The Standard American Diet is absolutely bizarre. When the term is abbreviated, SAD, that says what everyone needs to know about typical American eating habits.

I opted out forty years ago when I decided to become a vegetarian. I was seventeen at the time, and could not understand why animals had to give their lives in order to sustain ours. However, my eating habits did not change without a struggle.

My first experience of negativity toward my diet choice came when my boyfriend’s step-father referred to me as a ‘vegetable’. My self-esteem was not strong and his comment devastated me and remained imprinted on my consciousness for years.

All my life I’ve been surrounded by meat eaters. Men either left me, in part because of my vegetarianism, or exerted influence over me until I accepted their eating habits as my own. However, I was never happy to be anything but vegetarian, and eventually these relationships ended. Each time I immediately reverted to my vegetarian diet.

I do not want to support an industry that kills animals. I also don’t believe meat is ideal for human consumption. A lot has been written to show associations with heart disease, hypertension, and cancer. In recent years I’ve learned about Mad Cow Disease, injections of antibiotics and Bovine Growth Hormone, and the horrendous living conditions of chickens and other animals intended to become food. Perhaps worst of all, the food given to livestock is unhealthy. It has been found to contain chemicals, dead and diseased animals of the same species, animal waste, plastic, and unhealthy amounts of grain – especially our ubiquitous and over-produced GMO corn. How could any good come from eating an animal that has consumed all this?

Over the years, vegetarian or not, I’ve been duped into using products that were not healthy for me. For example, aspertame. When it was put on the market I was led to believe it was a healthy substitute for supposedly more-dangerous saccharine. I thought Equal brand aspertame could be the answer to my post-pregnancy weight-gain problems. I used it exclusively as a sweetener for years, then switched to saccharine and Splenda. Since then I’ve done a study of various forms of sweeteners, both natural and artificial, and found that aspartame is especially toxic.

Aspartame was developed by a chemist working for a pharmaceutical company, G. D. Searle. It was approved for public distribution by CEO Donald Rumsfeld before he became Secretary of Defense for President George W. Bush. Despite reports that it may cause brain dysfunction and cancer it continues to be approved. It is still used in Diet Coke under the brand name, NutraSweet. It is also used in pharmaceutical medications and over-the-counter medications, including many intended for children. Aspertame is an ingredient many food manufacturers use in cakes, cookies, and prepared meals as well as other food products.

At one time I consumed a lot of diet cola, not realizing I was poisoning myself with aspertame, but now I’ve cut all sodas from my diet. Looking back at that era of my life I’m chagrined, wondering how many ingredients in those drinks were of animal origin. How can we possibly know since we’re not privy to the recipes and formulas?

Not knowing the true source of ingredients is a problem for vegetarians when using processed foods manufactured by industry. An example of this is pink yogurt. As a ‘vegetarian’ I often ate cherry yogurt. You would probably think this is an excellent food for a person who eats dairy products but not meat. Unfortunately the red food coloring used in cherry yogurt, carmine, is made of dried and crushed female cochineal insects. Hardly a vegetarian treat! Carmine is also used in pink ice creams, red candies, and fruit punch drinks. Again I was duped by the food manufacturing industry to think I was eating something healthy; instead I consumed something non-vegetarian which I would not normally choose to eat if I knew the source of the ingredients. I still eat yogurt, but I now buy organic, pure yogurt and use natural, organic fruit puree to flavor it.

Another danger many are unaware of is fluoride, that controversial chemical added to the public water supply in most American towns and cities. I consider this a much more pernicious danger because it gets into almost everything. For every manufactured food product there’s a good probability that fluoride is included. If the manufacturing plant is in an area where water is fluoridated, there’s most likely some in the food. Fluoride is associated with thyroid disorders, osteoporosis, cancer, memory lapses, dementia, ADHD, autism, and Altzheimer’s Disease. Fluoride even causes tooth decay which is the thing we’re supposed to believe it will prevent. There’s more, but I’ll stop here.

A few years ago I worked in a restaurant where I sucked down green tea flavored bottled drinks, at least once each working day. My partner warned me to stop drinking them because they could be fluoridated. I ignored him, and even laughed about it. Eventually I did a study on fluoride and woke up. I no longer buy bottled drinks because I don’t know where they came from or what is in them. Our local water supply doesn’t contain fluoride so that is the source of my cooking water. My drinking water comes from a spring at the foot of Mt. Shasta, here in Northern California.

One of the hardest things to give up is genetically modified (GMO) food. I’ve given up most soy. As a vegetarian, I do not even eat tofu. Most soy grown these days comes from GMO soy crops. I occasionally use a tiny bit of soy sauce and that is all. I’m amazed at all the food products created for vegans and vegetarians that contain soy. Choose your poisons wisely!

GMO corn is even harder to avoid because it is in almost all manufactured processed foods, and unfortunately I like corn chips. I am trying to say no to all corn products now. For more information on GMO corn, and corn in general, I recommend the documentary movie, King Corn.

