Some Examples of Why the US Desperately Needs Universal Health Care

I'm so fed up with the state of our economy and the health insurance fiasco in particular.  This week, I watched that home makeover show where communities of good folks build extraordinary houses for extraordinary people with extraordinary problems.  In this particular episode, a father of six had resorted to taping up his hernia with duct tape, because he could not afford to get surgery.

Read that again:  taping up his body with duct tape because here, in the richest country in the world with the best-trained doctors in the world, a hard-working, honest guy tapes up his hernia so he can go out at work for his family.

Barf.

Then, I got a call from my son's school.  A mother of three (all of whom go to school with my son) has cancer.  She cannot cover her bills resulting from surgery and chemo and "related medical expenses," so the school is having a series of fundraisers, one of them held at a local pizza parlor and another involving buying raffle tickets.

Oh. My. God.  Schools should be raising funds for buying more music for the music program.  Oh, right.  There isn't one any more. 

Well, schools should be raising funds for buying more art supplies for the art program.

Crap.  I forgot.  That's kinda been scrapped, too.

Goodness, schools should be raising funds for buying better playground equipment.

Oh, right, the kids only have 15 minutes of recess anyway.  Who needs more than chalk and a ball?

The point is:  the woman should have health care.  The man should have health care.  He shouldn't be self-medicating with duct tape and she shouldn't have to rely on the goodness of the community to pay her medical bills (I mean, not without a formal tax structure whereby we ALL contribute to ALL of our medical costs).

Health care is not a consumer good.  You do not "choose" health care problems or their remedies the way you choose whether or not to buy generic laundry detergent, Tide or an expensive organic, locally made brand.  We do not choose whether to get hernias or cancers (YES I KNOW LIFESTYLES MATTER).  We do not choose to fall down and break bones.  Or to inherit poor eyesight from Mom or a predilection to asthma from Dad.  As consumers, we are not able to effect costs the way we can in the marketplace.  The marketplace is a wholly inappropriate word to describe health care.  Doctors and insurance companies have control over costs; patients do not.  


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I'm so fed up with stories like these two brief ones that I have to share with you a friend's story (with her permission, of course).  I know she is not unique, but perhaps telling you the *details* about her story not only puts a "face" on the experience of "welfare" and "health care coverage" for some of you, but also, hopefully, provokes you (and me) to continue to exert pressure on our political leaders to work harder for greater social equity, more jobs that pay a living wage (!) and a better social welfare plan.

A friend of mine is on the Oregon Health Plan -- health insurance for Oregonians below a certain income level.

It's not great insurance.  For instance, it does not include either dental or vision coverage.

She has both teeth AND eyes.  Imagine that.

She has been vigorously looking for work in this horrible economy.  I could dedicate a whole blog just to her experiences there -- watching her write multiple, beautifully written essays per application for jobs that only pay $11 an hour, for instance.  I swear, she's worked harder on some of those applications than I did on my college ones.   Yet, time after time, she either is the runner up for the position or the company decides it isn't hiring after all, but thanks her for her interest.

The *only* job she's been able to find is a temporary one working in an poorly lit, dirty county office basement for $10 an hour.  She feels *lucky* because the guy working beside her has a college degree and she doesn't.  She is nothing if not grateful to be working and -- I had her as a student -- she's a darn good worker and smart too. Organized.  Dependable.  Creative.  Able to think outside the box.  Literate.  Funny.  Good communicator.  All the good qualities.

She needs the job to pay her bills (duh!).  Her rent (including all utilities) is $825 per month.  She has a car -- it's paid off, but of course there is insurance, gas and maintenance.  She eats, so there's a food bill.  She has a cell phone and she's changed the terms on it so that it is cheaper per month than it used to be.  Still, an Iphone isn't a cheap cell phone.  Personally, however, I think she's lost enough in her life over the past two years (horrifying experience in a bad marriage, resulting in a messy-as-hell divorce) that I am not advocating she give up that little luxury of an Iphone.  (Even if she did, a cheaper cell phone is not going to make the difference between being able to pay her bills and not being able to do so.)

She's been living very simply, stretching every dollar as far as it can possibly go.  No eating out.  No buying organic, fancy food (in her prior life, she was a health nut).  No going out.  No buying clothes.  Not even visiting her two-week-old grandson (the gas is too expensive).

She knew that she had to stay below a certain income level in order to keep her health insurance.  Being the honest person that she is (and not wanting to get caught "cheating" -- you know, trying to have health insurance AND enough money to cover her bills), she told the OHP office that she was working.  She wanted to know how much she could earn and STILL keep her insurance.

$903 per month GROSS.   If you subtract her rent ($825), that leaves a whopping $78 for EVERYTHING for the rest of the month.

She also calculated that, at $10 an hour, and figuring in the $400 a month she gets in alimony, she can only work *12.5* hours per week  in order to still qualify for health care. 

In other words, she can only earn -- through working--  $503 per month and still keep her insurance.

What employer is going to keep her for only 12.5 hours per week?

If she goes over the $903 per month, not only does she lose the health care, but she has to pay back whatever health care bills she incurred during the prior month.

