What Does Eating Healthy Really Mean?

What does eating healthy really mean?  In two words simply put…fruits and vegetables!  If you want to truly live healthier, taking good care of yourself and giving up boxed foods is a must.  We are so use to eating packaged food, that this is no easy task.  How do we get started you ask?

Step 1:  Go to the doctor.  Get a good checkup before you begin.  Do you know how many countless people procrastinate and put this off when they are not feeling well?  You might be scared, but if you wait, symptoms could get worse.  Have the blood test, urine test or any others you might need.  Just don’t wait any longer, because going could save your life.

Step 2:  Start eating healthy every day. Yes, I mean fruits and vegetables!  You have heard it a million times, but real food, not packaged and processed food, brings life and healing. Everything you put into your mouth has a consequence—good or bad. Consider cutting out the soft drinks, especially the diet ones. Some research is suggesting there is a link with drinking them and depression, obesity, kidney damage, elevated blood pressure and stroke risk. Sugar should be avoided as much as possible as well.  Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician and father of Western medicine said it best, “Let food be your medicine and medicine your food.”  What does that mean?  We are what we eat.  So consider a plant-based diet.  This type of diet is one of vegetables, grains, legumes (beans) and fruit, with little or no animal products, including dairy.

In Forks Over Knives, a 2011 American documentary directed by filmmaker Lee Fulkerson, they advocate a whole-food, plant-based diet as a means of combating a number of diseases including: coronary disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer. It suggests that:

  …Most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting our present menu of animal-based and processed foods, including dairy.    * The China Study

In the Forks Over Knives documentary, the research findings were amazing.  This is what they found….

One study looked at Norway during WWII when the Nazis came and occupied their country; they seized all cattle, pigs, and sheep from the Norwegians to feed the German army. During these years of occupation, the Norwegians were forced into a whole food, plant-based diet. Heart disease and cancer in the Norwegians plummeted. When the war was over and meat and dairy were re-introduced into their diets, these diseases returned.

Here is the trailer to this documentary.  At this writing, Forks Over Knives is available to watch through Youtube and Netflix.  If you watch it, it will definitely influence how you eat going forward.  Also, see my important post on Genetically Modified Organisms or GMOs that are presently in many of our foods.  I wish you well on your new journey to eating healthy.  It won’t be easy, but it is definitely worth it!