a writing job?

yesterday i found an ad on craigslist looking for a full-time writer. three two things about the ad are significant. #1 - it was a legitimate job posting! many (if not most) of the job ads in lynchburg are bogus postings. #2 - it said "full-time". that's right. someone here actually has more than just one piddly article that they would like to have written. they are looking for a full-time employee! #3 - it's a writing job. okay, that would be my dream job. i love to write, and if i can get paid to do it all the time, i just don't know what i'll do with myself!!! and i'm surprised that my dream job exists in my town, in this economy!

okay, so i applied for the job. sent them my "very best cover letter" and my resume. now i've applied for a LOT of jobs over the past several months, and Very few have responded at all. that's a little discouraging. but still, i need to work, so i keep sending out resumes. i was more than a bit concerned that it was Not a legitimate job. but i had to take the chance, and apply anyway.

well, i opened my email this morning, and lo and behold, i had a response! the man apologized for taking so long to get back to me (which was less than 12 hours, most of which were overnight). my email had gone into his spam folder and he had "accidentally" discovered it there. (thank you GOD!) he asked me for a writing sample and gave me four topics to choose from. he also asked that i turn it around in two hours or less.

so the article has been written. it falls in the 500-600 word prescribed length. i did it in less than two hours. and now, i'm waiting for a response from him. Please, oh please, PICK ME!

so, while we're waiting, here it is. i'm afraid to ask you what you think. but feel free to tell me anyway!

*****

Why go Dairy Free

I must admit, when I first heard the words “dairy free” my thought was “why would anyone want to eliminate dairy from their diet?” The commercials on TV tell me that five servings of dairy a day will help me lose weight. So, are there really valid reasons that would cause a person to eliminate an entire food group?

After doing a bit of research, I discovered that the answer to my questions is a resounding, “yes!” And the primary reasons are health-related.

When you spend a moment thinking about milk and its purpose, it doesn’t take long to realize that milk was created to be consumed by babies. Its purpose is to give babies the nutrition they need to grow. It is created by mammals to feed their young, and no other mammals drink milk beyond infancy.

Cow’s milk is made to turn a baby calf into a 300-pound cow in six months! I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to pack on that kind of weight quite so fast! Our stomachs don’t have the digestive enzymes that are necessary for processing dairy through our systems.

But what about all of the “benefits” of dairy in our diets? What about getting enough calcium to prevent osteoporosis and help our bones grow strong? Again, cow’s milk was designed for cows. Our bodies have a difficult time absorbing the calcium in dairy products, not just because it’s cow’s milk, but also because our dairy products are so processed that the amount of calcium is significantly reduced. More efficient sources of calcium include (surprise!) beans, spinach, and leafy-green vegetables!

You probably don’t think about milk containing sugar. It’s certainly not what I want when I’m craving sugar! But a 1992 report in the New England Journal of Medicine verified that proteins in cows' milk can damage the production of insulin. That means that some forms of diabetes can be linked directly to the consumption of dairy products.

While I’m telling you about medical studies related to eating or drinking dairy, I must mention that the Harvard School of Public Health in 2000 reported that men who consumed two and a half servings of dairy products a day had a third greater risk of getting prostate cancer. Yes, that says cancer. There have also been studies that show that the animal fats found in dairy products are linked to an increased risk of breast cancer. I’m quite certain that men don’t want any extra risks for prostate cancer, and I’d certainly like to keep my breasts!

So if you’re like me, you’re probably wondering why the media keeps telling us that dairy is good for us. Well, it’s simple really. It’s because the US Department of Agriculture is the government entity responsible for both promoting agricultural products and providing us with dietary advice. If that’s not a conflict of interests, I don’t know what it!

So after I studied the facts about dairy food, I came to the conclusion that they were never meant to be part of my diet. That is probably why, once I cut them out, all sorts of wonderful things started happening to me. I found that I had so much more energy. My skin became clearer. Those pounds I couldn’t quite get rid of disappeared (no reason for them to stick around if there’s no more ice cream, right?!). And I know that I’m doing my body a favor by treating it to a dairy-free lifestyle!