I give blood on a regular basis. My dad doesn't approve of it saying something about me getting diseased, and that the
Red Cross was trying to "take advantage" of me or whatever. Bah. Giving blood's great!
For those that are still living 20 years ago, when you give blood,
clean needles are used. By clean I mean BRAND NEW, they take the wrapping off
in front of you clean. And they throw them out when you're finished.
Giving blood may actually be healthy for males. It's noted that excess
iron can cause
cancer in males, while females almost never have any excess iron. Females also live longer than males on average. Because females menustrate on a monthly basis probably contributes to both these statistics.
As for the Red Cross taking advantage of me... I gave up a whole
15 minutes of my life giving a unit of blood. 15 minutes!!! My god, I waste more time trying to figure out
what to eat than I do giving blood!
It's the
One Pound Diet! Okay, so it's technically not a
diet, but you do lose a pound of blood that your body has to then spend a pound of nutrients replenishing. That means every cycle you give blood (about 2 months) you get to eat an extra pound of food. Yay!
If you're
O- I can't stress how much you should be giving blood. As the
universal donor, your blood can be used in emergencies where a persons bloodtype is unknown. Wouldn't it really suck if hospitals happened to run out of O- blood when you get wheeled into ER someday? Those that aren't O-, you should still give blood since hospitals can use your blood instead of that precious O- in cases where blood type
is known (like operations and stuff).
So go give blood! It's soooo easy. Get your friends to go too. You got nothing (but a tiny tiny bit of time) to lose!