Obesity is inked to eating the wrong foods and lack of physical activity. They have access to decent food but they buy junk food. The poor living near me only eat junk food like pop, pizza, hamburgers, fries, hot dogs. I offered them corn on the cob and potatoes and they said they do not eat it. In the past 3 years I have never seen them eat a vegetable. The kids come over and look in my solar oven and ask if they could have some and they ate the mixed vegetables , potatoes and chicken breasts,so they will eat it. The parents don't buy it. We have farmers markets that sell vegetables much cheaper than the store and they take food stamps.
They hardly ever take a walk. They watch hours of TV in the AC and drink pop by the cases and smoke a pack of smokes each day.I would be fat if I done that.




[quote="hydrogrowtech" post=9633]MaryB wrote:

The parents don't buy it because it is more expensive and they can't afford it. Part of it is from the way the parents grew up in poverty also. You get trained to not buy raw foods that need cooking because they aren't readily available from food shelves. It is a chronic problem that has spanned generations. I am living off social security after getting hurt at work and burning through my 401k to pay medical bills. I see what the grocery prices are but I still pay more to buy raw foods and prepare them myself because it is healthier. I am only supporting myself so it is easier to do, a family setting you buy whats cheap and filling.

The sad part Mary is that the medical providers give the insurance companies a discounted rate and if you don't have health insurance they charge you as an idividual more.

The key to getting food cheap is not dealing with store if you can help it and buy local. Vegetables are cheap in the store for non organic. About $1to $2 a lb but if you find a local non certified grower that grows organically they normally sell for under a $1 a lb and you can put the bulk in the freezer. Many farmers need help picking and you can earn food and some cash by picking. If you can't pick much you could pick what you just need and they charge very little. The main cost is the labor to pick. I find getting fruit cheap is my biggest problem. I now go out and pick 2-3 gallon of blueberries they are $20 for them and they have the ones that are nearly wild and they have 10x the antioxidants. The guy next door has kids that grow cranberries and I get as much as I can pick up after they harvest normally 5 gallon bucket because I gave them my old compound miter saw when the guard broke. My friend has wild black berries on the farm and has more then they ever need so I can pick all I need normally.
The friend also has ground round and it's Black Angus beef and you get 1 teaspoon or less grease per lb for $2.50 lb. I buy 20lbs to 30lbs in a shot when he has meat to sell.

I am now putting in raised gardens and hoping to grow my own food at home and controlling what goes into the garden.

Wheeling and dealing goes a long way now days.

Steve

MaryB wrote:

Gardening is no longer an option for me, I have major back problems along with rotator cuff in both shoulders, carpal tunnel, knee problems etc. I do buy from my neighbors daughter who has a csa so I save some. I try to freeze/can but even that is becoming hard on my body. Chronic pain sucks and I wouldn't with it on anyone (well maybe the idiots in Washington who think we don't need health care reform).

[quote="steveg" post=9642]The key to getting food cheap is not dealing with store if you can help it and buy local. Vegetables are cheap in the store for non organic. About $1to $2 a lb but if you find a local non certified grower that grows organically they normally sell for under a $1 a lb and you can put the bulk in the freezer. Many farmers need help picking and you can earn food and some cash by picking. If you can't pick much you could pick what you just need and they charge very little. The main cost is the labor to pick. I find getting fruit cheap is my biggest problem. I now go out and pick 2-3 gallon of blueberries they are $20 for them and they have the ones that are nearly wild and they have 10x the antioxidants. The guy next door has kids that grow cranberries and I get as much as I can pick up after they harvest normally 5 gallon bucket because I gave them my old compound miter saw when the guard broke. My friend has wild black berries on the farm and has more then they ever need so I can pick all I need normally.
The friend also has ground round and it's Black Angus beef and you get 1 teaspoon or less grease per lb for $2.50 lb. I buy 20lbs to 30lbs in a shot when he has meat to sell.

I am now putting in raised gardens and hoping to grow my own food at home and controlling what goes into the garden.

Wheeling and dealing goes a long way now days.

Steve


i live in idiotsville (pittsburgh) here people think buying processed crap in eco friendly packages is the thing to do.here we have old dried out veggies trucked infrom 100 miles away(closest farms).they leave them sit out in the sun
and take them from site to site so that they seem worse than the stores.and on top of it there double what the stores are.they tell people its picked in the morning but i know better.these stupid yuppie/bihippie/idiots i see shopping
bring there own bags so of course they know more than me.the guy at the farmers market was telling people how gmos are better because they use less pesticides.(the pesticides are genetically produced in every plant.the plants produce the pesticides internally so its better for you.and how round up ready corn is great.3 years ago the local food bank had land donated to them for a garden.they wrote a couple of storys about it in the paper.so i told them that i had extra plants left over.i met with them.same yuppie/bihippie/idiots.3 years later its still a field of weeds.its the person in control at the top just like the farmers markets that pick and choose that are screwing things up.
i believe they have an agenda to ruin things.the farmers markets are being pushed into smaller spaces.if you dont know there there youll never find them.
there is very limited space and only a couple get to participate.they sell mostly baked goods,spaghetti sauce and gyros and the vegetables they do sell are expensive and suck.

