Pg 4 March 10, 2013 Volume 24, Number 1
Guest Commentary
If you are what you eat, why does it hurt so much? by L.A. Reed
Oh, my stomach hurts! I just had my first pizza in several months. Even though it tasted great, several hours later my gut was saying, “This hurts!” And the next day I was sick. I was little when I sat on my grandmother’s knee and ate rye bread dunked in sweet, light (with milk) coffee. It tasted wonderful. SHE was wonderful. Giving up coffee (I had to do it twice) meant giving up all of those memories of my grandmother. I gave up sweets too: sugar, pastries, chocolate cake and TastyCake (the East Coast Twinkies). Groannnn! All those lovely things; All those memories of family get-togethers. All those gluten products! I can’t eat that stuff anymore. My small intestines have something called leaky gut. Stress and eating the wrong foods actually cause fissures in the intestines and they leak toxins into the cavity of the body. Not pretty. My body has a lot of aches. I live with fibromyalgia, neuralgia arthritis and mostly recently, autoimmune disease with my thyroid. There is so much that I cannot eat. Do you think this doesn’t limit my diet? Do you think I haven’t lost friends over (shudder) going out to a restaurant? Or from turning down invitations to come over for dinner? It’s a scary proposition. One friend showed me a card she takes to restaurants and present to the waiter. It states, if you feed me anything with peanuts I could die. Ahhhhh! For me, the questions I have to ask of waiters and restaurant managers would amount to an inquisition. Which I’ve done. And, that is exactly how they acted like I was doing. So, I don’t bother. Sitting is also painful due to compressed discs in my back. Going to a potluck dinner produces high anxiety. Being invited to someone’s house for dinner is like a complicated theater production which involves the inquisition again. Did I mention I can’t eat any milk products either?
Come over to my home and read my menu. Today’s menu features cooked rutabagas, with beets and kale. This is actually quite tasty and healthy. Add some cooked-in-water (no oil) cod or salmon. I buy mine at a co-op because most salmon and cod contain high amounts of mercury and other toxins because the oceans they are fished from are being poisoned. I might also have some brown rice or rice pasta, with the meal. That’s it! One can get very creative with this food. But it’s a very different diet than most of the rest of society eats and it’s very different from what I was raised with. It’s a diet without any spices; or MSG, or cornstarch. So please understand that I want to get to know you, I am not trying to be difficult. I just like a pain-free life. Though having that with friends would be great. L.A. Reed, Minneapolis ■
Unionizing health care - from p. 3 utilities and other necessities. That leaves me nothing. My mother is 93 years old and needs my care. It’s not about the money, but I can barely make it right now. As home care workers, we need a voice to protect us from further cuts and to make this job into a profession that people can live on.” “We deserve the same rights as every other worker to form a union so we can fight for better wages, paid time off, even training,” said Darleen Henry of Rosemount. She cares for her mother who suffered a series of strokes. “Mine and my mother’s future, as well as everyone else’s, could only get better. I want to thank the legislators for introducing this bill. It gives me, my family and my fellow home care workers hope.” The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development projects demand for more than 50,000 new home care workers in Minnesota over the next 10 years. However, the core labor pool from which the state’s workers are traditionally drawn—women aged 25-54—is expected to decline by nearly 2,000 workers. The bill is expected to have its first hearings in March. There are an estimated 10,000-12,000 Minnesota home care workers in self-directed programs. The bill would create a Quality Self-Directed Services Workforce Council. A majority of this council will be made up of people who receive direct support services. The council will advise the commissioner of human services on steps that the state should take to ensure the quality, stability, and availability of the direct support workforce. Second, the bill will give home care workers who work directly for the people they support through self-directed programs the right to form a union so they can bargain directly with the state over wages, benefits and training opportunities. The bill explicitly protects the rights of people who receive services to select, hire, direct, supervise, and terminate the employment of their workers and it recognizes that home care workers are essential employees who would not be allowed to strike. People with disabilities who use personal care attendant (PCA) services joined workers at the capitol for SEIU Lobby Day when the bills were announced. For more information about how the disability community is showing support for home care workers contact Galen Smith at 651-285-5364 or galen.smith@seiuhealthcaremn.org ■
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