117. What You Didn’t Learn In School

There are so many things that we just don’t learn in school.  The last I heard, school was supposed to prepare you for life.  But, it really does so very little in that regard.  School teaches us so much when it comes to math, science, and history, but it falls short when it comes to daily living.  If you are older, then you probably took a Home Economics course in school.  What we called, Home Ec, is the closest school has ever come in teaching us how to live our daily lives.  In Home Ec class, we would learn to cook and sew, among other things.  In something called, Industrial Arts class, we learned to make things for ourselves and how to use tools, including power tools. I think I made a wooden tic tac toe game. Maybe not essential for living, but, I did use some power tools without chopping off any fingers, and that is a pretty important thing to be able to do!  Some people just don’t need to know how to do calculus or much past the basics of chemistry to survive in life, but you do need to know how to sew on a button and make food to eat, you need to know what foods you should be eating. and maybe how to run a power saw at some point in your life.

I remember taking a health class in high school. I don’t remember much of what we learned.  I could recite very few of the bones in the body today, although, at some point, I knew them all.  However, after the test was over on that subject, my mind seemed to put that knowledge in the unneeded information category, never to be thought of again.  I don’t remember learning much about what foods we should be eating.  That is, other than that food pyramid that was all the rage in those days.  Every doctor’s office and school health class in the world had a poster of a food pyramid back in the day!  It turns out that the food pyramid was a bit off according to today’s information.  No one paid much attention to them anyway, when we had Coca-Cola and McDonald’s to drink and eat, those options seemed so much more appetizing!

Today doctors are just now learning about the power of our gut, and something called a Gut Microbiome.  It turns out that we have what the medical community is calling a second brain in our gut.  Weird, right?!  It may actually be just as, or even more, important than the brain in our heads.  Your local primary care physician might not be on board with the whole gut health thing yet.  But, it’s pretty important.  Just like those food pyramids, that most doctors have reconsidered and would not go by today, one day all doctors will be up to date and concerned with your gut health.  It turns out that the standard American diet is the worst possible diet you could ever eat for gut health, and in turn, your overall health.  Who knew, right?!  Our fast food, snack foods, and chemically filled drinks ( sorry Coca-Cola) are horrible for your gut health.  Of course, those of us that grew up eating and drinking those foods didn’t learn about how bad they really were, because people just didn’t know back in the day.  Our parents probably grew up with Coca-Cola, and some fast, or maybe “faster” foods, but that was the exception to their daily diet.  A milkshake or a Coke or Pepsi was a treat, not a daily occurrence.  So, no one thought anything about eating that way more and more often.  Thanks to advertising and tricky marketing, it just sort of happened.  Because the results of poor food choices don’t always show up until years later, we can eat those bad foods and mistakenly think that it isn’t affecting us negatively. And, don’t even get me started on GMOs ( genetically modified organisms)  and the chemical pesticides that are supposed to be safe for human consumption!!  Our gut is filled with bacteria, good and bad bugs.  Yes, they are like bugs.  So, knowing that pesticides are meant to kill bugs… Is it any wonder we are all feeling bad when we eat food both genetically modified and sprayed with gunk meant to kill off bugs?!  We are not only killing the bad bugs, but also the good bugs in our bodies!

The point of all this is that we need to keep learning on our own because we can’t learn everything we need to know in school.  New information is always popping up.  Health has been my focus for years, so I have continued to research and learn on my own about health-related issues.  If you are interested in health, there are many great sources out there, on the worldwide web.  I am looking forward to watching a docuseries online called,  The Healing Key Series.  It is totally free.  Of course, I’m sure there will be a chance to sign up to continue to receive news on the topics discussed for a fee, but that is not required to view the docuseries. I have watched another series created by this couple, about gut health, and they are very sincere people who have come to this path, like most people, because of their own health issues.  Check it out if you have time, or find your own answers, but keep learning, no matter what topic you are interested in, and find out what they didn’t teach you in school.