Feeding Organic Food To Your Pet
By Jasper Sayer
Are you a pet owner? If you are, you likely take steps to ensure that your pet is happy and healthy. Unfortunately, many pet owners find it difficult to do so, especially where food is concerned. In April of 2007, a large pet food recall left many pet owners wondering what they should feed their pets. Although time has passed since that recall, many pet owners still second guess their decision to feed their pets “traditional,” pet foods. If you are one of those pet owners, consider feeding your pet organic pet food.
One of the many questions that pet owners have concerning organic pet food is if it really does exist. It does. Right now, a large number of organic pet food sellers are independently run operations, also commonly known as small to medium sized businesses. With that being said, a large number of pet food companies are now developing lines of organic pet foods, especially for dogs and cats. This means that many pet owners now have a relatively large selection of organic pet foods to choose from. This is a surprising fact for many, as some pet owners never knew that there was such a thing as organic pet food.
As nice as it is to hear that organic pet food does exist, many wonder why they should give it to their pets. After a close examination, you will see that there are a number of reasons why organic pet food is advised. One of those reasons is that organic foods, including foods for pets, are natural, safe, and healthy. When feeding your pet organic pet food, you do not have to worry about chemicals in the foods, including harmful chemicals or otherwise safe chemicals with harmful amounts. Most organic food companies have strict restrictions that they must follow. These restrictions may include no chemicals on or near the production line. This can help to eliminate errors or confusion.
Since there are a number of benefits to feeding pets organic pet foods, many pet owners start examining their options. Unfortunately, many are turned away by the costs. Yes, organic pet food does cost more, even with human food, but it is more than worth the cost. If you love your pet and if you want to keep them happy and healthy, organic pet food should be more than worth the cost. In fact, many devoted pet owners are willing to pay the extra money to just get the comfort and peace of mind that is commonly associated with natural, organic foods.
If this is the first time that you are looking to buy organic pet food for your pets, you may be curious as to how you can go about doing so. If you are interested shopping locally, you are urged to visit one of your local pet supply stores. Since these stores specialize solely in pets, you are likely to find the largest selection of organic pet foods. Other options involve supermarkets and department stores; however, they may only have a limited selection of organic pet foods, if they even have any at all.
As nice as it is to be able to purchase organic pet food locally, you may find the best results with shopping online. You can easily find organic pet food for sale online. What is nice about shopping for organic pet food online is that you are often present with a large selection of products. In fact, online you will see that a large number of websites that sell organic pet food products are actually run by individuals who just have a love for pets. You can find these websites with a standard internet search.
As previously stated, there are a number of benefits to switching your pet or pets to organic foods. In addition to organic pet foods, did you know that you can also purchase other organic items for your pet? You can and these items can include pet treats and pet toys.
Learn about types of vegetarians and vegetarian nutrition at the Vegetarian Facts site.
How To Make Positive Life Changes
By Jess Shaw
One of the most important aspects of living a healthy and prosperous life is understanding “risk.” By this I mean knowing how to understand and analyze situations in life that affect health. Being able to accurately weigh benefits and risks when making health decisions is very important! Too often decisions are based on incomplete or inaccurate information and this is a huge mistake with significant consequences!
Failure to accurately assess risk keeps people locked in all kinds of unhealthy situations including poor eating and exercise habits (lifestyle), relationships and jobs. Sometimes people are just afraid to step out and make a change. They see “risk” in making a change when the REAL risk comes from NOT making a change. From my perspective, living with the stress, unhappiness and frustration of indecision and poor health is the greatest risk of all, and one that is definitely not worth taking!
Accessing “risk” is nothing more than collecting information, weighing the alternatives and then making appropriate decisions based on the information.
Some risks to our health are more “real” than others. For example, it is common knowledge that obesity is associated with a wide variety of health problems. On the other hand, there are some health risks that are so remote we rarely think about them. On a practical level, eating highly processed foods and avoiding a daily dose of fresh fruits and vegetables is rarely considered serious. But, as too many have already discovered, the long range consequences of this practice are real and devastating.
