?Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength? Why pay for food that does you no good? Listen to me, and you will eat what is good. You will enjoy the finest food.
- Isaiah 55:2
Each one of us has some unique purpose in life, and God has given us three tools to use to fulfill that destiny ? a soul, a mind, and a body. Each one of these entities can only be as healthy as its nourishment. If you do not nourish your soul with meditation, your mind with education and your body with nutrition, you will not be able to continue progressing through this awesome journey of growth and development that we call Life. Avoid meditation and your soul will never be at peace. Avoid reading and learning and opportunities in school or at work will pass you by. Finally, avoid eating healthy foods and your body will become full of disease.
As the above verse is more figurative than literal, it does hold true for all investments in yourself. You must invest time into your soul and mind, and yes ? money into eating healthy, nourishing foods.
We must begin to take grocery shopping seriously and choose products that will be better for us in the long term over products that are impulsive purchases. And to be honest, grocery stores make these choices very easy! Conveniently, they put all of the healthy fruits and vegetables together, fish is in another section, while your meats are in another, and aisle 12 is concentrated with cookies, chips and soda. It?s like going to a car lot where all of the high-class new cars are in the showroom, and the used rusty cars are piled together in the back of the lot. We all deserve, and should choose to stay in the showroom.
The argument that I hear when I have made this suggestion to others is that ?healthy food is too expensive.? Well, let?s find the truth:
Contrary to popular belief, it can actually cost more to eat badly. In fact, a new government report finds that nutritious foods ? such as grains, vegetables, fruit and dairy ? typically cost less than items high in saturated fat and added sugars. ? USA Today
In addition, healthier foods cause you to feel full quicker, so you eat less food. And?you will save money in the long run because unlike the person who chooses unhealthy foods, you will not have to put money towards doctor?s visits and medications for high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and other chronic diseases. According to Consumer Reports, 46 percent of Americans take on average 4.1 prescription medications. As far as costs, this averages out to be $723 per year (US 2007 Census). Being sick can also cause you to miss work and lose money that way.
How to Change
Change begins in the grocery store. What you don?t have in your house, you simply won?t eat! Here are a few things you can do to save money on healthier foods:
Buy frozen fruits and vegetables. Frozen fruits and vegetables are cheap and don?t spoil. This is the most simple and effective change you can make in your shopping habits.
Buy your fresh fruits and fish before you buy any other foods. Make it a habit to allow your healthy food options take the first portion of your budget.
Choose fresh foods that are in season ? they will be cheaper.
Only buy whole wheat grains, including pastas, rice and breads. These foods fill you up quick, so you will eat less, which will also help you lose weight.
Don?t buy soda? Ever.
Look up recipes and plan your meals and shopping list ahead of time. Site like DrGourmet.com, CookingLight.com, and MayoClinic.com can help you plan.
Be willing to make some changes in your lifestyle. It may be challenging at first, but soon enough you will ask yourself ?how did I ever eat that!?
If you're aiming to get your hands on one of the many Windows Phone 8 devices launching later today, it would be nice to be able to sync it with your Windows 8 PC, no? Redmond has you covered in the nick of time, as it's just released the free Windows Phone app to its Windows Store. That'll let you get music, photos, or video over to your computer and back, use Windows 8 apps to share things like searches, automatically save photos or videos taken with your phone to your PC and check your phone's storage to see how it's being used. It'll also let allow you to download phone apps and learn more about your device, while pulling off a trick we've saw first with Apple, then WP7 -- letting you track down your smartphone if it goes missing. You can grab it at the source, then all you'll need is a WP8 (or 7.8) handset -- so stay tuned for our liveblog at 10:00 am PST / 1:00 pm EST to see when that might happen.
Good news for Japanese startups: Japan's largest mobile carrier, NTT Docomo, has announced a $125 million investment fund and incubator program for smartphone and tablet related startups -- to be called the Docomo Innovation Fund and the Docomo Innovation Village -- both due to kick off at the end of March 2013.
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25 October 2012Last updated at 18:47By Michelle WarwickerBBC Nature
Italian scientists say they have solved the mystery of how archer fish can spit powerful jets of water.
Archer fish shoot water jets with enough force to knock prey into the water from overhanging vegetation.
