1. What place do herbal, homeopathic, dietary or activity-based remedies have in modern American medicine?
When I looked up this topic, there was a ton of online resources to use. Some, it seemed, were owned by the "natural side" of huge corporations. But there were great examples of companies that are smaller and looked truly concerned for the authenticity of their products. I was especially interested in the "how to" websites. The ones that tell you how to do your own version at home for a remedy or whatever they were discussing. After all, that is kind of the point of a home remedy, not having to buy everything ready-made. I did find some sites that were warning people away from natural remedies, but that makes me wonder what they have to gain by people not trusting the earths remedies.
2. What impact does small-scale gardening and animal husbandry have on individual wellness?
While researching this question, I came across some really creative ideas on how to do these things in cramped spaces and even when you don't own your own home. I also came across some really good arguments as to why people(especially people under the poverty level) might not be able to do either of these. It was interesting because most of the time, we as people feel like we are not operating under a certain set of assumptions, until they're pointed out to us. I can see how this particular approach would be hard to set up or maintain for an urban community, so their wellness program may have to rely more on the other options I am looking at here
3. How does eliminating preservatives and chemicals used in food manufacturing have a positive impact on how our bodies work?
I got a lot of information with this search that was interesting relating to how our bodies assimilate food and the chemicals contained in it. I found it interesting that synthetic vitamins are basically wasted money because our bodies can't recognize the vitamins and minerals they contain because they are synthetic, so we flush them out in our waste. That's some really expensive pee considering how much most of us spend on vitamins and supplements. It's the same with a lot of our foods. Although most of our grocery-store-bought food has been genetically altered, most of the time it is still close enough to the original that our bodies will recognize it as food. The problem with that is, when our bodies break it down to use as energy, it also breaks down the pesticides and growth chemicals and store it in our fat cells as energy for later, making our bodies toxic. So when it does decide to use the stores of energy, it breaks down toxins as well as fat and feeds it to our cells. This causes premature fatigue and body toxicity.
4. What difference can each of us make on our environment by making more natural choices?
This search was one of the more productive that I did as far as concrete steps to reduce our impact on the environment. There were several sites that gave tutorials on how to avoid impacting the world around us negatively. It was also informative on how the thing we choose to do affect everything like a chain reaction. Unfortunately, this was also the most elusive search I did for concrete results. There was a lot of theory on what would happen if "we all did our part" but not much real evidence to support the ideas that were put out there, I found that to be disappointing.
5. How do individual natural lifestyle choices impact the community and the greater population?
For this search, when I typed "inter-generational living", it was less of a how-to than the others I've done. It concentrated more on the care of senior citizens and not on the whole family benefits, so that was a bit disconcerting. As I read on though, there were several books that look promising for this information. There was a lot more information on the sociological effects of urban gardening and animal husbandry. That was very interesting because it seems there is a good deal of research on the subject in recent years that is promising.
No comments:
Post a Comment