t like what nature provides us. Besides that our entire environment is artificial so we need to keep evolving our medicines for causes we created a long time ago.

It might well be our own fault that we live because of our medicinal health. It extends our way of living with big numbers.

Oh how I wonder how old we would get if there was no medicines.Would we also live as long as 50 or maybe slightly longer. Or would we die younger because none of us is able to fight of a bug naturally?

Well that is it for today. I am feeling good again and ready to tackle life and the shit it throws at me.

Monday Moaning: Human Trades!

Image from The Jetsons

Monday Moaning: Human Trades 

When you think about this one you might think about how good we are or how well we can do things. And what Trades we look for in a man or woman. Another could easily be the human trafficking thought that would be far fetched.

Still what trades do we have or do we have left even.

It sounds ridiculous, I know And somewhere along the line it is consistent with today’s world as a whole. Or Maybe I am looking to much into it, or I am over thinking things. Yet in my neighbourhood and surroundings I do see changes occurring that are unneeded.

Last week I kind of thought of this post as well. How social skill have become a trade.

Look closely at the word trade and we can see many meanings in it.

A specialism for us humans, like a smithy. A dying breed. Woodworkers are but a few but getting older. Even a simple butcher or painter are losing ground.
It is a skill set that can be taught unlike the set that we just have and are.

We can have a  similar sounding trait to be firm, honest, kind, beautiful. Yet they are not so much taught. Not saying we fail as parents, but we have our way of becoming the person we want to be or think we should be.

Last would be the exchange of items or valuables. But we are not going there.

I will try to keep it simple.

How many can cook? And no I do not mean reading from a box.
It sounds so silly to ask, but how many have just learned it form their mum. It is that kind of trade you got from home. Or from family or relatives.
Do not get me wrong here when I say that I lived in times it was normal to have dinner with family and properly cook for them. Sundays at Nanna for soup and what not. These were social events where family and friends gathered. Taking time to prepare meals.

The change I notice is that we still have those but they seem to be more formal. Dinner at restaurants, or going full throttle in your own kitchen showing off. With the help of a menu or recipe. I am not denying I don’t do that but I do to enlarge my knowledge of family cooking. Not to pat my own back or stick a feather up my ass.

But clear to say that cooking meals has changed. And no matter what people say it does not have to cost a lot of time, But you will have to put some effort in it. Nanna’s meals may take hours to cook but what is wrong with doing so or learning it to do so.

Why do we reach for microwave meals or the fast food restaurants just so we don’t have to cook. Or bother to do so. Clearly it has become a hassle. And with new stay at home food boxes delivered at the door we get a recipe to cook fresh again.

Yes I said it the word, foodbox.

Fresh veggies and meat delivered at your doorstep. So you won’t have to go out shopping. A recipe and menu for three days. All done cooking in a maximum time of one hour.

A lazy box as it also connects to last week’s social discouragement post. Don’t come near a supermarket. Imagine you would have to choose your own products to cook. Or have to ask someone where you can find the garlic.Terrible idea if you ask me to be among people.

Another thing might be we can’t find our way around ourselves. We need a mobile or GPS to tell us where we should be going. The smart GPS helps inside supermarkets to. Just like book stores. Yup no more searching just pick a menu and your phone will tell you where to find your stuff. We don’t even have to think any more.

Thought was that not our biggest trait as a human.

I Know my translation might be off on some of these items.

Still we need a screen to tells us what to do. Machine to do our work for us. More and more we loose certain trades and traits that were basics for all of us.

When it comes to cooking I might sound like Jamie Oliver but truth be told how many of us take time to prepare a proper meal. A solid dinner where kids can help out and take with them the knowledge for when they become parents. Sure you do not have to spend hours in kitchen. Though they can be so tasty.

I like to make some stew and it can be done while eating your dinner and watching your evening film.  It should not be a bother or a burden if one wants to eat healthy.

It is strange how we need a screen to tell us what is good for us while our nanna only knows what we just learn.

