We Are Killing Our Own Organs — 30 Worst Foods, 100 Best.

The key to solving the shortage of transplantable organs is to eliminate the demand for them.

“We have met the enemy and he is us,” has become a trite expression but that doesn’t make it any less true.  We are our own worst enemies.   The numbers are staggering.  We are killing ourselves in four ways:

1. We drink too much alcohol
2. We smoke too much
3. We eat too much of the wrong food

Let’s look at he facts.

1. 22.5% are current smokers, resulting in significant health problems and associated costs.
2. 8.5% of Americans abuse alcohol or are alcohol dependent,.
3.  Approximately 30.4% of adults in the United States are obese,

The estimated annual medical expenditures associated with alcohol abuse total $26.3 billion.  Organs most commonly affected are the lungs, kidneys, pancreas, heart and liver.

Second,  smoking.  Medical costs caused by cigarette smoking exceed $75 billion a year.  According to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body and causes many diseases. Cigarette smoking remains the single most-common preventable cause of death in the United States,  The adverse health effects from cigarette smoking account for more than 440,000 deaths, or nearly one of every five deaths, each year in the United States.

Finally obesity combined with eating the wrong foods.  A good number of these people experience some organ failure.  The direct medical costs for obesity have been approximated at $51.6 billion per year. The organs most often affected are the heart, kidneys and pacnreas.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/PictureOfHealth/story?id=4286176&page=1

This blog is about preventing organ failure  and one way to do that is to be a little more careful about how much we eat and what we decide to consume.   There are two lists here, 1) the worst foods and 2) the best foods.

Top 30 Worst Foods in America (from Food Matters – Note from Bob’s Newheart.  While Food Matters lists 30 I am only listing ten.  You can click on their link for the rest of the story)

Today’s food marketers have loaded many of their offerings with so much fat, sugar, and sodium that eating any of the foods in this article on a daily basis could destroy all your hard work and best intentions of eating healthy. Beware! This list is brought to you by Eat This Not That and Men’s Health.
http://foodmatters.tv/articles-1/the-30-worst-foods-in-america-beware

1. Worst Meal in America
Carl’s Jr. Six Dollar Guacamole Bacon Burger with Medium Natural Cut Fries and 32-oz Coke

1,810 calories – 92 g fat (29.5 g saturated, 2 g trans) – 3,450 mg sodium

Of all the gut-growing, heart-threatening, life-shortening burgers in the drive-thru world, there is none whose damage to your general well-being is as potentially catastrophic as this. A bit of perspective is in order: This meal has the caloric equivalent of 9 Krispy Kreme Original Glazed doughnuts, the saturated fat equivalent of 30 strips of bacon, and the salt equivalent of 10 large orders of McDonald’s French fries!

2. Worst Drink
Baskin-Robbins Large Chocolate Oreo Shake

2,600 calories – 135 g fat (59 g saturated, 2.5 g trans) – 1,700 mg sodium – 263 g sugars

We didn’t think anything could be worse than Baskin-Robbins’ 2008 bombshell, the Heath Bar Shake. After all, it had more sugar (266 grams) than 20 bowls of Froot Loops, more calories (2,310) than 11 actual Heath Bars, and more ingredients (73) than you’ll find in most chemistry sets. Yet the folks at Baskin-Robbins have shown that when it comes to making America fat, they’re always up to the challenge. The large Chocolate Oreo Shake is soiled with more than a day’s worth of calories and 3 days’ worth of saturated fat. Worst of all, it takes less than 10 minutes to sip through a straw.

3. Worst Ribs
Outback Steakhouse Baby Back Ribs

2,580 calories

Let’s be honest: Ribs are rarely served alone on a plate. When you add a sweet potato and Outback’s Classic Wedge Salad, this meal is a 3,460-calorie blowout. (Consider that it takes only 3,500 calories to add a pound of fat to your body. Better plan for a very, very long “walkabout” when this meal is over!)

