One thing that most people can agree on is that good nutrition is the best foundation to ensure a healthy body. In order to keep things straightforward, I will keep things short and simple.

If you want to live a long, healthy life and reduce your chances of getting sick here is a list of 5 things to do and 5 not to do, to stay on the right path.

5 Things to Do for Healthy Living

1) Drink Plenty of Balanced Water

Drink at least half your bodyweight in ounces per day. Not chlorinated and not from a reverse osmosis filter which lacks minerals. Preferably water which is alkaline in ph 8.3 or 8.7.

Learn more about the benefits of drinking healthy water.

2) Be Mindful of the Meat to Plant Ratio of Your Diet

Do your best to keep the content of your diet to 85% plant and 15% animal protein.
There is a reason for that and it has everything to do with your teeth. Humans have 32 teeth.
The breakdown is as follows:
2 pairs of incisors for biting off plants (top and bottom)
1 pair of canines well suited for ripping the meat off the bones and
5 pairs of molars for grinding up the plant food.
Thus, in humans the ratio is 1 canine to 2 incisors to 5 molars. That is a ratio of 1:7 and that is how we arrive at 85% animal food to 15% plant based food. This can be confirmed by looking at the diet of our closest cousins: the chimpanzee. Their diet is 95.6% vegetarian and the animal protein they eat comes primarily from insects; an excellent source of amino acids.

3) Add Fish to Your Diet

Eat fish since insects may not sound too appealing and we do need the essential amino acids (ones our bodies cannot synthesize.) Preferably eat white fish, not red, like tuna or bonito. The red color comes from proteins called myoglobins which oxidize immediately after the fish are filleted and may also contain high levels of neurotoxic mercury. One good thing about red meat fish is the high content of antioxidants like EPA, DHA and iron. Fat in fish does not clog arteries like the fat in warm blooded animals (chicken, beef, pork.)

4) Cooked Whole Grains are Essential

Ensure that unrefined whole grains such as brown rice, rolled barley, millet, buckwheat, quinoa, amaranth, oatmeal, whole oats or bulgar are included in your healthy diet. Keep in mind that these must be cooked because they contain trypsin inhibitors. This prevents the seed from germinating on its own and further, it takes a lot of digestive enzymes to neutralize without cooking them.

5) Chew, Chew, Chew

Use those strong teeth & gums and chew each bite at least 30 times. Our intestinal walls can absorb substances up to 0.015 mm in size. So anything bigger than that will be excreted. Well you might ask, isn’t that a good way to lose weight? Not necessarily, the decomposition of inadequately chewed up food gives rise to toxins and those, in turn, occupy the liver so much that we are not able to process fat properly and attain a healthy weight.

5 Things to Avoid for Healthy Living

1) Refrain From Eating Meats

Not a popular theme here in Texas but nevertheless true. We all have heard of saturated fatty acids and how they promote plaque accumulation inside our arteries. That can lead to strokes and heart attacks. More importantly since our gut is not made to digest meat it tends to sit in our large intestine for much too long. This causes chronic inflammation which can eventually lead to bowel cancer; the second most deadly ailment after heart disease.

2) General Nutrition Tips on What to Avoid

Avoid drinking alcohol as it is a poison in any amount though if you’d like a glass, RED wine is the best choice and is by far the least of the evil things we can do. When it comes to coffee, “the “life giving best thing about waking up” it’s good, but only for enemas. Green tea-contains flavonoids which bind to vitamins depriving us of them which is why perhaps we have learned to drink it for weight loss. Black tea-contains tannins – good for drying out the extraction site after you had a tooth removed but not for maintaining a healthy gastrointestinal tract.
Don’t eat man made chemicals like preservatives (nitrites, nitrates, MSG), antibiotics or antacids. And of course, don’t smoke.

3) Don’t Eat Wheat

One of the biggest nutrition tips I can offer is “Do not eat wheat.” For info on why not, I would like to refer you to a great book series called “Wheat Belly”. You really can create a grain-free lifestyle without sacrificing nutrition, variety or taste!

4) Don’t Cook Your Food

Raw food contains live enzymes crucial for proper metabolism and vitality. We seem to have forgotten this especially when we feed our pets dead (enzyme-free) dry pellets. This concept is very apparent in nature. The carnivorous animals eat only herbivorous ones to have access to plant food and the herbivore’s digestive enzymes. After they capture their herbivore prey they first eat the intestines which contain the plants and live enzymes of the herbivore. Mad Cow’s Disease is an example of what happens when we violate this law of nature.

A common misconception in nutrition is that white rice and dairy are good for you. However, they are dead food which lack enzymes and should be avoided entirely. Milk causes osteoporosis(soft bones) and induces asthma in children.

5) Don’t Eat 5 Hours Before Bedtime

While this may be difficult for many this is especially true for those who snore or have sleep apnea.

Baby Steps

I realize that all this may be difficult to stick to especially since healthy food can be expensive. However, with these nutrition tips we can take steps to accomplish our goal of healthy living. After all, healthy food can be grown on your own. Just look at Singapore’s skyscrapers; they look like green hairy beasts-all growing food that lives.

To get you started, here is a recipe from one of my favorite lunch foods.
Seafood Ceviche.
1lb of raw tilapia.
1lb of cooked shrimp
bunch of parsley and or cilantro
juice from 12 small limes
one avocado
yellow-sweet, red or green onions
salt, pepper, chilies

Cut tilapia and shrimp into small bite size pieces(they will shrink)and marinate in lime juice overnight in the fridge.Add rest of the ingredients. Eat immediately and observe your wrinkles and cellulite melt away in minutes. Just kidding but wouldn’t that be nice…

Follow by a desert: Papaya with a Squirt of Lemon Juice
Good food is not about the content as it is about the context or the background.Enjoy your meals with your family daily as that may become one of the happy memories your children will have for the years to come.

Learn More

At Laraway Family Dental, we understand how important healthy living is to the health of your teeth and gums. Contact Us to learn more about our holistic approach to dental care.