GOT TO START SOMEWHERE...

 

GOT TO START SOMEWHERE…

 

As soon as I graduated from high school, I went to the Army recruiting station to sign up. After I got tested and qualified, I was told to report for a physical. At that time, I weighed 112 pounds. You had to weight at least 120 to get approved. Fortunately, the corpsman who gave the physicals lived a couple of houses away from us and passed me on through. He told me I would put on weight after I got in the Army.

Well, he was certainly right about that. I am now at least 25 or 30 pounds heavier than I would like to be and like many of you I must fight on a daily basis to keep from gaining more and more.

What I do know is that when I was in elementary school and high school, we did not have any fat or obese kids. We also did not have any kids with allergies to milk, gluten, sugar, peanuts or shrimp. We ate everything. But we did not have any ‘fast’ food or snacks as we have today.

In 1980 the obesity rate in this country was 15%, not much higher than when I graduated from high school. Today, the rate in our country is 40% and climbing.

We stopped seeing advertisements for cigarettes in January of 1971 and tobacco sales started dropping. After 1971, the tobacco companies started buying up the major food companies such as Kraft, General Foods and Nabisco. There is a lot of documentation on how the tobacco companies started researching ways to keep us craving the food products they produce.

Now we have a new man on the job in the image of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He has shaken up a goodly portion of the country by eliminating junk food from being purchased using food stamps. The government is issuing out some 405 million dollars a day to food stamp programs. The fraud rate for food stamps is 11%...that means that 1 out of every $9 is wasted on fraud. Not very efficient if you ask me.

So, Kennedy has put the kibosh on fat snacks much to the hue and cry of many consumers. “Where will I get my chips and cookies and my soft drinks if I can’t use my food stamps?” well, you may have to use your own money and not ours (taxpayers) and you may have to learn to live on foods that are healthiest for us rather than because they taste good.

Obesity is not good for any of us (including me) it leads to multiple issues such as heart disease, diabetes, strokes and the like. We all know it, we all have known it and are now being faced with the fact that someone needed to stand up and do something to help us to not only help our children but ourselves as well.

Kudos to Secretary Kennedy for stepping forward and taking that first giant step toward helping us get this nationwide epidemic under control. It hurts me to say that carrots and celery are much better for me (and for you) than a cookie.

But you know, I’m right.

See you next week….Peary Perry

AH, SWEET MYSTERIES OF LIFE…

 

AH, SWEET MYSTERIES OF LIFE….

As you are probably aware I am a man of many talents. One of which is finding answers to rather obscure questions you have always wanted to ask but never knew where you could find the information.

Well, I am here to introduce you to a new character in my blogs, say hello to Mr. Answerman.

My first question of the day comes from Mr. Vigil Ackermann of Westover, Iowa who wants to know…”What happens to the old bananas in the grocery store?”.

“Well, Mr. Ackermann….these are either sold to companies that use them for baking, given to charities or just  dumped in the trash.”

I hope that cleared that one up…

Our next question is from Miss. Idabel Dunkenschmidt of Port Oasis, Nevada who asks…” What happens to the old flowers in the grocery store?”.

Mr. Answerman responded with this: Well,  Miss. Dunkenschmidt ….these are either sold to companies that use them for funerals, given to charities or just dumped in the trash.

Our final question of the day comes to us from across the pond from a Mr. Archie Piebald of West Hampton Courts on the Green, Surrey who asks ..” How come when I go to turn on a lamp in my living room, the on/off knob is always in the back of the lamp, making it difficult to reach”.

Mr. Answerman replied with .. ‘No comment.”

So much for that part of today. The rest of today is about our use of expiration dates on foods that we buy. Is it really necessary to use them by the ‘best used’ date or before the ‘expiration’  date?

This is a discussion that goes on and on in millions of households throughout the world except in Iran, where it is against the law to eat or drink anything sanitary., according to Google and Facebook. But here in America, most men will drink milk that is still able to be poured as a liquid out of the container. If it becomes solid enough, they know that sooner or later it will become cheese. That is if only their wives will allow them to wait long enough. Lifelong bachelors manage to survive just fine using this cost and time saving tool. They also know that you can leave half eaten uncovered cans of chili in the refrigerator for over 5 days before the fuzz starts growing on the top. Penicillin was discovered this way by Dr. Alexander Fleming in 1928 when his wife left him for 3 months to take care of her aging mother.

I am of the firm belief that if the can is still intact (not swollen or open) than eating it will produce no harm, no foul. I along with many of my friends have eaten off of the food carts in small rural towns in Mexico and we are still alive. I think this kind of builds your resistance and immunity to various diseases. Your comments and thoughts are welcome on this matter.

See you next week, Peary Perry