I read the Raw Family book by the Boutenko Family. Raw foods changed my life. I am not all the way there yet. It is hard to be totally raw on 7 dollars a day to split between 2 people. But I eat as raw as I can and I am a different person today because of it. I hope the people writing in here will take a look at these books you mentioned.

Amanda you are absolutely right. I worded it very wrong. My own experience was that the more healthy I ate the less I ate. It was not a premeditated intentional thing. It just happened. I also found myself eating much slower. So basically as my body got healthier and I was not putting excitotoxins in it that keep you eating long past full I would just automatically stop eating when I had eough. Ironically ‘enough’ did not seem to have anything to do with how full I was; but, it was more like an energy thing. When my energy seemed to hit a certain peak I would just stop eating. Sometimes I stopped eating when nowhere near feeling full. So I was never overeating anymore. My body was able to regulate itself and I was able to trust it to do it right. And you are right about meat also. We do not need to eat meat to be healthy. I had just meant that we could eat it if we wanted to as long as we ate kosher meat. But even kosher is better in small amounts. I did neglect to say that. I’m sorry. As for the poor it is a horrible cycle. One that needs some serious changes. I would propose to give them more food money to work with so they can afford the healthier foods. But, at the same time make candies, sodas, koolaide and other unhealthy foods not covered by food stamps. I think it could even make at least a small difference in getting these people healthier and their energy levels higher so some of them might be more able to work their way off of Welfare.

Chrome, you are right about these programs you mentioned. The thing of it is that with all of these combined survival is about the best one can hope for. And some programs are moot point if you are lacking in other resources for wich there are no helps (i.e. transportation for college or childcare for job hunting, some areas may provide those things but most don’t). Then there are those who are disabled and unable to work their ways off the system period. Unless someone helps me get my art from home to gallery I am one of those people who have no hope of ever getting off the system. Life will forever pass me by. Sure I will survive. But is it really life if you never enjoy a vacation, do not eat out do not go to movies, bowling, what ever else it is people do. Never dress up, buy make up if you want it, go through holidays as if they were any other nonholiday day, etc., etc.? Would I miss going to the movies and therefore feel my quality of life was less if I lived in a country where such a thing did not exist? Where I had never heard of such a thing? You had the necessary resources (Thank God) provide you that you were able to move on from surviving to living. For some that happens. for many that does not. for me it has not. So my experiences being radically different from yours I beleive both our answers are very true. You live in the greatest country in the world. I do not. We both live in America.

So many programs, so many stimulus incentives for the middle to high middle class. When is it the lower class’s turn? That is what I’d like to know. Since at least the 8o’s we have been the first to be hit everytime things get ‘hard’. We are the first to experience the cuts. Of course Our cuts mostly go unreported, untelevised. So when we say something about it everyone thinks we are full of fluff. Once those cuts have happened they never go back up. As the costs of living rise our  resouces keep going down never to rise back up. The poor are the backbone of this country not the middle class. Think that is not true. Imagine this country with no fast food workers, no waitresses, no factory workers, no basic service workers. No one to work the jobs at Walmart, Target, K-Mart, Shopko, Costco, Sam’s Clubs, etc., etc. This country would cease to exist. Yet this is how we thank the hardest workers of all? We call ourselves a democracy? About two years ago Omaha, Nebraska asked the public to vote on higher taxes for a new stadium. It was unamiously rejected. Yesterday my son told me they built it anyway and now they have implemented a new tax to pay for it. This tax? This tax is for the right to work. That’s right, they are now being taxed for having a job; yet, they voted against this new stadium. Is that truely the power of democracy? I urge all of you to read the book: A People’s History of the United States. Of course for most people in my financial demographic the book was both no surprise and a no brainer. It was a little disturbing though to find out that the way the best of changes came about was always because many were willing to and did die for those changes. And contrary to what most think this day and age is no different. Nothing has changed. That is why they drill the importance of a single human life into each one of us. Not that I am not saying our lives have no value (I have buried a child and will carry that loss with me for the rest of my life). They do it so that noone will be willing to be the one to possibly lay down their very lives if necessary for change for the good of all. If one is so focused on themselves then they can find no justification for risking their lives for others. Yet at the same time they are hopeful that someone else will be willing to do so for them. So now we have a stalemate. Yet it is not a true stalemate. Because our inaction is their gain. Infact people have so bought into the ‘someone else’s life not mine" thing that it is even harder now to affect change then it was a hundred years ago. People are also more unwilling to take a verbal pounding as well. That is why I find myself alone right now in here at least in the effort to tell the truth to get people to rally together to affect change. Life is hard enough for us, why bring the wrath of the public down upon ourselves? I do it because if I don’t who will? What have I got to lose? A lot less than I have to gain. Rather to lose a little for the prize of gaining a lot then lose nothing to gain nothing. What of my life? I am not living now. I am surviving. Better to die fighting for life then survive for survival’s sake. But people have been duped. So they do not stand up and fight. That is why people like Hitler, Stalin, Ossama to name a few extremeists have been able to do what they did. Rather than a few hundred being willing to die to put a stop to them, many, many thousands died because everyone thought their own life too precious to sacrific for many, others. To ths day in nearly every nation this still happens. Those with the power do what they want heedless of others. Especially right here in America. But because it is done so much lower key or mainly to the "poor", the "unworthy", it is either not recognized for what it is or people justify it away because "Thank God, it is not happening to them". Isn’t it? I live in Third World America. How can I honestly stand up and call this the greatest country in the world?

