When I was working in the health food store, I recall being in a conversation with a woman who gave me every excuse under the sun to not accept any of the suggestions I offered her to start restoring her body back to good health. In my mind I was giving her what I silently call the “10 yeah, buts…” This means if a person gives me 10 excuses to my plethora of suggestions, regardless of what they are asking my advice on, I silently surrender—they truly are not ready to make change, in my opinion. Following her last “yeah, but” when she said she couldn’t afford to eat healthy, I replied “Do you know what doesn’t cost one red dime?” I could see in her eyes she was ready to hit me with another “yeah, but.” Instead, she asked “what?” I replied, “It doesn’t cost one red dime to not eat fast food, fried food, packaged
and processed foods, and sugars!” With that, she huffed and walked away. I was only speaking the truth!
Are We Truly Eating Real Food?
Quite often when I am in a conversation with someone about healthy foods versus consuming cheap food-like substances, inevitably what I am almost guaranteed to hear is “but it’s too expensive to eat healthy!” The truth of the matter is it’s simply cheap to eat food-like substances like fast food, fried foods, packaged and processed foods, and sugar. The first thing we have to wrap our minds around to appreciate this statement is that most of the “foods” we consume these days are not real foods; they are just food-like substances (make this a pull quote). What do I mean by this? Let’s first take a look at the definition of food :
How is Food Defined?
“Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals.”
Merriam Webster’s definition is “material consisting essentially of protein, carbohydrate, and fat used in the body of an organism to sustain growth, repair, and vital processes and to furnish energy.”
If you were to measure most of the things we call “food” up against these definitions, they would not qualify since they would not fit the definition—not even close.
So, when someone makes the statement “it’s too expensive to eat healthy,” they are really comparing apples to oranges (no pun intended!). Perhaps a more accurate statement would be they are comparing apples to garbage.
What Are “Food-Like Substances?”
The majority of substances people consume under the guise of “food” has been highly processed and manufactured to simply appear like food. But if you were to pass any of these products under a microscope, you would not find anything that could fit the above definitions; there is no nutritional value there—in particular vitamins, minerals, (good) fats, proteins, and (complex) carbohydrates. There is nothing in these products that could sustain growth of the new cells our bodies need; nothing is there to repair any damage to the tissues, organs, and systems that our bodies desperately need on a daily basis, and certainly nothing there will furnish true energy. All of these things are vital to sustain our bodies and our lives in a healthy way. So, if they don’t serve a purpose of any nutritional value, then why are we spending any money on them? Because we are being fooled into believing they are real food.
Why Do We Need Real Food?
Every cell, tissue, organ, and system in our body is fully dependent on us to make the wise choices as to what to give it each and every day. You see, whatever we give it—whether real food of nutritional value, or food-like substances that lack any nutritional value and are actually nutrient- depleting and toxic—that’s what the body has to use to make the next cells the body needs to make the next tissues, that make the next organs, that make the next systems, that make up YOU today. There is no other way the body can receive the building blocks it needs except from what we give it.
Where Are Your Health Priorities?
If you had a choice, where would you place your priorities to ensure you obtain the best you can afford when you choose a house to live in—the place you look to for protection, safety, comfort, and longevity? Most people even go so far as to take out a loan to make sure they have the best they can afford. Why would we not do the same for our bodies? We can even replace a house if we had to, but we are only ever given just one body—the one God entrusted to us. Are you beginning to see it is truly NOT too expensive to eat healthy? It’s just cheap to eat food-like substances.
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Because the packaged and processed foods are really just food-like substances, the food manufacturers can afford to mass produce these products at a very low cost and a high return on investment. They can then turn around and sell it to you—with their marketing ploys on the front of the package for good measure—as a “food” that costs very little. Or so you are led to believe.
Is it Really Too Expensive?
Or is it really just a cheap knock off? When you take into consideration the serious and major health ramifications to you and your family over the long haul, you need to ask yourself “is it worth it?” The old adage “you get what you pay for” should quickly come to mind. Do you really want to cut corners with your health, your body, the only body you will ever have here on this earth?
In addition, there is a major expense to farmers (at least in the United States) who are committed to growing real food as nature and God intended it to be, and not by genetically modifying it for mass production. “Organic” simply means that it is real food, grown the real way, without modification. Sadly, the burden of proof rests on the farmers. They have to jump through dozens of hoops to prove to the U.S. government and consumers that they simply grew their food as God intended. These hoops are quite costly, and ultimately the consumer pays more because our U.S. government requires it to be that way.
Your Health is No Place to Pinch Pennies!
- Preventable illness makes up approximately 80% of the burden of illness and 90% of all healthcare costs.
- Preventable illnesses account for eight of the nine leading categories of death.
- The United States spends more on health care than any other industrialized nation in the world and yet, in many respects, its citizens are not the healthiest.(1)
Wellness Is NOT too Expensive
These are just some of the many ways “wellness is not too expensive.” I hope this will start your wheels turning and perhaps even wake you up a little bit (or maybe even get you a little angry!) about how you might have been duped all of these years into thinking you were doing the right things for your health, only to come up against a brick wall time and time again. Now you know.
(1) Iglehart, J.K. “The American health care system–expenditures.” The New England Journal of Medicine, 340(1): January 7, 1999.
The bottom line is, wellness takes work, effort, and commitment. I told you I would speak the truth!
To book Dr. Jackie for speaking engagements go to: https://jackiemckool.com/schedule-jackie/
See more of these blogs, in case you missed them, for greater insight to the Truth About Wellness:
“Mirroring God – Wholistic Health is Not Easy!”
“Mirroring God – Wellness is Not a Shortcut!”
“Mirroring God – The Truth About the Magic Pill!”