I'll Purify My Water In A Pitcher!

I bought my Brita pitcher when my son was a baby. Having clean, filtered water to give him seemed like a great idea to me. I used it for awhile, but it became inconvenient. One pitcher of Brita water doesn't go very far, then you have to refill it and wait for a new pitcher full to drain through. It became more trouble than it was worth. Also, in those days the replacement filters seemed expensive. They're always pushing the Brita filters on Biggest Loser, so after several years of being shoved in the back of a cabinet, I recently washed it out and bought some new filters for it and began using it again.

So does the Brita filter really work? The flyer that comes in the package says it can't purify contaminated water, but it can remove certain minerals that may make your tap water taste bad. I found this article on a website called eHow. I'm not sure how credible that website or this information may be, so take it for what it is, but it's interesting:

All Brita devices use a two-part filtration system. The first is a sheet made of carbon that is activated by heat in order to make it extremely absorbent. The carbon is covered with large pores which give it a greater surface area. These pores suck in all impurities as they are poured through. Leftover ions are caught by an ion-exchange resin which neutralizes the ations and cations. The whole process takes place in just a few minutes and what you are left with is a purified glass of water which the company guarantees has a reduced level of Chlorine, lead, copper, cadmium and mercury. Keep in mind, the water also contains a reduced level of fluoride and the chlorine, that was added, was there to prevent bacteria growth; therefore, leaving a glass of filtered water around for more than 48 hours is definitely not recommended. Because, the filter holds no means of killing any bacteria, changing the filter on a regular basis (which the company suggests is around 3 months) is a must; otherwise, you are just pouring your water through a sheet of carbon ridden with bacteria and other impurities.

Mary's opinion....It takes more than one Brita pitcher full to make a pot of coffee, but if you don't mind constantly filling the thing up, and you make sure to keep the pitcher and the filter really clean, you will filter out some things that sound undesirable. But if you're planning to let your pitcher sit in the fridge for a couple of days, you may just end up with a belly full of bacteria, in worse shape than if you'd just had water straight from the tap.

I Just Wanted A Drink!

I love to drink water. It's the perfect partner to healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle. But like everything else in today's world, drinking water has become complicated! In the coming days I'm going to dive in to some research in an attempt to clear up a few different myths and facts about drinking water.

For instance:
~If you reuse plastic water bottles, could you could get cancer?
~Is it true thousands of people in the United States get sick or die each year from drinking tap water?
~Is bottled water safer than tap water?
~Is expensive bottled water is better than inexpensive bottled water?
~What's the difference between spring water, distilled water, and drinking water?
~What's a Nalgene bottle?
~Do Brita filters really work?

I feel like I know the answers to these questions, but do I really?? Frankly, I'm interested to find some definite answers. So fill up your glass and stay tuned!!

Mary's MILFs

He really shouldn't be alive. He's snorted mountains of cocaine and drank barrels full of liquor. One night in a drunken rage he shot a bunch of chickens and burned down the hen house. He once woke up in the middle of a freeway.

Ozzy Osbourne has done a lot of messed up things in his life, but in true codependent style, I can't help but love him. I've seen him in concert many times and he never disappoints. Like many other artists, he's the quintessential showman; more comfortable on the stage than anywhere else.I watched every episode of his MTV reality series "The Osbournes" and I'm currently reading his book "I Am Ozzy", which is so over the top it has to be true. No one could make stuff like that up.

Despite his image as the "Prince of Darkness", Ozzy claims he was never a devil worshiper or an evil person. The Satanic stuff was a gimmic to sell records. Lots and lots of records. But he was dyslexic and ADHD in a time when no one knew what those things were. He has an extremely addictive personality and suffers from OCD. He's a hypochonriac and has worried incessantly about everything since he was a child. In order to cope and to succeed in life he felt he needed to be very drunk and very outrageous, all the time.

Ozzy is a huge, huge Beatles fan.

Photographs of Ozzy when he was young, like the one here with Black Sabbath always remind me of my first love, Chris W. (Ozzy's on the far right, all black). I like looking at photographs of Ozzy, particularly black and whites. He's got one of those faces that intrigues me.

Ozzy's sober now and living a good life. At 61 years old, he's still one of the coolest guys in rock and roll. His wife and his children are his whole world and I hope he lives a long, long time.

Congratulations Ozzy. Now you can add Mary's MILF status to your long list of achievements.

My Hero of the Week

If you don't know him, just Google him and read all about him; you'll find plenty of articles. He appeared on Oprah today. His new show, Food Revolution previewed last week and the first episode aired tonight on ABC. I'm talking about chef Jamie Oliver.

By now we've all heard the grim prediction that this generation of young people are the first generation NOT expected to have a longer life span than their parents. That's a frightening statement Eric M. Bost, Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services (FNCS) at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) made in 2004.

Jamie Oliver wants to change the way our children are eating, and it starts with the food they get at school. He's been successful at this in England, and now he's bringing his revolution to the fattest, unhealthiest country in the world, and the unhealthiest city in that country, Huntington, West Virginia, USA.

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution airs Friday nights on ABC. As a parent, the first two episodes were both frustrating and alarming. I watched in horror as children at school were served pizza and sugary cereal floating in chocolate or strawberry milk for breakfast. My 12 year old son tells me he eats doughnuts and sausage wrapped in a panckake served on a stick like a corn dog, and chocolate milk for breakfast at his middle school.