Failure to accurately assess risk limits us in many ways. We imagine the “risk” of talking with our children about drugs, dating or sex and we put off having the “talk,” even though the risks of NOT talking are infinitely greater. Fear of flying and public speaking are two more “risks” affecting millions of people. But practically speaking, these fears are unfounded. People ride in cars every day, even though cars are far more dangerous than commercial aircraft! It’s a failure to accurately assess risk, and it limits our health, prosperity and pleasure in life.
The goods news is that failure to accurately access risk is reversible! The effects of those decisions to eat inappropriately or NOT to exercise are, as the common expression goes, “do-overs.” We can effect positive change in our lives by following a few simple steps to accurately access risk:
1. Accurately define your present situation and access your health “risks”. Are you eating a healthy diet? Are you getting enough exercise and good quality sleep? What are the consequences if you DON’T change? Weigh the benefits of healthier living vs the potential risks such as increased cost, inconvenience or discomfort.
2. What do you stand to gain if you change your present circumstances? Assess the “up-side” potential. Too often we look only at the “downside” risk and forget the benefits. What good things might happen if you take the risk and win?
3. Limit the “down-side” if you happen to make a wrong decision. Don’t continue down a path if it does not produce results. This is especially important when following weight loss programs. If the pounds are not coming off or if the weight loss is only temporary, find a new program! You not only want to lose weight, but want to sustain the weight loss for as long as possible. Take steps to ensure this will happen. Clear, concise, realistic objectives will definitely help.
4. Reduce your risk by being smart! Understand the situation and seek the advice of experts in the field of health and nutrition. This includes finding and forming partnerships to receive support and get good advice.
5. Have a fall-back position. If the decision you make fails to produce the desired results, be prepared to take a long, hard look at the circumstances and be prepared to change what you are doing.
Everything in life involves some element of risk. Driving your car, meeting someone new, crossing the street…but we do them every day. Winners in life are willing to accept the risk and continue on their way! Get involved, be smart about how you play the game, come prepared for a few failures along the way, but don’t quite. You will reap the benefits for your effort and live a happier and healthier life. I like to remember the words of the great Winston Churchill when he said, “Never, never, never give up!”
The information contained in this article is for educational purposes only and is not intended to medically diagnose, treat or cure any disease. Consult a health care practitioner before beginning any health care program.
To learn about thyroid pain and thyroid functions, visit the Health And Nutrition website.
Yes To Limiting Top Executives Compensation
By Debra L. Morrison
I was particularly encouraged by the top executive compensation limits set forth in the Stimulus Plan, yet dismayed when they were eliminated or watered down.
The Stimulus Plan passed by a 246-183 and a 60-38 margin in the House and Senate respectively. Although Republicans Collins, Spechter and Snow all were instrumental in hammering out several compromises, nary a House Republican cast a FOR vote; some predicting ruin if it passed.
Are we not IN a ruinous condition? Haven’t these same Republicans asked an unemployed person, uninsured family or elderly citizen eating cat food recently how they’re doing?
If it wasn’t such a serious situation I might have been amused to read of worry there’ll be a brain drain on Wall Street, if top level executive comp was limited. Recently insiders’ voiced concerns that excessive taxes being voted upon AIG’s & Merrill Lynch’s top officials’ retention bonuses were somehow unfair.
Responding to our government’s attempts to reclaim $4.4 million of retention bonuses for Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae’s four top executives, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director James Lockhart said, “We run a great risk of these same employees deciding this is the last straw and walking away.”
Many Americans who do theirs, and also the work of those laid off, could easily cop the “last straw” excuse, but do not. Yet according to their annual Securities and Exchange Commission report, Fannie Mae apparently paid their Deputy Chief Financial Officer a tidy $1.1 million retention bonus AND an additional $160,000 cash bonus for filing their financial statements on time. Call me old fashioned, but I remember times when if you didn’t do your job on time you were demoted or fired.
With all due respect, Mr. Lockhart, just where would these overpaid executives of failed agencies “walk” to? Last I looked, a fair amount of unemployment has set up camp, and hedge fund managers-the once easy fall back position from corporate America-are in line to buy tents.
Apparently there is a growing belief that there aren’t any top level executives out there with a desire to return to some semblance of integrity, who would gain pride-yes other types of gains do exist besides the almighty greenback–in being instrumental in breathing new life into our once proud, now dilapidated, financial institutions.
