Additive Free

Additive free.  What exactly do I mean when I say "additive free"?  I am referring to all the products that we use on an everyday basis.  And not just products that we would apply to ourselves, but also to the food that we ingest.  Yesterday I talked about the wonders of the Internet and globalization and how they have brought the far reaches of the world to our fingertips.  While in many ways, it is beneficial to have the world at our fingertips, it can also be a curse.  And how we interpret it as a curse is all dependent on how we view life and the food and products we use every day.  There are many people who simply disregard what goes into their food and how it may affect them in the long run.  I used to be one of those people, eating anything and everything regardless of the ingredients contained in a given product.  The change didn't happen overnight, but it was a slow eye opening experience that, while I absolutely love the way I feel now, I sometimes curse the day I started looking at the back of packages and what ingredients products contain.  Its not that all additives are bad, but I now live by the motto that if I can't easily pronounce an ingredient, it probably shouldn't be either ingested or applied to my skin in any manner.  Once you start doing even just a little bit of research into what the ingredients actually are that companies put into products, you start realizing that maybe they aren't as safe as they are said to be.  A big one is aluminum.  Almost every sunscreen you buy has aluminum in it.  So what is the big deal with aluminum?  Well, aluminum, once absorbed into the body, builds and can increase your risk of getting Alzheimer's.  I for one, never want to get Alzheimer's and will do everything in my power to keep aluminum away from my body.  So does that mean I just walk into the sun every day without applying some sort of protection from the sun?  No, it just means we have taken to making our own.  I know, it might sound a little crazy, but making sunscreen at home is incredibly easy, especially with the availability of products on the Internet.  (If your interested and want to know the ingredients, leave a comment and I will get back to you).  The same goes for deodorant.  Almost all deodorants have aluminum in them.  The good news is, they actually sell deodorant that is aluminum free.  It is simple things like altering buying habits that just might add a few extra years to our lives and make us healthier in the here and now.  Sunscreen and deodorant are the big ones when it comes to products that we apply to our bodies.  So what about foods?

Foods are the tough one.  In our household now, we are striving to keep all products that contain GMO's, chemicals, and preservatives out of our cupboards and drawers.  GMO's seem to be the big ticket item that is brought up in many debates these days.  There are those that say GMO's will do no harm to a person and those that say they will.  We are part of the group that say they have the potential to do harm, and not just because they are GMO, but because of the reason they were genetically modified to begin with.  The trouble with any food that is genetically modified is that it was done so to prevent that plant from being killed by herbicides and pesticides.  That is not the only reason, but that is a major one.  That means that any plant that is genetically modified probably contains at least trace amounts of the pesticide or herbicide they were sprayed with.  If you eat enough of these pesticides and herbicides, you could harm your body in unimaginable ways starting with your stomach which has to process all the food.  So what kind of pesticides and herbicides are we talking about?  Take the product, RoundUp.  We all know it kills weeds, and around the house it is best known for killing poison ivy and other pestilent plants.  The key ingredient is glyphosate.  This means that all the corn that is genetically modified is usually done so in order to be sprayed with RoundUp and not die.  Pleasant.  That means every time we eat corn (90% of which is GM), we are probably eating RoundUp, especially if that corn came from a big farm.  Its scary once you start learning why things are done and what the effect is.  That is only the GMO side of the additive equation.  I haven't even touched on chemicals or preservatives (usually one and the same).  In terms of preservatives, I will give you two examples that floored me when I read them.  (Disclaimer:  if you like the cereal Lucky Charms, read no further).  I used to love Lucky Charms when I was younger.  The little marshmallows made the milk taste so much better and I always tried to save the marshmallows for the end so I could eat them by the spoonful.  About a month ago I was working in a customers house and saw a box of Lucky Charms sitting on the counter.  (I haven't eaten them in years by the way).  Curious, I picked up the box and started going through the ingredients.  There were a lot of ingredients that were puzzling to me, but the one that really stuck out like a sore thumb was TSP or Tri Sodium Phosphate.  As a painter, I use TSP as a cleaning agent (which is actually its main use).  It is an excellent cleaner for removing soot, grime, and grease and leaves walls ready for painting.  It is also an excellent floor cleaner.  Now why would they put TSP in my favorite childhood cereal.  I don't know, but according to the FDA, it is "generally recognized as safe".   Yet, after having used it to clean floors and walls with, I don't really want to be ingesting it.  The other one is lemon juice.  We used to buy it at the store until we found out that it had a preservative that is a known carcinogen.  Now ask yourself, why would a company use a carcinogen as a preservative.  Probably because it is the most cost effective way for them to operate.  Needless to say we don't use that product anymore.  There are many products that we don't use anymore for exactly these reasons.  Once you start reading about what the chemicals are and what they can do to a body, you start not wanting them in your body.  Since eliminating as many preservatives and GMO's as possible from our diet, I have felt healthier than ever.  I could go on and on, but I will end it here for today.  My advice, do your own research and come to your own conclusions.  This was not meant to tell you how to eat and live, but to suggest that you look a little harder at what you are consuming.  

