AlternativesMagazine

John and Halee Wepking have come a long way from their lives in New York City. They draw their excitement now from the 60 acres of land they work in western Wisconsin. The livestock, the grain and the beauty of the place are elements that fuel a youthful trend on the farm these days. The Department of Agriculture has found that for only the second time in the last century, the number of farmers under 35 years of age is increasing. The Wepkings live and work on Paul Bickford's 700-acre spread, blending entrepreneurship with environmental awareness in a deal to one day take over the Bickford Farm. Read CBS NEWS January 23, 2018

Living in cities designed for cars rather than pedestrians or cyclists is one of the reasons given for the drop in life expectancy. "We are seeing an alarming increase in deaths from substance abuse and despair," said Steven Woolf at Virginia Commonwealth University, a co-author of the latest report. The idea of the "American Dream" is increasingly out of reach as social mobility declines and fewer children face a better future than their parents, he said. The report found Americans have poorer health than other nations in many areas, including birth outcomes, injuries, homicides, adolescent pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Americans also engage in unhealthy or risky behaviors — such as high calorie intake, drug abuse and firearm ownership — live in cities designed for cars rather than pedestrians or cyclists, have weaker social welfare supports and lack universal health insurance.  Read complete article HERE USATODAY 2-08-1...

Your brain needs a significant supply of oxygen to function properly, which helps explain why what is good for your heart and cardiovascular system is also good for your brain. The increased blood flow that results from exercise allows your brain to almost immediately function better. As a result, you tend to feel more focused after a workout, which can improve your productivity at work and at home. By Dr. Mercola Researchers have suggested that exercise is "the best preventive drug" for many common ailments, from psychiatric disorders to heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Even your risk for age-related hearing loss is reduced through exercise. Physical fitness has also been linked to brain health, and is an important adjunct strategy to prevent dementia. In fact, compelling evidence shows that physical exercise helps build a brain that not only resists shrinkage, but increases cognitive abilities and creativity. Researchers at Stanford University found that walking can in...

There is more proof about the harmful effects of soda than any other food or drink, but statistics shows that Americans drink more of it than ever before. They account for more than 25 percent of all drinks consumed in the United States. More than 15 billion gallons were sold in 2000 — about one 12-ounce can per day for every man, woman, and child.  It's simply liquid sugar.   But here’s some information on the effects of soda on the body that may keep you away from opening the can:  Read >>

This is an excellent article by  Sara Burrows . It describes exactly what our  Break Away, Live Small  website is all about and why, if left unchecked, depression can destroy your life. It also provides ideas for a cure through exercise, social connections and  self-sustaining communal living.  “We were never designed for the sedentary, indoor, socially isolated, fast-food-laden, sleep-deprived frenzied pace of modern life.” I hope you read the entire article and follow the links to similar articles. Then read it again. By:  Sara Burrows Depression is a global epidemic. It is the main driver behind suicide, which now claims more than a million lives per year worldwide. One in four Americans will suffer from clinical depression within their lifetimes, and the rate is increasing with every generation. It robs people of sleep, energy, focus, memory, sex drive and their basic ability to experience the pleasures of life, says author of  The Depres...

— things said or done; things left unsaid or undone. Paths that weren’t followed; opportunities missed due to fear or insecurity. The list is long, but one of the biggest regrets in life reported by a large number of people is not being there for someone at the end of life.  In other words, being too busy with “life” to tend to those near death.  Interestingly, while a regret can be phrased either as an action or as an inaction (“I wish I had not quit high school,” versus “I wish I had stayed in high school”), regrets framed as actions tend to be more emotionally intense than regrets about inactions, but inactions tend to be longer lasting Emma Freud, a columnist for  The Guardian , recently explored themes of regret on social media, covering everything from relationships, work-life balance and personal passions, to addiction, illness and death.  Top Five Regrets of the Dying According to Bronnie Ware, a former palliative care nurse who ended up writing a book,...

By Andrea Donsky What happens when you have a product that gets a lot of bad press, and is associated with significant health issues? You change its name so people are “fooled” into thinking the old product is gone. That is what happened with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). It should be avoided at all costs because it can lead to insulin resistance, obesity, and heart disease. In fact, a recent report from an international team of experts noted that “fructose-containing added sugars, such as sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup, have been experimentally, epidemiologically, and clinically shown to be involved in the current epidemics of obesity and diabetes.” So what I’m about to tell you makes HFCS a bit scarier. The Food and Drug Administration is allowing food makers to change the name of HFCS to something that sounds safe: “natural sweetener.” So now when you read a food label and no longer see "high-fructose corn syrup" listed in the ingredients, you mi...