4. Worst Pizza
Uno Chicago Grill Classic Deep Dish Individual Pizza

2,310 calories – 165 g fat (54 g saturated) – 4,920 mg sodium – 120 g carbs

The problem with deep dish pizza (which Uno’s knows a thing or two about, since they invented it back in 1943) is not just the extra empty calories and carbs from the crust, it’s that the thick doughy base provides the structural integrity to house extra heaps of cheese, sauce, and greasy toppings. The result is an individual pizza with more calories than you should eat in a day and more sodium than you would find in 27 small bags of Lays Potato Chips. Oh, did we mention it has nearly 3 days’ worth of saturated fat, too? The key to success at Uno’s lies in their flatbread pizza.

5. Worst Mexican Dish
Chili’s Fajita Quesadillas Beef with Rice and Beans, 4 Flour Tortillas, and Condiments

2,240 calories – 92 g fat (43.5 g saturated) – 6,390 mg sodium – 253 g carbs

Since when has it ever been a smart idea to combine 2 already calorie- and sodium-packed dishes into one monstrous meal? This confounding creation delivers nearly a dozen Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnuts worth of calories, the sodium equivalent of 194 saltine crackers, and the saturated fat equivalent of 44 strips of bacon. Check please.

6. Worst Seafood Dish
Romano’s Macaroni Grill Parmesan Crusted Sole

2,190 calories – 141 g fat (58 g saturated) – 2,980 mg sodium – 145 g carbs

Fish is normally a safe bet, but this entrée proves that it’s all in the preparation. If you fry said fish in a shell of cheese, be prepared to pay the consequences. Here that means meeting your daily calorie, fat, saturated fat, and sodium intake in one sitting.

7. Worst Chinese Dish
P.F. Chang’s Combo Lo Mein

1,968 calories – 96 g fat (12 g saturated) – 5,860 mg sodium

Lo mein is normally looked at as a side dish, a harmless pile of noodles to pad your plate of orange chicken or broccoli beef. This heaping portion (to be fair, Chang’s does suggest diners share an order) comes spiked with chicken, shrimp, beef, and pork, not to mention an Exxon Valdez-size slick of oil. The damage? A day’s worth of calories, 1 ½ days’ worth of fat, and 2 ½ days’ worth of sodium. No meat-based dish beats out the strip.

8. Worst Appetizer
On the Border Firecracker Stuffed Jalapenos with Chili con Queso

1,950 calories – 134 g fat (36 g saturated) – 6,540 mg sodium

Appetizers are the most problematic area of most chain-restaurant menus. That’s because they’re disproportionately reliant on the type of cheesy, greasy ingredients that catch hungry diners’ eyes when they’re most vulnerable—right when they sit down. Seek out lean protein options like grilled shrimp skewers or ahi tuna when available; if not, simple is best—like chips and salsa.

9. Worst Burger
Chili’s Smokehouse Bacon Triple Cheese Big Mouth Burger with Jalapeno Ranch Dressing

1,901 calories – 138 g fat (47 g saturated) – 4,201 mg sodium

Any burger whose name is 21 syllables long is bound to spell trouble for your waistline. This burger packs almost an entire day’s worth of calories and 2 ½ days’ worth of fat. Chili’s burger menu rivals Ruby Tuesday’s for the worst in America, so you’re better off with one of their reasonable Fajita Pitas to silence your hunger.

10. Worst Sandwich
Quizno’s Large Tuna Melt

1,760 calories – 133 g fat (26 g saturated, 1.5 g trans) – 2,120 mg sodium

In almost all other forms, tuna is a nutritional superstar, so how did it end up as the headliner for America’s Worst Sandwich? Blame an absurdly heavy hand with the mayo the tuna is mixed with, along with Quiznos’ larger-than-life portion sizes. Even though they’ve managed to trim this melt down from the original 2,000-plus calorie mark when we first tested it, it still sits squarely at the bottom of the sandwich ladder.