For this month, at least, that would be a REAL problem.  Earlier this month she had an ER visit for an eye infection.  (Remember, OHP has no vision coverage and, though she had known she needed both new contacts and glasses, she could not afford to replace either.)  She'd been wearing her contacts for too long and her eyes finally -- and predictably -- freaked out.  Needless to say, she cannot afford to pay for that ER visit, so she has to choose to stop working in order to continue to get health care coverage.

She's not a person who *wants* to stop working.  She LOVES to work and she's good at her job (her employer told her they've never hired a temp who caught onto the system so fast).  She also really wants to keep her apartment -- where would she go if she couldn't cover her rent?!

She explained to me that OHP does periodic checks on their clients -- you know, to make sure nobody is cheating the system.  Fair enough.  But here's the catch:  if you appear to be living on too *little* money, they suspect you of lying (working under the table and not paying taxes on your income).  You have to justify how you pay every bill.  If, for instance, your friends are helping you out, they have to sign forms saying that their money is just gifts and is not associated with any kind of fair labor (say, babysitting for you).  So, even if you want to work for the money, you have to lie and say you did not.

If you appear to be earning too *much* money than you have to lose your health insurance.

All of this is such a game.

Anybody who thinks we do not need national health care insurance needs to go look at the faces of the people trying to live by the rules -- honesty gets them screwed, but then again, landing in jail for "fraud" is a pretty bad experience, too.
Another way to get screwed is to need prescription medications and not be able to pay for them, thus jeopardizing your health.  Say, for instance, you have serious hypertension.  (Of course, if you didn't have dangerous high blood pressure *before* losing your health insurance or worrying about how to pay your bills or how to keep the creditors at bay, you will eventually.)

Are you not gagging yet? 

My friend's biggest problems are her prescriptions -- she has four that she absolutely has to have refilled every month.  (She has serious hypertension.)  Her other prescriptions are more the kind that are only taken as needed -- for migraines, for asthma and allergic reactions.  (She used to take hormone replacement therapy and, while she was on that medication, she did *not* need hypertension medications.  However, OHP will not cover her hormone replacement therapy and, since having to go off of that medication, she has had several *noticeable* medical problems that have resulted in her taking more medication than she ever did previously.  So, currently, she is *not* on her hormone replacement therapy -- prescribed years ago because she had had cancer and had a complete hysterectomy.)

Arguably, her medications for asthma, anxiety and migraines do not need to be filled as often.  I did a little internet research and found that, out of pocket, her costs for the four monthly prescriptions that she *does* need to refill every thirty days total $60.47.  So, if you subtract that from her whopping $78 per month, she has less than $18 for the rest of the month for food, gas, car insurance, and the cell phone bill. 

Hmmm....I'm speechless.

Just for fun, I went ahead and looked at the out-of-pocket costs of ALL her medications, assuming that there might be *one* month during a year where she might need to refill all of them.  The grand out-of-pocket total for ALL her medications (asthma, migraines, anxiety, hypertension and, if she could ever get back on it, hormone replacement therapy) is...

Drum roll please...

$404.01. 

Since some of you will want to know:  I obtained out-of-pocket costs for all but two of her medications from the website healthwarehouse.com.  I used generic costs for all but two medications - two were only available in non-generic form.  Two other medications were actually not available from that website at all, so are not included at all in this calculation (both were asthma meds, by the way).  In case you are wondering how much is saved by buying generic:  one of her medications, monthly, is only $3.04 if purchased in generic form but is, according to healthwarehouse.com, a whopping $116 per month if purchased in its non-generic form.

The point here is not whether or not I have the *exact* number right, but to make one point very obviously:  she needs prescription coverage. 

Don't. Get. Me. Started.

OK.  Tell me.  HOW, if she chooses to work and give up her OHP, is she going to cover her rent, her bills, and her prescriptions without health insurance?  There's not even a guarantee that she'll be able to find a job after this temporary one ends, either.

Some people like to contrast the "lazy" people who want government to "take care of them" against the "hardworking" ones that "take care of themselves".

If this example hasn't at least partially convinced you that that argument is -- to state it politely -- baloney and exaggerated, I don't know what will. There should be jobs for every person that wants one.  Policies should encourage people to work -- it's good for their mental health and self-esteem, if nothing else.  And health care should be a RIGHT and not be attached to a job.

By the way, she decided to keep working and give up her health care coverage.  She has coverage until Feb 1.  Today is January 24.

Working to pay your bills -- simple bills like shelter, gas, and food -- shouldn't disqualify you from taking care of your body.

Eyes and teeth and hormones included. 

Duct tape optional.

Knickers in a Twist

So, Obama and the Democrats narrowly passed a bill to ensure that every American has access to some health care. Undoubtedly, there are going to be problems -- with implementation, loopholes, claims of who is covered, what is covered, how long people wait for appointments, etc.

Just because I am ecstatic over this legislation doesn't mean that I don't recognize there are going to be problems as it becomes the new norm. Any change this big brings problems!