We are losing important trades but we do not take notice. We lose bigger traits during our everyday life. We somehow are forgetting how to be social. We traded in our traits and knowledge for a mobile screen and an invisible world called the world wide web.

Have we forgotten how to think and act. Do we not learn anymore. Is or does everything has to be set in stone or in our case the web. Can we tell how much of ourselves we have traded in.
How much longer will we watch taking the human factor and its traits out of every simple thing.
I know some still learn from their mum or nan and I hope that we won’t throw those traits away.

My screen time is up. Thank you for reading. It was but one of many traits and trades we have but it is such an important one.

Best wishes
Ranting Crow

Monday Moaning: Food Works

Food work I thought it was a fun title to work with. Last week we talked about food and today I will continue on that note. About what t means to eat organic or biological. How food has changed through out the years and what we call food today might not be as healthy as we think.

Though how is that possible. The workings of food and the industry have changed our way of thinking and eating. We are told what to eat and we are like the dumb sheep to follow their lead. It changed how we like our food and our perception of what would be nice to eat.

If someone would come up to you and said that the food we are eating today is artificially grown to a point it is two times sweeter than what it was used to be 20 years ago. You probably would call me a liar. But through research and artificial crossing breeding and planting we have done so. What is organic today is what used to be normal 20 years ago.

I can recall a granny smith to be really sour. So much so it would have you have a shock at the first bite. these days they are so sweet I can hardly call them granny smiths. Strawberries as well. try those from a supermarket and compare them with home grown garden ones. I am fairly positive the ones form your garden are slightly less sweeter but so much nicer.

Let us face it this is how it has been for many years and in what way can we than say it is organic when manipulated to that extant it is not what it used to be. Chicory has been less bitter just like sprouts and yes I eat all of these. Even the most blend of them all, broccoli has been sweetened. And all so, and so we thought, to improve our green intake and have children eat more of it to.

Now that  all nice and stuff, but when you sweeten more products our taste buds get used to it. So as soon as we have something not sweet we find it gross. Another thing is that more sugar isn’t healthy. Doubling it in vegetables might not seem harmful in the end it is as we eat more sweeter all together. Even pre-packed foods have doubled or sometimes doubled in sweeteners. Can we still say that our now so much more expansive organic foods are truly that much organic.

It is a shame though from the industry to fool us and trick us with their clever campaigns for advertisements. A shame on the industry for making every thing sweeter just to make people eat more of it. And alter it so much we can produce more as well.

Producing enough is al it takes to feed a planet and doing so in an straight forward way. Without all those artificially produced new vegetables. Organic these days is just a selling point, as f it is something new.

Would it e possible to grow things in your own garden. Why do we need so much modern techniques to grow a plant? Just to make sure there is enough for everyone and it s cheap. But as it turns out it wasn’t that great heath wise.

But how hard is it going to be getting people to eat less sweets. The industry now fools us with saying things like the organic sugar. Will the food industry use less sugar and maybe loose consumers. Yes even that special K had more sugar in it than when thy first started.

How used have we gotten to the sugar in our foods. Kids scream sugar and still dislike veggies. We adults do the same as we to have eaten less veggies and more take away and easy instant meals. Are each and every one of us ready for a new food revolution or better yet, go back in time to where food was food before we started tempering with it.

It will take time and all we can do is either have faith in the food industry to cut down on artificial grown whatevers and use organics more and more. Or step up your self and start eating more fresh vegetables, eat organic meats and save the world, the animals and our health all in one go. And tell you what. The farmer 6 miles down is sometimes half the price you pay in a supermarket.  Support your local farmers.

Best Wishes
Ranting Crow

Monday Moaning: Biological ads

Biological ads

Words such as biological, natural, green or organic. hey are words that are the trigger for the past year or so and future. Being told it is better for us and the environment. Eating healthier food to prolong our years o living and lower medicine cost. Knowing that all we eat had a decent life and we are helping the future by preserving the planet for generations to come. So we also drive electric, use power saving gadgets and light bulbs.

