Oh So Natural

You can't really dive into the tiny house or massage therapy cultures without running into a few hippie ideas.

Like, making your own deodorant for example.

My classmate explained how she purchases ingredients and then makes her own deodorant from scratch. This blows my mind. I just found out about the whole, "aluminum in deodorant is bad" thing. Because of that, I did try a more "natural" product for my b.o. and I didn't like how I smelled so I'm back to Secret Gels, but my classmate says she can convert me with her recipe.

I feel like I'm falling down a rabbit hole.

First, there was no meat. I can live with that because to me, the meat industry does have its flaws and meat in general has no appeal unless it's been way worked over. Not to mention, food that has a ton of rules attached to it to prevent you from getting poisoned by it just doesn't seem worth messing with.

Then, there was skin products. I stopped wearing makeup to try and help with my blemishes. Currently, all I ever put on my face a philosophy cleanser and a lush toner. Too soon to tell if it will help zits, but my face feels less worked over.

Finally, there's the new obsession I have with going trash free. This is becoming almost as popular as any natural, healthy, clean living campaign I've ever seen. The idea is to promote the elimination of unnecessary waste and reduce the strain in our landfills. I find myself pondering ways to shop whole foods, remember to pack cans and bags, and finding a way to recycle.

I first stumbled on it, here, if you want to check it out.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYDQcBQUDpw

Stepping back, just who am I becoming? How do I know if I've gone too far?

Well, for starters, I'm beginning to question my ideals of going tiny.

I had a camping trip a few weekends back....only I forgot that I donated my sleeping bag because I never go camping. Three fuzzy blankets does not replace that sub-zero material. It may be only for a once a year event, but it's worth having around. Maybe I'm more of an experientialist? True, I could have avoided problems if I had thought to ask to borrow or could find a local rent shop last minute, but I couldn't, and I froze for it.

As for going trashless, I'd have to have a lot more time just to make half of the things I'd want to replace. While there are a few shops around here that could support that lifestyle, the options are fairly limiting. I think I'd rather purchase pre-made items in compost-able or recyclable materials.

Basically, if you want to live as clean, de-cluttered, and natural as possible, you have to be willing to work. You have to be a planner, you have to really enjoy making the things you use. I'm not sure if tiny actually saves time like so many people claim so much as it exchanges that time for a different kind of experience. Don't get me wrong, the idea of making your own deoderant, toothpaste, or laundry detergent sounds like a fun cooking adventure to me, but it wouldn't be for everyone. The thrill of knowing exactly what is in your product and never having to smell another chemical again may be worth it, but for me, it's going to be a slow transition.

As for going too far.

I'm definitely living a different life than my mom lived. I'm even living a different life than my crunchy sister and she's only ten years older. I feel like as technology and research continues to improve, life is going to continue to evolve into something previous generations wouldn't recognize or even understand. It may not be too far, maybe it's just a different way to take on life. I know there are many colors and flavors and styles to choose from in this spectrum of natural.

I'll tell you what I'm not going to do.

I'm not going to stop showering.
I'm not going to stop washing my hair or anything else that's hygienic.
If I stumble on a natural idea that makes me go, "ew," its not happening.

As for what in the air:
Until I find a toothpaste that does it better, I'm using fluoride.
Until I find cleaning supplies, products, or recipes that satisfy me, I'll be using normal.
Make up is make up. I stopped for a couple of weeks and I kind of like it. Maybe only for special occasions.
Trashless may be in my future. It's just a question of how.

The Creative Drive

I touched on this a little bit on my last post and I thought about going over it further there, but then decided that it would be too distracting. So it get's it's own post. Yipee.

What drives artists?

I was at work the other day, making panini and chopping onions. It's a typical day at the Italian restaurant and my coworker who works up front pops back into the kitchen for a bit. We talk and she finds out that I'm a writer and then she asks the dreaded question.

"So what is your book about?"

I don't think I've mentioned the street smarts you learn on the sidelines of the writing circles. Pro-tip, never, ever, EVER, ask a writer to tell you about their book because this is not a simple question. You are getting way too close to the tiger's cage, my friend. You are risking things you didn't even know you were risking by asking an author to share with you what is essentially their unborn child. Therefore, do not ask unless you are prepared for one these three responses.

1.) "Why? Who do you work for? Are you going to steal my ideas, gasp, you are after my ideas aren't you!"

