Benefits vs Harm

All Day Every Day

Our daily lives are peppered with routines and activities that are either good for us or bad for us. Most of us don’t think about what could be wrong with things we are told are good for us or ‘safe’. A simple example is

vegetables. As children we are told to eat our veges because they are full of nutrients that our bodies need to make us grow up big and strong. Do we actually know what nutrients are in our veges? What else is in there that might be harmful. Does the grower know what he is doing? Are there pesticides and artificial fertilisers? Is the soil depleted? Unless we are there growing our own and knowing how there is no way for us to be certain we are getting safe nutritious vegetables.

Here I will give you some things to think about and a few ideas to help you stick with the good side and reduce the effects of the bad side. My intent is not to put down any system, organisation or provider of any products mentioned here. I simply want you to be aware of the complexity of things good for you and learn how to minimise the bad.

Medications

There is a reason why your doctor prescribed the medication you are taking. Do you know what it is supposed to do for you? Do you know what could go wrong? You doctor may tell you about side effects or he may not. He may tell you a few of the side effects or he may even give you a sheet about the medicine he is

giving you. READ IT and go looking for more information. It is up to you to make sure you know what could go wrong so you can find ways to minimise the risk.

When the pharmacy staff tell you that the generic brand is cheaper and just the same, don’t just believe them. Ask more questions or better still find out the list of ingredients and compare with what your doctor prescribed. You will probably find exactly the same amount of the active ingredients but the inactive ingredients, where most side effects reside, may be different. There has to be a way for them to make their brand cheaper. Sometimes it is just the name you are paying for but beware, cheaper medicine often means cheaper ingredients and more risk of side effects.

Google is an amazing tool for searching all kinds of things on the internet. The information is abundant! However, if you are looking for information as important as health risks you need to get more credible information. Some of this you will find using Google but you need to know what you are looking for and what to ignore. That is where I come in.

Over the Counter

Why do you take pills and potions that are recommended on television or by health shops or chemists? Do you know who to trust when you take these recommendations? Do you know the difference between popular brands and cheaper brands and what the side effects are of these non-prescribed medicines?

Pills for headache, cold and flu, soldier on, liquid medicine for coughs, flu shots, even vitamins. Do you know what is in them? How they work? What happens if you take too much? What is too much for your particular body?

Again, it is up to you to sift through the information you get from television and other advertising that only tells you the benefits and find the truth about why you should not exceed the recommended dose and whether the recommended dose is safe for YOU.

Supplements

Most of us, when we decide that we need to have a multivitamin or a supplement of a specific vitamin or group of vitamins, just go to the local health store, pharmacy or even supermarket these days and buy the cheapest we can find. It is important to have nutrient balance. How do we know if we are lacking a vitamin or several? How do we know how much we are lacking? What do we know about how the supplements work and whether they are even getting into the cells they are needed in?

Stick around! This is another topic I will share information on. There are so many supplements out there. How do you know which ones are working and which are not?

Processed Foods

Television has a lot to answer for. Not that they are totally responsible. They simply play the advertisements that they are getting paid to play. People, on the other hand, who watch the advertisements are blindly believing all that is told them through this medium and will go out and buy foods that are supposed to be healthy for them without checking the untold facts.

Take orange juice for instance. Oranges are known for containing vitamin C. This is not the only nutritive value that oranges have right? There are nutrients that help the vitamin C to be absorbed into the cells and do its job, and a bunch of other nutrients that your body would love to have.

Well, when they process the juice to put in a bottle so it lasts on the shelf and in your fridge once it’s opened, they destroy ALL of those nutrients. What to they add back? Ascorbic acid. Pure vitamin C that needs its accompaniments to be efficient. Buy one orange and you will get more nutritional value for money than is in a 3 litre bottle of shelved orange juice.

Many companies in the food industry will have you believe you are eating a healthy diet if you eat their products. Check their ingredients, find out more information and if in doubt, don’t eat it! I prefer to eat fresh, unprocessed CLEAN food that has not had nutrient value removed and replaced by artificial nutrients.

Certified Organic

What does ‘certified organic’ mean. This can vary from country to country. We pay more for the food that carries this title because it is only attached to foods that are monitored according to guidelines set by the certification authorities. This certification only means that certain pesticides and farming substances are not used in the production of the goods. It does not mean that the other practices for producing and preserving nutrients are monitored. So if you insist on organic, make sure you know a little more. If you see “certified organic” produce that doesn’t look healthy, chances are the nutrients are not present.

Awareness

This blog is designed to get you thinking about what is good for you and what may not be, how you can tell the difference and what you can do about it if you choose to. It is designed for people who don’t want to ‘think’ they are doing the right thing by their body only to wake up one day to find they have heart problems, high blood pressure, liver and kidney issues, respiratory problems – all because they ‘didn’t know’ what was in their ‘good for you’ or how to counteract the ‘bad for you’! Know what is good for you!!

Keep Coming Back

This site is for you. I want to give you as much information as I can about your medications and food so that you can make intelligent choices. Obviously I can’t put all the information on here all at once so I am starting with the things that are close to me and working through what comes up along the way. So it’s important that you keep visiting this site to get new information.

It’s also important, if you have any questions or comments, that you feel comfortable to leave them below so I can address them either in an email to you directly and/or in a post on this site for others to benefit from. So please, set me to work! I look forward to your challenges 🙂