Delivery Day at the Oil City YMCA

Today, March 5, is the first Thursday of the month, and that means IT'S DELIVERY DAY AT THE OIL CITY YMCA!  Find me in the lobby from 11:30-1:30 with steaks, roasts, and ground beef raised by hand on our farm in Clarion.

I think we can all agree that diet directly affects health and vigor.  We've been told since childhood that what we eat reflects who we are.  It seems, though, that everyone gets amnesia when we're shopping.  Here is an interesting thing to think about:

People do not spend their food dollars as though they are medical miracles.  Here is the average American breakdown:

1) 53% of the total food budget is spent on dining out (i.e. we don't really know the provenance of ingredients).
2) Second in the food money hierarchy is Miscellaneous: ready-to-eat food, ketchup, pickles, etc.
3) Third is beverages.  Cola and tea dominate steak and salad.

Somewhere far below these three is fresh, unprocessed food that needs cooked (a steak from our farm, for example).  Fresh food is competing for a very, very small sliver of every food dollar.

At the same time, the CDC reports that, in 2015, healthcare averaged $10,000 per person for a total of $3.2 trillion dollars.  Because it's so expensive, everyone is obsessed with healthcare costs.

Do you think healthcare costs would reduce if fresh, unprocessed foods took a majority of our food dollars?  Yes.  The fastest method to control healthcare costs is to change how food dollars are allocated.  Imagine what would happen if everyone got the vision and that $3.2 trillion was channeled into farms instead of pharmaceuticals.  We'd all be living in Eden.  That capital would revive every poor, worn-out, broken down homestead in your neighborhood.  Maybe youth would even want to become farmers.  Hmm.

So, do you think that buying a steak from our family is a novelty?  You're wrong.  It's potential.  Potential and hope are all we need, friends, to tackle each day we're given.  Spread it around.

I'll see you at they YMCA today!  Join me.  We have the power to radically change this afternoon, which, in a manageable sense, is very much the future we're all so worried about.