The Three Sopranos: Food, Doctors and Pharmacists

It is really getting exciting now hunting down the offenders of healthy eating. The food patrol is fully functional and reading, comparing and reporting on our progress.
Doctors and Pharmacists have been making a bundle by working with the Food Processors. First you buy healthy vegetables in a can — never looking at the amount of sodium in your purchase. Your doctor gets an occasional high blood pressure reading and warns you that you could develop cardiac problems. He then prescribes a blood pressure medication like Diovan. It isn’t enough to prescribe the smaller dosage and so they provide larger sample dosages free (at first). Even though 80 mg. will work, you are given dosages double that amount — 160 mg. Now you begin to have problems with ED (erectile dysfunction). Well, isn’t that interesting? The doc can fix that with a prescription for Viagra. Too bad you lost your masculinity, young man!

Well, you’re not having fun any more and you have no more interest in SEX. And so you begin to feel a little depressed, so it’s time for another prescription. "Try Paxil", the doctor suggests and he hands you two bags of samples to save you some money — even though each container has only two pills in it and you take 3 hours converting the small bottles to one bottle. The thing he forgot to tell you is that Paxil has a side effect - it depresses your sexual drive. You walk back to the office and offer the doctor his free samples to give to someone he really doesn’t like.

Sex is one of the heathiest activities you can participate in and you were systematically deprived of what was once healthy, pleasurable and loving. Your wife starts cheating on you because you cannot perform and you end up in divorce court.
The doctor tells you to get your facts straight and so you visit your pharmacist and get the FYI for these medications and find that you have been ripped off and sent down a slippery slope ending up feeling old, helpless and no longer virile.
We’ve been watching the changes in sodium, sugar content and fat and guess what? Wegmans has just come out with canned sweet peas with NO SALT ADDED.
At the start of writing my book and blog, my wife and I found most canned vegetables contained as high as 960 mg of sodium. No wonder your doctor grabs the blood pressure cuff the minute you enter the exam room. "Food You Feel Good About" a Wegmans product has 15 ounces of sweet peas with a red label that reads "No Salt Added" and underneath that a disclaimer that reads "Not a sodium free food." Here’s the clincher: From 960 mg of sodium in most canned vegetables, Wegmans now produces a 15 ounce can of sweet peas with only 15 mg of sodium per serving. The serving size is ½ cup and the ingredients listed are: Peas and Water.

You are making the difference by reading labels and insisting on substitutions to better and healthier food products. Congratulations to all of you who take the time to pick the Yogurt with 9 grams of sugar in a serving size of 6 ounces as opposed to the others with 41 grams of sugar. Wegmans adds a heart shape recommending the peas for a heart healthy eating. Thanks to the nutritionists working for Wegmans for their hard work in researching and developing healthier products for their customers. They will be part of a health program that includes preventive measures.

In the process of eating better foods we will cut the costs of pharmaceutical drugs, doctor visits, medicare, and medicaid and "CHANGE" will include your diligence in eating right, exercising and letting your two senators, your congressperson and the government know that you have had enough and won’t take it anymore. Prevention costs a lot less than taking pills that only lead to more side effects and more pills.