You read that right….46 million.

I just watched a video on CNN that did a story where the interviewer followed a 53 year old man on the food stamp program through a grocery store. His $200 per month food stamp allowance won’t allow for anything that is cooked, or any personal hygiene items….edible items only.

The magnitude of the news is appalling. How can 46 million Americans be on food stamps? That represents 15% of every American or more than one out of every seven people. What is happening to the middle class that is the backbone of America? Whenever we think of the population of the world, we always think of how lucky Americans are because there is little or no poverty. While so many countries have a small number of rich and a mass of population of poor, America has always been pretty much immune to poverty….in the past.

I can’t begin to figure out how to fix America’s problems. However, I can point out that the man in the video who lives on food stamps offers all of us a valuable lesson. The gentleman indicated that the only things he can afford to eat are fruits and vegetables. Perhaps the rest of us who are more fortunate should learn from the gentleman, because we should all be eating fruits and vegetables. None of us can afford the disasterous side effects of the poor dietary choices we make. The $9.4 billion dollars that the government spends per week subsidizing food stamps is just the tip of the iceburg when compared to what our terrible eating habits are costing the health care system.

There are 72 million obese adult Americans, which represents over 34% of the adult population. Another 69 million adult Americans are 32.7% are overweight. That means that 2 out of every 3 American adults are overweight or worse. The multitudes of health problems that are caused by improper dietary choices are going to continue to put more and more stress on the finances of America. Forget debt ceilings and lowered credit ratings, America is eating itself to death.

Something has to give. It’s time that our governments step in and educate the public about the importance of a proper diet. Advertisements for sodas and fast foods need to be banned, or accompanied by warnings similar to those on cigarette packages. Perhaps the government can start by including educational handouts on dietary choices to the 47 million people who receive food stamp cards.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.

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1. The High Cost of Cheap Food
2. Weight Loss: The Natural Way

Many of you may already know Dr. Robert O. Young through his pH Miracle series of books. Dr. Young has been a leading advocate of eating an alkaline diet in order to achieve and maintain good health. I have a lot of respect for the work of Dr. Young, as I spoken to several people who have benefitted a great deal from his research and his writing.

I share Dr. Young’s belief that our society needs to change the focus of our health care system to PREVENTION. Dr. Young’s most recent article “Seven Dirty Words To Die By”, is a takeoff of George Carlin’s famous comedy skit “The Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV”,

Dr. Young states that ” acidic therapies such as statin drugs and acidic aspirin have increased, not decreased the risk of athersclerosis, stroke, and acidic heart attacks.” He informs us that he believes that “maintaining the alkaline design of the body is the only treatment” for those diseases.

While I would disagree that creating an alkaline body is the only treatment, I certainly believe it is the most natural and effective treatment.

“A person does not die from a stroke or a heart attack. A person dies from acidic lifestyle and dietary choices that lead up to the stroke or the heart attack. The truth is the stroke or the heart attack is a consequence of daily lifestyle and dietary choice! You don’t get a heart attack – you have to do it with your thoughts, your words and your deeds.” states Dr. Young.

Dr. Young acknowledges genetic factors when it comes to disease, but he believes that the role of inheriting a weak heart is more about adopting a family acidic lifestyle that it is about the actual organ itself.

The following is Dr. Young’s list of “seven dirty words about acidic heart disease”:

1) Diet — acidic dairy, acidic animal proteins, coffee, tea, vinegar, soy sauce, soft drinks, alcohol, all sugar, including high sugar fruits and sugar substitutes are all acid forming in the body and are known to contribute to weaken blood vessels and the heart muscle that leads to stroke and heart dis-ease.

2) Genetics — African Americans, Hispanics, native Americans all have higher rates of high blood pressure and heart disease. Most genetic weakness is triggered by an acidic lifestyle and diet. Get off your acidic lifestyle and diet and the genetics is no longer a factor!

3) Stress — working too much, dramatic personal lives, worrying, depression are all acidic contributing lifestyle factors, also feeding acid forming stress with too much alcohol and other acidic drugs.

4) Smoking — the acids in smoke are sugar and nicotine which constricts blood vessels and strains the heart and lungs leading to stroke and heart dis-ease.

5) Inactivity — the heart is a muscle that needs to be exercised to move out metabolic acids that break it down; even moderate activity is helpful, and losing 10 pounds of acid can reduce your cardiac risk. My best advice is get off your pHat acid and find health with one hour of daily exercise.

6) High blood pressure (over 160/90 – ideal is less than 140/80) with a high pulse rate (over 80 beats a minute – ideal is less than 70 beats per minute) — leads to undue acidic stress on a variety of organs, including the heart; combined with other acidic risk factors it increases the chance of an acidic stroke or heart attack by over 300%.

7) Denial — saying “it won’t happen to me,” without changing your acidic lifestyle and diet to an alkaline lifestyle and diet guarantees you won’t see a decrease in your risk for a stroke or heart attack.

Dr. Young uses the article for promoting the idea of raising funds for his research centre and to create sales of his book “The pH Miracle for Weight Loss”. I wish people like Dr. Young and Dr. Mercola would just give us the information we are looking for and provide a sidebar for their advertising, but you can’t blame them for trying. At least Dr. Young actually does his own research and writes his own stuff, which gives him a level of legitimacy not shared by Dr. Mercola.

Dr. Young finishes his article by telling us that an alkaline lifestyle will decrease the risk of cancer, diabetes, MS, Parkinson’s, osteoporosis and more. He makes the claim based upon the fact that an alkaline diet helps prevent or repair all disease. As much as I question some of the man’s commercial endorsement choices, I remain a strong supporter of his research.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of Dr. Young and the author and are not meant as medical advice.

Related posts:

1. An alkaline diet is great… but is it enough?
2. Bill Clinton’s Alkaline Diet Backed by Dr. Esselstyn & Dr. Ornish
3. Doctors – Heart Disease – Dr. Keijiroo, MD