I got riled up today...

All of the kerfluffle surrounding Chick-Fil-A recently resulted in several facebook friends urging everyone to go to the nearest establishment to buy up chick'n sandwiches to show support for their recent public stance on a social/political issue.  My reaction was basically, "Why would I go eat garbage on purpose?"  Regardless of anything Chick-Fil-A does or does not agree with, I don't eat their food because it's full of chemicals, preservatives, MSG, and a whole bunch of other non-real-food items.  Did you know that their chicken sandwich has nearly **100** ingredients?!  ONE HUNDRED, people!  ONE HUNDRED!  For something that should theoretically be chicken and bread.  Wow.  You can see the label here and learn more about what all of those lovely chemicals actually are, and why you shouldn't be eating them at all.

Of course, Chick-Fil-A is no different from pretty much every other fast "food" place.  In order to be that fast, that cheap, and that tasty, corners have to be cut.  And typically that means that fresh food has to be tinkered with and altered to the point that it is frankenfood.  The more you learn about this stuff, the worse it gets, and the more motivated you will be to pack food for the car or wait to eat when you get home.

One facebook friend said I was being pretty harsh in my observations, and after some thought I decided that I do have harsh feelings on this subject. I started thinking about dear friends and relatives that have died from cancer and leukemia, and about young children that have also had cancer and died.  All the time I hear people say how much they hate cancer.  They say, "What is causing cancer?"  "Why does this happen?"  We wear pink ribbons and "walk for the cure" and donate money for cancer research, to find a cure for cancer.

What about prevention?

Not enough people want to look at what we are putting in our mouths, what is in the water we drink, what is in the cleaners and cosmetics and body care products we use, what is in our medicines and vaccines, and what's going into every bit of our environment and the very air we breathe.

Why do so many human bodies have thriving cancer cells, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart failure, obesity, and a zillion other problems?  Why do we see young children even having high rates of these problems?  Might there be a connection to how we are (not) taking care of ourselves?  Might we be damaging our bodies with our food, water, air, environment, medical approach, or something else?

Our bodies are made to run on certain types of fuel, and yet it is getting harder and harder to be able to make that happen.  As one of my friends pointed out, it often seems like in order to have truly healthy food, we have to DIY pretty much everything.

I feel that way every time I find out that one more thing that I thought was safe isn't.

It's a bummer.

It can be incredibly hard to manage all of these things in our culture.  Even as passionately as I feel about these issues, I find it difficult to consistently live out my convictions to the extent that I would like to.  And for all of the many very good things that I *do* consistently manage to do, even I do not experience perfect health, perfect energy, or have ease with weight management.  So, when I tell you that I have great compassion for all of us as we strive to respond to these issues and guard our health, believe me that it's true.  I have to have compassion for my own human frailties and shortcomings every single day.  We all have to be kind to ourselves, as the deck is stacked against us in so many ways.

What I do think is possible is for us to continue to educate ourselves, read labels, ask questions, and not turn away from the job of doing better as we respond to what we learn.

Food, cosmetics, cleaners, body care, basic health care, and water are all generally things that we can find solutions for and work toward improving in our everyday lives.  Unfortunately, there are many things within our environment that we cannot immediately control that can still interfere with our health.  We could do all the "right things" that we know to do and still not experience great health, not be healed from an illness, or we could even get sick with something terrible and die.  We don't have any guarantees.  We can do our best to keep ourselves and our families strong and healthy, and leave the rest to God.