My body too wants all or nothing. I am not vegan; but, my grandaughter and I can only tolerate the nonhomgonized milk. Otherwise we still mucus up organic or not. The problem with your "healthy diet of small amounts of meat, dairy and some sodas was the garbage they put in those foods. The meat needs to be kosher (range fed, no growth hormones or antibiotics), the soda is just plain garbage. I found out that calories is just a bunch of fluff. We can eat all we want of truely real foods. But we can eat 500 or even less of garbage foods and steadily gain weight. My body was a testament to that; but, noone would beleive me. It is hard to eat healthy here in the Us. We are surrounded by tempting "garbage" that is so full of excitotoxins that just a whiff of it drives us up the wall. Then to top it off though we are told to eat healthy the more unhealthy the food the cheaper it is. That infact is why most poor and Welfare people are so obese. I struggle every day with : Do I eat more;but, suffer more because it is garbage. Or do I eat next to nothing so I am always hungry but healthier. It is in many ways for us a no win situation. I would love to tell the people that set my food stamp allotment: Hey you feed yourself and a child on just$216.00 a month (just over $7.00 a day or $3.50 plus a peice) and then see if you think it is humane to give us that much. especially if you expect us to eat healthy. I got sick of being hungry so I started eating "healthy" processed foods. I went down hill real fast and gained about 40 pounds in a year even with eating usually less than a thousand calories a day. So now I am back to being hungry; but, my health is improving and I am losing weight again. The worl situation is down right obscene. I think some of it is a conspiricy.

Shirley I understand. Where would you consider the best places to look for help? As I said before I found hundreds of thousands of sites ‘taking donations’; but, not one single site where I could go and state my need an be matched up with it. From where I sit most of those donations are going in but not coming back out, at least not to us who need it. It Is very risky to throw myself out there. And I am going to get a lot of flack for it. But, if I throw out hypotheticals no matter how based on the truth noone will ever beleive and listen. So I o not know of any other way of going about this. My purpose in here is two fold. I am desperately seeking help for me and my granddaugher. I am also seeking help for all people in my situation. But one person can not help everyone. So I figure many people need to know and reach out to help. I am not very good at organizing helps so I am just blindly feeling my way. Frankl;y I think I stink at this as I have yet to even begin to affect any changes. As for the personal attacks I try my best to always redirect the attacks to the issue at hand. but again I think I am not very good at it. I am definately not a public speaker. Which though is not very surprising for me. My life has afford me very few opportunities to learn social skills and I have no training in public speaking. I am definately bumbling my way through this. But I see noone else doing this. So if I don’t who will?

I’m sorry your mother was such a jerk. But for your own sake please forgive not her but yourself. By doing that you forgive yourself for allowing her to hurt you. My mother is a jerk too. She told me that when she found me in the adoption agency at three years old she had my IQ tested. I tested at 142. She adopted me expecting me to grow up and become a successful business woman. Instead I have no interest in business. I do not even understand the mind of a business person. I am an artist. That is how I think. She has let me know hundreds of times over the past wenty years how disappointed she is in me. She has told me time and again, "See I told you you are not good enough to be an artist. If you were you would have already been successful at it." When I told her that it was resources that held me back she just blew it off. she has never supported my aspirations. That is why she knows nothing about my photography or poetry. I too have begged God to just kill me. I sometimes still do. It is so hard surviving day to day while surrounded by life. thanks to corruption these cracks we fall through are huge. I want people to wake up and see that. I do not want to be just another Welfare peice of trash that finally died taking one more person off the rolls. I do not want to die having accomplished nothing. Surviving pain and hardship is nothing to brag about. Those that say it is have never lived it. Hang in there, girl.

I understand and I agree. I just did not want this group of people to be buried under generalizations and blaming. I just think it is very important to be very specific. Most likely it is because I my self have been being slowly nothinged to death because of being buried under so many generalizations that have lumped me into a single stereotyped group. As for gold plated insurance I have no clue what that means. Maybe someone should explain it to us before we all go off ranting about it. Well too late for that. LOL. But, I’d still like to know what it is.

