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Challenging Conventional Thinking

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Why I question whatever "they" say . . .

"You know what they say..." - actually no, I don't, and "they" are idiots. I have had enough of this expression. Sure, it may be harmless enough for sayings like, "Cold hands, warm heart - that's what they say."

I just want to challenge some of the things that "they" say because I find this is a common excuse used to defend undesirable words and behavior. Things like, "what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger" or "fight fire with fire."

Remember when it was cool to smoke? I was teased for not being cool enough to hang out on the smoking patio in high school. I just didn't like the smell of cigarettes and I was on the track team, so I needed to keep my lung function at it's best. How 'bout getting a "healthy" tan in summer. They called me Casper (the friendly ghost) or 'the chick with the pasty white thighs.'

Well, I bumped into some of those high school "cool smoking tanned chicks" a few months ago and wow, they all look like 10 years older than me. Two of them have a chronic cough and dermatologists now tell us that 'no tan is healthy.' I recall my friend Tracy putting cooking oil on her skin in grade 9 and baking herself in the sun to get darker. We never heard of SPF (sun protection factor); all that mattered was how dark a shade the tan oil claimed it could make you.

We tell our kids not to give in to peer pressure, but what about all the crap we adults buy into? This lens examines some of the latest trends that many in the adult world feel are harmless. But there are studies to suggest otherwise . . .

Intro photo of putting up new clouds: Cayusa on flickr see here. / Licensed under Creative Commons. Attributions are shown when you scroll over each photo. Some photos are those of products I feature from Amazon.com.

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“Hey, there are no quick fixes . . . really.
Don't waste your time or money on them.”

Crazy Diets . . .

haven't we learned yet?

Photo courtesy of aarinfreephoto.comA look at other cultures around the world confirms a few things: North Americans simply put too much food on their plates, eat too quickly and exercise less than, say, those living in France, a culture where rich food is enjoyed slowly and people walk place to place. It takes some 20 minutes for your body to signal your brain that you are getting full. We need to slow down, enjoy our food, have better portion control and drink more water.

Anything extreme is hard on the body, like only eating certain things or from only one food group. The high protein diet craze of late is hard on the kidneys. There were others such as the grapefruit and egg diet and even the liquid only diet. This can all play havoc with the body in ways that nutritionists and doctors are still discovering - sometimes with lasting damage.

Canada's Food Guide (and similar ones available in other countries) spell out clearly what foods we need to sustain good health. For optimal blood sugar control, having protein, carbohydrate and fat within each meal every 4 hours is ideal (doesn't have to be a large meal either...yogurt with fruit and granola sprinkled on top, for example, is perfect as a mid-day snack).

How about getting back to basics; let's take a look at those Food and Nutrition Guides. Forget the quick fixes - you plan to be around a while, right? Let's tackle this in a healthy way. Losing a pound a week is fine, plateaus (especially for women, due to hormonal changes, are expected). Be good to yourself.

Extreme Dieting Books can be very unhealthy

These are just basic, good, common sense items for all ages:

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“William Goldman quote I love: Life is pain. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.”

Texting While Driving (or even talking)

If you do this, you will kill somebody . . . eventually, guaranteed.

Photo courtesy of aarinfreephoto.com"Oh but I am a good multi-tasker, I can handle it, really!" Guess what? No - you can't. Multi-tasking does NOT really exist. Our brain can only fully process and react to ONE stimuli at a time. If you doubt this, try listening to two people at the same time. Someone who appears "good" at multi-tasking is actually good at dropping one activity and quickly doing another (switching gears, I call it). They may be good at prioritizing work. But no, even in-depth cell phone conversations will distract and significantly SLOW your reaction time while driving. Laws are beginning to be passed to enforce this, but if they do not exist where you live, it is only a matter of time before you hurt or kill someone or yourself. Just don't do it. If the conversation is THAT important, it deserves your undivided attention. Pull off to the shoulder or next gas station or wherever you can safely park.

Raw Food Diets (and I don't mean veggies)

I'm talking raw or undercooked meat and unpasteurized dairy food.

Photo courtesy of aarinfreephoto.comOne course in microbiology (during my Nursing studies) made me a germ-a-phobe for life and soon I was ordering all of my steaks "well done, please."

