Do You Have What It Takes?

4/3/24

Last week I fought a fairly heinous case of food poisoning. The restaurant has an excellent history with the health dept. and you are free to see into the kitchen and see it is clean and see them wipe down surfaces etc. After having only one bite of my meal, a friend had an upset stomach that night so it was potent.

I am not one to get very ill from food poisoning when I am exposed. I attribute this to growing up in a home where we didn’t freak out over germs. It was probably to our advantage food got left out overnight; we probably had sufficient exposure to build resistance LOL.

After comparing symptoms and onset, I settled on staph. The irony is it isn’t the staph that makes you sick, it’s the toxins produced from the infected item that is the culprit.

Oddly, the food was almost completely digested before I made myself open my mind to the reality that if I could just throw up I would feel better. Well that’s how it worked in the past anyway. I was usually back on a regular diet within 2 days but trying to “do the right thing” I tried to ease myself back into eating with a minimal bland diet.  5 Days later I decided I had enough and I pushed the issue. Geeze, why didn’t I do that sooner? For the first time in almost a week, I felt good.

Strangely, a thought came to mind. What about the other types of “foods” we consume? Education, media, medicine, spiritual/religious, psychological, political ad infinitum. All one has to do is look around or listen and we can see that our world is being poisoned by the “foods” we consume. It’s jut a different type of “food poisoning”. What’s worse, is so much of it is “empty calories”, no real nutritional value.

I mean, think about it, if the toxic things we consume with our ears and eyes caused as much physical sickness, pain, vomiting, diarrhea and bloating as food poisoning did, our “diets” would look much different…wouldn’t they? Did it ever occur to you that they do indeed cause pains and discomforts. Anxiety? Mind racing? Depression? Can’t seem to focus? Having relational issues with family, friends, neighbors or coworkers? Can’t sleep? Kids acting up? Nerves shot? Worried about the future and what it holds? High blood pressure? Trouble in the bedroom? Angry more often than you used to be? Digestive issues? Body aches? Look up just how many symptoms stress can exhibit and just how many areas of your body can be affected. YES STRESS. Poor diets create chaos and stress.

While virtually ANY “food” can be toxic, addicting and have no nutritional value whatsoever, we do still have to eat. Would you let your kids eat nothing but ice cream and candy? Of course not yet we let them gorge themselves on things like video games, social media and crappy “entertainment”. How many times have you limited those things and made them read? When is the last time YOU read? We’ve been told so many of our country’s mental, emotional and physical health issues are from the crap that we consume. We are ALL …wait for it…CONSUMERS. Isn’t it time you looked at your “diets” and be honest about when your food tries to hurt you?