2.) Oh ok first blah blah blah...oh, but before that you need to understand blah blah blah... but you see it's all hidden intricately in the fact that blah blah blah...because you see ten years ago blah blah blah...(3 hours later) but I can't tell you the ending, it'll give too much away.

3.) A very simple bare sketch of the plot. Too little details to steal, just enough to test interest. Five minutes max.

All writers can have elements of these three in their responses, but writer number three is very, very rare.

If you don't want to be staring into the depths that is an authors never ending creative workroom of scattered nuts and bolts, mention that you would just like the dust jacket version. If you value your life, clarify that you are not also a writer or at least, feign disinterest because you write different genres anyway. Bless the third writer because they are socially aware enough to not suspect you or take up your time.

Anyways...

Because I am self aware, I gave her the dust jacket version and she seemed kinda interested then leaves to go back to work. There was no large indication of any real,"oh I will totally read that someday," interest.

About a week later, she asks how the book is going and I realize that I haven't even touched it since I'd first told her about it. I was flattered she asked, because it at least meant the book had some hook. Then she asked again the next week...and the week after that.

Now, I'm starting to get uncomfortable.

My inner writer number one was starting to peek around the corner while sharpening an Alice in Wonderland style clever. I put that idea to sleep quickly because my coworker is not, in fact, a writer.

Or is she?

Hmm...(snick, snick)

This encounter did get me thinking though. I put writing on hold in college because of stress and I was again putting it on hold because of full time work and school.

Was this all that was holding me back though?

As busy as I am, I can still fin the odd two hours or so in my week. Then I realized something.

As a kid, writing was my escape. A lot of creatives probably relate to this, but I was really lonely growing up and writing gave me some release. It was fun. It didn't really have rules. I could do whatever I wanted, be whoever I wanted and I always knew how the story would end.

Fast-forward to now and most of my writing is bogged down in publishing concerns before it even has a chance to grow into anything.

So I ask you, what drives you? What sparks your creative muse? For me, it seems to be a certain something: desire, a type of music, another artist, the desire to tell a good story. How do you spark your muse?

The Creative Itch

Being creative is wonderful...and it can also be completely stressful.

Creative beasts are wonderful and they take you for rides that can last for hours. One nonsense idea bleeding into the next until a story is born. In college, my inner creative beast was systematically starved and then trained into a literary warhorse. It was like a boot camp for the brain as I did push ups with Milton and squats with Hawthorne. So. Many. Squats! No, really, all of my teachers were in love with his short stories and, I won't lie, they are pretty good.

Now that my brain is a sharp tool for genius, I often find myself stuck between one creative storm and the next. There is a giant wall that sits right between the two storms called "the critic" that won't allow me to pass until I've justified my previous storms right to exist. I'm grateful that my teachers opened my eyes to this skill because I know it makes me a better writer, but sometimes, I wish I could go back to my untrained days.


I'm always asking the "right" questions:

Does this make sense?
Would anyone get it if you left things like that?
Too much? Too little?


Really, all of the doubt infused writer's block really boils down to is:

Is it worth spending the time on something that may never pay off?

This, is a common thought for many starving artists. Is my dream worth it? Will it all be for nothing? That fear is completely cripples the creative beast. Hanging your drive on money and success kills the passion you had for your art.

However, doing nothing about your dream pretty much guarantees its failure. I haven't given up per se, I just have let a lot of old excuses creep up like time, school, and other commitments.

Lately, its been the skill excuse because I would love to be able to draw comics for some of my ideas, but my drawing is very, very untrained and unpracticed. I also don't have the patience for it, but I would still like to try it...just a little.

One of my coworkers found out that I am a writer and she gushes about it. Every time I see her she asks how the book is going. The truth is I haven't even touched it since the last time she asked me. Full-time school and work does put pressure on the writer for time. I keep saying that I'll start it up again once school is done and I'm working a job that will give me that kind of time, but will I?

Also, one of my facebook friends has been posting all about his publishing journey and just released his first book. I'm not jealous, I think its incredible and its the closest I've ever been to a published author. (pst: He is a pretty awesome guy to. You can get his book on Amazon, :The Shattering of Chains by Joshua Patrick Smith. https://www.amazon.com/Shattering-Chains-Light-Stars-Fire-ebook/dp/B01GDSIHPC?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc )

I mean if he could do it, I could totally do it, right?

Lately, the itch has been creeping up on me. I have my big massage test coming up and only twelve weeks left of school. My creative beast wants to come and play NOW though. I mean, I spent so much time on just building the world for my Slayers book and it's just sitting there, taunting me with it promise of demons storms and mislaid spells.