If they do ever decide to go with universal health care I pray to God it is better than Medicaid/Medipass. I once came up with a joke about our government medical coverage. It goes like this:

There was a meeting of all the medicaid big shots interveiwing insurance companies for the best health care plan.

The first insurance represenative stood up and said they could provide a plan that allowed everyone to live a full and fruitful life. They may even have a full recovery and be able to cycle back into the work force.

The second represenative stood up and said they could offer a plan that would take care of some problems; but, the people would be OK if they took it easy. As their usefulness would be reduced. They would be dependent upon the system for life.

Third represenative stood up and said they could offer a health care package that would keep people alive; but, they would suffer and they would have almost no functionality.

The fourth represenative stood up and said they could offer a plan that would keep the people alive; but, they would wish they were dead.

They medicaid represenatives immediately jumped up and shouted, "We’ll take That one."

Now THAT’S what I call playing it safe. LOL. You go girl.

C you’ve been good to me but, please remember that few really Want to be homeless. Also the sad reality is that there are more people then there are jobs Only if we went to shorter work days without cutting production would there be enough jobs for everyone. Also there are many homeless out there working full time and overtime. I knew a man who was homeless for nearly 18 years while working the whole time. Most of his money went to child support of his two children. I give him a lot of credit for not just quitting and bumming around or running off to another state. Anytime he picked up an extra job or worked overtime his support obligations went up. But when his hours dropped they refused to lower the child support. He usually paid almost $800.00 a month child support and he worked at Factories. There are also not enough jobs out there that will really support our epidemic of single parents. A mother with two children could work two full time minimum wage jobs and they would still be homeless or living in a hovel better for condemming. The cost of childcare is astronomical. Where I live the going rate is $155.00 a week for 1 child. Imagine having two, three, or more children. Sure there would be a discount for more children; but, its a pretty small discount. No that note I am against the tax. If you want to I have written my veiw on it further down in here. Take careC. Good day to you.

Has anyone even stopped to consider why so many people are so sick. Look around you. How many people do you know who are truely healthy. We have become use to discounting that nagging cold, the sinus drainage that never goes away, that lingering cough, the never ending fatigue. I remember what it was to be truely healthy and not just when I was a child. At twenty I had ten times the energy of most children today. I know too many people in their early twenties calling themselves old. Even our children are sick. Once when I was in the WIC office every single child in there (and it was full) was sick. My granddaughter was the only one not sick. And we have a radically different, very healthy diet. We avoid processed foods as much as possible. If I could I would do it 100%. Am I the only one who has noticed that the more we are publically encouraged to eat healthy, to eat more raw fruits and vegetables the high their prices. Usually higher consumption means lower prices. So what is going on there? Why don’t we do some of our focusing on the Food and Drug administration. When I eat raw and organic my fibromyalgia symptoms are greatly reduced. I do not care what the ‘experts’ say. I listen to my body. Common sense folks. Common sense. Let’s get rid of the chemicals and other garbage they are putting in our foods and other products. Let’s focus on getting healthy ourselves. Then health care won’t be such an out of control thing. I can not control whether or not I can afford health care. I can do something about my diet.

I agree.

Taxing the rich is becoming like taxing cigarettes. I quite smoking 12 years ago. I do not know how people afford it now; but, soon so few will that the tobacco companies will have to fold anyway. Then what? Is it really fair to keep penalizing someone just because they have had the good fortune to become financially successful? Yes, we need to do something; however, I think we need to keep searching for the right answers. And if we keep hitting the rich and upper middle class then how can we ever expect them to feel altruistic towards the less fortunate. I think they might be a lot more giving if they were allowed to do it voluntarily for the good of somone else rather than have it taken from them whether they like it or not. I have seen just how angry and viscious people can get when they are told that a part of their hard earned taxes are going to help someone else live regardless of whether or not they approved. I am disabled and dependant upon SSI and Welfare for survival. I take a lot of anger and abuse off of people because of it. People are so angry that they do not even want to hear that the system is very antiquated and decades behind the true costs of living. They do not want to hear that the portion of their taxes that goes to us is not enough. They do not care that the amount allocated towards the Welfares is a drop in the bucket compared to how much is spent on our military or star wars program. Frankly I am worrie that if people keep hearing that they have to pay more and more for the impoverished then they are just going to start lynching us. Do away with the poor, the disabled, the elderly, the disadvantaged then no high taxes. That is not true, there will still be high taxes; but, they won’t see it that way until it is too late. When they find they killed all those people for nothing. Though at this point I might find someone killing me as a saving grace. We are already being killed in a very insideous way. We are slowly being nothinged to death. No, other answers are required. Not more taxes. Not for this.