🤸🏼‍♂️Is healthy living a privilege and can anybody live it in line with environmental values🌱💸

Expensive supplements, health clubs, physical and psychological consultations, schools and neighborhoods, fresh food,…

There is a lot of talk about living healthy lives and eating right, exercising, treating the environment well, buying sustainable brands and making “healthy choices” in general.

Often the question is, is that something you need be able to afford?

I am obviously not an expert and more or less just sharing personal thoughts and some research, so stick with me if you feel like it.

I think that this is a very interesting topic - which shows again - how health and the environment are related.

🤸🏼‍♂️💚🌱🌍

Let’s talk meat for example:

Simply put, if you are not buying free range, local, well treated and fed animals

that are not being “mass produced”, genetically modified, shot up with antibiotics,…

then it’s bad meat that is harming you and the planet.

🌲Proof 1 is that forests get cut down to accommodate the cultivation of feed for all of those animals.

🐖Proof 2 is that the animals are being treated badly and there are so many,

to accommodate our society’s consumption of meat, that the methane and CO2 emissions emitted are of a significant amount.

But, what would be considered “quality meat” is of course more expensive.

Straying from this specific point a tiny bit:

There are many arguments about this topic but one thing is for sure

not buying meat is the least expensive: EVERYONE CAN go without meat.

CAN and WON’T is a whole different ballpark.

Are you vegetarian/vegan/pescatarian,…? Are you still healthy and alive?

Do you have friends who say that they “can’t give up meat”?

What is your response to that?

Send me a message, I’m very interested!

Healthy food in general

Meat is not the only thing that - if it is of poor quality - is bad for you and the environment.

Even products like: beans, fruit and veggies, flour, rice, chocolate, dairy,…

If fruits and veggies are cheap and grown in mono-culture, in a way that soil is stripped from nutrients, the produce is sprayed with chemicals and then wrapped in 3 pounds of plastic,… that is bad for both you and the earth.

And of course buying local, naturally and organically grown foods can be more expensive

(although not in every case, sometimes you just gots to know your brands😉).

Whereas it is actually the better way and should be the norm.

Bad neighborhoods

By that I don’t mean the dodgy end where the thugs hang out.

I mean areas that are cheaper to live in and are more polluted.

It is a fact that if you have more money, you can afford to live in “nicer” areas.

You can have a big garden or live near a big park or by the water.

If we take New York City for example, the kids who live in apartments that are located near parks have less cases of respiratory problems like Asthma whereas the cases of Asthma are higher in children who live in the Bronx for example.

Makes sense right?

Supplements and hygiene products

Because several people have some sort of imbalance, disease, gut/skin/psychological issues,

supplements are very common and can be expensive.

Plus, they often come in heaps of plastic packaging or these really “heavy plastic” jars.

So that’s not great for the environment.

Vitamins are also very "in".

A lot of people nowadays really do have deficiencies and need to supplement:

iron, zinc, Vitamin C,..

Others do it just because they feel like it or because it is trendy.

Some do it because of the pretty well known fact that the nutritional quality of our food - has and still is – declining.

Due to the before mentioned depletion of soil,

partly because of the use of chemicals and mass production of produce.

Hygiene products that are very trendy and often unnecessary like electric face brushes, steamers, black head suction instruments and UV-light face masks are all the rant.

But if you have “normal” skin and no condition like cystic acne or similar, you really don’t need these expensive tools that seem to make everyone lusher, prettier, healthier.

And again think about all of that electric waste and the emissions plus production of batteries and what not that is part of producing these products.

In summary: I think that this controversial topic (which has many layers, which is why this was a little all over the place😁)

is definitely one that warrants a discussion and I would be delighted to start one and hear different opinions.

I have posted a picture on my Instagram @thrive_bynature with the title:

"is healthy living a privilege?"

and would love for you to comment and share: opinions, day to day experiences, budgeting, health issues resulting from environmental suffering and so on.

Thank you for reading💚

See ya next blog👋🏼

Xx Stella