The Trouble With the U.S. and Iran

As I grow older and somewhat wiser, my views of the world change.  I have started to look at the bigger picture differently.  It is not due to any one source, but rather a slew of outside influences and the shrinking of the world due to globalization.  Globalization I feel has had the greatest impact.  It has brought the far corners of the world to my finger tips and allowed me to learn about different cultures through different avenues without even leaving my home.  It allows the unbiased information from across the world to travel almost instantaneously to my lap top.  This allows me to sort through what I feel is bull shit propaganda versus what may actually contain some grains of truth.   Everything is biased to a degree, but that is not a topic for here nor there right now.  The information we have at our fingertips is not meant to be wholly absorbed as is, but rather to be processed and verified using whatever tools we have available to us.  One tool we have that brings the world closer is the news.  As I mentioned above, everything is biased to a degree, and while the news is supposed to take a neutral stance, there are many times when it does not.  Yet, what other tool do we have that can bring such a vast array of information instantaneously from around the world?  None.  So, as I normally do every morning, I read the New York Times and peruse their different columns.  Currently reading the paper online, I have access to the videos that are produced either via the paper or their correspondents.   A while ago, I stumbled across a series that is still on going, called "Our Man in Tehran".  This series is about a news correspondent, Thomas Erdbrink, who delves into the lives of everyday Iranians and the issues they face.  Some of the topics addressed so far are those of radicals, the death penalty, marriage, and drought.   In each segment, a small picture is painted of life in Iran.  The only time it deals with the government or people in power is when they are talking about radicals and the effect the government has on those radicals.  When you start to look at the world through the lens of everyday life, things start to look very similar to everywhere else, albeit with a different cultural twist.  People have similar struggles regardless of where they live.   Everyone has to put food on their table.  Everyone has to deal with family members.  Everyone has a government that they either like or dislike.  The human condition varies from country to country, but if you start to identify with people as people and not "Iranians" or "Americans" or "pick a country", then it is easier to start seeing that their lives matter just as much as ours do.  Just because our government casts a country in a demonic light doesn't mean that every person living there is demonic.  Rather, the people living there probably have more in common with us than we would ever think, if we only took the time to look at their lives.  "Our Man in Tehran" does just that.  It takes everyday life in Iran and makes it accessible to the rest of the world.  Writing this now, I wonder if any other countries would watch a series on the United States and the people living here; their struggles and how they live.  Perhaps it would be useful for Iranians to see that we in the United States, while half a world away, deal with similar struggles.  

The accessibility we have to other countries today, even if they may be our governments' ardent enemies, is astounding and can do more to pull down barriers than anything prior.  The more we see how similar we are to those around the world, the more we realize that it is government propaganda that we must fear the most.  It is our governments and their power play for the upper hand that ultimately casts a shadow on certain parts of the world.  Scarier still, it is the people who buy in to that propaganda who ultimately create the larger problem.  The people who refuse to look past our governments' picture are the ones who perpetuate feelings of hatred towards other countries and who become the unwitting foundation of our governments' actions.  If our governments did not have people to support their actions, those actions (in the form of sanctions and wars) would fail.  It is the people who follow our governments blindly, without questioning them, who take away the humanity of people living elsewhere.  If we react solely to a government, an entity, we are relinquishing any possibility of seeing the people behind that government.  If we peel back the layers, we start to see the same human emotions that are universally shared; love, hate, fear, hope, etc.  Those are basic emotions that we all possess.  The more we can pull back the veil of government and see the people behind, the more we can relate to them and begin to pull down the barriers constructed decades ago.  As FDR stated years ago, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself".  If we are afraid of a different culture for whatever reason, we immediately begin to construct barriers, and those barriers stoke the unwarranted fear.  Most times, there is nothing to be afraid of.  Most times, fear comes from a lack of understanding.  That fear is played upon by governments to control a people and perpetuate their reasoning for their actions.  We must begin to look past our fears and see the other side and seek to understand.  Now, with all my writing against governments, I am not saying that governments are not useful.  We need a government to keep order and to run a country, but in most cases, government goes too far.  If more people began to look at the broader picture and the humanity contained within that broader picture, our governments would have less traction and might actually re-align themselves with the will of the people.  I know, lofty ideals and hopes for our governments, yet it has to start somewhere.  All we need is to relate on a human level, forgo religious denominations, political alignments, racial prejudices, and simply see others for what they are.  For we all are "human, all too human."