This is going to affect doctors' patient loads and probably malpractice insurance too. We already need more primary care doctors and now we're going to need even more. It's likely that some people will have to give up something (not clear what yet) in order that other people have a wee little bit of health care. There is no aspect of health care that won't be affected, but it's clear that this is a long-awaited attempt to FINALLY give Americans -- living in the land of "I-did-it-myself-I-never-accept-government-help" myths -- a contemporary welfare state where ALL citizens have similar rights to health care.

Change is afoot.

And boy, are some people PISSED OFF.

They have their knickers in a proverbial twist.

It's the end of the republic; the constitution has been abandoned; Armageddon is on the horizon, if not already here. We're socialists now.

I can't help but compare the restructuring of the American welfare state and the accompanying growing pains/economic ripple effects to my favorite obsession, veganism.

*IF* enough people went vegan, there would be ripple effects throughout the economy that are not unlike the upcoming changes in the health care industry.

Corporations like Tyson and Smithfield might go under, or perhaps be pressured to produce only free-range, grass-fed animals who aren't left to stand in their own manure in CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations). This vision is not the vegan dream, to be sure, but it is admittedly a better vision for animals than the current factory farming nightmare.

Farmers, currently under the thumb of these huge corporations, would not have the same incentives to mass produce food -- they would either go under along with the corporations who have been cheaply supporting them, or they would have to find other, more sustainable ways to farm for the few (hopefully environmentally conscious) meat eaters that remained.

Having considerably fewer meat eaters would also affect corn production -- if there aren't animals "needing" to eat it, there's not much of an incentive to grow so much of it. (This is particularly likely since there is so much press lately about the evils of corn throughout our food system; turns out that high fructose corn syrup and maltodextrin and related products aren't so good for us and may be the prime culprits in the obesity and diabetes epidemics. Imagine that!)

Meat would likely become more expensive, making it less of a go-to food and more of a special occasion one. Again, not the vegan dream, but one that is environmentally sustainable and better for our overall health.

Perhaps (though this is probably wishful thinking) working conditions for the (usually poor, minority, or immigrant) workers in slaughterhouses would improve.

Farmland currently used for animals would be turned over to other sources of food (i.e., plants).

With dramatically fewer animals to feed, there would be a huge decrease in the amount of poop they produce. Runoff from factory farms would be lessened, leaving water sources (and crops) healthier.

The current argument that a-vegan-driving-a-Hummer is-less-of-an-environmental-hazard-than-a-meat-eater-driving-a-Prius might have to be reexamined.

Oh, and assuming that people eat well and don't just find ways to stuff different crap into their meat-and-dairy-free mouths, people would likely, as a whole, be healthier. That would have to be a good thing for our new health care system, don't you think?!

I'm not expecting that this will actually happen, at least not anytime soon. But the parallels between the two processes -- restructuring the American welfare state and restructuring the American diet -- are intriguing.

The Democrats get labeled socialists and babykillers and constitution destroyers and big government, pull-the-plug-on-granny freedom haters. The vegans get labeled crazy and excessive and out of touch, elite and obsessive.

I am happy to accept the following labels: democrat-leaning-toward-socialist, almost-vegan, and happily obsessive. I think we'd all be better off if we were, collectively, almost vegetarians and almost socialist democrats.

So, now that "we" have done the work for the new health care system, "we" have to work on the new American food system too.

It's for OUR OWN GOOD. And the good of the planet, and the good of a whole lot of animals.

Can't wait to hear what the opponents yell back.

The Almost Vegan

When I first started this vegan "kick," as my friend calls it, it wasn't due to a concern about animal welfare. Not that I didn't already care about animals -- I did and I do -- but my motivation to try veganism was purely selfish. I wanted to be skinnier, as the book, Skinny Bitch, somewhat promises people they will be if they turn vegan. I've recommended the book before and I still do, provocative title and all!

I'm not skinnier. Truth be told, however, I wasn't particularly heavy to begin with. I do have big legs, but then, I always have and no diet short of starvation is going to change my body build. (In fact, at my absolute skinniest -- 108 pounds, when I was going through chronic anxiety attacks, which I cannot recommend -- I STILL had big legs.) So, I've given up the dream of transforming my legs into, say, Jorja Fox's. Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

But, seven months into this diet, I am healthier, at least if recent bloodwork is a good indication. And isn't health a wee bit more important than great legs? I sure hope so. I call myself an almost-vegan, meaning that I've had some dairy here and there during the past seven months, generally when I'm not at home and when, for instance, non-dairy creamer wasn't available. Sin confessed!

So now the question is: has veganism (or almost-veganism) become, for me, about animals? Well, yes and no. The more I read about factory farming (which includes dairy farming), the more I am convinced that such farming is neither ethical or sustainable. So, yes, my chosen diet is, at least in part, a way for me to take a stand against practices that I see as incredibly cruel as well as environmentally disastrous. (To read more about factory and dairy farming in MUCH more detail, read blogs on girliegirlarmy.com, the Huffington Post or the New York Times, or PETA's website, or any of the 100s of websites out there that discuss animal welfare and either vegetarianism or veganism. Ellen DeGeneres even has a bit about "Why Go Vegan" on her website. I'm not repeating here what you can read in other places. I also highly recommend the books Eating Animals and The China Study.)

