Digestive Wellness: Strengthen the Immune System and Prevent Disease Through Healthy Digestion, Fourth Edition (56 page)

What percentage of your food and drinks are high sugar, low fiber, or highly processed? Replace these with fresh, wholesome foods.

Do you consume enough high-fiber foods? Fiber is consumed in whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes.

Are you hydrated? One simple way to figure out your daily need is to take your body weight, divide it by two, and drink that many ounces. For example, if you weigh 150 pounds, divide by two and drink 75 ounces of fluids. New research indicates that tea, juice, soup, and other fluids count. Make sure that you choose healthful options and not soft drinks.

Here are 12 rules to help simplify healthful eating. You can tackle them all at once, or implement one at a time. Make your home a sanctuary of good eating.

1. The Life in Foods Gives Us Life

Fresh foods have the greatest enzyme activity. Enzymes are to the body what spark plugs are to the engine of a car. If we eat foods with little enzyme activity, they don’t “spark” our body to work correctly. Eating foods that have natural vibrancy gives vibrant energy to our own bodies. So if it won’t rot or spoil, don’t eat it!

2. Plan Ahead and Carry Food with You

Planning ahead and carrying your own food are great tools for healthful eating. Planning helps you create balanced meals and saves shopping time. Carrying snacks for yourself and your kids helps keep your moods and blood sugar levels even. It also saves you money and time, and you can ensure that the snacks are healthful.

An extension of this rule is to make bag lunches. That way you have some control (or at least the illusion of control!) about what you eat at work and what your children eat at school. Just put in some leftovers or a sandwich with a salad and/or a piece of fruit, add a beverage, and you’ve got lunch. Lidded containers and ziplock bags simplify the process. (To save time, I often begin making tomorrow’s bag lunch while putting away leftovers from dinner.)

3. Eat Small, Frequent Meals

Snacking is a great strategy for boosting and sustaining energy. Snacking keeps blood sugar levels even and facilitates digestion. People in Europe, South America, and Japan take time in the middle of the afternoon to have tea. Only American adults are “too busy” to stop for a snack—even our children have the sense to rush home from school and raid the refrigerator. Make snacking, especially in the midafternoon, a regular part of your life. You’ll find that your energy level will stay more constant throughout the day and your mood will be more consistently pleasurable!

Here are a few healthy snacking ideas:

Fruit with nuts

Rice or corn cakes with almond butter

Peppers with hummus or nut butter

Pears or apples with almond or peanut butter

½ a sandwich

Bowl of soup with a few whole grain crackers

Sliced goat cheese or sheep cheese with whole grain bread or crackers

Yogurt with fruit, sweetened with just a bit of honey or maple syrup

Baba ganoush with cut up vegetables or pita chips