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Top Three New Year’s Resolutions For Improved Health
Now that it’s the middle of January, let’s assess whether or not you are following your healthy New Year’s resolutions. If you need more specific ways to address these, take a look at the following three tips:
1. Eliminating foods that initiate a quick insulin response
Most diseases and chronic health conditions that end with the suffix ‘itis’ are caused by inflammation. These include osteoarthritis, colitis, tendonitis, gastroenteritis, rhinitis, and myocarditis. Each of these conditions and dozens of other inflammatory diseases may be attributed, at least in part, to excessive sugar consumption in the Standard American Diet (SAD).
And it’s not just Big Gulp sodas, Twinkies and other typical SAD junk food staples that promote inflammatory responses (partially caused by insulin resistance) in the body. Seemingly-healthy carbohydrates such as rice, be it white or brown, butternut squash and potatoes are examples of carbohydrates that have the potential to quickly convert into simple sugars, setting off a chain reaction that may lead to mineral depletion, enzymatic disruption, and, ultimately, inflammation.
Also curb your intake of cleverly-marketed sweeteners that appear to be healthier than regular white table sugar, as they are not. These include agave nectar, cane sugar, raw honey, brown sugar and fructose, and any sweetener that ends with ‘ose’. Don’t be fooled by organic sweeteners; though better than conventional, they create a rapid insulin response as well. Fructose, may cause a slower insulin response but can be worse for the body than traditional sweeteners because it also affects the liver. Eat foods with a low-glycemic load. Keep grain consumption to a minimum. Healthier grain options include mahogany rice, Thai red cargo rice and heirloom varieties of barley, spelt or kamut. Bean flour pasta also comes highly recommended by PPNF Vice President, David Getoff.
Whole fruits, though more nutrient dense than their juiced derivatives, should also be limited, due to their fructose levels.
2. Don’t worry about cholesterol; educate others why cholesterol is vital to optimal health
If your doctor told you that a certain substance is vital for, among other things, cell membrane structural integrity, sex hormone production, repairing arterial scars, regulating blood sugar and mineral metabolism (minerals are like spark plugs for enzymes), and may prevent Alzheimer’s disease and anti-oxidant deficiency, you’d be crazy to take a drug that would greatly reduce the substance in your body, right?
It’s crazy, then, that record numbers of adults in Western nations are prescribed statin drugs, designed to lower the substance in question – cholesterol, still vilified by the likes of the American Heart Association. This is nearly six decades after Ansel Key’s “Seven Nations Study” convinced doctors that a low-fat diet reduces the incidence of coronary heart disease. (It does not. However, a diet high in sugars does promote heart disease.)
Traditional societies, such as those studied by Weston A.Price and documented in his pioneering book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, thrived on high-fat foods, many of those cholesterol-laden from animal sources, such as unpasteurized dairy.
If most of our cholesterol is made by the liver, we need not worry about the cholesterol from dietary sources, as long as those foods derive from unadulterated, minimally-processed, pasture-raised sources. If you don’t want your cholesterol levels to skyrocket, avoid alcohol, most starches and simple sugars, as well as all vegetables oils other than olive oil, and not overcooking (“blackening”) meats and vegetables.
Teach friends and family who are not PPNF readers, that cholesterol is a repair substance, and blaming cholesterol on heart disease is like blaming firefighters for responding to a fire.
Also share with others that LDLs and HDLs are not “good” or “bad” types of cholesterol. Rather, cholesterol levels are indicators of what environmental conditions you have been exposed to, what toxins lurk in your body and whether or not your body is in repair mode. Your total cholesterol level cannot tell you this information and is not indicative of a heart attack risk or any other heart health condition.
You may be congratulated by your doctor for having an HDL level of 125 (about 2.5 times higher than the normal level), because the medical community regards this as “good” cholesterol. This cholesterol is in fact a protective substance and a high level of HDL indicates your body contains too many toxins (i.e. heavy metals or any of numerous chemicals from pollution, pesticides and other exposures). To protect itself from too many toxins, your body will work overtime, producing higher than normal amounts of protective HDL. This is the equivalent of a band aid solution to a deep puncture wound. The issue of why your body is producing so much HDL needs to be addressed in order for you to maintain optimal health.
On the flip side of the cholesterol equation, a low LDL level, particularly for those in the 50-90-years old age bracket, could indicate that the body is unable to manufacture enough of this repair substance to protect itself. Remember, HDL is a protective substance, LDL is a repair substance. By the age bracket mentioned above, most people living in our modern industrialized societies have accumulated enough toxic substances and inflammation in their bodies, that their bodies need to be able to respond by producing the repairing LDL cholesterol. An inability to produce such cholesterol (indicated by low levels of LDL) could mean that these people are in far worse health than those with an overall high level of cholesterol.
3. Avoid wheat
PPNF highly recommends drastically limiting wheat intake, as most modern wheat is genetically altered and contains lectin, pro-inflammatory “invisible thorns” that puncture tissues, both neural and connective. PPNF’s David Getoff recommends Emmer wheat, which has more of the healthy nutrition profile of ancient wheat varieties, devoid of modern hybridization. However, remember that limiting your overall consumption of all grains is ideal for optimal health.
Adopting these three nutrition resolutions and sharing them with others will lead to optimal health and help drive down the astronomical cost of health care, currently devouring approximately twenty percent of the U.S. government’s budget.
One simple way you can spread health consciousness is to share this article with others through social networks or email.
Have a happy, healthy 2013 and beyond!