Michael S. Melbinger, an executive compensation lawyer at Winsteon & Strawn in Chicago commented on the Stimulus Plan’s proposed top executive pay limitations, “There is no pay for performance in this.” Have we not already issued FAR too much pay for FAR too little performance for FAR too many years on Wall Street?
Are there no motivated individuals whom may be enticed with the near promise of fame and future book or movie deals (that would surely provide more wealth than an annual salary OR bonus) when they put their shoulder to the grindstone and lifted their companies out of the ashes and into a Phoenix state? Might even a few talented individuals remain of the Warren Buffet ilk-in 2008 he received the same $100,000 of base salary he has for 25 years, and $25,000 of director fees– that would be motivated by their good name being upheld, or their not-so-good name being raised up a notch or two, when they performed?
Yes, President Obama’s admonition for us all to “pitch in” applies even to top executives. It’s time they use their brains for a tiny bit more than their family’s luxury ski trips and ultra (not-green) fleets of bling-bling cars and otherwise opulent life styles, and roll up their sleeves to restore even a modicum of consumer confidence in the system.
Not only would this be smart, it may better ensure that we don’t touch off class wars. The middle class is shrinking rapidly. There’s a clearer distinction between the haves and the have nots; and the have nots are restless.
So not just is it moral to provide hope for hard working Americans, it is economically essential to stop the horrifically steep increases in unemployment. Let’s get people back to work. Some of them are downright hungry; some justifiably angry. For those of us with jobs and food, we’re looking for some measure of controls on those whose appetite for unlimited personal gain is apparently unrequited.
As a financial advisor, I’d be grateful for some signs that our government is strengthening Wall Street, so that I could encourage people to “invest in the stock of America” again.
Absent that confidence, the employed Larry Lunch buckets and Nancy Nurses will park their 401(k) or 403(b) in a fixed income sub-account. Not only will that not hasten the stock markets’ recovery, but it will be damning to their long-term purchasing power; very possibly translate into them having to work another 10 years just to make up the lost performance compared to that of stocks, at least historically speaking.
Apparently the big fear is that companies whose executives are greedy beyond words (OR works) will seek to repay TARP monies soonest so they can be out-from-under the new executive compensation restrictions. Then, the fear continues, particularly banks could restrict the flow of loans, etc., that were designed to increase liquidity into the system-you know, Main Street.
Clearly they forgot to insert the “instructions for use” page into the TARP check envelopes; the ones where the banks were supposed to be lending to mom and pop America, not sucking up other foreign or domestic financial institutions to buttress their balance sheets, or worse yet, pay themselves big year-end bonuses. Remind me, how then would the non-flow of monies stop if TARP monies were to be repaid?
Failed companies’ top execs need to admit to themselves and their families they weren’t worth those groups of zeroes, nor will they receive such disproportionate compensation for horrific performance going forward. They’ll perform in a fiduciary capacity and take what the shareholders feel is commensurate to their performance for the next 2 years. They’ll acknowledge this will indeed involve a lifestyle adjustment–something they could receive free training on, from droves of other executives laid off even since September 2008.
There’s no silver bullet; yet there’s a hole in our collective row boat. We can’t waste time fussing about whose end it’s in; start bailing. The votes have been cast; a Stimulus Bill has passed. There’s no time for smug, “I’m not responsible cause I didn’t vote for it” excuses. If there’s anything I hate it’s a quitter, worse yet a sore loser, or a person who refuses to entertain an idea that didn’t originate in their own corpus collosum. Let all that rationale comprise your campaign rhetoric next election. In the meantime, roll up your sleeves as elected politicians and work till the job is done.
What history will report on, is who did what to contribute to sound legislation to monitor the use of these Stimulus Plan funds; best ensuring that the end result is not perfect, yet the most favorable, towards solving America’s biggest problems.
This country, its citizens, and their financial health and hopes rest on your bi-partisan cooperation.
Debra L. Morrison, CFP, MS, AEP is a sought after international motivational speaker who motivates audiences of mature women to master their finances, through generous helpings of humor and analogy.
