HCG progress and updates - for people on it or thinking abou

Oh, Lioness, I don't bother actually SAYING anything to anyone because people are stupid (or rather, people are addicted).

Our food supply has become as powerful as drugs in terms of the way they react chemically without bodies. And those chemical reactions create imbalances that further drive the desire for these drug-like foods. The sugars, the corn syrup, the additives like MSG etc etc... these substances create cravings - but you know all that.

My thing is I won't waste my time telling someone who wants to eat junk that its junk. Why bother? It's like telling a heroin addict that heroin is bad for him. It's a useless waste of time.

Beyond that, the other unfortunate fact is that in our country you have to be rich to eat well. Don't get me started on that. The sad fact is that in many places you cannot buy organic (for example, where Iive) without traveling great distances. And even then you better have the MONEY for that. Most Americans don't and paying extra NOW for something with unknown benefit LATER is not part of our national mentality. After all, we say, we're all going to die anyway. In many low income neighborhoods, there isn't even a grocery store of ANY KIND. Nowhere to buy pesticide laden produce even if you wanted it. Only a bunch of fast food places and a corner store that sells cheetos and soda.

So I keep my mouth shut. If I am going to be "active" in this issue I'll direct my activity and anger toward legislators who can create better standards and toward lobbying groups that try to influence them with their money and keep us all sick. I cannot be angry with the end user. Most folks have fewer choices and I'm blessed to have the luxury of being able to make that choice. Our food industry and chemical industries in this country are killing us with the desire to mass produce food products as cheaply as possible. That's the true root of the problem.

Gorgeous and Lioness, I couldn't agree more. It's cheap to be fat in this country. It's expensive to eat healthy. I was just looking into organic grass fed beef - over 26 dollars a pound!!! Sorry. I'll eat lean, convntional beef. I think most of the toxins get stored in the fat anyway, like with us humans?
Indeed, I work for one of our state senators and that's one of the things I've been speaking to him about. We subzidize everything - why can't we find a way to subsidize organic farmers and livestock ranches so as to pass savings on to consumers? There's too much money in the lobby groups the other industries have.
Think about the high-fructose corn syrup industry alone - multi billion dolllar industry. And then what happens if everyone suddenly stops using products with hfcs? Revenue is lost, an industry collapses etc.
We can't change the world. We can hopefully live a more healthy life and tach our children to do the same.

OK - I think I'll move to where you live.
I am in the great state of New York, in the Hudson River Valley. I don't have a Trader Joe's nearby. The two local places - Foodtown and a local market- have the better cuts of organic grass fed beef at an average of $26 a pound. I paid almost $10 for a pound of "cubed steak" or "swiss steak" . My husband freaked out. He called it chicken steak and said that even though they grew up with not a lot of money, his mother would never have bought that. LOL. He's right. Regular cubed steak is probably like a dollar a pound.
Our "farmer's markets" are gourmet affairs at which people like to be seen supporting sustainability (read: paying through the nose for organic produce!).
I can get good deals on organic produce at some of the supermarkets sometimes - especially the frozen veggies, but not on the meat. I have just gotten in contact with a local ranch, but have not heard pricing yet.

If we only do red meat twice a week, we'll be okay.

***IMPORTANT NOTICE ABOUT LOCATING THIS POST***

Many of you may already be familiar with what happens when a thread reaches 500 posts, but for those who are not.....

A thread will appear in your topics with a lock symbol. If you attempt to post, your post will not be saved. Instead, look at the LAST post on the thread and there will be a link that will take you to the "part 2" of the post with the same name. Once you have posted on the new thread, it will come up in your my topics. BTW, once you are in the new thread, if you go to the first post that appears there, it will have a link that takes you back to "part one"--the original post.

I am making a point of explaining this because on another thread I am on, we regularly hit 500 posts by about the 20th of each month and inevitably, there will be people who can't figure out "Where did everyone go? No one is posting." And it will be due to the fact that the new thread is not showing up in their my topics, and doesn't happen to show in recent posting list, or they don't look there.

See you in the new thread, which, at the rate we are going, could happen later today, or probably by tomorrow.

Okay, so what I said ABOVE, is NOT, apparently, what is going to happen, since someone started another thread. I fear this may result in confusion, and two active threads, but we will have to make the best of it. This post should be #499, so when the next one is reached, that is when the link I mentioned will appear. After the automatically generated thread appears, someone will need to go one and post the updated link, to the thread that was manually created, so everyone ends up in the same place:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/112881-hcg-progress-updates-page-2-for-people-on-it-or-thinking-a

is where you SHOULD be going.