Now you know what to avoid, and we urge you to click on the Food Matters link to read the whole list.  So, if you can’t eat any of the aforementioned items what do you eat?  There’s plenty to choose from.   Health Life lists 100 and you can read them all by clicking on their link. Here are their top ten.

http://www.dwlz.com/HealthyLife/healthy50.html

THE 100 HEALTHIEST FOODS
Fruit	Fat/Calorie Breakdown	Body Benefits
(1) Apples	1 medium apple: 81 calories, 0 g fat	An apple’s 3 g of fiber help you meet your fiber goal of 20 g to 30 g daily.  High-fiber diets can lower heart disease risk.
(2) Apricots	3 apricots: 51 calories, 0 g fat	A good source of beta-carotene (which is converted to vitamin A by the body), providing the equivalent of 35% of the RDA for vitamin A
(3) Bananas	1 medium: 105 calories, 0 g fat	Bananas are a great source of potassium, which plays a key role in heart health and muscle function.  Plus each one has 2 g of fiber.
(4) Blackberries	1 cup: 74 calories, 0 g fat	This fruit boasts a whopping 10 g of fiber in a single cup.
(5) Blueberries	1 cup: 81 calories, 0 g fat	Blueberries help prevent and treat bladder infections by making it hard for bacteria to stick to urinary tract walls.
(6) Cantaloupe	1 cup, cubed: 84 calories, 1 g fat	An antioxidant double whammy, with 68 mg of vitamin C and enough beta-carotene to cover 65% of your daily vitamin A quota.
(7) Cherries	1 cup: 84 calories, 1 g fat	A good source of perillyl alcohol, which helps prevent cancer in animals.  Heart-protective anthocyanins give cherries their color.
(8) Cranberry juice	1 cup: 144 calories, 0 g fat	Fights bladder infections the same way blueberries do.
(9) Grapefruits	1/2 fruit: 39 calories, 0 g fat	A good source of vitamin C and a compound called naringenin, which helps suppress tumors in animals.
(10) Purple grapes and juice	1 cup seedless: 113 calories, 9 g fat	Offer three heart-guarding compounds:  flavonoids, anthocyanins and resveratrol.  (Green grapes are not rich in them)

If you insist on eating meat there are some good choices you can make…we’ll jump ahead on the list to give you a sneak preview.

74) Beef	3 oz, cooked: 150 to 280 calories, 5 g to 20 g fat	Beef is a good source of both CLA and iron, but since it’s also high in saturated fat, have it no more than three times a week.
(75) Chicken, without skin	3 oz, cooked: 162 calories, 6 g fat	Remove the skin and you’ve got an excellent, low fat source of protein.  And 3 oz provides 38% of the RDA for the B vitamin niacin.
(76) Lamb	3 oz, cooked, trimmed of fat: 175 calories, 8 g fat	Lamb, like beef, is also a good source of CLA.  Ditto beef’s saturated fat warning and weekly consumption recommendation.
(77) Lean pork	3 oz, cooked, trimmed of fat: 140 calories, 4 g fat	Fat-trimmed pork tenderloin has one-third less fat than even lean beef.  And it boasts 71% of the RDA for thiamine.

If Healthy Life doesn’t offer you enough good food ideas, here are some other excellent resources for you to peruse.

• http://tinyurl.com/lcmlalt
• http://tinyurl.com/lqg7ce8
• http://tinyurl.com/k2zzypk
• http://tinyurl.com/m9ojjbx

Bob Aronson of Bob’s Newheart is a 2007 heart transplant recipient, the founder of Facebook’s nearly 3,000 member Organ Transplant Initiative and the author of most of these donation/transplantation blogs.

You may comment in the space provided or email your thoughts to me at bob@baronson.org. And – please spread the word about the immediate need for more organ donors. There is nothing you can do that is of greater importance. If you convince one person to be an organ and tissue donor you may save or positively affect over 60 lives. Some of those lives may be people you know and love.

