You know, I like to watch TV. I like to keep up on new shows, new actors, and of course, since it's my business, what kinds of shows are selling. I watch commercials, I watch documentaries, movies, series television, history; I watch it all. Let's just say it's a hazard of my occupation!
A lovely hazard; I say lovely because I like watching TV.
When you watch a lot of commercials, you can't help but notice how many commercials are geared toward cancer and pharmaceuticals. It's horrifying. It makes television watching a much more depressing experience for sure. If you don't have cancer, you don't want to be reminded every day that you have the possibility of getting sick at any moment. They plant this in your mind! If you do have cancer you don't want to be reminded every day at every moment that you have cancer: you watch television to give your mind a break, not to keep being reminded.
Truthfully, I go online for all my health needs and I speak with my doctors directly. I don't let a commercial tell me what to do. But I can't help thinking about it all day long after I see a commercial for, say, all the sick children at St. Jude's, or about cigarettes that cause horrible deformities...you get the message.(By the way at TAMFI.com, a memorial charity for my late brother Tony Alt, we donate to children's charities - deserving children's charities. 100% of the money goes to children!)
Anyway, the one thing I noticed and can't stop thinking about is what life must've been like back in the 1800s or early 1900s when this country was being built. I know! That's a big leap from watching commercials. There was no TV back then. But there was also no pharmaceutical drugs.
So I wonder about this when I see a commercial about people with chronic pain who are taking pills every single day: those taking an opioid who need constipation medicine to relieve opioid-induced constipation. So needing at least 2 pills a day makes me wonder what people did back "in the day" for chronic pain.
I know they worked hard, long, and laborious hours working in the fields, building railroads, etc. Their work makes most of our work today look like we're a bunch of wusses. At the same time, I can imagine they had horrible chronic pain and soreness. What did they do for it?
I am, for sure, understanding that with the advent of pharmaceuticals, we also used those chemicals and that knowledge to chemicalize our food industry, over prepare our foods with preservatives, and assist with cooking.
Back in the day bacteria was still rampant, but they still ate their food raw or cured, pickled, maybe even lightly smoked and air dried, etc. Today we have no such wonderful food readily available in our society. We have to go look for it. We have to work the labyrinth of lies and mislabeling to understand what it is we're exactly eating. Because now even in the raw food industry, people are using "raw" on the label when the food they are selling is raw.
So what does this all have to do with chronic pain or disease?
I have long been an advocate of eating as much raw food in the diet as possible because raw food, as opposed to cooked food, is alkaline: cooked food is acidic. The pH changes when the molecular structure changes when the food is cooked. And I find that much inflammation in the body is the result of the acidity of our blood, the acidity of our bodies, and the acidity of our food and drink.
When we throw our pH off by eating so much acid, the body makes no alkaline to correct it. (The body works best when its pH is between 6.8 and 7.2. That's considered neutral. Neutral is when the body is neither acid nor alkaline. pH testing is done with a pH strip that you get at the drugstore, and testing your urine and saliva at particular times of the day. Go online to see how it's done, or ask your homeopathic doctor.)
God, the universe, whoever created us in your book, was brilliant when our bodies were created. Yes, our bodies create a lot of acid, and no alkaline. But raw food is alkaline. Some raw food is more alkaline than other foods, but alkaline nonetheless! (For example, a tomato is alkaline 1 whereas an avocado is alkaline 10. Alkaline 10 is considered very alkaline!)
Did you think we would be left by our creator with no way to cure ourselves out?
Alkaline comes from alkaline water, raw food, alkaline drinks, and certain minerals like magnesium citrate that alkalize the body. When we fool around with nature, it has always had disastrous effects; whether short-term or long-term.
I try to stay as close to nature as possible with my food, and as far from pharmaceuticals as I can possibly humanely get. But that's just me. I'd rather be sad watching those commercials and living a healthy life than to be sad watching commercials while I'm sad with pain.
What's your choice?