I consider all prepackaged, processed, manufactured foods to be potentially unsafe. This leaves me eating mostly foods I prepare at home. I have a garden and believe the healthiest foods – fruits and vegetables – are grown locally in areas such as mine where the water supply isn’t intentionally fluoridated.

It is a fact that when we buy from a supermarket we don’t know where our food came from, what chemicals were used on or in it, who picked it, and what was on the farm worker’s hands. E. coli food poisoning is usually traced to beef, but it has also been found on vegetables. I wash most of my store-bought vegetables and fruit with natural castile soap before using them, but even that won’t remove fluoride if that’s what the plant was watered with.

I may seem radical to most of you who read this, but I’ve been improving my diet over the course of many years; this didn’t happen all at one time. It is apparent to me that the very sad Standard American Diet is extremely unhealthy, but Americans everywhere still eat it. When I worked at the restaurant I saw people every day drinking sugary or diet sodas and eating sausage, chicken, roast beef, and other foods I consider unhealthy. The restaurant even offered packets of aspertame. I prepared and served foods I would not ever consider eating. I was shocked at the things people choose to consume, even with all the information available now on the internet.

I realize in the end I can save only myself. Most people aren’t willing to take food health threats seriously because that would involve uncomfortable, radical change. We grew up with a convenience food mentality, depending on cake mixes, canned soups, and fast food restaurants. Very few people want to change. Most don’t want to know they’ve been eating things that aren’t healthy. Perhaps learning the truth about processed foods would be too painful.

There are things you can do if you too decide to improve your health:

If you live in an area where fluoride is put into the public water supply, start a citizen’s campaign to end fluoridation there. Surely you’ll find many others who feel the same.

Just say no to sodas, bottled drinks of all kinds, GMO soy and corn, meat, and prepackaged, processed, manufactured foods of all sorts

If you find it hard to give these things up, tackle them one at a time. For example, say, “This week I’ll give up corn tortillas. Next week, no more diet cola.” Go easy on yourself and change your lifestyle gently, one unhealthy food at a time.

The Reality of Feed at Animal Factories

GMOs: The Greatest Threat Ever to Humans and Animals

Could There Be Evils Lurking in Aspertame Consumption?

Over-the-Counter and Prescription Drugs Containing Aspertame

This month I’ve cut my food budget to five dollars a week. This is totally going to change the way I eat. Already I’m running out of things I’m used to eating. The Clif Bars, at $1.50/day, went first. Also the hard candies I was buying to entertain myself with – they’re gone, which is a good thing because I realized they were made with corn syrup which is one of the greatest blights on humanity.

I ‘m getting to the point where I may soon be able to see real life. By this I mean that by having bad food habits I’ve been in a deep canyon all my life. By eliminating certain foods I will be able to emerge from that canyon into a better environment which will include clearer consciousness, greater insights, and other spiritual gifts which at this time I have no knowledge of.

It is a tragedy of this century that food manufacturers have placed most of humanity – especially Americans – into this canyon of ignorance because of two main influences. (1) Bad eating habits based on processed and poisoned foods, and (2) Learned helplessness. By that I mean we have learned to be dependent on large manufacturing industries for our food and jobs and without them we would be helpless – and the jobs are just about gone. What will happen if the economy pulls the food off our grocery shelves too? How many of us will be able to adjust and find ways to get enough food to live on?

I’m just guessing – but if 10% of Americans know how to garden and preserve food and are prepared and ready to do so, and the other 90% are dependent on food manufacturers for processed foods including breakfast bars and cereals, canned foods, imported coffee and tea, potato chips, mayonnaise and other condiments, store bought bread and pasta, etc, not to forget the incredible bottled beverage industry… if 90% of Americans are dependent on all this JUNK FOOD then what will happen if your NWO overlords decide to pull all that off the grocery store shelves – or if/when the dollar is devalued to the point where you can’t afford to buy a can of beans because it costs $100 and your unemployment check was just spent on rent? And those who eat meat – who are still convinced they can’t live without it – if you can’t get that, are you prepared to go out and kill something – a rat perhaps – then skin it and eat it? I mean, bletch! I personally cannot stand the thought of eating meat and have realized that the myth that we need high protein levels to thrive is just plain wrong. That could be propaganda from the meat industry!

The point here is that if you are not able and ready for a self-sustaining lifestyle you’re likely to suffer including watching your children starve to death before you do – like those families in Africa. Do you really think the world didn’t have enough food to feed them? I think they could have been saved if it were not for greed of food barons in other lands. Surely there’s a better way to manage the food resources of this planet.

All this to say – I hope you are ready to be part of the small percentage of Americans capable of being self-sufficient and able to eat during the recession years. Are you ready? I’m not, but I’m working on it.

These days of spending only five dollars a week on food have opened my eyes to some amazing revelations. For example, food addiction. I am actually having withdrawal symptoms as I wean myself of first one food then another. It distresses me to think that the economy could get so bad that entire families would be deprived and going through the same thing I’m going through now.