Please view our new music video “Dawn Anita The Gift of Life” on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYFFJoHJwHs.  This video is free to anyone who wants to use it and no permission is needed. 

If you want to spread the word personally about organ donation, we have another PowerPoint slide show for your use free and without permission. Just go to http://www.organti.org and click on “Life Pass It On” on the left side of the screen and then just follow the directions. This is NOT a stand-alone show; it needs a presenter but is professionally produced and factually sound. If you decide to use the show I will send you a free copy of my e-book, “How to Get a Standing “O” that will help you with presentation skills. Just write to bob@baronson.org and usually you will get a copy the same day.

Also…there is more information on this blog site about other donation/transplantation issues. Additionally we would love to have you join our Facebook group, Organ Transplant Initiative The more members we get the greater our clout with decision makers.

En Espanol

Puede comentar en el espacio proporcionado o por correo electrónico sus pensamientos a mí en bob@baronson.org. Y – por favor, difundir la palabra acerca de la necesidad inmediata de más donantes de órganos. No hay nada que puedas hacer lo que es de mayor importancia. Si usted convence a una persona de ser donante de órganos y tejidos puede salvar o afectar positivamente a más de 60 vidas. Algunas de esas vidas pueden ser personas que conoces y amas.

Por favor, consulte nuestro nuevo video musical “Dawn Anita The Gift of Life” en https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYFFJoHJwHs YouTube. Este video es libre para cualquier persona que quiera usarlo y no se necesita permiso.

Si quieres correr la voz acerca de la donación de órganos personalmente, tenemos otra presentación de PowerPoint para su uso libre y sin permiso. Sólo tienes que ir a http://www.organti.org y haga clic en “Life Pass It On” en el lado izquierdo de la pantalla y luego sólo tienes que seguir las instrucciones. Esto no es un espectáculo independiente, sino que necesita un presentador pero es profesionalmente producida y sonido hechos. Si usted decide usar el programa le enviaré una copia gratuita de mi libro electrónico, “Cómo obtener un pie” O “que le ayudará con habilidades de presentación. Sólo tiene que escribir a bob@baronson.org y por lo general usted recibirá una copia del mismo día.

Además … hay más información sobre este sitio de blogs sobre otros donación / trasplante temas. Además nos encantaría que te unas a nuestro grupo de Facebook, la Iniciativa de Trasplante de Órganos Cuantos más miembros que obtenemos mayor será nuestra influencia con los tomadores de decisiones.

Scattergun Promotions (Guest Blog with Bev. Cooke)

…Not the best choice

Everybody tells you to promote – you have to get your name out there, make sure the entire world knows who you are, that you’ve got zillions of followers on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook and a Klout number in the high 80s.

If you’re not careful, you can spend all your time promoting and have nothing to show for it, including new and better writing. What most experts propose is a “scattergun” approach: throw a lot of stuff around all over the place and you’re bound to hit something. But is that the best way to get your name out there? Probably not, especially when you’re writing for kids.

You have to be careful about how and where and what you promote. Targeting carefully, planning ahead and looking to the long term are probably better strategies than simply putting yourself all over the place.

Ask yourself why you write, and why you write for kids. Lots of money and fame? Your books in print for generations? Awards and recognition for your quality? Movie and TV deals? All of those are legitimate goals, but each of them needs a specific marketing strategy. Take some time and define what success means to you. Once you know that, you’re in a much better position to adjust your promotion to fit your writing goals.

For whom do you write? There’s a big difference between writing board books for toddlers, picture books for kindergarteners and novels for young adults. Your readers are the people you promote to. If you write young adults, why aren’t you on teen sites, teen forums and teen places on the net? Do you do volunteer work with teens? Why not? If you’re writing picture books and books for younger kids, then why aren’t you on parenting sites, writing for parenting and grandparenting magazines, hooking up with parenting groups and grandparenting groups? And why aren’t you, whichever group you write for, hooking up with librarians, schools and bookstore owners? Promoting to other writers can help you broaden your audience reach, as they promote you to their readers, but promoting only to other writers is a bad mistake.