The bottom line, for me, has become this: eating meat and dairy contributes directly to both animal cruelty and environmental harm. So, by and large, I do not.

"But I eat only grass-fed...and I buy only organic..." Yeah, I agree that those choices are better for the environment (and YOU) than the conventional ones. In fact, I still believe it's ethical for people to eat meat occasionally. Despite choosing a vegan diet for myself, I agree with Barbara Kingsolver that one can still live an ethical life by eating meat rarely and selectively. (In her superbly-written book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, she writes, "However selectively, I do eat meat." And then she goes on to describe which meats, and why, and even goes into detail about her experience slaughtering her own turkeys. I highly recommend the book. Even if you come away with a different perspective on meat-eating, you will have read a thought-provoking account of one family's attempt to live a whole year raising as much of their food as possible and buying everything else that they need within a 100 mile radius of their home.)

Theoretically, if people only ate one meal a week with meat in it and say, only two or three meals a week with dairy, it would be possible to raise animals in more humane ways because the demand for their products would be so much lower. Such farming would also be sustainable. Of course, this would require MASSIVE changes to how people eat, as well as huge hikes in the prices for animal products (assuming that we want the farmers to be able to make their living).

Unfortunately, I don't see everyone jumping on the vegetarian or vegan bandwagon. I wish more people would. Without that, it's hard to put adequate pressure on farmers to raise animals differently.

If this societal diet transformation occurred, some animals would still be slaughtered, which is totally anathema to the vegan position that animals should NEVER be used for human needs. (And it is very much true that we don't NEED meat or dairy in order to be healthy.) I realize I'm taking a heretical stance, relative to other vegans, in considering the possibility that *minimal* meat and dairy consumption could be ethical. This is why I said "yes and no"to the question, 'has veganism become for me about animal welfare?' It's not, for me, entirely about animal welfare or animal rights.

That does not mean, however, that I think a farmer should be allowed to treat a cow however the hell he chooses. Or that I think that it's tolerable that chickens are raised in cages so small they can't extend their wings and end up living their entire lives basically in excrement. Holy crap! (Pardon the pun.) Who thinks that that's OK?

I also don't think it's OK that pigs get their tails chopped off (not even with anesthesia) so that they won't chew each other's tails off while living in crowded conditions. Nor do I think that male baby chicks should be ground up ALIVE because they're not going to grow up to be hens and lay eggs. Nor do I think cattle should be fed corn to grow fast (with lots of antibiotics, steroids and hormones) when the diet that's right for them is grass.

I think animals should be allowed to live as they were intended: roaming, eating what they are meant to eat, living with other animals like them, and, in the case of domesticated animals, living with the help of humans. Such "intended" lives might include, however, eventually ending up on somebody's plate.

That last part is, of course, what makes my position a non-vegan one. But I don't think I'm completely off my rocker to think it. I do not support the (usually vegan) view that animals' rights are identical to humans'.

That doesn't mean, however, that the "right" to eat animals on occasion translates into a "right" to raise them as they are currently being raised or to eat as much of them as we want whenever we want. Our insatiable greed has created the factory farming nightmare that exists. It hurts the environment; it's unnecessarily cruel; and, due to the excess of meat and dairy consumption, we're literally killing ourselves. Not to mention that we're consuming a cocktail of hormones, steroids and antibiotics contained in those animal products.

So, while I've chosen an almost vegan diet for myself, my "almost vegetarian" advice for everyone is to eat FAR LESS dairy, FAR LESS meat and pressure farmers to raise animals in ethical ways. UP your vegetable and fruit consumption (a lot); try soy or rice or almond or help or oat milk. Go a whole week without cheese. (You can do it!!) Get a soy latte instead of a regular one. Buy a vegan cookbook. Get the free vegetarian start-up kit at PETA. Look at your old recipes and figure out how to make them vegetarian or, even better, vegan. Buy Earth Balance vegan margarine; try coconut milk yogurt. Ask me for a recipe or two. Go find recipes on girliegirlarmy.com or any of the 100s (literally!) of vegan and vegetarian websites. Give up the idea that you need more protein (chances are, you don't), as well as the idea that you'll die without loads of calcium (quite the opposite, you might be helping yourself develop MORE brittle, not less brittle, bones). Go get some exercise. Donate money to an animal shelter or a farm sanctuary. Support farmers who DO raise animals ethically, without hormones, cages, cruelty or food they were not meant to consume.

Even if on occasion you eat one -- I'll "allow" you that -- let the animals live in conditions that an animal would want to live in. It's the least you can do. Even a carnivore shouldn't be comfortable with the realities of factory farming.

Mortality and Health, Plastic Surgery and Rationing

Health news characterized my week. First, from some recent government study, *maybe* women 40-49 don't need mammograms AND maybe those self-exams that we fret about don't do much good anyway. Second, a family friend is dying of cancer. Third, an uncle of a friend of mine is a plastic surgeon in Carlsbad, CA and reports that a surprising number of wealthy people in Southern California give boob jobs to their girls upon high school graduation. In the weirdest of ways, these three "health" items go together.

