I’ve been thinking about this lately — there’s something about old sayings.
Regardless of how cheesy they seem, if they didn’t have any validity to them, they wouldn’t continue to live on after hundreds of years. If they were just old wives tales that were obsolete, they’d have disappeared from modern culture, yet they persist, which leads me to believe that they have merit. The more I look into this, the more I find wisdom in these sayings.
“An Ounce Of Prevention Is Worth A Pound Of Cure” is one of these. Credit to ol’ Ben Franklin, or as I call him, “my man Ben”.
In the United States Of America, our great nation, leader of the free world, more money is spent on health care than in any other industrialized nation in the world.
We are all so busy trying to make money, that we don’t have time to take care of ourselves.
The other side of this coin is that Americans spend less on food than any other industrialized nation in the world.
So we spend less on food and more on health care than anyone else in the world.
By the way, did you know that the U.S. is also the world leader in prescription drug use and paradoxically, deaths due to infections, treatable cancers, diabetes, and heart and vascular diseases that were untreated?
Most of these diseased patients could have been treated had they gotten treatment.
And guess who leads the world in obesity? It’s estimated that 66% of Americans are said to be overweight and 34% are considered obese. It’s also getting worse. If current estimates hold, within the next 20 years, 86 percent of all Americans will be part of this group. 86 percent! That’s mind-boggling. No wonder that the acronym for the Standard American Diet is S.A.D.!
So what does this all have to do with saying at the top of this post?
We need to spend more money and time on good, healthy food, instead of saving time and money eating junk that is making us sick, and as a result we’ll spend less on medicine, doctor/hospital bills, and have more time to make more money.
Why? Because if we get sick, we will spend a lot more money and time getting well, whether we are insured or not. I have insurance, yet when I became ill, I still had to pay for co-pays, prescriptions, and the big loss– time off from work.
All this adds up to one jumbo-sized monetary loss, with a side order of wasted time. Contrast this with spending another $50 a week on tasty, good-for-you food? NO comparison.
Personally, I have transitioned to an all-organic diet, and I feel SO much better, it’s incredible. Very much worth the price I’d say. But you don’t have to go “all the way”. Just start with eating healthi-er!
Do I also spend more time cooking? While I have found shortcuts, I’m also happy to say, “yes, I sure do”, because there is no time better spent than taking care of myself, avoiding doctors, hospitals, and pain.
While yes, I’d rather be doing other things than cooking, I realize that for me, it’s a necessity, not a choice.
Here’s another old saying–
“I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich. Being rich is better!”
Well, I’ve been ill and I’ve been well, and let me tell you, being well is better…: )
Change your health, change your life,
Michael
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* Find “The top 10 foods that pharmaceutical companies don’t want you to know about” here.