Portlanders may talk the talk, but are they healthier?
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Many of you may be thinking, "I thought we lived in one of the healthiest places in the country?" The perception however does not equal the reality. Click on the "Play Video" button to watch this story.
Healthier? Not in Northeast after dark. ,
every where I look I see pot heads, meth heads and heroin addicts, I think no, portland is not healthier
In a word, NO! All people die eventually. Sometimes quality is certainly better than quantity! Especially if you have to compost, and dodge bicyclists, and busses, and avoid being robbed, or assaulted on the Max by those who want what you have. Just remember, Portlanders are not invincible, no matter how much gas they don't use, and no matter how may species they save, they don't have a reliable connection to the afterlife........even if there is one! Live life for now, its the only one we all get!
I have no interest in watching the video. I will say this about "growing your own" and "eating local": Our entire yard has been given over to edible landscaping. You know what is growing out there right now? NOTHING! It's too cold and wet for even cold-weather vegetables like kales.
The single biggest reason Oregonians are not healthier is because of the bad economy! You can purchase a can of soda for $2 or a small bag of carrots for the same price. Sugar, corn, and wheat are subsidized by our government making them cheap; consuming each one of these items regularly in large amonts can cause long term health problems such as diabetes, obesity, heart disease, allergies, fibromyalgia, crohn's disease, ADHD, and the list goes on and on.
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So basically the "economy" forces people to purchase processed sugar laden crap because the healthy food is way more expensive. Then they get brainwashed into taking the flu/other vaccines (that don't work) and drinking the fluoride water basically destroying themselves from the inside out.
We could also compare organic vs. non-organic foods and people who are poor cannot afford organic. You can get that non-organic loaf of bread for $2 or an organic phatty salad for $7. What are people going to choose?
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And then on top of it all, our purchasing power is going down the drain due to inflation, foreign debt, gas prices, costs of consumer goods, higher taxes, and basically getting less for more. There may be a day when we simply can't afford organic foods anymore and everyone will have to be fed by the government.
 @portlandborn83 You are undermining your own argument in the second sentence of your post:  "a can of soda for $2 or a small bag of carrots for the same price"
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So if the healthier food is the same price as the unhealthy food, how does the economy force a choice? Â
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Even if a person can't afford organic, s/he can certainly eat healthier on a very low budget. Â I would argue that poor education for adults and poor parenting for children are the causes of bad health.
@Beti I am not undermining my own case because I am referring to what poor people eat and their habits. If you live in N portland and all you have is mini-marts in the area, and you cannot afford to drive, you will get whatever is a good deal at the store. Some people may want healthy food, but it might cost a lot at this mini-mart. You can get the 2 for $1 donuts and 2 for $2 dollar burrito deal, or spend $2 on like 10 mini carrots. If you only have $2, you likely won't get the carrots. If you want anything healthy here it costs more than the cheap stuff.
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Yes, healthy eating is a lifestyle and most people don't live it...
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you don't do your own shopping. A can of soda for $2? A small bag of carrots?
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For $8, you could get a head of red leaf lettuce, a head of green lettuce, a cucumber, a bunch of radishes, a red pepper, a red onion and a cucumber. That's enough to make salad for a week's worth of lunches. If you want, you can pick up a pack of apple chicken sausage for another $3 and make it meaty. Include dressing and maybe you're looking at $14 for the week and you've got a pretty good lunch. Another dollar or two and you can add some shredded italian cheese on top.
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I premake my breakfasts, about 6oz of eggy, cheesy, sausagy, bacony, peppery goodness rolled up in a tortilla. About a buck a day for that(or less). For lunch, it's usually leftovers from dinner, running only a couple of dollars on average(per meal) and I eat pretty well.
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Today's lunch? Habanero cheddar sausage, mixed vegetables and red chard, washed down a Henry Weinhardt rootbeer. With breakfast, that brings me to about $4 or less.
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I think you and I are the only ones that cook, some people just reheat.
Many years ago i decided to try to avoid eating foods with ingredients that I could not pronounce. I am a real old dude.
@JGalt I do my own shopping weekly. Some people know how to live cheap, some people do not. You aren't eating organic though, are you?
@Owt_Raged @portlandborn83 Owt_Raged, organic may not necessarily be a healthier choice when it comes to the amount of nutrients, but it is the only way (at least that I know of) to avoid GMOs. Granted, I could purchase the right seeds and plant my own veggies but, quite honestly, I don't have the space for a garden. If I did, I would be growing as much of my own veggies as possible.