Regarding the first bit of news: I'm going to say I already knew this. Previous studies (I wanna say from Sweden?) found out YEARS ago that mammograms yield, in a cost-benefit analysis, too few benefits for women in this age range and do yield a whole lot of extra testing (for "questionable" findings) that result in worry but thankfully, usually not disease.

Of course, for the women who HAVE had breast cancer detected through a mammogram and who were 40-49 when this occurred, there is no arguing that it wasn't beneficial for them. But for the vast majority of women my age, it's probably a test we don't need, at least not every year. And, sadly, it's still true that with the worst breast cancers (like inflammatory breast disease, which killed my aunt) neither mammograms nor ultrasounds generally detect the disease (because it doesn't present as lumps).

So...on that depressing note, I'm gonna say we women should keep checking our breasts and head to the doctor and demand tests IF we find something suspicious. Our health is ultimately our responsibility and we have to be our own best advocates regardless of the statistical findings and insurance-related test rationing going on. You think you need a mammogram? Don't hesitate to ask for one.

Health-related news bulletin #2 this week was very personal: a family friend, in his early 70s, has just been told he has cancer and has 6-12 months to live. Wow. Nothing like that kind of news to make you think of your own mortality. How much time do we all have? Is today our last day? Are we going to defy odds and live to 100? Or will it be 90? Or 80 or 70? Or 60 or 50? Have I done with my life what I wanted? Am I consistently appreciative of all that I have? What could I do better RIGHT NOW? If I only had 6-12 months to live, what would I do with that time?

I've spent quite a bit of time this past week thinking about those questions. We should live each day like it's our last, but plan our lives as if we have lots of time left. We need to hold those two opposing possibilities in our heads at all times; no reason to act old when we don't feel it; no reason not to plan even if those plans might not materialize.

Health item #3: Those boob jobs for girls graduating high school. SICK. "Honey, we're so proud of you! And to show our pride, we're gonna get you some REALLY NICE boobs! We're not going to encourage you to go work with the less fortunate -- or spend time with women undergoing treatment for breast cancer -- we're going to focus on YOU and on YOUR body and make it BETTER! We're going to spend our considerable income on something that shouldn't matter, but somehow does: you "need" to have "perfect" boobs (and perfect teeth, skin, hair, eyes, nose, tummy, etc.) in order to be part of OUR world." Talk about self-centered shallow bullshit. (I am not against boob jobs for reconstruction following mastectomy, or for reduction, nor I am against them if, congenitally, there really is a need to "fix" one or both; I am pretty much against them for the shallow purpose of looking "right".)

My friend told me that her uncle says that nearly everyone in Hollywood has something done; that it really isn't possible to be successful and not tweak the tits, or the butt, or the face or the underarm flab or the tummy. What galls me is that while celebs and other rich folk do these things to "look good," the message that reaches the rest of us is that it's all lifestyle (diet and exercise, lots of green tea, yoga, etc.). Yeah, right.

So, while people die from diseases that can't be cured or mull over whether they can afford to have a mammogram that will likely be rationed further by insurance companies, you can contemplate rich girls who, at the tender age of 18, are urged by their parents to have major surgery to get great boobs before they go to college. Or, you could contemplate which celebs have had the most work done.

Wish we could ration that.

Changing Their Palates, Take Two (Hundred?)

I'm nearly five months into an almost-vegan diet, and trying to get the kids to eat fewer animal-based foods and more plant-based ones. Despite that I am allowing them to eat some meat and some dairy (dairy daily, meat once or twice a week), the modifications I'm making to their diets are still proving to be tough to accomplish. To any of you out there who aren't parents yet, know that if you want your kids to eat well, best not to EVER let them have poor-quality (read: processed, cheesy, fast, easy, typical "kid") food. Changing their palates is darn hard work. No vegan or vegetarian dish tastes as good -- claim my kids -- as chicken strips and french fries, or pizza, or fried chicken, or scrambled eggs, or grilled cheese sandwiches, or Kraft Mac and Cheese, or a bowl of ramen.

Yet I persevere; my kids did not get their tenacity from nowhere. In an attempt to better my odds at improving their diets, I recently purchased a cookbook: Mattare and Muldawer's "Better Than Peanut Butter and Jelly: Quick Vegetarian Meals Your Kids Will LOVE". The title and the reviews both seemed so promising. So far, my husband and I love the recipes and, well, the kids...do not.

Tonight's menu was "Crispy Snow Peas" and a recipe with a wonderfully hopeful name: "Spinach Casserole They'll Really Like". My husband and I thought both dishes were delicious. Yet, the four-year-old practically screamed at the sight of the casserole ("Get it off my pwate!"), but happily ate the snow peas. The nine-year-old flat out refused to try either dish because, in his typically brutal analysis, "that food looks DISGUSTING!" He ended up eating cereal with fresh berries, two pieces of leftover homemade pizza (one slice was veggie), and a bowl of popcorn. All in all, not horrible, but still not ideal. (I harbor the hope that one day, all five of us will enjoy the same healthy food.) The four-year-old ended up eating a sizable portion of the snow peas, an apple, and chocolate ice cream.

