What's Different About Our Food Today?

Some say that we have always been exposed to poisons and toxic sprays.
Yes, years ago we were exposed to DDT, asbestos and lead but not on the level and frequency that we experience toxins and adulterated food today.  Most people still had home cooked food and there were many small farms that grew decent food.  
We now have fructose in everything instead of sugar and poorly grown food, from huge corporate farms that care only about profits, that is preserved with massive amounts of toxins and preservatives.  Today food is produced for their wealth, not your health.  GMO foods were created to withstand huge amounts of herbicides and still thrive and produce profits - they weren't created to make us healthier.  
Antibiotic use in animal production is used to allow overcrowding and make animals fatter, again, for more money.  
All these "tricks" to produce faster more profitable food has had a negative impact of the health of U.S. citizens.  Collectively the unnatural food and toxins we are exposed to have caused incurable diseases today because the illnesses are due to our system's inability to tolerate it.  
It is complex but if you eat natural food it is vary simple - we are of organic origins and require organic food.  

Time for Another Wood Stove Post

Wood heat is great but most people do not understand how to use a wood stove. 
Start your fire with newspaper, then kindling which you can shave off your firewood if need be. Use progressively larger wood as the fire heats up. Most people do not burn a fire hot enough. You can burn a small hot fire if necessary but burn a hot fire. A hot fire will burn most volatile gases that cause creosote buildup in your chimney - if you burn the fuel, you get heat from it and it won't wind up in your chimney. 
Once you have a sustainable fire have the bottom, and maybe the top draft intakes wide open. When the fire is roaring and hot you can close the bottom intake some, but leave it open a bit. Keep the top draft wide open unless  the fire is really raging.  The idea is to keep the top draft open to burn the wood gases. 
If it gets too hot use smaller lengths, and some bigger diameter pieces of wood - essentially use half of your wood stove's burn area.
Most chimney fires start after a period of warmer weather when people have been burning a smoldering fire, then, when it turns cold they burn a hot fire which drys and ignites the deposited creosote in the chimney. Because of my set-up and method of burning wood, I have never had to clean my chimney in 35 years - a small amount of creosote does dry and falls to the bottom clean-out however
Since a lot of heat and fuel go up a conventional stove's chimney the most efficient stove would be a rocket mass heater, but few have been UL approved. 
BTW, wood stoves should not have a chimney damper - they help slow and cool the gases causing creosote to deposit in the chimney.

Are Flu Vaccinations a Good Route?

For children and people with compromised immune system, other illnesses, or generally unhealthy, Flu shots are probably a good idea, however, vaccination immunity is less vigorous and declines in effectiveness much faster than a natural immunity.  
Contracting a particular influenza virus imparts lifetime immunity, even to similar strains. For instance, during the 1918 pandemic, also known as the Spanish flu, many older adults likely had partial protection caused by exposure to the 1889–1890 flu pandemic, also known as the Russian flu. Even so, an immune compromised person could become susceptible though. 
Because vaccination responses are at low levels, immunity is less vigerous and they decline in effectiveness much faster than a natural immunity.