Good Health Habits Part 1: Food, Diet And Nutrition

• Filter your source of drinking water

Our water supplies are contaminated with various chemicals, while chlorine and fluoride are also potentially harmful chemicals. Distilled or Reverse Osmosis filters would be ideal. If you can’t afford those, a simple ceramic carbon filter is better than nothing; just try to avoid drinking straight from the tap. You could take a look at some water filter products here.

Preferably, filter your shower water too, as the pores on our skin absorb a lot of the chlorine which is in the water.

• Eat a variety and good amount of whole and natural foods

Whichever diet you choose to follow, you should try to consume more natural whole foods as opposed to processed or refined ones. These include vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, sprouts, beans and legumes.

In general, whole foods have many health benefits. For example, they contain more nutrients and fiber than processed foods. The nutrients in whole foods are also better assimilated by the body. By eating a variety of whole foods, we would thus be getting all the different nutrients which we need; try to have a colorful diet – i.e. fruits, vegetables, beans, etc of different colors. In fact, whole foods also contain nutrients yet known to humans which are useful or beneficial to health.

Processed foods, on the other hand, are unnatural and often contain a load of chemical additives and preservatives. Our modern day diets are a disastrous combination of too much processed foods and very little whole foods. While it may difficult to totally avoid processed foods, it’s a good idea to reverse that imbalance as much as you can.

• Eat organic

Again, whichever diet you choose to consume, it would benefit your health to choose organic produce over conventionally farmed vegetables and fruits. The latter are often genetically modified and/or sprayed with chemical pesticides. Commercially farmed animals and animal products are also laden with artificial growth hormones, antibiotics, and other chemicals. We are ingesting all these harmful toxins every day, at every meal, and the buildup causes disease in the long run. Eating organic reduces our intake of these poisons. Organic produce also contains more nutrients, which are natural and thus better assimilated by our bodies. Click here to read more about the health benefits of organic food.

While organic food is usually more costly than conventional food, it’s an investment on your health. You wouldn’t feed cheap and poor quality petrol or engine oil to your car, right? Why, then, would you do it to your body?

You could get a variety of organic products here.

• Eat more raw plant-based foods

Raw foods, including fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, have many health benefits. For example, they contain more nutrients, enzymes and phytochemicals than cooked foods. They also have an unexplainable factor, the “life” factor — these are living foods obtained fresh from nature; seeds, for example, have the potential to grow into huge plants and trees. Cooked foods, on the other hand, are often devoid of or lacking in enzymes and nutrients and difficult for our bodies to digest. In fact, there has been research which suggests that, after consuming a cooked meal, our bodies’ immune system goes into overdrive to try and combat the large amount of toxins being produced.

Many people actually advocate fully raw diets. That, however, may not be suitable for everyone, especially those with colder body constitutions or who live in cooler climates. Another reality is that cooked foods generally taste better, and would be difficult to give up. Most of us, however, are eating too much cooked foods and not enough raw ones, and upping our intake of the latter would be helpful. To reap their health benefits, the more raw you can eat, the better.

(Note: here, we are mainly referring to raw plant-based foods)

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