My twelve-year-old is vacationing with friends; just received a call. Apparently she ate an "adult-sized portion of ribs".

Sigh. I have my work cut out for me.

Unintended Consequences

Many years ago, when I was just out of college and working as a secretary for a group of professors, I read one of their books on policy-making. One lesson from that book stuck with me: for every change made, even if for the best of reasons, there is usually an unintended consequence, often quite negative.

I've been reminded recently of how common such unintended consequences are, and how much havoc they can wreck on our worldviews.

Lately, as most of you know, I've been on a kick/obsession to eat better, exercise more, rid the house of crap (good luck!) and change the attitude (ditto!). This obsession has involved reading stuff I generally don't read, going on websites I hadn't previously heard of, having conversations with people I actually don't know (thank you, internet), and trying new foods. In the midst of it all, I've been surrounded by rhetoric on the importance of organic, locally-grown, pesticide-free, hormone-free, antibiotic-free, dairy-free, meat-free. And, I've slowly discovered that *some* of these albeit well-intentioned social movements are based on belief more than on fact, or, perhaps even more alarmingly, if taken to their logical conclusions, have some horrible unintended consequences.

Take "organic" for instance. Turns out, it's a bit of a myth. BS as Penn and Teller (and a FB friend of mine) put it. It's a myth for several reasons. One, many, if not most, organic farmers DO use pesticides, just not ones that were discovered to be cancer-causing back in the 1960s. Two, research is divided at best as to whether organic is actually better for you, and some studies conclude that there is no measurable nutritional difference between organic and non-organic foods. Three, the oversight system is poor, meaning that people can claim to be farming organically, but, well, maybe they're not. Four, if organic farming were to be used world-wide, there's a possibility that we would not be able to feed all the world's people.

That last point, if true, is no small one: according to a scientist interviewed on a show I watched last night, organic farming could, at most, produce enough food to feed 4 billion people. That's a lot of people. Problem? The world currently has about 7 billion people; which 3 billion, as Penn and Teller put it, do you want to starve to death? To be fair, other sources of info say that organic farming CAN feed everybody, and that the problem is food distribution, not food quantity. I'm inclined to believe the latter argument, though *IF* the former is true, it's certainly sufficient to make me wonder about the ethics of pushing organics on the consumer. It's enough to make one think strongly about the unintended consequences of policies hoping to make all farming organic.

IF the health benefits of organic produce are negligible (this, too, is hotly debated) THEN perhaps the push to buy everything organic is working more to make some people relatively wealthy than it is to make any of us healthier. I'm still doing research on the pros and cons of organic foods -- and certainly still concerned about the degradation of the environment, and better ways to grow and distribute food -- but for now, I'm taking a big chill pill on the idea that I need to preach that everybody buy organic. I might bring down my grocery bill -- that's a consequence I could seriously live with.

How about locally-grown? Now, this argument actually makes some sense to me. Buying products that got to your local store with a minimum of fuel seems to be a good move for the environment. For now, I'll continue to look for locally-grown or locally-produced products, and privilege those over ones that were trucked or flown in from miles away.

Pesticide-free. It sounds so ideal. However, if you're ever had a backyard garden and haven't used any pesticides at all (even beer as snail bait), you will notice that critters will chew on your lettuce, attack your cauliflower, drill holes in your tomatoes, and leave dents in your strawberries. If you still want to eat the food that's left over in your garden, by all means -- do it. I predict you'll either starve or go the grocery store.

I've tried the application of ladybugs and growing companion plants that theoretically attract the "good bugs." In my experience, those approaches have only limited effectiveness. I still end up carefully using some snail bait and hand-picking bugs. In a backyard garden, you CAN use person-intensive methods of critter control, but you can't do that on a big farm.

Controlling critters is part of gardening, people, and if you are trying to make a LIVING by selling food, you have to grow enough of it to make a profit, which means that an organic farmer is not going to be hand-picking the bugs off every head of lettuce. (Most organic foods, by the way, are grown on LARGE, commercial farms, not on small ones.) Virtually ALL commercial farmers use some sort of pesticide because they wouldn't be able to make a living otherwise.

What amuses me is that many pro-organic people assume that all products marked "organic" were never touched by pesticides. Or, that the pesticides used by organic farmers are necessarily safer than those used by traditional farmers. How naive. From what I've recently learned, the pesticides used by traditional farmers have come a long way, baby, from the days of DDT. Ironically, in some cases (certainly not all), the pesticides used on traditional farms may actually be safer than those used on organic farms. Those who assume that anything marked "organic" is, by definition, safer and better are proof that the organic movement knows good marketing.

What about antibiotic-free and hormone-free? Well, I still need to do research here, and for now, I'll say that I'm drinking this kool-aid. This makes sense to me. HOWEVER, if you're going to eat foods that are both antibiotic- and hormone-free, I think that means you're giving up both meat and dairy. And here I start to run into some problems.