Now keep in mind, my challenge here is to buy no more than $5.00 worth of new food weekly, but I still have my stored food to eat. I also have a devoted boyfriend who gifted me with three items in the past two weeks. (1) Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, (2) tortillas worth over $6.00, and (3) a bunch of bananas. I must have pigged out on the tortillas because they are gone already, and this was a big thick bag. I will not replace them. I’ve decided to eat the filling alone —- or maybe make tortillas once a week as I still have flour.

The ice cream comes in a very small pint container. I decided to eat only ½ scoop daily. The last few days I’ve combined that with strawberries that I took from my freezer. So, I have plenty to eat – but I’m not eating what I’m used to, and there’s where withdrawals come in as I’m forced to make little dietary changes. Last night I did EFT for “food addictions” and it helped me feel a lot better.

So that’s the report for now. I’ve allowed myself one $5.00 shopping trip so far and that was spent on an onion, tomatoes, green pepper, candy and … I think that was all. The candy is gone now and won’t be replaced. This week I’ll resist tortillas and go for fresh veggies … especially potatoes and carrots as I’ve now run out of all that was in my garden except for one stray carrot I found in the garden today that I’ve now pulled with glee. It is in my kitchen veggie box. Next time I make steamed rice and lentils and veggies I’ll use it.

Onward toward the light and toward freedom from dependence on food manufacturers. Wish me luck and prepare yourselves for hard times ahead, because they are coming . The American dollar is worth less all the time. Please watch this video and stay informed.

Movie produced by George at Inflation US

I don’t know if any of you were in a situation anything like mine. If you identify, let me know. The problem was that my mother didn’t teach me how to cook, so as a young woman I was very much lacking in self-confidence when it came to cooking. Plus dinner preparations in our parental home were less than optimal. My mom woke up from a nap and went into the kitchen, not wanting to deal with us kids, and fixed something simple like hamburger patties or hamburger helper, and warmed-up green peas with a salad. There was always a salad, and that’s what she asked one of her daughters to fix. Honestly, my mom was and is a wonderful cook. She can do amazing things with food when she needs to. I’m just giving you a worst-case scenario. Still, I didn’t learn much about cooking.

Also my grandmother, her mother, was a fantastic cook. Dinners at her house were always wonderful. But neither of them took time to teach me how to cook, except for one incident I clearly remember. My mom wanted to teach me how to bake a cake and so she taught me - from a box. I remember baking a marble cake - I think it was chocolate cake mix with white cake mix swirled in. Now, that was a good, positive experience, and I thank Mom for it. But when I was 18, on my own, trying to start a family, I was clueless in the kitchen. I knew how to make grilled cheese sandwiches from processed prepared sliced cheese, and a tossed green salad, and oatmeal for breakfast, and that’s about it.

Of course this didn’t go over good with my first boyfriend (later he was my first husband) but he tried to help. We lived in San Francisco - at first in the Haight Ashbury, then in Noe Valley, and later in the Haight Ashbury again. At that time we started making bread together every day. He knew more about making bread than I did as apparently his mother did it. I, however, had never seen anyone making bread.

I’d seen my grandmother making pie dough. Once when I stayed with her as a teenager she decided to make a peach cobbler. I asked her to teach me how but she said something like, “Not now, I’m busy, I just want to do this and get it over with.” She put flour in a bowl, then butter. This she cut in with two knives. Nothing was measured. She poured in the appropriate amount of water, and voila! Perfect pie dough. Then she lined her 9×13″ pan with dough, put two big cans of peach slices in, poured in some sugar… again, no need to measure anything. Then she covered it with more dough and put it in the oven for an hour or so. It always came out perfect and I learned almost nothing about how to do it myself. I think I tried to make a peach cobbler once and it didn’t turn out nearly as good as my grandmother’s.

Anyhow, back to bread-baking in the Haight Ashbury. I tried every day to bake bread right, but usually it was a failure. Usually the bread didn’t rise right, or wasn’t cooked enough, or something would happen to make it less than perfect. It took months before I could produce edible bread. Somehow I had decided I couldn’t cook, so I couldn’t. A self-fulfilling prophecy. I knew nothing about being the kind of woman who could prepare a wholesome meal every evening, regularly and dependably. Plus my boyfriend and I had different eating preferences. I was a vegetarian; he wasn’t. He brought in steaks to cook for himself and didn’t want most of what I wanted to eat anyway.

So that was the beginning of my cooking career. I wish I’d worked in a restaurant back then; it would have made me feel much more comfortable with the issue of cooking food. Instead I suffered for many years, trying to learn to cook. Even to this day I still have times where a fear of cooking comes upon me. That lack of self-confidence is hard to get away from.

Because of all this, it is strange that I have a cooking blog, don’t you think? I can cook now, and have collected my own workable, practical vegetarian recipes over the years, but I’m hardly a natural at it.