A lot of marketing strategies are designed for and by extroverts – people who love people and can talk easily and well with strangers about just about anything. Their twitter posts are always funny, pointed and brilliant. Status updates are layered, elegant and erudite. They stand in front of a room full of kids wearing silly costumes, make a fool out of themselves and love every minute of it. Introverts can’t do that.

One thing that comes through clearly whether you’re in person or on the web is how relaxed and genuine you are when you’re talking to strangers, acting a role you may not be used to or taking risks with your personality type. If you’re not the kind of person who can wear a lamp shade and do the fandango on the dining room table while sober, chances are you’re not going to be able to don a costume, act silly and make a fool out of yourself to promote your book. So don’t try. Find ways that let you be you when you promote your book and yourself. It’s the same on the web. If you have a knack for coming up with pithy phrases, great puns or plays on words and fantastic one liners, then twitter is probably a good venue. If not, don’t go there.

If all you’re doing is following the advice of experts without thinking about who you are, what you want to accomplish with promotion and how long it’s going to take you to reach your writing goals, then you’re not doing yourself any favours, and you may even be doing yourself harm. In all the frenzy of getting your name and your books out there, you’re forgetting why you’re promoting. As a writer friend of mine pointed out: we are writers. If we don’t deliver the content after all the hype, no amount of promotion or marketing is going to sustain us for the long term.

Click Cover to Buy!

Meet our guest:

Bev. Cooke is a young adult writer and writing coach whose books appeal to both teens and adults. Her marketing strategies are tailored for her audiences – writers, teens and adults. She’s published “Feral” from Orca Book Publishers, about street life seen through a cat’s eyes, “Royal Monastic” the first book length biography of Princess Ileana of Romania, and Keeper of the Light, an historical fiction for midgrade and young adults about an early Christian saint, both published by Conciliar Press. Bev and her family converted to the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith in 2003, and she’s been active in that writing and religious world ever since. She blogs at Bevnal Abbey Scriptorium http://bevnalabbeyscriptorium.wordpress.com/ and is on Facebook at Bev. Cooke, writer.

One Mountain at a Time (Guest Blog: Thomas Wilson)

I was asked if I would write a post explaining about overcoming obstacles and finding my “Happy Place.”

Let me preface this post with the fact that I’m one of those people who can pick up a book and teach myself almost anything I want to learn. Two major failures in this category have been English and Calculus. These two subjects make it apparent that I’ll have to go back to the basics with the care of a good and patient instructor to make any new headway.

If I never learn how to do calculus before I die, it will be all right. It falls into the category of things I’d like to learn, along with playing the piano. I taught myself about music and can read sheet music; I just can’t keep a beat to save my life. I have to put my hands in my pockets at church in order to keep from falling in with the crowd if they start clapping. I’d rather not advertise to the entire church how challenged I actually am because I have no rhythm.

English, I am probably going to have to figure out a solution to learning. I never dreamed I would become an author!

What obstacles?

Let’s start with writing every day. It takes time, that one thing that we all never have enough of. Secondly, my old computer was antiquated to say the least, and the version of Word I had didn’t interface with anything on new machines. Thirdly, why would you expend all this effort and time with no guarantee it will even sell, or that I have any talent at writing whatsoever.

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As I started this quest, something strange and unexpected happened.

My biggest hang up at first were my horrid English skills. The ladies of my book club said they could help edit my work as a group in order to help me get started. This was good and bad. Good, because I was forced to start writing more of the story down in order to stay ahead of where they were reading, this got me writing from month to month as we only meet once a month. Bad, because to use this method one book would take three years to get edited–once!

