The Physical Advantages of Healthy Eating
“Tell me what you eat and I shall tell you what you are.” – French doctor and gourmand, Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, Physiology of Taste, or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy
The numbers show that humans are living longer. But the more important consideration should be, are we also living healthier, happier and better lives?
We are constantly being advised that our life expectancy has been expanded and will continue to grow longer and longer. But what we are not being told is how many people are simply being kept alive longer, in pain and/or discomfort, through the over use of pharmaceuticals, never ending rounds of surgery. If you are not healthy due to obesity, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption or eating copious amounts of junk food with no nutritional benefits, or if you crippled by cancer or rheumatoid arthritis or other diseases largely brought on by manmade causes, then you may well spend your last decades wishing you were dead!
Yes, we have made some hugely beneficial advances in medicine, but many of the most touted advances are proving to be not much more than smoke and mirrors, and the magic act is slowly unravelling to reveal nothing more than false hope. For example, surgery and giving birth has become so much safer for the person being operated on, or for both the mother and baby; largely to anti-biotics. Likewise vaccinations have supposedly eradicated numerous diseases; drugs and other treatments have supposedly made many diseases and injuries treatable and survivable. But recently it has come to pass that the magical anti-biotics are no longer working, and nothing yet exists to replace them. You can read more on that in “The Last Anti-biotic Fails” in the March/April issue of our Magazine.
Yes, improvements in sanitation and hygiene have immensely decreased our risks for illnesses and improved our overall quality of health and living. Yes, the elderly are living longer because of improved healthcare and medical innovations; but despite greater awareness about the benefits of living more healthfully and the consequences of unhealthy choices, mounting evidence also shows that most of us continue to live dangerously and carelessly. Most of us are simply dooming ourselves to a longer life not worth living. This is particularly true with regards to our incredibly irresponsible and unhealthy eating habits.
Our considered great progress as a civilization has come at the high cost of environmental destruction. If there is such a thing as karma, then we are finally experiencing it on a large scale as the detrimental effects to our health of our indifference to the world we live in and all other living beings on it comes home to haunt us. Instead of working with the environment, man has chosen to try to subdue it. Instead of respecting it we have tried to bend it to our will, at a great and ever growing cost to ourselves and to our health.
Some health problems show up short-term, while others accumulate over a long period of time and become major issues in our later years. And for many of us, chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular problems, and many others have become the norm. Where we once feared and avoided such life threatening conditions, we have slowly come to accept a phony bill of goods that they are an expected part of life.
We have also created for ourselves an environment which, instead of nurturing us, is now slowly killing us. Man-made chemicals now permeate our soil, water, and air and taint the food we eat. Man’s careless choices have released dangerous levels of radioactivity, other toxic elements and newly created pathogens into our surroundings.
We have ourselves become the greatest threat to our own survival.
We Have to Choose to Be Healthy
Given our propensity for self-destruction, it is highly likely that the current trend of a longer lifespan will be short-lived. The current generation – with our appetite for supersized meals, food laden with sugar, salt, fats, and chemicals – has already started a new trend of prolonged, debilitating conditions. And at the rate we are going, combined with the external threats to our health, we will soon be facing a serious, global decline in human health.
But we can choose to be healthy or unhealthy. Being one or the other simply requires a conscious effort.
We are becoming more and more aware of the numerous and widespread environmental health threats that we face every day. In order to survive these threats, we must start by reinforcing our health. The first step is learning which foods to avoid, and which ones we should eat more of. Everything we need to know is within our reach. There is no greater motivation now to choose to be healthy than the mounting health hazards that surround us in our present world. Hazards which for the most part are a self-inflicted wound, created by humans and destroying humanity.
In some aspects, we have made the world safer for us to live in. But we have also set in motion forces that cancel out the progress we have achieved with regards to human health. And we aggravate the situation with our unhealthy food choices. Ironically, interest in healthier living, through exercise and healthy diet plans, is also at an all-time high. But this greater interest rarely translates into genuine action, a conscious effort and a serious commitment to live healthfully.
What’s dangerous for our health is no big secret. The information is out there. The warnings are written over and over everywhere. But repeatedly, many of us choose to ignore the warnings and choose to give in to the manipulations of the greedy food corporations that only seek to feed our unhealthy cravings and to keep us hungry for more. We should know better; and even when we do, we still make the unhealthy choices. We need to strengthen our will to choose the good and to reject the bad.
We have the power to determine whether we will be healthy or unhealthy. Every time we go to the supermarket, eat out, and cook, we choose the state of our own health.
The giant and self-serving food industry does everything it can to influence our food choices, but nobody force feeds us the unhealthy stuff.
Each of us is the only person who holds the fork that delivers the food that fuels our precious and only body. Each of us decides what goes on that fork, and nobody else can decide it for us. We have it within our grasp to be healthy and happy, but we must consciously choose to reach out and grab that reality and make it our own.
Right now, we are living longer lives. We can also ensure that the long life we live will be a healthy one so we can fully enjoy it. The good news is that we can still reverse the damages we have done to our bodies and protect ourselves from the many dangers present in our surroundings simply by starting a healthy diet. Yes, turning our lives – our health – around can be that simple, as simple as adding more color to our plates to replace the salt, sugar, fat, and preservatives that we usually indulge in.
Eating healthfully need not be complicated or expensive. A healthy diet, a healthy plate is as simple as choosing fresh, colorful, and organic items. Fruits and vegetables should comprise the majority of the food you eat every day. Whole grains and healthy meat should be your main source of carbohydrates and proteins for energy. Stay hydrated throughout the day. These are the simple basics of healthy eating. And a quick search online should lead you to a list of healthy foods that you should always store in your fridge and pantry. Just stick to your healthy list and you will soon see and the feel the difference. You will soon be better equipped to handle the health risks that are present everywhere. And you will soon enjoy not just a longer life, but a fuller life.
This website serves the purpose of guiding you in making healthier food choices, and reminding you of the many reasons to keep you committed to your goal of living more healthfully through healthy eating. Θ
