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I love, love, love this post from Real Farmacy

25 Profound Questions To Start Asking Yourself Everyday

Most us live in somewhat of a robotic state from day-to-day without facing some of the big questions that can lead us to more fulfilling lives and a sense of abundance. Here are 25 questions to start asking yourself everyday to stimulate a greater sense of awareness of who you are and why you are here.

1. Why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do?

2. What is the one thing you’d most like to change about the world?

3. If happiness was the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich?

4. Are you doing what you believe in, or are you settling for what you are doing?

5. If the average human life span was 40 years, how would you live your life differently?

6. Are you more worried about doing things right, or doing the right things?

7. What’s one thing have you not done that you really want to do and what’s stopping you?

8. Are you holding onto something you need to let go of?

9. Have you been the kind of friend you want as a friend?

10. Is is possible to know the truth without challenging it first?

11. Has your greatest fear ever come true?

12. Do you remember that time years ago when you were extremely upset? Does it really matter now?

13. Is it possible to know, without a doubt, what is good and what is evil?

14. When was the last time you marched into the dark with only the soft glow of an idea you strongly believed in?

15. If you knew that everyone you know was going to die tomorrow, who would you visit today?

16. When is it time to stop calculating risk and rewards, and just go ahead and do what you know is right?

17. If we learn from our mistakes, why are we always so afraid to make a mistake?

18. What would you do differently if you knew nobody would judge you?

19. Do you allow people to be themselves or do you feel the constant need to fix or change them?

20. When you forgive somebody, do you feel empowered or disempowered?

21. Do you believe there is more to life, space and time than what you have been told?

22. When was the last time you noticed the sound of your own breathing?

23. What do you love? Have any of your recent actions openly expressed this love?

24. What are you most grateful for?

25. Decisions are being made right now. The question is: Are you making them for yourself, or are you letting others make them for you?

I’ve never been so affected by a documentary.

I had a three-year stint as a vegetarian in my early teens – mainly fueled by a somewhat-superficial sympathy towards animals. My reasoning didn’t really go much deeper than that – I wasn’t particularly dedicated. Fish, for example, I didn’t have as much concern for as say cows and lambs, so I didn’t feel as bad eating them. I think it was mainly because fish and poultry are further removed from the human form than the others. They don’t look like they’d have the same feelings as us. (Sorry, Nemo..)

I didn’t know the ins and outs of how the animal products we consume came to be. Most of us don’t: we don’t want to know, and that’s fair enough, but we definitely should. ‘Earthlings’ says a lot about why – using hidden cameras and previously unseen footage to chronicle the day-to-day practices of the largest industries in the world, all of which rely entirely on animals for profit. Food; leather; fur; entertainment; sport.

I’m not suggesting we should, nor naive enough to believe that we will, all become vegans, but I think we owe it to ourselves and the rest of the earth, as human beings, to have a clear and untainted understanding of exactly how the things we consume come to be, both in the interest of compassion and personal health. How we consume, and how we go about consuming, says a lot about us as a group. Tolstoy is right:

“As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields…”

It’s a matter of health, too. We aren’t eating the way we used to, or the way we should do, and the current strain on our health system is proving that.

Enter King Corn – a great doco by two college friends, whose HAIR returned traces of corn, set out to grow their own acre of corn and follow its journey through the food system.

A massive portion of our food – most of which you wouldn’t even suspect – contains corn. Fruit juices, for example, are often sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. It’s in almost every processed food: used to brown bread; enhance flavours of spices and fruits; lessen the acidic quality of spaghetti sauces – the list goes on. It’s science, not food, and our bodies are working overtime to digest and extract the necessary nutrients from these “food” products it doesn’t recognise.

Even meat.

The production of beef has changed dramatically. Cows are no longer grazing on grass and building naturally in size over a number of years. Cows are being sent to feed lots where they come in as calves and are fed a diet of corn in a restricted area of space for around 120 days – mere months – before being sent to market. They’re growing far quicker in size than is intended, and it’s fat, not muscle, resulting in your average grain-fed T-Bone steak now containing around 9.5 grams of saturated fat, opposed to it’s grass-fed equivalent which contains around 1.5g. Big difference. The cows are eating a diet that would kill them if they were to continue beyond 120 days. Cows are not meant to eat this way and it’s making them sick – corn-based diets create an amount of stomach acid cows aren’t evolved to handle and, as a result, many develop a condition called acidosis. Livestock now consume 70 per cent of America’s antibiotics. You wouldn’t eat a rotten fruit or vegetable, so why are we eating severely unhealthy animals?

What cost are we really paying for this cheap, mass-produced food? One a whole lot greater than I thought.

Transitioning to a plant-based diet isn’t about weight loss, nor is it a fad. I spent twelve years – more than half my life – utterly consumed by a soul-destroying eating disorder borne out of guilt and a completely warped confusion of what negative aspects of society told my completely rational-yet-irrational brain I should be putting in to my body. This most definitely isn’t about that.

There’s no money to be made from it – and maybe that’s the problem. Who stands to financially benefit from a healthy community? Definitely not the multinational pharmaceutical, food and beauty industries, that’s for sure. This is about being healthy, having a social conscience, and living a sustainable life. As with all things, prevention is better than cure.

This is the kind of stuff we need to be teaching in schools. This is the knowledge and life skill that is just as, if not more, important than the other core subjects we’re graded on. One hundred per cent of us need to eat and drink daily; I’ve used Pythagoras’ theorem twice in my life so far and I’m pretty sure I used it wrong anyway.

So, what to do?
STOP EVERYTHING!

No, relax – it’s not as tricky as you may think..

• Buy local and organic when you can. Not all products are as important to buy organic as others. The dirty dozen – a list of foods with high pesticide residue – are a good starting point:

Cucumber, broccoli and carrots are also good ones to buy organic.

• Eat REAL food. None of that artificially sweetened, artificially flavoured, artificially artificial stuff. If you can’t pronounce what’s in it, your insides will be saying “WTF?” too.
• Buy grass-fed meat, not grain-fed.

• Eat ugly. Not only is it an indication of low scientific interference, it’s also beneficial to the ugly apple’s self-esteem.

• Most importantly, above all else, the best thing you can do is be curious! Ask questions. There are plenty of good resources around, some of which are mentioned above, and all are free to access! What have you got to lose except oblivion?

Handy dandy notebook of resources:
True Food Guide – an Australian guide to GMO foods: www.truefood.org.au/documents/TrueFoodGuide_Kids_2011.pdf

A Delicate Balance – an excellent doco that predominantly explores the effects of animal protein on the human body and the environment. Bear with the voice-over’s voice, it’s worth it, I promise: www.adelicatebalance.com.au

Food Inc – an Oscar-nominated documentary offering an unflattering look inside America’s corporate controlled food industry: www.youtube.com/watch?v=f69TUDbPdLs

Food Matters – examines how the food we eat can help or hurt our health, featuring interviews with nutritionists, naturopaths, medical doctors, and journalists on topics of organic food, food safety, raw foodism, and nutritional therapy. Register your email address (they don’t spam you with tonnes of stuff, they send you one email once in a blue moon with interesting info, which you can easily opt out of) to watch the first 40 minutes for free here: www.foodmatters.tv/

Forks Over Knives – This documentary examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting our present menu of animal-based and processed foods. http://documentaryaddict.com/Forks+Over+Knives-9636-documentary.html