I shelved the book they were helping me with and picked my worst and least developed story to begin writing with the goal of finishing one story. In 2010, I finished the rough draft of “Whisper,” my first book. I’d picked that book because I knew it would always be my first and worst book of all time. The other story can wait until my skill as an author rises to meet the caliber of story it is in order to do it justice. From what I’ve read of authors whose work I admire, that will be a million words published or ten books whichever comes first. They say it takes that long to find your style and niche. I didn’t believe them then, but I do now. Elements of my writing style are just now emerging as I endeavor to write my third and fourth books.

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That still left editing! I found a friend of a friend many states away that was retired and used to be an English teacher who agreed to edit my first book for free. While she worked on it, I started and finished the rough draft of my second book, “No Rules Of Engagement.” By December of 2010, I’d written two novels, and was almost done editing the first one. For Christmas my wife bought me a new laptop. Next, I installed Microsoft Office 2010 with the new Word. One by one, I was knocking my way through the obstacles.

I spent a considerable amount of time researching the publishing industry, types of publishing, the terminology, reading what authors had to say about writing, and publishing, learning about writers’ rights, and the plethora of horror stories about authors, agents, and trying to get published. I decided with myself being an unknown quantity, no following, no money to invest, and being impatient, I decided to join the revolution which was just getting under way known as self-publishing. “Whisper” could have been edited better, much better, but ready or not, I self published it for no other reason than to just see if I could.

After publishing “Whisper,” I found a new editor and started making corrections to “No Rules Of Engagement.” It became apparent, very quickly, that the entire book needed to be re-written. That’s the last thing I wanted to do. I’d already been doing nothing but editing since October on my first book. I’m so grateful to my editor for dragging me around the corner toward the light, and that I re-wrote and edited the entire book. It took me until the end of August 2011. The sad part is, I still missed a lot of mistakes, though not through a lack of effort.

The strange thing that happened during the last year was that I’d been worried about burning the candle at both ends. In the evenings, after my two boys went to bed, I’d write or edit from 8:00 p.m. or so for four to five hours almost every night of the week. I worked harder than I’ve ever worked in my life with no end in sight. Instead of my life coming apart at the seams, the opposite happened. I had the best year ever at my day job. I became a better father and husband. My body adjusted to the long hours. I found out that most of the time I was happier than I’d ever been in my life.

I realized the source of this phenomenon was that I was doing what I loved. This made all the difference in the world. Everything else was a means to get back to my writing. The writing, and even the editing, became my passion, my release, a daily mini vacation. It was still work, but I wanted to do it.

You grow up hearing about how God has a special gift for everybody, that we all have a purpose, and I’d found mine. At first I got upset that it had taken me forty-five years to find it. Then I realized that if I’d discovered this at age twenty-one there’s no way I’d be as good as I am now. It took forty-five years of seasoning, wearing different hats, massive amounts of reading, and life experiences to make me who I am now.

Last year at this time I didn’t know if I’d really be able to publish my first book, or if it would be any good. In the last year, I discovered I could do it and I did. I’m a good author and my books are selling more each month with no advertising and very little promotion. I published my second book. I’ve arranged to make both books available in paperback and have actually been asked to sign copies of for family, friends, and fans. I’ll only be as good as my editor. With a great editor, I have the potential to be a great author.

I implore anybody who is reading this, that if you haven’t found your special gift or passion in life, keep searching. I’ll give you a hint: It’ll be something you enjoy doing. Something you’ll do whether you get paid or not. It’ll transform your life. New vistas of opportunities you didn’t even know were there will open before you. There won’t be enough hours in the day to do all you want to do. You’ll jump out of bed in the morning with drive, direction, and purpose to get on with the things you want to do. You’ll be more serene and happier than you can imagine. Success is the journey, not a destination!

There is no obstacle that should keep us from our Happy Place!

Thomas D. Wilson

Author of  “Whisper” and “No Rules Of Engagement”

Check me out on http://about.me/StorytellerTDW

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