So, in other words, this is just a really long way to relieve some of the pressure. After I pass the mBLEX (positive thoughts) there will be more time for blogs and Slayers.

Thanks for the moment.

Protien Fallacy

There are a lot of public fallacies concerning personal health, but today, I am only going to cover the topic of nutritional health because it's the one that is familiar to most people and also the one I even feel the least bit qualified to discuss from my memories of my nutrition class and personal research.

Here's the deal. Your body is amazing. We can last three days without water and three weeks without food. Our bodies heal, we can create other humans, we can literally explore the world with just a thumb! We can even eat a wider variety of foods than most animals on the planet.

Guys, we can eat fake food and survive. Mind blown.

Yet, all we as a nation seem to care about is how fat we are and how to get rid of it.

We're so desperate for answers and scapegoats that we're willing to jump on any wagon that sounds halfway scientific.

I'm looking at you protein.

When I first heard the whole protein thing I instantly went into a rant that involved a lot of dramatic, "No!" and, "Are you kidding me?"

What nobody probably told you amid all the protein hype is that while it is essential to building muscle, too much of it actually does become fat, aka, it does the exact opposite of what people are telling you because you and I both know that the average joe is just going to ingest and continue on with their regular lives hoping for the better without really changing anything.

It works like this. In the broad classification of food science most foods fall into three macronutrients: carbs, fat, and protein. Of these three groups, your body will burn fat first, then carbs, then protein. When effort extends long enough, fat will still outpace the others in terms of ratio. You may be wondering how that makes sense when we are in an obesity epidemic. I thought the same thing when my professor at BYU-I told me this information. He said that the reason is simple, we consume so much more than we need that it almost doesn't matter which element burns first, anything not used will be stored as fat.

Ok, but why hate on protein then? This only seems to strengthen the Atkins argument even more. Answer, your body burns protein last because it has the hardest time burning it at all. People who take protein supplements, but then eat normally or don't work out at a high enough rate will gain fat, not muscle. The protein powder will just replace what the food was doing already and if the intake or energy output doesn't change then where is the excess supposed to go? Straight to your fat zones. However, that being said, protein supplements combined with fitness and a dietary regimen will increase the likelihood that you will lose fat mass because they do help with energy and muscle rebuilding. Which if you did that, you could argue that change would happen anyway without the extra fake protein, if at a slower rate.

Then there's the ketone problem. If you aren't eating carbs and relying on protein for your energy, your body undergoes a change. It will turn from a glucose (carbs) burning machine to a ketone (protein) burning machine. Your body will adapt at the cellular level in order to survive. Science has yet to say if this is a good or a bad thing, but the prospects are not looking good as traditional high protein diets that involve excessive meat have shown negative consequences for your heart. No word yet on whether or not this is also true for whole food, plant based proteins.

You probably never heard anyone put this information out quite like that. You may even argue with me and say if this was true, why has no one told you. If this is old news, then why is the new news touting protein as the next magic bullet for the obesity epidemic?

Answer, did you see how long it took me to explain all of that?

In the effort to make health science digestible to people whose last health class was maybe never, a lot gets lost in translation. Mostly, the context and other very important variables. It's easier for commercials and media to shout a quick, "Eat more protein, lose fat!" in the 30 seconds they have of your attention span. They're not wrong, they are just lacking in a lot of important details. It's like taking a drivers ed course for your body when the only thing you learned is to stop at the stop light. What about turn signals? What about yield signs and crosswalks? You kinda need a little more information than what the big red octagon means.

Additionally, markets who see the increase in demand may not necessarily check all of their science before selling to customers what they demand. After all, the customer is always right, even the ones who don't check their facts.


References

Proteins
https://ast-ss.com/creatine-fat-loss/

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=creatine+no+workout

Because this was interesting

http://thescienceofeating.com/food-combining-how-it-works/calories-fat-carbs-protein-per-day/

Stuffocation and Writing Realizations

Stuffocation: A book about sacrificing buying power for experience power.

If you managed to survive my last few posts, you know I love the idea of less stuff. Getting rid of stuff has been my therapy for decades now and I'm only 26. So what can someone like me learn from a book like this?

More than I thought.

I originally stumbled on this subject while rotating through TED talks on YouTube. I liked what James Wallman had to say enough to reserve his book at my library. I totally skipped the first half of the book because I thought I already knew the "why" well enough and started skimming the heart of his message.