 @Owt_Raged  @portlandborn83 Most, not all, but most people who choose organic don't buy it because they think it has "more" (ie higher levels of nutrients) they choose it because of what it doesn't have (pesticides, herbicides, etc). That study that came out recently only really addressed nutrient levels as the measure of "health" in produce, although it did have a line or two admitting that children who were fed an organic food diet did have lower levels of pesticides, etc in their urine. I think the majority of us can't afford all organic all the time but there are a couple lists of fruits and vegetables that truly are better to buy organic if at all possible because they have been found to contain higher levels of chemicals. Apples top the list as their skin is not thick enough to keep them from absorbing all the chemicals sprayed on them. If at all possible I will spend the $3/lb on organic apples instead of regular ones because I want to do what I can to reduce my kids' ingestion of these poisons. For the non-organic produce that I can't grow at home I just use my $2 bottle of produce wash and try to get off as much wax and chemicals as possible, although that doesn't do anything about the chemicals that were absorbed in the thin skinned produce.
 @Kraut  @portlandborn83 Try probiotic supplements or a good yogurt not filled with artificial sweeteners, color and sugar. They will help restore the flora in your GI tract over time. Also, magnesium (in capsule form) works really well for bowel care, you just need to get the right kind and don't overdo it or you'll wind up the opposite of constipated. I was just reading that magnesium chelate or chelated magnesium is very easily absorbed by your body and is less likely to cause the "D" word than plain old magnesium supplements. I've used it myself when I was pregnant and having problems and it worked great. Hope that helps!
 @portlandborn83  @Kraut Is there a food or supplement I can take to rejuvenate the system? I don't like having to overload certain foods just to take a dump, haha
@Kraut Well the difference between you and your friend may be prior antibiotic use. You or him may have more gut flora than the other person and thus have better or worse digestion. If you destroy your gut flora, this can create more problems than I can list, but lets just say it affects your digestion.Â
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Also, people who consume high amounts of caffeine daily tend to poop more and maybe you friend consumes more which gets his digestion going.
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Either way, you are going in the right direction in promoting your digestive health via your diet, you just have to take this further and then your digestion will improve. Probiotics, prebiotics, and antifungals all can improve your digestion and I can get into it more. As you can see I have become a nutcase about this sort of stuff; I went from being allergic to everything and having nightly seizures to being symptom free within a year. It all relates to digestive health and what you choose to eat.
 @portlandborn83 Here's my issue with that bit you gingerly went into about pooping. I have always had issues with consistent pooping and as a result I go out of my way to keep fiber in my diet and multiple daily servings of greens/fruits, and still find it hard to maintain 2 bowel movements a day, usually one. On the other hand, one of my best friends who is low income, eats nothing but a dollar-menu and instant boxed food style diet for YEARS, and I mean years, like 10 years straight. He poops three times a day like its nothing during that whole time, washing it down with 2-3 liters of Mountain Dew a day as well. So that is just my two cents on the whole matter.Â
I digest like a champ! I also double as a waste disposal. I'm multi-functional like that. My primary cause of brain fog is if I have a bad enough allergy reaction that I end up taking medicine to get through the day. In that case, all bets are off and I may not be able to remember my own name.
@JGalt Well here is another question. Do you have good digestive health? Some of the meals you listed cause constipation, if you are pooping less than 3 times a day, this is considered to be constipated. While you may think you are eating healthy, I beg to differ because the meals/items you listed are ones I wouldn't touch (minus the salad).Â
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Corn and grains deplete nutrient reserves and cause brain fog according to this article (and many others)Â and I believe it because I finally reversed my brain fog just by altering my diet:
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http://www.organicauthority.com/health/health/the-health-hazards-of-refined-carbohydrates.html
@Owt_Raged The question of person health has mostly been put to rest with the findings that 'organic' is no more healthier for a person than other foods. The issue now is the damage done to soil and the ecosystem. If we kill off all of the XYZ bugs, what happens to the animals that eat them? How much can be dissipated in the soil before it builds up into an intolerable amount?
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He may or may not be a champ for paying 3x the regular price. Somebody needs to fund the implementation of better farming methods and that's easily done through demand. The same goes for lower-emission vehicles. Just as with those, the question remains as to whether or not that method results in a better environment and is not just replacing one problem(gas emissions) with another(producing new vehicles).
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Growing your own is slowly coming back in style.
 @portlandborn83 It has already been proven that organic is no more healthier than any other produce.
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If you really cared, you'd grow your own vegetables, low cost and organic without the hype or price tag.
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Yeah you feel like a champ when you pay $3 a lb for the same apples that cost me $1 a lb. But all you did was waste money...
Organic definitions can change. The straight answer would be 'no', but that does not necessarily mean that the environmental cost of production is any higher or lower. It certainly implies it, but that does not always make it so.
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I found that I let waste too much food when I did weekly shopping, so I do more shopping during the week for veggies as the need arrises.
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I learned a while ago that I can eat cheap. When you can only afford a bag of onions and a bag of potatos for a week, you start figuring out the costs of staying alive. Many foods are a luxury that people take for granted.
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I'm currently more concerned with Oregon-produced goods than I am with "organics". Oregon's economy needs help and it's not going to get there by sending our money out of state when we don't have to.