SENSE AND NONSENSE

11 Reasons Why Too Much Sugar Is Bad For You (from www.healthline.com)

Experts believe that sugar consumption is a major cause of many chronic diseases, as well as obesity:

1. WEIGHT GAIN
2. INCREASE RISK OF HEART DISEASE
3. BEEN LINKED TO ACNE
4. RISK OF TYPE2 DIABETES
5. RISK OF CANCER
6. RISK OF DEPRESSION
7. ACCELERATE SKIN AGING PROCESS
8. INCREASE CELLULAR AGING
9. DRAINS YOUR ENERGY
10. CAN LEAD TO FATTY LIVER
11. OTHER HEALTH RISKS

Note. The biggest problem for me is that sugar is addictive. I am unable to stop at one cookie or candy and can gobble up a cake or pie in no time flat. A sugar addiction has been compared to the craving for cocaine, but of course much easier to overcome. After about a week’s abstinence, I find I no longer crave sweets and a small taste doesn’t turn me on. But give me a cookie or three and they are back to their tantalizing deliciousness! Begone from me, I need you not!

YOUR CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION by Joyce Fraser

In a world become impatient to possess material things

And where ‘image’ is promoted for the power that it brings,

Can we just pause a moment, and reflect upon the past

And consider for the moment how long these things will last.

For the things of real value were not built in a day

But grew on firm foundations in order that they stay,

Old buildings and old paintings, old tapestries and books,

Took many hours of skillfull work to acquire their unique looks.

And so it is with people, for character is made

By building individually on foundations that are laid.

Like graceful antique furniture, and the beauty of old lace,

There is also much of value in a lined and wrinkled face.

One hundred years of living it took to reach this day

And no one knows the ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ you met along the way.

How many people’s lives you touched; how many secrets told,

How many happy memories you would not trade for gold.

How many hours of sorrow; how many broken dreams,

How many loved ones you have mourned. How long ago it seems!

But all of this makes you unique, a masterpiece of life.

Individually developed through times of joy and strife.

Today you reach a milestone achieved by very few.

Enjoy your 100th birthday. Let us celebrate with you!

Note: my friend Joyce Fraser wrote this poem for a patient when she worked in a longterm care home in Vanderhoof, BC. Joyce resided in Fraser Lake for many years with her husband Bill and daughter Shirley. She was an active and prolific member of the Fraser Lake Writers Group. The poem was included in an anthology titled Seasonings published by the Group in 1990.

A Poem For The Times

A pall upon the world’s a common theme

Our lives are not at all as they have been

A scourge has plagued the human race it seems

A killer known as Covid plus nineteen

We’ve hidden in our homes almost a year

We’re distanced from the loved ones we hold dear

We thought at first there really was no fear

‘Til contagion swept the Earth both far and near

U.S. politics replaced our hockey games

With penalties and scoring just the same

But NHL has rules that aren’t disclaimed

A losing team should not cast blame and shame

There’s things that we have learned in seasons past

Time has slowed our lives from soaring fast

We’ve noticed things we’d never thought to ask

With solutions that I hope and pray will last!