Payson Roundup

Editor:

We have learned through sad experience that Medicare is not acting in our best interest. Nursing homes are mandated to buy menus from approved “nutritionists,” who do not seem to know what ill people should eat to regain health. The menus cater to individuals who are not sedentary and who apparently have no serious health issues. Yes, there are no-salt and diabetic meals, but even then the food is not the most nourishing, especially for the amount of money spent.

Fresh fruit juices and vegetable juices, fresh fruits and vegetables, brown rice, hearty soups and casseroles with a modicum of meat, sprouted breads, including rolls, English muffins, and tortillas, anything rich in vitamins and minerals, if supplements are not allowed, should be on menu.

The menus I have seen and have experienced are void of most of the above. (And, by the way, cooks aware of optimum nutrition are frustrated with menus they know are not optimal.)

With so much emphasis on legal drugs, food must be as healthy as possible to protect the body from side effects. We have seen people go downhill and become bedridden (and eventually die) due to the emphasis on drugs and not on the healthiest food and supplements.

Drugs help only to a point. Concentrated, whole food supplements are useful is speeding up the healing process, thus saving money and unnecessary suffering. White bread/rolls, white rice, cakes, cookies, heavy meats, canned fruits and vegetables, boxed foods, and drinks with little nutrition do not promote optimum health. The body requires whole foods to build healthy cells. Drugs can never replace the whole foods. Drugs are expensive and often catastrophic (causing over 100,000 deaths each year), at best becoming a crutch to the body.

We must change to a wiser, more practical medical system. Medicare and all government food programs would better serve clients and the taxpayer by this change, so that people can stay healthy or regain health and not continue the “sick maintenance” program that drugs create.

Will you help us?

Marcia J. Greenshields

and Doris K. Lyon