Veggies at the Ball Game

Recently I’ve been on a campaign to teach people, especially women and children about health. That is why I was upset with Bill Mitchell when he mocked and made fun of Californians for serving veggies at a baseball game (Voice, April 11). What does Bill think the items of choice should have been? Beer? Cigarettes?

Instead of listening to that type of negative innuendo, we should be following suit and adding more veggies to our diets.

Let’s ignore the sarcasm, take better care of ourselves, and praise anyone who wants to help us eat right. I want to encourage everyone to stop smoking, start exercising, eat lots of vegetables, and take control of your own health.

According to Nutrition and Cancer No. 3, 1992, “Veggies can shield women against cancer.” Veggies also contain fiber that can help lower cholesterol.

Cigarette Smoking

Cigarette Smoking

By Bette L. Hall

(written in the 1990’s) 

I come from the state in which the people are known as the “beautiful people,” California.  It seems everyone is in to health, fitness, nutritious eating, not smoking, and looking and feeling their best.  During the ten years I have been in Oklahoma, I have observed the high incidence of obesity, cigarette smoking, and the use of tobacco in other forms. 

Just recently, my husband and I were going out for a Saturday morning breakfast.  We went to a local Denny’s here in Tulsa.  The gentleman who serves the guests asked if we wanted to be seated in the smoking or non-smoking section.  We simultaneously responded, “Non-smoking.”  He apologized for not having a non-smoking table available and asked if we would accept a table in the smoking section.  About that time, I realized the entire coffee shop was so smoke-filled, that we would have left even if there was a non-smoking table available.

If people would just realize what a nasty habit smoking really is, possibly the percentage of smokers would drop to 15% of the population by the year 2000 as once predicted by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.  Cancer is not the only effect of cigarette smoking.  It also causes respiratory symptoms like cough, sputum production, and wheezing.  It is related to diseases of the respiratory system such as bronchitis and emphysema.  It causes low birth weight, and adversely affects the immune system.  Smoking causes dry skin, yellow fingers, wrinkled faces, and bad breath.  Not to mention the fact that the smoker’s hair, clothing, and automobiles smell terrible.  I saw a bumper-sticker years ago that is appropriate.  It read, “Kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray.” 

I cannot count the number of times I have stopped at a red light, looked over and spied a young woman with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth.  That is extremely uncomely.  It detracts from the young woman’s beauty.  It appears that either she is trying to be macho (a male gender word), or she is trying to act like a gangster.  A cigarette hanging out of the mouth is the image of TV gangsters as portrayed by Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Walter Matheau, and Clint Eastwood.  

As a woman, I would like to give a word of advice to all women, and especially the younger women.  Part of enhancing your beauty, radiance, and sex appeal is having a clean body, clean clothes, and clean tidy hair.  Strive to be your best.  Don’t let that cigarette smoke get into you hair and on your clothes.  Put on some dusting powder.  It is so much more pleasing and magnetic to the opposite sex. 
In case anyone wonders why I am addressing women, it is because I do not see real live men with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths, only TV characters and women. 

The company I am affiliated with collects urine, blood and/or saliva to test nicotine levels.  Generally, anyone who applies for a life insurance policy with non-smokers rates will have to submit to some sort of testing.  Many times these tests show the applicant is a smoker which could cause them to be subject to the higher rates that smokers have to pay.  Nine times out of ten, further questioning of those with a nicotine positive test who claims they are a non-smoker reveals either the spouse is a smoker or the office where they work is a smoke filled room.

A study done by Dr. Goran Pershangen and his associates at the National Institute of Environmental Medicine in Stockholm, Sweden showed adults who spend at least eight hours per day in a room with smokers could receive as much second-hand smoke as smoking one or two whole cigarettes. Also, second-hand smoke at home has been the cause of cancer in many studies around the world. 
According to S. K. Kaura, M. D., the chemical analysis of second-hand smoke reveals that second-hand smoke contains:

• 2 times more tar compounds
• 3 1/2 times more benzopyrene, the known cancer causing chemical
• 5 1/2 times more toluene
• 5 times more radiation particles