I've been trying this, almost 90% of the time, for a few months now. I've never been a big meat eater, so 50% of the task was "easy" for me. I am dying to have some bloodwork done and see if there are any alarming deficiencies or problems. I cannot, in good faith, tell you I feel better. I wish I could say that. I WANT the consequences of my new diet to be more energy, lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure, lower weight. However, I have not lost any weight at all, and my most recent blood pressure was low anyway. I have noticed my skin is even better than before -- I attribute that to increasing my intake of fruit and vegetables, and not really at all to my elimination of dairy and the little meat I was consuming.

To be totally honest, I've felt a little weak lately. Perhaps it's NOT due to the diet, but if it is, it's an unintended and negative consequence if there ever was one.

Should I continue drinking the proverbial kool-aid, when it comes to no meat and no dairy? Hmmm...the rhetoric surrounding that move is strong (better for the environment, better for your health, better for animals). I basically believe claims one and three; I'm on the fence about claim two. Were people INTENDED, as the vegans claim, to be vegan? Or, are we built to be omnivores, as others claim? Are all people healthier if they adopt a vegan diet? Or, do some people need *a little* meat and dairy?

I don't know. I do know that unintended consequences are a good place to start to look at our assumptions. As an old black folk saying goes, "It ain't the things you don't know that gets you into trouble; it's the things you know for sure that ain't so."

Kombucha

Kombucha. A recent Facebook status line of mine was "I am trying Kombucha," to which a (very well-educated) friend of mine responded, "What is that? A food? A drink? A dance?"

Indeed, what the heck is it and why am I trying it?

Kombucha is the latest in my recent line of foods-I-must-try-as-I-improve-the-diet. It's a fermented tea, reported to have been consumed in China for at least 2000 years. It has about 5% alcohol content and its fermented, slightly acidic quality is not unlike beer. If you like beer, you might not mind drinking kombucha. For someone like me, who doesn't like beer at all, drinking kombucha is simply about health, not taste. I will admit, however, that it seems to be growing on me.

Reportedly, the drink is catching on in the US among the health food nuts (like me), and is said to be popular among celebrities (oh, but of course). Indeed, the best-known brand in the US, GT Dave's, is made in Beverly Hills. It's expensive, at just under $4 per bottle. According to the label, each bottle contains two servings, though the "recommended" usage is one bottle per day. It's low in calories (about 60-80 calories per bottle), caffeine-free, all natural, and full of bacteria that are supposed to be good for the gut and "detoxify" the body. According to the bottle, it has "active enzymes, viable probiotics, amino acids, antioxidants, and polyphenols."

I'm not a scientist. I'm not a medical doctor. But the reputed health benefits of the drink prompted me to start drinking it, as well as start reading up on it. According to what I've read, some people claim that kombucha improves their energy levels, digestion, skin and metabolism; others have claimed that it has helped them beat cancer, curbs cravings for sweets and appetite in general; and has an overall "anti-aging" effect. The bottle itself says these things, as well as that its contents boost the immune system, help control weight, improve liver function, contribute to cell integrity, and improve body "alkalinity". As far as I know, I don't have cancer, and I do not even *know* what is meant by "liver function," "cell integrity," or "body alkalinity," but as long as the beverage isn't dangerous, it seems OK for me to drink it to see if any reputed health advantages occur. Of course, if I *do* have cancer or impaired liver function or lousy cells, and the kombucha wants to fix those things, by all means, kombucha, do your job!

I went online (of course) to look at various articles and websites either advocating kombucha or avidly warning against its ingestion. There have been some reported deaths in the US related to kombucha consumption; many of those appear to be due to home brews, where the equipment might not have been sterilized properly. A few were related to reactions of medications with kombucha. (Were I on any medication, I'd ask a doctor first.) An article in the LA Times concluded that although the commercialization of kombucha probably significantly cuts down on the risk of death from drinking it, it may also lessen the health properties of the drink. Ironic -- the home brews probably contain more of the stuff that I want, but they have a higher risk of killing me (plus I'd have the added job of making it). So, for all I know, I am drinking a bitter, expensive tea that doesn't have nearly the health benefits I hope for. But at least I'll live to tell about it.

I have only been drinking it for five days. So far, I've noticed only one health change that I don't think anybody wants to hear about. Perhaps as my body gets used to it, said change will go away. A girl can dream. However, I suspect kombucha's fermentation will continue to promote a certain digestive result. That's one of the reasons I don't drink beer.

Beauty or Health?

I read, on a Twitter post, that every morning, the average woman uses 12 different products, containing 126 different chemicals or substances, before she has her first cup of coffee.

Being the skeptic/curious mind that I am, I went over to the blog where this tweet originated ("feelgoodguru.com") to check out the source of this info (a book called, Slow Death by Rubber Duck). Since I haven't read the book, I cannot comment as to its content or accuracy, but feelgoodguru's tweet about the book got me thinking about my own beauty routine (or lack thereof).


Could it be possible, I wondered, that somebody as low-maintenance as me could use that many different products before having a cup of morning coffee (which, by the way, I never skip)? Just how many different ingredients are in the products I *do* use?