Firstly, I was totally impressed with his writing style. It's completely different from other books of this type. Instead of spending most of the time expostulating his own opinion and suggesting "how to" he takes most of his time relating different peoples experiences in beautiful detail. It reads like a documentary more than a thought book. For example, one part describes a woman as; "LeVally is tiny. She is five feet tall. She has porcelain skin that is flecked with freckles. She looks, from a distance, a little like a pixie doll."

That is beautiful writing. Where others would take maybe 10-20% to describe other people and their experiences and the rest of the time to prove themselves right, Wallman flips that and takes the time to paint a portrait of each of his subjects. It makes the whole thing visual and relatable and teaches his view more effectively than just making the argument. Now that I think of it, he did the same thing in his TED talk by taking most of the time to tell the story of his grandparents, his father, his brother, and himself. It's a wonderful style I wish I could copy.

Now to the message. The title is a little misleading. I came at the original TED talk thinking it was going to be a similar message that the minimalists have about how stuff suffocates society and that we can truly live if we just got rid of our stuff. Wallman's message is more about sacrificing stuff and high work, high pay jobs for experiences and quality time.

Stuffocation is more about rejecting the mainstream system in favor of a more customized life. You're not just rejecting consumerism to go and live in a cave. He is careful to explain that some consumerism is actually a good thing, but the consuming is based more on priority of life than an expression of wealth or "deserving" something. Kind of like how Tiny House dwellers have to really prioritize their possessions because they live in such a small space. Many of the people in his book still have normal jobs, they are just jobs based on their terms that maximize time to live.

As each story gets more fascinating, I regret skimming the book. I'm tempted to go back and read the whole thing a bit more carefully. I'm not done with it yet, but I already believe this is the smartest book I've read this year. It's the perfect middle ground between the outlandish and the accessible. If you are still struggling with the ideas of going with less and rejecting material status symbols in favor of experiences, this is the book for you.

I even learned something new about Henry David Thoreau. No English major can get through college without hearing about Walden Pond and how its every writers dream to live with the simplicity that Thoreau did. Just live simply, listen to the birds, and write all day. It was perfect. What could be more pastoral? Except Wallman just blew that writers dream out of the water by explaining that Thoreau only lived that way for two years, two months, and two days. He offhandedly states that Thoreau got bored and returned to society. That makes sense to me because people are my muse, but this is Thoreau, the god-father of total craft devotion. The gold standard for an ideal writers life style that my teachers always warned we could never live modernly. My mind was blown.

I'm excited to continue studying this book. Maybe I'll do another post on it when I am finished.

Personally I just did a paper cleanse of my tiny 81 square foot apartment bedroom. (I actually thought it was 100 and just had to double check for accuracy. Wow, I had no idea.) This included school papers and files of papers I thought I had to keep. The state of my room tends to be the state of my mind and it's been touch and go lately. The paper cleanse re-established my sanity and made the space feel a lot lighter. Lifting that tiny file box, about ten pounds lighter, felt very good.

Exciting thought: the Minimalists are coming out with a documentary called Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things on May 24th. Will definitely be blogging about that one.

Now it's confession time.

There is a critical error in my last few posts. As a writer, I can humbly admit this. My posts are full of big ideas, but they lack focus.

In short, they are lazy, unstructured, and without transition.

So basically the critique I always got on every paper or short story I wrote with a lazy eye and lack of proofreading. Every writer has their Achilles heel.

Listen, if I'm reading my own posts a month later and get lost, there is a major problem. I am big enough to admit it. The point of this blog is for me to practice and get better, not worse.

Here's to a promise to be a little better, to practice a little more seriously, and to strive for clarity and transitions.

The Economy of Jobs

Yesterday, I was on my Facebook and I saw an article about a law student who is suing her school because she can't find employment.

First Reaction: Honey, it's not the schools job to get you a job.

Second Reaction: I get the disappointment. We are told the expected steps of life which includes the idea that college will feed naturally into employment. Many schools promise employment eligibility as part of their marketing pitch which often gets confused with employment guarantees. It's not the same, but people think it is.

The idea that even law students are struggling intrigued me, so I looked up the current job market for prospective law alumnus. Surprisingly, compared to the 91% rating before 2008, it actually doesn't look that great. A job that has historically signified wealth and stability, now has students pulling in poverty level jobs while carrying massive tuition debts to the tune of 100,000 or 150,000. Some law schools are going so far as to invent programs to incubate their alumnus who are unable to find work by either reimbursing a percentage of their tuition or creating law firms within the school itself and hiring their students.

