What keeps you young?

Aging is a universal process...we can slow it's effects on our body and brain but we can't stop the process.

Every so often I see an article about what helps us stay functioning and healthy and what is bad for us.

When I read of "bad" stuff in food and cosmetics I get more angry at Federal Agencies that "allow" a certain level of "bad" stuff in our food, air water and other things. It's called an "acceptable" level....but as we know what is acceptable and safe for one person may be poison to another...

So in the face of all this- what does keep one young?

For example -

I read coffee is bad for me and then I read that coffee is good for me...but I don't allow that to change my coffee habits...it energizes me and that makes me feel better and hence younger. But I have gone to mostly organic beans.

I love my pets and they keep me young...partly as I walk the dog which is good for me and him - but having pets is part of me and who I am...and if I ever had to live without a pet...that would be depressing and therefore age me.

I love to exercise and we know that keeps our hearts and bodies in better shape than if we sat around all day. But do I get as much exercise as I know I need? Nope...Like most it's easy for me to skip working out and it is something I most definitely am working on..I do go to my cycling class 2x a week so that's a good start... I try to remember how good I feel after that class and use that as a motivator...

And mentally - I have always been a crossword puzzle addict...now I read that's good for my brain : - )

So what keeps you young?

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Toxic skin care

This is for the women readers who use make up and store bought skin care products...
Here's one short portion from an article:

"Common ingredients found in U.S. personal-care products include phthalates, which have been linked to malformed or underdeveloped reproductive organs in males; formaldehyde, classified as a carcinogen; and parabens, endocrine-active preservatives that have been found in breast tumors. Many ingredients are exempt from labeling requirements because the product formulas are protected as proprietary, the report notes."

Here is some information to ponder - no matter how much good stuff you have in a skin product...if there are parabens present, they inhibit the cells from absorbing and benefiting from the nourishing ingredients in these products. They also are found in breast cancer tumors and become carcinogenic when in contact with the sun rays.

So check to see if your skin care products contain parabens, preservatives or chemicals....

Food Safety

Eeks

This has been a week of "bad" food news. Bad peanut butter, bad cooked packaged chicken breasts, tainted cantaloupe and recalled bad baby food are all in the news this week.

I'm glad I am older and eat my supplements ... food is undergoing a serious challenge these years. We have few family farms and the big conglomerates own the farm land, mass produce unhealthy "stuff" by over using fertilizer, pick the "stuff" before it is ripe, ship it off to far away places...and then tell us it's good for us...

Field ripened food is the food that contains the good things we need - ripening with chemicals or in the truck does not make for good nutrition. Have you ever noticed what the birds and bugs eat from your garden? It's the ripened things - the unripened stuff is not even attractive to the pests. My dog awaits ripe strawberries before he goes to the plants - only then do I have to put up a barricade to keep him away...he knows...

Today's fruit has so little nutrition value we would need to eat 53 peaches today to get the nutritional value of what we got from 2 peaches back in 1951!

The more we process the farms and the food, the less nutritious the food, or the more contaminated it is...and "they" want us to eat genetically modified food? Trust the big food corporations? Not me....

Make your own flu vaccine?

Another of the "beware what goes in your body" postings.

I did some quick google research and yes - this funny video shows what actually does go into your flu shot....

Can you afford to retire?

I read an article today from the Center for Retirement Research and it was another zinger!

Their research showed that "...even if households work to age 65 and annuitize all their financial assets, including the receipts from reverse mortgages on their homes, 43 percent will be at risk of being unable to maintain their standard of living in retirement. Households are more likely to be ‘at risk’ if they are young, have low incomes, or lack pension coverage."

The full article can be read by clicking here and this page includes a link to the full paper in .pdf format.

So can you afford to retire? Almost half of the aging population will not be able afford to stop working. That's a far cry from when my parent's generation worked. Although my father died before he could retire, during his working life he supported a wife, two children, a house, a car or two and yearly vacations. All on his sole salary....

These days, middle class families need two or more incomes just to try and stay even with the bills - leaving no income to save. Americans savings rate for 2006 was NEGATIVE 1% - so we not only spent all the money we earned, we used credit and savings to pay the bills that salaries did not cover. This was our worst savings rate since the Great Depression. And do you know what is was then? It was a negative 1.5 %. And this spending is not for extravagant life styles - it's just trying to pay the normal bills that we get...

It's why I seriously suggest that all employed persons [or those who are already retired] have their own home based business. Not only do you get tax savings, you can earn what is called residual income and hopefully get into a situation where you can earn more than you spend and start saving.....so you retire when you want, how you want and not be dependent on social security or the disappearing and/or declining company pensions.

And, who knows, it may even provide the satisfaction you may not have gotten when you worked for others.