Good Health Habits Part 1: Food, Diet And Nutrition

An important aspect of healthy living is your food, diet and nutrition. After all, as the saying goes, you are what you eat – your body uses your food intake as the fuel it needs for sustenance, growth, repair and fighting disease.

A quick summary of all our recommended good health tips can be found by clicking here.

Good Health Habits Part 1: Food, Diet and Nutrition

• Consume a healthy diet – but what diet should you follow?

Listen to different experts and you will have very different ideas of what the best diet for you is. Some advocate going fully vegan (there are some studies which suggest vegetarians live longer, have lower rates of certain chronic diseases, and enjoy better health in general), while others insist that going vegan would result in nutritional deficiencies and that we need meat and animal-based foods to be healthy. Some suggest being vegetarian but also consuming non-flesh animal products such as raw milk, yogurt, eggs, etc. There are also those who suggest fully-raw diets. Then there are experts who advocate different types of diets for different body types, for example the Blood Type Diet and Dr Joseph Mercola’s Nutritional Typing. You may also have heard of the Atkins Diet, Paleo Diet, and others.

So, what in the world are we supposed to eat?

To be honest, this is something my family and I are still figuring out. There was a time I strongly believed in vegetarianism. Going vegetarian and mainly raw boosted my health in many ways – for example, I felt more energetic, lighter and clearer-minded; I also felt good not having to slaughter animals – but it also seemed to leave me lacking in some ways. On the other hand, meat and animal-foods, while nutritious in some ways, seem to promote undesirable elements such as constipation, phlegm and general toxicity in the body. I also seem to fall sick more often when I do consume animal flesh and other animal-based foods.

It gets particularly confusing because different natural health experts whom I respect and trust advocate different diets to follow. There are many things which most of them agree on, but diet, it seems, is not one of them. And, the truth is, we do observe different people thriving on different types of diets, so perhaps there is some value behind the idea of different people needing different diet plans.

What I can advise, is to be open to learning and trying things out for yourself, and, subsequently and very importantly, to learn to listen to your body so you can read its signals and figure which diet is really the best for you as you vary your food intake.

The following paragraphs touch on areas of diet and nutrition which would apply to most, if not all, people.

• Drink sufficient / more water

Water is crucial for good health. After all, our bodies are over 80% water, and their need for water is far more critical than their need for any food or nutrient. Water carries out many functions in the body — it lubricates, carries nutrients, flushes toxins, cools, etc. Many diseases have been linked to dehydration or lack of water. Sodas, coffee, alcohol etc do not count; in fact, these are potentially harmful beverages which actually dehydrate your body. Freshly squeezed fruit and vegetable juices as well as herbal teas are good too.

Drinking sufficient water is an important habit for good health which many people underestimate or overlook. Recommendations vary, though two to three liters per day seems to be the minimum you should aim for.

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