I can't imagine the interest rate is all that great either. Talk about financial slavery. It's worse than loan sharking.

Is the problem the school, the student, the tuition, or the market?

I started to compare the traditional epitome of a college education to my own education in massage therapy, a skill type education, for clarification.

Skill type educations are traditionally looked down on and viewed as leading to impoverished and limited lives. That is, if you call learning how to live longer with more strength and flexibility, relieving pain and discomfort in others, having a lifetime to continue studying and practicing a passion, and travel the world while doing so limited. Yea, I'm sure that's way more limited than studying in one school for three years and then having an office in one town you don't dare leave while "hopefully" making ridiculous money. Really, it's just different strokes for different folks.

Honestly, the real issue there is budgeting practices vs life goals, but that's a whole other blog.

Anyway, refocus back to this subject. After only 6,000 and one year of my life in massage school, I could find a job and pull in figures anywhere from 10-70,000 depending on where and how much I want work. Did I mention full time for massage therapists is only 17 hours a week? That's a win for the writer in me. Again, a job is not guaranteed, but it's likely, because according to the American Massage Therapy Associations website, the industry is one of the fasted growing in America by whopping 11% a year.

(Pause: 6,000 debt vs 100,000 in debt yet both currently have about same earning power for the first 5 years. Let that sink in. Now, if you really have to, get some paper and a pencil and do the math. Financially, which situation is really the better one here?)

Let's also not forget that degree markets are totally saturated thanks to over emphasis of the importance of a college education over the last few decades. Don't get me wrong, I completely value my college education for the critical thinking it gave me and no small amount of pride. However, it did not guarantee me any well paying jobs which is what this article is about.

Let's put some perspective on this based on numbers I found between 2009-2011 that illustrates supply and demand.
Population                                                  Percentage of United States

United States            ~309,349,689
Massage Therapists  ~ 288,546                  0.00093%
Lawyers                   ~1,225,452                0.004%
Nurses                     ~3,966,939                0.13%
Mechanics               ~763,700                   0.0025%

(Pause: Can we just cry for a second for the poor nurses? My 2008 graduating class was basically shoved towards becoming something in medicine for stability and baby boomer reasons. Once the boomers are gone though, then what? Hopefully those nurses are working towards their plan B.)

Who has the better deal here? Who is more financially better off and more able to function as an adult in society? Who has more spending or buying power the lawyer or the massage therapist? Who is more affordable or in more demand the one with skills or the one with a degree?

Basically, I am living the millennial realization.

My skill job is more immediately going to put me in a better situation financially, emotionally, and physically, than my graduate degree.

Why?

You could argue that in a perfect job market, where everything was working the way it was supposed to, lawyers would quickly pay off their debts and live in incredible situations within ten years that even the massage therapists could never have. The market, however, isn't perfect. It never was and never will be.

Let's also not forget the human factor. Like everything else in life, your career ultimately becomes what you put into it. The title doesn't matter as much as the work and the passion you put in, because that will always have some kind of satisfying pay off down the road. You may have to take a few other jobs so you can, I don't know, actually afford food until you get that pay off, but if that's your dream and you study and apply it, it will happen.

Now I know there are people out there who are smarter than me and can see all the little loopholes in this argument I am making, and probably a few of them are unemployed law students with too much time on their hands. That's o.k. I know that there are instances where I could be wrong.

Here are a few things I think you'd agree with.

• It is cruel to put people into un-affordable situations and essentially make them financial slaves to a dream that may never be. 
• The problem isn't the job market, the problem is partly the tuition cost. Less money going into student debt means more spending power for the economy which, by the way, means more jobs for graduates.
• Saturated markets don't hire. The more college graduates their are, the less meaning that diploma will have.
• The schools business isn't revolved around babysitting, but educating and letting the students take charge of their own lives.
• All these data points I made mean nothing in the face of work ethic, trial and error, and how actively the individual decides to pursue the field of their education. 
• Being a fantastic (insert dream job here) is a choice. It's up to me to put in the work, to continue my education, to continue to be passionate, to put myself into situations where I can succeed. All that is on my shoulders and success in my chosen career is determined by me and not my school.

Next time I really should focus on school tuition or budget finesse because, gosh darn it, we Americans are ridiculous on both fronts.

Each time I post here I am thankful for the opportunity to keep in practice what I know. I know my writing is still imperfect. In fact, I know some grammar police may look at these articles and sniff at some of my choices, but hey, that's what community is for.