Research by a team from the University of Milan shows that the fish's forceful strike is formed externally using water dynamics, rather than using the body's internal muscles.
This technique allows the animals to take accurate shots from up to 2m away.
For years scientists studied archer fish (Toxotes jaculatrix), searching for evidence of specialised internal organs that are adapted to this water-pistol-like hunting technique.
But previous studies have ruled out this idea.
The new research, published in the PLoS ONE journal, demonstrated that archer fish "modulate" the velocity of the water jet as they spit to alter its shape through the air.
The head of the water jet increases in volume from liquid arriving from its tail to form a large drop, which hits insect prey with greater force.
Professor Alberto Vailati, a member of the research team said they needed to watch high-speed video recordings to make their discovery.
Underwater Olympians
It is the accuracy with which archer fish shoot deadly darts of water at prey that earned the species its name.
The jets of water are produced when archer fish press their tongues against a groove in their mouths to form a gun-barrel-like shape, and close their gills to force out a spurt of water.
The water spurts are up to six times stronger than the fish's muscular power - strong enough to abruptly knock even firmly anchored prey into the water so that the archer fish can devour them.
Other animals, such as chameleons, use a "catapult" technique by storing energy in collagen fibres within their bodies.
These internal structures "act as a kind of spring", allowing chameleons to suddenly shoot their tongues out to capture prey, said Prof Vailati.
The findings by Prof Vailati and his colleagues are the first to suggest that it is external powers of physics rather than biological causes that afford archer fish with their deadly darts.
Join BBC Nature on Facebook and Twitter @BBCNature.
ST JOHN?S, Antigua ? Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA) is negotiating with local banks for a loan to restructure the nearly $37 million in debt, owed to the Antigua Power Company (APC).
Speaking on OBSERVER Radio?s Voice of the People, Minister of Finance Harold Lovell said APUA?s problems will not be solved overnight and needs a lasting solution.
?APUA is currently negotiating with a commercial bank with a view to taking a long term loan so that they will be in a position to liquidate the debt to APC in its entirety,? he said.
In a press release printed in the October 19, edition of this paper, APUA noted that APC charges 12 per cent interest on its debt adding, ?This has placed a severe strain on the company.?
It is not known what interest rate APUA will be seeking from the commercial banks, only that it is negotiating with several.
?They are speaking to more than one bank, but the discussions are most advanced with one particular bank,? Lovell said.
He added that APUA senior management has been in talks with a consultant in an effort to reorganise the statutory company.
On Monday government paid $2 million to APC as part of a deal to prevent it from following through with a threat to shut off most of the island?s electricity.
The finance and economy minister said central government had historically never paid for the electricity it consumed. However, in 2010 it signed a Memorandum of Understanding to pay $1 million a month to APUA, which would liquidate the debt, owed and pay down on current consumption.
?That $1 million a month is divided into $500,000 by way of set off of the ABST that is collected by APUA on our behalf, which is not paid over,? he said.
The remaining $500,000 is injected directly into APUA on a monthly basis.
?There is no such thing as free electricity. Somebody always pays and we are committed to being on a path whereby whatever is consumed is paid for,? Lovell said.
But while APUA is seeking loans to pay its debts, the company is owed millions.
Earlier this year APUA?s Chairman Clarvis Joseph said EC $682 million was owed to APUA.
He had disclosed that government is responsible for $330 million of this, while the bill for statutory corporations is almost $19 million.
Private businesses accounted for roughly $50 million of the state utility company?s receivables.
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(More in today?s Daily OBSERVER)
Tags: antigua power company | antigua public utilities authority | APUA seeks loan | Bank | minister of finance harold lovell | repay APC debt
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Yesterday, 03:07 PM
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#1 (permalink)
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have you heard of wet houses?
I'd post the link but I don't think I can...
The Detroit Free Press has an article today about wet houses. They are a place for chronic, homeless alcoholics to live. A place where they can drink behind closed doors.
Advocates say that it will reduce police, jail and emergency room services because the alohoholic can drink in peace rather than in public.
