Healthy = Frugal = Green

I think the single most important thing an individual can do to be frugal and/or green is to be healthy. Healthy food doesn't come with over packaging that ends up in landfills, and contrary to what the media tries to tell folks, it is cheaper to eat healthy. Ever check out the price of a pound of dried beans? Brown rice? How about raw veggies like carrots, onions, and broccoli. I'm not just talking about vegetarian food either. Lean meats like turkey and chicken often go on sale for a dollar a pound or less, and one pound will feed more than one person. I can sure buy a lot of these healthy items for the cost of one fast food meal for my family, even if we only ordered off the dollar menu.

Another great benefit to being healthy is cost of health care and medications. My children and I have each gone years without having to go to the doctor due to illness. My children also rarely miss school. It is not uncommon for them to go the entire year without missing a day and one child went the entire time she went back to public school, eighth grade and all of high school, without missing a day. Now don't get me wrong, we do eat far too much crap, but I believe we are still overall pretty healthy due to some basic rules I have always stuck to - but those are for another post. Here is the biggy in regards to the environment when it comes to medications. Did you know that when you take meds they pass through your system and into the water supply. (The same, of course, goes for flushing them down the drain.) Water treatment plants cannot removed all those meds from the water. Here is one of many articles about this issue. I urge you to at least glace at it.

So here is where I tell you what a hypocrite I am. I quit smoking a few years ago. Actually, I quit smoking many times, sometimes many times in one year, over the past 20 something years. I hate to even say it - hate to admit I ever smoked! I never enjoyed it and quitting was the hardest thing I ever did. The result of finally quitting is that I let myself gain weight - a lot of weight! I have lost weight before and I knew that if I could beat nicotine addiction I could most certainly drop the weight. Well, it turned out to be harder than I thought it would be. "They" say (I have no idea who - just go with it) that your metabolism drops after you quit smoking and takes about a year to get back to normal. I really have no idea if that's true but it sure seemed that way. Fortunately for me I don't take medication for anything - yet, even though due to genetics, I am at risk for type II diabetes and high blood pressure.

So here we are, the entire point of this post - well, most of it anyway - it to say this out loud to the world. I have joined in on a weight loss competition with some of the folks I work with, and I'm going to try like crazy to win! I know I rambled all over the place with this post - let's just blame it on lack of fructose and leave it at that!