We are going in a good direction is what one would say, but I would not be the moaning crow if I would not take a look at another side of this story. Thinking positive is a good thing, keep looking forward a must, but we can however question the past and learn form it. hat si called progress and change.

Though I question that change. Like why now and not years ago. And we need to start somewhere.

So let us start with the food industry. An industry that uses smart advertising to fool our brain. More and more we are being bombarded with term as mentioned in the beginning. Biological. Natural. Now soon as we see that we are told it is better for our bodies our way of living. I on the other hand would wonder and ask why we are turning the clock back about 25 years.

I can remember that time, eating fresh grown veggies as is being promoted again today. What changed so much that today it is called biological or organic grown. So what, now it is grown without extra fertilizers? Keeping the electric bill low in the greenhouse. No use of insecticides. Or antibiotics in the meat industry  how thy were freely roaming the fields instead of being boxed all day before slaughter.

Now we have become worried that our efforts and fears were wrong so we need to change back to what we once had. But most of all it is having an economic influence. As it raises prices of those products.

But back to he grown veggies. Years ago we came with a plan to grow them greenhouses, so we could produce enough for everyone in a controlled environment. Some things like grains were still grown out on the fields but needed spraying because of bugs eating it before harvest and making sure here was enough left. We have come to a conclusion that some pesticides are not good for us, and the use of greenhouses made sure we needed to urn more coals for electricity. None good for health and the environment.

Going back however means putting people out of business or have them produce so much they can keep the prices down. It will come to a point where green might become to expensive for some populations. More so in the last crisis years where we seen a gap of rich and poor grow bigger.

Does this mean we should stop the effort, No, but if one is prepared to give up some things they can size down and do it themselves.

None the less the stickers on veggies and food products is a fact. God this is turning into a bigger story than I thought.

Biological and natural. It makes you wonder what we have been eating before. As far as theorising goes a plant has always been biological and natural. We now just see the term to say how it grew. But even that in the concept of biology is natural. I mean everything grows. That we put some extra in the water to make the grow process slightly faster. Or do some research and change its DNA to make it grow bigger. How natural do you think would be the tomato these days f we know that they have been manipulated. That soybeans have been changed so much they are almost artificial. Or as they are described sometimes as, Biotech food.

Going back in time and grow things like we used is not going to happen, we most likely will create more biotech food to make grains and wheat insect proof. Making sure they will grow in most environments. How green or how organic is that.

There is another argument that one could ask when you see that sticker. I mentioned the ‘What about what they gave us before” If they say they are “Now using natural sugars”. But here is another to question how biological we could be if one knows that plants suck up water from the ground. And let us be honest, we have not taken goo care of this planet with our pollutions.

It is simply asking whether or not the veggies or plants we grow are all that healthy as claimed. What if the soil was n good? Can one proof it was okay the moment of harvest or before. It is al a bit pessimistic but we o fall for the tricks of advertising. And are willing to pay the extra dollar per kilo for it. After all it is all over the networks and in every magazine.

Again I am not saying it isn’t a good progress but the way it is brought to us is very much deceiving. How much of it is believable? More natural sugars. Organic grown.

Maybe we should go back to hunting, or keeping a pen with some pigs and cows. That way we can monitor ourselves what we eat and what we feed out animals. It does however mean getting your hands dirty.

Sometimes I wonder why we changed so much then, introducing fast food and pre-made meals. Tin cans and boxes of food for our own convenience. And now we are having to be taught to eat our veggies as it proofs to be more healthy. Learning to cook real food and taking time to prepare, in a world that is to busy in there rush of life.

How much importance do we truly put to our health and are we willing to take the time to pursue it. Or are we going to sit back and hope the industry comes up with a quick fix so we can eat healthy and not loose time preparing it? Keep looking at the stockers and assume or grab the cow by the horns and make a difference.

Time will tell. How do you look at the stickers or do you grow your own vegetables?

Best wishes
Ranting Crow