I hope you have tried DMSO and/or MSM (DMSO2). DMSO is what I use. The word is out at work that the stuff works and I now keep 5 bottles at home now because people want bottles of it. It sells for $20 to $28 for a 4oz bottle of the gel type. At $20 bucks a bottle the drug companies can't make any money ,so this is not FDA approved. If you want to try something about as effective that is FDA (approved 2 years back but has has been used in EU over 8 years)approved ask you doctor for Pennsaid $120 a bottle. I warn you doctors normally don't know anything about the drugs. I hate to say it ,but the US medical system has fallen so far into disrepair that people are taking control of their own healthcare and unfortunately you will have to do this . You don't need to live with pain and pay $1000s for drugs and doctor bills. I wish you the best of luck.

The US medical system is a joke. They charge you an arm and a leg for what??? I was on vacation a few weeks ago and had to go to the ER to get medication for severe sinus and chest congestion due to allergies. Normally get it in the winter when the air is nasty. Thought I was on the downhill side and had it under control before I left.

I know what works and what doesn't but if you ask for certain drugs they think your a junky. Needed an antibiotic for sinus infection and something to remove congestion from head and chest. What is usually prescribed to me works but I can't take it as directed because it makes me sick. Doctor come in and asked me about 5 questions talked to me for about 2 minutes. Got his bill in the mail yesterday for about 400 bucks. Thats on top of the 200 I got from the hospital earlier in the week. What they prescribed to me didn't help. Had to go to the Doctor again when I got back and get the medication that I needed. I survived and made it through, wasn't going to stay at the hotel while on vacation. So 600 dollars later 2 and half hours in the hospital, and only about 15 minutes with contact between nurse and doctor. I almost got up and just left.

I have a lot of sympathy for those that don't have decent health care, or none at all. Something needs to be done and I'am sure their are other countries in the world that have this issue worked out, but the US doesn't want to learn from others for some reason, probably money.

I saw a cartoon one time where the Doctor was talking to a patient and said here take 2 of these now before you go home and google your symptoms.

I sympathize with what your going through Mary. My wife has some issues with her neck and back and has done various things to avoid surgery. But nothing has really worked. The strange thing is that she doesn't recall an accident of any sort in her lifetime that would have caused this. Went from healthy and active to being in pain. This has shown me that it can happen to anybody. Had nerves deadend twice at 5000 a pop each side, done twice. At one point she was in the hospital and caught an infection. The cheap antibiotic that normally works on others didn't work on her. Twelve hundred dollar antibiotic for a 10 day supply and had to do this twice. Thank god for insurance. I have good insurance and paid 10 bucks. I can see where people file bankruptcy due to medical issues. How can a normal family afford stuff like that. It shouldn't have to be this way.

Already had lumbar surgery once, doc can't go back in unless he is doing a fusion and he doubts that will help the back pain. Pain doc wants to implant an electrical spine stimulator. Mine is repetitive stress injuries from employers who didn't care, get the job done or get fired. Lack of mobility caused a blood clot last December that I am still paying for. 5 days in the hospital in the critical care ward were $10k glad I have a medicare advantage plan because I couldn't afford the 20% co-pay regular medicare would have left me with.

U.S. Appeals Court Rules Against Obama's Health Care Law

www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/12/us-a...law/?test=latestnews

Everyone agrees that health care costs need to be brought under control, but this law is not the way to do it. Lest anyone complain that I've not offered any solutions, here you go:

1) Ban all health insurance other than "major medical" type of policies, i.e. only allow policies that kick in after you have spent 10K out of pocket. People should pay the bill when they go to the docter, and they should be conscious about what each test costs. You are paying the bill now, just doing it indirectly through your health insurance premiums. There should be a reward for taking care of yourself and making good choices in the form of more money in your pocket, and there should be a cost for not taking care of yourself. With the current "pay for everything" policies a lot of people (and nearly all public workers) enjoy, there is no cost to living an unhealthy lifestyle. We all pay for that.

2) Setup a medical malpractice arbitration panel that handles all malpractice claims, and throws out all claims except those that prove gross negligence (i.e. the doctor was drunk or had no license, things like that). You should check into your surgeon's record, experience, and credentials before you sign up to have him cut you open. If he makes a mistake, but it was not due to gross negligence, you should not expect to get 1 million dollars for it. Mistakes happen, these are real live people, and you knew the risks going in. People are too lazy to ask a few questions about their doctor, and when he screws up they want to get rich as compensation. Again, who do you think pays for that? The doctor has huge malpractice premiums, which he passes right along to you with his $120 / 10 minute office visit rates. Get rid of these claims and an office call would be $10 bucks.

3) Stop trying to keep a 91 year old alive after three collapsed lungs and 5 strokes. Let them die with dignity. This is a personal choice, but we spend way too much on the last days and months of a persons life. We all pay this cost, in the form of higher insurance premiums.

Those three things will bring a rapid decline in our health care costs. Mandating that everyone buy health insurance is not only a gross overstepping of congressional authority, it's also going to make the problem worse, not better.