Look! I was a responsible post-English grad and actually saved my sources! That, or I just know how to use the history bar.

Sources
http://abovethelaw.com/2015/08/law-school-to-issue-50-tuition-refunds-to-grads-who-cant-find-jobs/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorneys_in_the_United_States

https://www.amtamassage.org/articles/3/MTJ/detail/1837

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States

http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/total-registered-nurses/

https://www.studentscholarships.org/professions/150/employed/automotive_service_technicians_and_mechanics.php

The Purposes of Sugar

I just watched yet another documentary in a stream of documentaries that seem to say a lot of the same thing.

We are fat.
And it's the organizations fault.

That's just grand isn't it? Now that so many people know that the government and "Big Food" are out to kill their consumer base, everything should be quick and easy to fix right?

Yeah. No.

Here's the thing. I think pointing fingers does absolutely nothing to solve the problem. The science is there. A lot of science actually. More science than a McDonald's filled with big macs. We know that convenient food in all it's form (not just fast food) is slowly killing us. I did enjoy the picturesque comparison that the documentary made of how soda is the new cigarette. That's pretty on the nose when you consider how quickly sugar is absorbed and consumed from a single can; not to mention the dissolving effect carbon has on bones.

This is not new knowledge though.

It hasn't been new for decades, if you're to believe the research of the documentary "Fed Up."

So why has nothing changed?

I have a few theories.

The first being that the arguments used today are exactly the same arguments people with interests made back in the early days of America when we wrote the Constitution. Back then, there were strong arguments for the abolishing of slavery in the new United States of America, but that obviously didn't happen until much later. Why? What people may not remember, is that a big argument used to keep slavery was that it would put too big a strain on the new economy that was still recovering from the Revolutionary War.

Similarly, the food industry is using the economy, freedom of speech, and freedom of choice to keep it's doors open. Put yourself in their shoes. Wouldn't you be terrified if you were told that the cow that has given you milk to sell for decades was giving bad milk? You would do everything you could to argue for your livelihood and to keep the status quo of what you know has been working all along. Even if someone told you to trade for a new, healthier cow to save your consumers, you'd hesitate to do so wouldn't you? Especially if you hadn't tasted any success or seen any evidence of this new cows ability to support you.

Needless to say. I don't like painting businesses as bad guys. It's not the people so much as it is the nature of business itself. They do what they have to do in order to continue existing. That's it.

The government on the other hand has tried several times to fix the issue. The problem is people don't like given the government too many prerequisite laws they can exploit later. Banning stuff never seems to work anyway. Positive propaganda, on the other hand, does wonders for consumer opinion. Remember the meth commercials? I still have nightmares. What needs to change, is the people.

Which brings me to theory two. These businesses wouldn't exist at all in the form that they do if there weren't consumers to buy the products that they sell. You can argue all you like about long work hours and lack of cooking experience and other excuses, but at the end of it all, that's all anyone has, excuses. Long work hours? You have days off to prepare don't you? Why buy into the sedentary cultural norm of sleep, work, tv? Lack of cooking experience? If you're going to watch tv anyway, it wouldn't kill you to spend a few minutes on a show or a "how to" YouTube video, or you could send a teenager to work in a kitchen and bring back the knowledge he/she gains there. You have friends. Doesn't even just one of them know how to BBQ?

It's tough to change and it's tougher to ask these questions, but it is possible. It's all about the priorities.

Now finally, about sugar.

You all probably remember the cute polar bear ad of the family of polar bears drinking soda together, playing together, visiting the doctor together, getting insulin together, and finally together watching papa lose his leg. And I thought the meth commercials were scary. The end message was that sugar is deadly. It's the new tobacco.

So, all this got me thinking. What is the purpose of sugar in the diet anyway? What does it actually do for us? Is it anything positive?

A bit of research shows that other than turning into glucose for cell energy, which every starch and carb does anyway, all sugar uniquely does is provide taste and texture.

That's it.

Now, is it possible to change and combat this addictive substance?

It's probable.

I tried to be a vegan....well...98% vegan for three months. That experiment cleaned my pallet. Sugars while still appealing, weren't quite so demanding anymore. I now love vegetables and still find ways to eat mostly veggie based meals. I learned what it felt like to feel clean on the inside and I try to recapture that feeling with each meal.

So who knows. I think the key to solving our nations health crisis lies in the tiny choices on each plate, and inside each person, one bite at a time.

Now if they would only focus on the "how" of that in the documentaries.