The Open Road

I love driving.  Regardless of what gas prices may be, I never give a second thought to getting in a car, van or truck, and starting to drive.  Whether its going to a job and finding a different way of getting there, going for a Sunday drive with the family and exploring new areas of our state, or traveling to a distant locale, the sound of tires rolling over pavement (and sometimes dirt roads) is music to my ears.  I feel like I have written about driving before, but if I have, it needs revisiting.  This past weekend I drove up to Vermont to cut some firewood for the summer camping season and make sure our property was set and ready to go for when our whole family goes up on Memorial Day.  The drive up on Friday was glorious.  My goal was to time it perfectly so that I didn't hit any traffic.  For once, it worked.  Most times, I will hit at least five minutes of traffic somewhere along the route, but not this past Friday.  I left around 8:30 in the morning and 3.25 hours later, I was in Vermont.  I enjoy driving with other people because it makes the drive seem to take a little less time.  Yet I also enjoy driving by myself with my two dogs in the back of the van.  Driving is soothing to me.  I let my mind wander as my eyes take in the road ahead of me, and I can think.   I know, I can think at any point in time, but when I am in a vehicle driving, thinking is made easier with fewer distractions.  On the way up to Vermont, I must confess, my though process wasn't extravagant, deep, or other worldly.  I thought about my weekend ahead and what I wanted to get done at our campsite.  Still, that 3.25 hours was relaxing in a way that driving to work amidst crazy Connecticut drivers is not.  So I thought about the campsite, cutting down wood, and building a nice fire.  I watched the quaint little towns along the way fly past and thought about the highway system in our country and the immense foresight it took to create the network of roads linking every corner of our country.   Running a four lane highway through Vermont and its mountainous terrain must have taken a long time.  For surveyors to figure out the best route; where to cut through mountains and where to build bridges, is beyond my comprehension.   And to have those roads, built over 60 years ago at this point, is a testament to the skill and drive it took to build them.  I applaud those surveyors, builders, but most of all Eisenhower who came up with the enormous interstate highway system.  And yet, while highways are an excellent way of getting from one point to another in a shorter period of time than it would take to drive all back roads, there is a lot that can't be seen from the highway.  The small towns and the people who populate them, are missed.  We can now bypass the base upon which our country was built.  How often do we forget about those towns and the treasures they possess?  Too often it seems these days.  

My ride home, after a long weekend of downing two sixty foot trees, cutting, splitting, and stacking them, was a different animal all together.  I never leave Vermont to come home earlier than lunch time.  As much as I try, cleaning up the campsite and packing things away always takes a while.  So tired and dazed, I loaded up on caffeine around lunch time, and began the journey home.  I didn't drive quite as fast as I did on my way up, but still made it in about the same time.  I only hit about 5 minutes of traffic along the way.  Not too bad.  Watching the world go by at 70 mph, I sat dazed through Vermont and it wasn't until I was about to enter Massachusetts that I believe I had my first conscious thought of the drive.  I saw a sign that said, "Entering the Pioneer Valley".  I do not know the significance of the Pioneer Valley or what historical event took place there (if one even did).  But it did spark a thought deep within the recesses of my tired mind.  I began thinking about history and the amount of history that our part of the country has.  The Northeast is where the roots of our country as we know it today were planted and from there spread south and west to encompass all of the current United States.  From the Mayflower and its settlers who crossed the Atlantic to Paul Revere and the infamous Minutemen, New England has it all.  I thought then about California and how relative to the North East, their history doesn't run quite as deep.  After thinking that, I paused and reflected on how unfair that statement really was.  California has just as much history as the North East, it just may not be "our" history.  By "our", I mean the United States history as we know it, not the history that preceded our country.  Many times people will forget that "history" means "the continuum of events occurring in succession leading from the past to the present...".   This means that history doesn't start when we settled this country, history reaches farther back to the native American tribes before us, the Spanish from Mexico who lived in California, and everyone else before us who had an impact on the land we now call our own.  While I can not speak for other countries, in the United States it seems as if we consider history to encompass the time from when our ancestors settled here to the present.  We rarely consider what was here before us and how that may have impacted the lives of people centuries ago.   So when I had the thought that California doesn't have the history that the Northeast does, I more meant that it doesn't have "our United States history".  Ultimately, I was incorrect in my thought process, but had the time driving home to think it all through.  The wonders the open road has to offer us are plentiful if we take the time to enjoy them.   Till my next road trip, whenever that may be, I will take my short drives and enjoy them to their fullest.