Every day I teach people ways to improve their health and every day I run into the same barriers!  The barrier I hear about most often is money.
I had a family with many children come to our clinic recently and they have a garden, a new baby, many older kids in school, one working partner and no health insurance.

Dad has diabetes. He struggles with paying for everything! The kids all have Medicaid but he and his wife cannot afford health care. I have discussed with them ways to save money on food and eat a healthier diet. They have a garden but several of the kids don’t eat vegetables. They like meat and potatoes and are happy to eat lots of pasta and bread which are cheap. Potatoes, beans, cornbread and pasta are cheap. Bread and rice are cheap! Meat can be spread thinner for a large family but vegetables need to be eaten in large quantities to satisfy! Growing vegetables is much easier than growing our own chickens, pork and beef. Supplying one’s own meat takes a lot of initial outlay and investment to get going. Even then it may not be the

least expensive ways to eat meat. It is a lot of work to raise meat, have it butchered, freeze and store and then cook to stretch for the whole family. All of this takes a lot of time whichis the second barrier I hear a lot about. Our fast paced world makes it much more difficult to have time to take care of it all. The mom who came to me with her diabetic husband said several time during the appointment, “I have to be real”, “I can’t do what you are suggesting”. I get it!  How do we help families like this? I struggle daily to help these families improve their health. It is so hard! I told them that every little thing they can do can help over time. But I see it is very hard.
We are going to try to “cost out food” production to see if we can get it down to a science on how to raise your own food with less expense. We still have to remember that nature can go against us when we have drought, tornados, grasshoppers and lots of other elements that can cause destruction of our efforts.
I usually try to be very positive about taking care of our health but I also see realistically that not everyone can physically do what needs to be done to provide for themselves in a healthy way.  There are hundreds of suggestions I can give and most families are already attempting to do what they can to provide the best they can. I am hoping that I can say a few things they have not thought about to improve a little each day, week or month.
We hope to put ideas on our page to improve even those with little resources. We will take any suggestions as to what you may do to save money in the short term to improve your health in the long term. Thanks so much for your input and please let us know what you do!!