I don't know how I feel about the idea. My exah has been homeless at times. He's been in jail. He's been in the emergency room. He's been in psych wards. If you accept that alcolism is a disease (which I most definitely do), than isn't it an act of compassion to give him a room...a place to live...even though he is sick...or maybe especially BECAUSE he is sick?
Or is this just another form of enabling. Homelessness isn't the bottom for some people. Some people never get better. I worry that my exah is one of them. Being homeless hasn't done it...jail...er visits...psych wards...maybe he doesn't have a bottom. Maybe it's an act of compassion to give him a place where he can live and drink in peace. (Just as long as it isn't MY house).
I just don't know what I think about it.
What do you think?
__________________ Why not go out on a limb? That's where the fruit is. - Mark Twain
We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
-E.M. Forster
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Yesterday, 03:27 PM
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#2 (permalink)
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I have seen this on tv. It really blew my mind at first. Still not quite sure I know what to think of it. The theory behind it is just as you said. They get a room, food, and are allowed to drink. They are rationed so many alcoholic drinks a day. Supposedly research has shown that some alcoholics end up drinking less after being there for a while.
Definately got mixed feelings about it.
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Yesterday, 03:29 PM
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#3 (permalink)
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might be a peace of mind for family members though. At least they know where their son, daughter, husband, wife, are at.
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Yesterday, 03:38 PM
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One opened this year in my town. I don't know how to feel about it either. On the one hand, yes, it gives alcoholics a place to drink themselves to death with some dignity -- that's been the argument from the people who created it. That it's sort of like a hospice for alcoholics who can't be cured.
On the other hand it makes me angry. Because hospice is for people for whom there is no help; a place for them to die with dignity. These "wet houses" are for people who either deny they are sick or refuse to get treatment. It's more like leper colonies than hospices. It's a way for well-meaning do-gooders to feel like they're doing something for these unfortunate addicts when, in reality, they're padding their fall and preventing them from hitting rock bottom, thereby really being the ultimate codependents.
I don't know which one it is. If my AXH was homeless, would I rather that he had a place to drink himself to death while being warm? Sure. But I would rather that his life become so uncomfortable that he decided to get sober.
There have been several people who died there. The cops are there a lot. There are I believe something like 23 apartments in this place. There are many times that many addicts and mentally ill people who camp out in the woods. I sort of have the feeling that the people who are together enough to be able to apply for a spot in these houses could theoretically become sober, too. The folks who sleep in the woods out here don't even have the wherewithall (most of them) to consider that there may be options. So are these houses harming people that could be helped, while ignoring the people who really are beyond sobriety and recovery? I don't know.
__________________ My
"If you're going through hell, keep going!" (Winston Churchill)
"Unacceptable behavior is unacceptable." (LaTeeDa)
"Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same."
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Yesterday, 03:39 PM
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#5 (permalink)
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Quote:
They get a room, food, and are allowed to drink. They are rationed so many alcoholic drinks a day. Supposedly research has shown that some alcoholics end up drinking less after being there for a while.
Oh -- then that's something different. What I'm talking about is just subsidized housing for "chronic inebriates" where nobody cares how much they drink as long as they don't cause trouble.
__________________ My
"If you're going through hell, keep going!" (Winston Churchill)
"Unacceptable behavior is unacceptable." (LaTeeDa)
"Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same."
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Yesterday, 04:49 PM
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#7 (permalink)
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I've never heard of subsidized housing for chronic inebriates.
For low-come families...yes.
For disabled folks...yes.
Even if the housing rent is 100% subsidized, the alcoholic would still responsible for food, clothing, utilities, etc. I don't get it.
I did watch a documentary on a place like what LynnRae described. It's sort of like a halfway house in that there are multiple people with their own rooms, but instead of recovering alcoholics, it's the opposite.
I definitely have mixed feelings on the subject.
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Yesterday, 05:00 PM
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I saw it on tv too, like they get so many free shots per day or something to keep the DT's away.
Ridiculous, in my opinion. If people can get state assistance, they should be sober. Our tax dollars are paying them to stay drunk.
And I keep telling the ABF I won't pay for him to drink. At least I KNOW him.
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Yesterday, 06:05 PM
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There is a bean counter in this mix. And I am leaning towards the health insurance industry.
