Howard's Healthy Living Tips

Healthy Tip: Foods to eat – Eat food that was grown or raised naturally and prepared with little or no processing or toxic chemicals. Eating food that is still in its natural form is ideal. Fruits, nuts, fresh fish and shrimp, fresh vegetables, grass-fed beef, pork, chicken, lamb, goat, etc. taste good and are good for you. Eat un-pasteurized organic milk and cheese (if you can find it), natural whole foods, foods sweetened with honey and molasses, whole grain rice, whole wheat and other whole grain breads and organic soy. Eating a wide variety of foods is also important. Drink organic teas, coffee and juices.

Healthy Tip: Foods to avoid – Avoid or at least limit eating and drinking artificial foods like colas and sodas, unfiltered water, pasteurized (regular) cow’s milk and cheese, processed foods, high-sugar foods, white bread, white sugar, white rice, candy and regular soy and tofu products. Also avoid foods that have been treated in ways (overcooking, microwaving and irradiation) that destroy vitamins and enzymes. Avoid processed fast foods such as chips, candy bars, instant foods and artificial drinks – especially the diet drinks. They actually cause weight gain while contaminating your body. Read the labels. Try to avoid all products that contain corn syrup. That's not easy.

Healthy Tip: Good fats/bad fats – Low fat diets aren’t necessarily good for you. Quality fats and oils are healthy and add taste. Fats that hurt your health and should be avoided include margarine, highly processed (hydrogenated) vegetable oils and other artificially processed oils. Fats that not only taste good but are also good for your skin and general health include organic butter, lard, other grass-fed animal fats and extra virgin olive oil. Most food restaurants do not use the good fats but that may be changing. Quality restaurants tend to use the healthy fats and oils.

Healthy Tip: Labels – Read the labels. Avoid foods that lists artificial flavors, natural flavor (can be MSG), preservative, BHA, BHT, or MSG. Try hard to avoid hot dogs, bologna, luncheon meats, instant foods, etc. These products are loaded with toxic chemicals and the bad fats.

Healthy Tip: Stop Smoking – Ireland, Scotland, and England have done it (which is amazing). Stopping smoking is the single most important change you can make for your health. Fort Worth, Dallas, and other cities have banned it.

Healthy Tip: – Don't do drugs - and don't overtake medicines. There are too many hypochondriacs.

Healthy Tip: Drink alcohol in moderation only. Beer and wine are better than the distilled products – although I do love good tequila.

Healthy Tip: Give blood regularly - it's good for the people who need it and good to cause your body to manufacture new blood.

Healthy Tip: Exercise regularly – Movement is the key. Stay active. Don't be sedentary. Walk or do more vigorous exercise on a regular basis. Walk the dog, whether you have a dog or not. Park farther from the store entrance. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Work out with a partner or join a yoga, fitness or martial arts class. Swim, jump rope, do your own gardening, etc. By the way, I'm not that big of a fan of running. I like walking better. Running is okay, but done to excess on hard surfaces can cause foot, ankle, knee and hip problems. Just use common sense.

Healthy Tip: – Grapes are good medicine all by themselves, but did you know that grape seeds contain even more potent natural medicine? If you can find them in the grocery store, pick up grapes with seeds in them. Then chew the seeds together with the grapes before you swallow them.

Healthy Tip: – When buying strawberries, always choose organic because strawberries are consistently the highest-pesticide fresh produce sold in grocery stores.

Healthy Tip: – "If you're feeling queasy, sip some ginger ale." The Truth: It turns out that ginger ale doesn't help nausea. But ginger itself may help control nausea related to pregnancy, surgical anesthesia and even sailing the high seas. So if you're feeling queasy, steep 1 to 2 grams of fresh ginger root (1 gram is about the size of a quarter) in boiling water to make a tea or eat about 2 teaspoons of candied ginger. But don't go overboard: consuming more than six grams of ginger in one sitting can irritate the stomach. As for ginger ale: only a few companies use real ginger in their brews—and since most manufacturers don't disclose amounts of ingredients it's hard to know whether even those drinks have enough ginger to provide anti-nausea benefits.

Healthy Tip: – Don't be fooled by "omega-3" chicken eggs. While the omega-3 content may be higher in those eggs, the additional omega-3s are miniscule compared to what you'd get from a high-quality, full-spectrum omega-3 supplement (or from eating flax seeds or chia seeds).

Healthy Tip: – Good source of vitamin D? Sunshine remains the best because it's natural and self-regulating (your body won't ever make vitamin D when exposed to the sun). But high-quality fish oils and vitamin D supplements are a perfectly good second choice for the winters when sunshine isn't readily available. Interestingly, even tanning beds have been proven to boost your body's production of vitamin D.

Healthy Tip: – Drinking too much water before a meal can actually "water down" your stomach acid and inhibit digestion. While it's always important to drink plenty of liquids throughout the day, reserving primary liquid intakes for times between meals actually improves digestion for many. Try it and see what works best for you.

Healthy Tip: – Tired of the cold weather and looking to warm up from the inside out? Boil some ginger root in hot water and add some stevia to make your own truly natural ginger tea. It boosts circulation and warms your body from the inside. Plus, it's readily available at any grocery store.

Healthy Tip: – If you're using olive oil for pan-frying foods, remember this: In Mediterranean cooking, they add the olive oil after the cooking, not before! This avoids exposing the olive oil to high temperatures which denatures the oils and creates health-harming chemical compounds. (Any oil that's cooked at high temperatures becomes less healthy.)

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