Our bodies make all the enzymes we need to break down our foods for absorption. And, our digestive system responds accordingly to the foods we have eaten over the years, on a regular basis. Food-borne illnesses leading to disease are a much larger problem than any theoretical benefit of eating raw food. Don't believe me? Just Check out the FDA (Food and Drug Administration in the U.S.) data at: http://www.fda.gov/Food/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/ucm079516.htm
Or the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) compilations of intestinal illness outbreaks in the U.S. at: http://www.cdc.gov/

This is what is present in raw food:

Bacteria (good and bad) - salmonella, e-coli, and listeria being the most publicized lately
Parasites and Worms - including their eggs and the toxins that their excrement produce
Molds, Fungi and Yeasts - some are harmless, others are not

Proper core temperature of meat is important to check using a meat thermometer inserted into the thickest spot ranging from 145 - 170 degrees (depending on the type of meat). Check out this NSF website for more: http://www.nsf.org/consumer/food_safety/fsafety_cooking.asp?program=FoodSaf

Okay, unpasteurized milk, consider where cows reside and where their udders are located - close to fecal matter. Farms and manure (even run-off into well water from fields has been linked back to cow manure in neighboring barns). If that hasn't sufficiently grossed you out enough, check out the life-saving work of Louis Pasteur at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur

Products that help to educate us about

water, dieting, texting while driving and raw food consumption:

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A reliable meat thermometer and literature

about the risks of consuming unpasteurized milk, cream or cheese:

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“One of my favorite Voltaire quotes is: Common sense is not so common.”

Best Way to Stop the Spread of Colds / Flu

Proper hand washing for the recommended length of time:

I wrote notes about this topic years ago and I have been shocked by how little most of us really know about proper hand washing technique. The step skipped most often is: turning off the taps with a tissue or paper towel (otherwise, you just recontaminate your hands again). I checked on Squidoo and Brite-Ideas already wrote an excellent lens with detailed instructional video feeds too. I could not have done any better myself, so here is Brite-Ideas Featured Lens:
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Some items to help educate and remind us

about the importance of hand washing - for every age:

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  • Rob3 Apr 8, 2012 @ 5:51 pm | delete
    We should always question 'conventional thinking', as so often "they" really are wrong. "It" either hasn't been thought that much or it's just daft!
  • DavidDove Sep 21, 2011 @ 2:29 pm | delete
    Rose, you go from strength to strength, love it. Hear ,hear to all the above.
  • chiakisato Sep 2, 2011 @ 12:44 am | delete
    Very good descriptions!!!
  • rhonney May 5, 2011 @ 9:06 am | delete
    yes...helpful to me..
  • ChrisDay Apr 17, 2011 @ 12:22 am | delete
    The more I see of 'conventional thinking', the more I fear for our future.
  • holisticlifesquid Apr 14, 2011 @ 9:58 am | delete
    Love this lens. I support Raw Foodism but I would never eat anything of the animal variety raw. Duh.;-) Thanks for the hand washing bit. I work in a busy ER and people are still amazed when we tell them the best way to prevent flu is to wash your hands properly. Have you ever thought about including something about how corporations sometimes do things one way because they've done it the last 40 years? Come to find out it was only done that way because "they said so". I find the advice of Buddha most applicable in life. Take the middle road, investigate things for yourself, and make your beliefs your own. Nice work Rose.
  • nightcats Mar 26, 2011 @ 1:00 pm | delete
    I have always rather thought that I march to my own drummer -- but I am coming to realize that probably all of us are indoctrinated to unquestionably accept things that are widely held beliefs in our culture. For the past several years, I have been involved in energy healing and I have discovering that so much of what I once knew to be a "fact" is not at all true. We must remind ourselves to remain open minded and willing to look at things in a new light.
  • PaulOnBooks Mar 20, 2011 @ 12:35 am | delete
    The hand-washing struck a chord - at the time of the Asian Flu scare posters went up in every workplace advocating hand-washing - they're now gone and long forgotten.
  • SereneSea Jan 24, 2011 @ 1:47 am | delete
    We are made to believe the conventional and traditional without asking for reasons. We all know somethings are not scientific and there is no base to such useless things but are afraid to challenge. Now challenging does not mean we have to be outrageous and shout at the top of our voices to make ourselves heard. There are ways the Saints who were well ahead of their time did it with compassion and love, we can do it too. We have to be strong from inside, not physically but mentally strong. Nice of you to bring such thought provoking lenses that carry strong messages.
  • ChrisDay Jan 7, 2011 @ 12:50 am | delete
    I've done some lensrolling - thanks for enriching us with some of these challenging lenses
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My name is Rose and I am a Canadian freelance medical and health writer. I love to tackle human rights issues and anything related to the betterment of... more »

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