It's a hell of alot cheaper to supply them with some cheap gut rot booze than to pay for detox, rehab, recurring hospital stays.
IMO, this is about MONEY. Health is no longer an issue. How very disturbing.
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Yesterday, 06:09 PM
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#11 (permalink)
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Its a ridiculous idea,the ultimate in enabling.
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Yesterday, 07:25 PM
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#13 (permalink)
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I'm sorry, I find it very obnoxious that active alcoholics are being provided a safe place to drink when there are children who are hungry and cold.
Funded enabling.
Bad idea, on so many levels.
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Yesterday, 08:25 PM
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According to this NYT article, this housing alternative is actually "cheaper" for the taxpayer.
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Yesterday, 08:52 PM
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Yeah, tjp, I don't wish to turn this into a political discussion, but it's infuriating and disgusting to me that tax payers at all are involved in paying for anything for addicts. Infuriating.
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"Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same."
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Yesterday, 09:05 PM
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#17 (permalink)
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It's an emotive issue. There's probably no right answer.
A lot of homeless alcoholics and addicts in my town die from other causes apart from drink/drugs...violence, accident, exposure, ill health....
these places, at least where I am, are not for the middle tier alcoholic - they're for the homeless, the vagrants, and those who've reached the end of their tether and may not be capable of making much in the way of rational decisions anymore.
It's not the Ritz.
Maybe it's because I'm an alcoholic myself and I can see what might have been in every homeless guy but I personally don't see that as enabling.
It's not a perfect solution, but to me it's a humane response to a pretty damn intractable problem.
D
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Yesterday, 09:11 PM
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I have never heard of this, but I live in a small town. It would never fly here.
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Yesterday, 09:29 PM
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A few questions came to mind:
Do these houses have rules? What if someone is violent? Are they kicked out?
Are the houses cleaned periodically? Or do the alcoholics live in there among vomit, excrement and spilled alcohol?
What if they wander away drunk; wouldn't that defeat the purpose?
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Yesterday, 10:16 PM
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I personally feel that as human beings we have the right in this society to a dry place to live, whether we are alcoholics or otherwise. I also personally believe that we have the responsibility as a SOCIETY (not individually) to provide dry shelter to all human beings who need it. I agree with Lillamy, though, that there are people who are homeless who do not have the resources, contacts, or even the presence of mind to secure shelter and it seems discriminatory to provide for alcoholics so they can drink in peace while ignoring those even less fortunate. It's a huge dilemma in this country.
__________________ God, grant me the serenity
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Yesterday, 11:27 PM
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I just read the NY Times article from the link someone posted above... My gut reaction was one of horror and I can't really get past that. Hearing things like this is what keeps me sober.
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Yesterday, 11:49 PM
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I have never heard of this before. I will admit that I would not want one near my home for fear of disruption in the neighborhood and worries about my young son, but really I am not troubled by the idea in general because sadly many alcoholics and addicts live and die on the streets alone, and in my way of thinking it just not right. Also it might have some impact on the reduction of crime, and other concerns that affect the general non-addicted society.
I would actually view this very similiar to many other services provided to addicts; for example clinics that provide free clean needles, or free vials of Narcan to reverse an opiate overdose; so they can carry it with them, or have available for friends who might overdose. If you want to argue enabling continued use; well these things might also be an example.
And then hmmm.. what about churches, and shelters offering free meals to those in need; a lot of them are addicts, or alcoholics. Wouldnt this also be enabling? Well technically I think it would by the common definition.
I actually view all of the above as more of a kind love, instead of tough love.
And in some cases, I can actually see where an alcoholic living on the streets, who then had the opportunity for shelter, a free defined amount of liquor, a bit of kindness; might actually begin to reduce his drinking and rely only on the freeebies, their life might improve if they were given a helping hand.
Of course just like everything else; it would have zero affect on some, and they would use it just as a flop house.
Hopefully funded by donations, as taxpayers should have a choice in all these matters.
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Good news for Japanese startups: Japan's largest mobile carrier, NTT Docomo, has announced a $125 million investment fund and incubator program for smartphone and tablet related startups -- to be called the Docomo Innovation Fund and the Docomo Innovation Village -- both due to kick off at the end of March 2013.
Yesterday, 03:07 PM
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