I'm not sure what it's going to take to turn this ship around. Frankly, I'm not even sure it's possible. It's cheaper and much more convenient to heat up a box of processed meat and potato beads than to prepare real chicken and peel potatoes. And let's face it, the kids like eating the junk food. It's what they know and what they are used to. The first graders on this episode couldn't even identify a tomato or a potato, but they sure knew what chicken nuggets and french fries were!

I can't wait to tune in each week to see how this progresses. Right now, Jamie is hitting wall after wall after wall. Right now, Cheap and Convenient are winning.....bigtime.

Striking A Balance

Tonight it is necessary for me to talk about "detachment"; an important word in this blog. It's not the first time I've discussed it, but I'm in a situation right now where I feel like I'm separating myself so far away from something that I'm to the point of being rude and insensitive. I need to get myself back on track and in a healthy place. I'm searching for that happy medium. So I'm dragging out my copy of "Codependent No More" and reading up on the subject.

First, let's discuss what detachment isn't. Detachment is not a cold, hostile withdrawal; a resigned, despairing acceptance of anything life and people throw our way; a robotic walk through life oblivious to, and totally unaffected by people and problems; a Pollyanna-like ignorant bliss; a shirking of our true responsibilities to ourselves and others; a severing of our relationships. Nor is it a removal of our love and concern, although sometimes these ways of detaching might be the best we can do, for the moment.

Ideally, detaching is releasing or detaching from, a person or problem. We mentally, emotionally, and sometimes physically disengage ourselves from unhealthy and frequently painful entanglements with another person's life and responsibilities, and from problems we cannot solve, according to a handout, entitled "Detachment" that has been passed around Al-Anon groups for years.

Detaching does not mean we don't care. It means we learn to love, care, and be involved without going crazy.
-Melody Beattie, "Codependent No More"

That's exactly what I needed. Let me think on that for awhile.....

Cheaters

Almost every night when you turn on the television you hear it. Tiger Woods, John Edwards, Jesse James....you know what I'm talking about.....cheating, married men. They're on the telly crying their eyes out, begging their wives, and America, for forgiveness. So this has me thinking. Do men really cheat more than women?

A quick Google search reveals there are a lot of opinions on that subject, and most of them are conflicting. Some say men cheat way more, some say it's about even, and a few even suggest women may be the more deceitful of the two. Now I know this is going to be a little controversial, and I've said before in my blog, cheating is never a good idea because someone always gets hurt, but for what it's worth, here's my opinion about who cheats and why.

While I do think men cheat more than women, I don't think the numbers are as skewed as Entertainment Tonight and Extra would have us believe. I believe women cheat plenty; I just think they are smart enough not to get caught as often. You see, I believe men and women cheat for different reasons. Men cheat for the thrill of it. Often they can't resist a young, beautiful, fertile woman. They can't really help it; it's nature. But cheating in this way is a bad idea, because young, beautiful, fertile women tend to fall in love with the married man. And they eventually want him all to themselves, so at some point the affair will be exposed; you can bet on it. By the time that happens, the men have gotten so sloppy, they've left a trail of evidence a mile wide. All the mistress has to do is uncover it all and she thinks her man will be hers for the taking.

I believe women, on the other hand, cheat for a different reason. Women cheat because they feel unappreciated or unloved by their husbands. They don't typically have to worry about being exposed, because the men they pick don't usually have any intentions of stealing them away. Let's face it; the hot, Latin pool boy probably does not want to start a family with the rich, lonely cougar. Even the married man from the office who's been filling his coworker's coffee cup once a week, doesn't plan to leave his middle aged wife and kids for a different middle aged woman with kids...who don't even belong to him!

Also, women are more patient, and don't make the clumsy mistakes men make. They don't leave a string of incriminating text messages, emails, and voice messages for their husband to find. They cover their tracks much, much better because they think about what they are doing; they are more shrewd and cunning. I believe women to be much more devious than men.

Men are impulsive and act before they think. Women are much more patient and they think before they act. That, my friends, is why the Jesse's, Tiger's, and John's of the world will always be the ones making headlines. To quote a favorite movie of mine, "If you are gonna have affairs, you have got to be more careful!".

What's For Lunch?

It's Sunday, and that means lots of things. Scarlett will come by today for some R&R time, my mother-in-law, Cher will most likely come for Sunday dinner, and later this evening many of us will start packing lunches for the coming week. As we pack our lunch pails with quick and easy Lunchables, Lean Cuisines, and other ready made foods, let's think about what we are putting in our bodies. The following is an expert from an article I read from author, Michael Pollan:

For the last 30 years and more, something has been disappearing from the American diet. Its absence, has led to widespread obesity, diabetes, and ill health. The name of the missing ingredient--food. Real food, that is, the kind that our great-grandmothers might be hard-put to find on a visit to a modern supermarket. Real food, is the simple answer to our present, dire dietary state of health.

"Most of what we are consuming today is no longer, strictly speaking, food at all," Most of what we consume has been remanufactured by the food industry into some form of "food product" (generally identifiable by having more than five ingredients or ingredients that are unpronounceable).

Let's face it; we're all pressed for time. Convenience is nice, maybe even necessary. But as you're packing that lunch tonight, consider substituting a piece of fruit in place of a snack cake, consider whole grain breads in place of white, and if you usually run through a drive thru for a quick breakfast, why not pack some (no sugar) cereal and a container of low fat milk instead? Trust me, you'll be just as full, and you'll save yourself hundreds of empty calories.

We've got one body; that's it.