Each week, my wife and I do our grocery shopping. And yes, even though I’m a man, I’m always involved in this because what we buy is a very important purchase – an investment in our health and business productivity. We are what we eat, for better or for worse.

First, we go to a natural/organic food market and buy most of our food there. Organic is our first choice. Natural is the second choice.

“Organic” means that 95%+ of the ingredients are organic, excluding water and salt. “Natural” means at least 75% are organic.

What we can’t find at a natural/organic food market, we buy at an upscale supermarket.

Most metropolitan areas have one or more upscale supermarkets. There are usually a number of downscale supermarkets, too, with Wal-Mart Supercenters usually the market share leader in the downscale segment.

When we discuss organic food with people, they always ask, “aren’t organic foods too expensive?” Answer: not really. They’re more expensive to buy, but you need less of them to feel satisfied. On a net basis, then, with organic foods, there is no real increase in your total food cost.

Many people asking the “too expensive” question cheerfully squander their food dollars on worthless, dangerous items like sodas, cold cereals, white bread, bottled water, junk meat, candy, baby food in jars, and bakery items – to name a few. People can save serious money by not buying these needless items, instead investing the savings into organic and natural foods, earning higher returns – better health and increased stamina.

Supermarkets today are sophisticated palaces of poisons. Their factory fresh “foods” come in cans and various kinds of packaging. They’re loaded with excessive salt, sugar, toxic sugar substitutes, allergenic glutens, and questionable chemicals.

Sugar substitutes are particularly noxious.

* The most used is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). It’s in almost all packaged foods. It’s used because corn is plentiful in the US, it’s very cheap, sweet, and it significantly enhances people’s appetites, thereby enhancing their waistlines, hips and chins and, at the same time, enhancing manufacturer profits.

* Aspartame (using brand names like Equal) is considered a leading toxin by professional toxicologists.

* Sucralose (Splenda is the big brand name) is a chlorocarbon, made by marrying chlorine and carbon molecules. Chlorine undermines the immune system.

So, avoid sugar substitutes, except for Xyitol and stevia.

What should you eat? Exercise guru, Jack La Lanne, on the “Larry King Show,” answered that question recently, saying “If man made it, don’t eat it.” That says it all – very simply. We agree with Jack, age 93, and still able to work out strenuously for hours.

Not only is a supermarket a palace of poisons, it’s also a perpetual P.T Barnum marketing circus. Barnum is famous for his quote, “there’s a sucker born every minute.”

Americans are vastly deceived when it comes to food.

They assume that the government (especially the FDA) would not allow manufacturers to make and market unsafe food. Wrong! Can you say, “campaign contributions for nice little boys and girls – senators and representatives – from agribusiness and huge food companies?”

I’m convinced that, similar to the cosmetics industry, the packaging of supermarket foods often costs the manufacturer more than the contents. The ambiance of today’s upscale supermarkets is rather sad, if not bizarre. Examples:

1. Older people with poor teeth and poor posture shuffling along slowly, filling up baskets with soft foods (pudding, jello, white bread, cold cereal) to rot their remaining teeth even more and trash their brittle bones even faster.

2. Obese people waddling along laboriously and short of breath, pushing overflowing baskets of mostly snack junk food.

3. Small children lying on the floor screaming because Mom refuses to buy a worthless box of cold cereal, the package adorned by a monster or action hero.

4. Twenty-something women trying to stay slender, living on purchases of white wine and tasteless lettuce.

5. Working families and singles buying salt-laden, microwave boxed dinners for a fast meal.

6. My wife, Shirley, discovering an angel food cake with eight ingredients, including propylene glycol, a major ingredient in antifreeze.

Oh, well, it wouldn’t freeze in the freezer, I guess, staying moist for 20 years perhaps. Thanks for small blessings.

7. And me, using a flimsy loaf of processed bread, standing in the isle and using the loaf as an accordion, squeezing it, and singing joyfully, pretending to be Lawrence Welk.

Upscale supermarkets offer more healthy foods than downscale supermarkets, which skillfully manipulate people with limited means, modest educations, and the pauper mindset with triple coupon “bargains” of huge bags of processed white flour, for example.

And, believe it or not, many poor inner city people have to buy their groceries at convenience stores, since no supermarket is nearby and they don’t have autos. It’s hard to be healthy consuming sodas and cupcakes for dinner.

Eat right, take nutritional supplements and vigorous exercise.

But if you eat poorly, health insurance, hospitals, doctors, synthetic drugs, exercise and supplements are all useless. If you refuse to stop eating poorly, it’s a good idea to pre-plan your funeral now. Only an undertaker can give you the help you’ll need, if you will not eat right.

If you put garbage in a can, it becomes a garbage can. Don’t put garbage in your temple, your body.

About the author
John J. Alquist owns and operates Alquist Enterprises based in St. Petersburg, Florida — along with his wife, Shirley. He is a, professional speaker, Platinum Author, and business consultant. Visit John online at (http://www.tell-it-well.com) Or contact him at john@tell-it-well.com or Yahoo IM, sreen name empanicator21. Alquist Enterprises promotes self-employment and Internet business proficiency in a number of ways. John is a professional speaker, writer and business consultant.