United States of America. This is the nation of which one of it's former presidents publicly said, "I don't like broccoli," and another political figure misspelled the word potato. It's also the place where TV commercials make a mockery of buying healthy vegetables at the supermarket when you can get your nutrients from vitamin supplements.

What is healthy eating anyway? Aren't we confused yet? Consider the orange (fruit). We try to improve its health-giving properties as a food, by juicing it and reconstituting it from concentrates and additives. Where is the fiber?

Oh that? We buy fiber supplement pills. And where did the fiber from the orange go? Who knows... It might be fertilizer or landfill.

Invariably, anyone who seems to be encouraging your to eat healthy is trying to sell you something.

You don't even have to have good eyesight (nor have to like eating carrots) to see that our reasons for eating healthy in America have been tainted by our quest for making money.

We put out food guides that claim to encourage us all to eat healthy. But the messages are mixed. Maybe we should try to find out how "sponsors" influenced Harvard's designing of the Healthy Eating Pyramid. I often wondered why they put alcohol and red meat in a healthy dietary guide.

Count the benefits of eating healthy There are many benefits to healthier eating, personally, nationally, and globally. One can readily think of

• Increased longevity
• Increased national and personal productivity
• Lower costs of national healthcare
• Spend less for drugs and medicines
• Cleaner environment, since we process less food
• Decrease shortage of medical care personnel
• ...and on, and on...

We need a healthy eating plan

There are many "healthy" eating plans sitting on thousands of wasted pages of health publications. We scarcely need more national healthy eating advice. What we need is more effort on an individual level.

I am advocating personal interest and responsibility for our own health. Most people already know that eating lots of fruits and vegetables, getting adequate rest, regular exercise, and avoiding the use of harmful substances are ways of maintaining good healthy. But how many of us find these things easy to do?

How many of us find it easy to resist the influences of fancy advertising instead of falling for the same junk food temptations every time? How many of us had a healthy eating plan that we have followed from youth?

It seems that by nature we are prone to be resentful of what has been scientifically and reasonably more beneficial and instead, inclined to adopt what is harmful.

It's an individual choice

One has to conclude that when it comes down to healthy eating, this is an individual choice. All the sayings, writings, and plans of government health agencies, research organizations, and any other interest groups amount to noise.

Healthy eating is an individual's choice made daily. Our habits are governed by tastes, environment, and what foods are readily available. We do have some control over those factors, though. Let's not wait until some health issues (sickness and disease) come our way. By then, we will be forced to make healthy eating a matter of survival. I know this from experience.