First, to define "low-maintenance." Providing that no child interrupts me, I can be ready to leave the house in under 30 minutes. I rarely wear makeup. I don't bother with hairdryers unless it's *really* cold outside, or I'm having a picture taken (like that happens so often...), or I'm due for a job interview. I do not own a curling or straight iron. I rarely wear fingernail polish, though I do polish the toes during sandal season. I generally don't use hair care products beyond shampoo and conditioner. I do color my hair a few times a year and I regularly have my eyebrows and lip waxed. (If you're a brunette woman over 30 who doesn't need to do this, I'm insanely jealous of you.) All in all, it seems to me that by modern beauty standards, I'm pretty much a low-maintenance woman. So, how many products could I possibly use?

Well, I surprised myself. On a daily basis, I use the following six products (number of ingredients in each follows): Trader Joe's non-aluminum deodorant (19), hotel soap (estimated 13), Market of Choise bulk shampoo (estimated 18), Market of Choice bulk conditioner (estimated 17), Tom's of Maine Fennel toothpaste (11), and Eucerin facial moisturizer with sunscreen (25). Some days I also use generic contact solution (7), generic flouride rinse (18), Suave body lotion (28), Crest whitening strips (8), Aveeno regular sunscreen (5), Off! bug spray (4), Opi nail polish (estimated 13), generic nail polish remover (9), Clinique mascara (5), Clinique eye liner (13), and L'Oreal lipstick (27). On REALLY RARE occasions, I might use Tea Tree hair gel (17) or Unite's straightening product (23). On the most DESPERATE of days, I might also wear L'Oreal True Match foundation (25). Occasionally, I'll spray on a little perfume, however, since Chanel #5 is such a closely guarded secret, I have NO idea what it contains or how many ingredients it has. Perhaps fortunately, wearing perfume is a rare event for me.

So...on a typical day, I use six products containing a total of 103 ingredients. On my most high-maintenance day (a true rarity), I might use as many as 20 products containing a total of 307 ingredients.

Full disclosure: since this is a thought piece, and not meant as a source of scientific information, I cheated a little in my calculations. For instance, some of these products have similar ingredients, so to be *completely* accurate I should have made sure I didn't double- (or triple- or quadruple-) count any one ingredient. I wasn't that careful, so these estimates might be a little high. Also, I had to look up ingredients for some things on the internet, since I no longer have the original packaging for my makeup or my shampoo and conditioner (I buy them in reusable containers). I'm relying sources of info that sometimes aren't so trustworthy.

I'm pretty sure I don't need to worry about "purified water" as a lead ingredient; in fact, I am qutie sure there are many ingredients that are relatively harmless. But the point here is (hopefully) obvious: whether the number is 80, or 103, or 126 or 307 -- that is a HELL of a lot of ingredients to be putting on or in one's body.

If I remember middle school biology correctly, skin is the body's largest organ. So applying all these ingredients to that organ allows the body to absorb a whole lot of things that may not be good for it. (Indeed, one of the main points of the Slow Death by Rubber Duck is that we need to detox ourselves. According to what I've read about the book, the authors sequestered themselves in a room, subjected themselves to all sorts of common household products -- not just beauty products -- and then had their blood and urine drawn, with some alarming findings. That's as much as I know about the book.)

Armed with only this minimal information, I have to ask myself: What part of my "beauty" routine am I willing to give up (in the name of health, of course)?

Toothpaste might be the first to go. As I recall, you can brush your teeth with baking soda. It's cheap, "natural," and (I believe) fairly effective. That would shave 10 ingredients from my beauty routine, though I have to say I don't actually suspect my Tom's of Maine toothpaste to be a prime suspect in the crime of poisoning bodies.

Next to go might be deodorant. I mean -- really -- if you shower every day (and particularly following exercise), do you NEED deodorant? I'm thinking probably not. That would delete an additional 19 ingredients. However, as with the toothpaste, I don't actually suspect my Trader Joe's deodorant to be one of the leading offenders of toxicity.

Obviously, since I don't generally wear make-up, most days I've already deleted 70 ingredients.

I can also toss the hair gel/mousse and the straightening product. They only minimally improve the 'do. So that deletes another 40 ingredients.

I'm NOT willing to give up sunscreen, for reasons that I hope are obvious to anybody who has read the health news in the past twenty years. And for the half-dozen times I hike during a year, I think I can still use the bug spray. Last year, I witnessed my sister's summer of migraines following a mosquito bite; West Nile virus is worthy of avoidance, believe me.

I'm also not willing to forgo soap, shampoo, or conditioner. Civilization does, in my opinion, start with a basic level of cleanliness. I am, however, on the lookout for products that aren't tested on animals, work well, are healthy for you, and are environmentally safe. I found a cosmetic safety database called "Skindeep;" I'm going to start looking up my beauty/hygiene products on it and choosing the ones deemed "safer."

But I'm not giving up toenail polish because, well, I'm shallow and I have ugly feet. Polish marginally improves their appearance. And if I'm going to allow myself to color the hair and wax the lip, I might as well allow the polish.

Low-maintenance might be overrated, anyway. But health is not.