Seven Tips for Health

In keeping last week's theme of weight loss, we felt that it would be appropriate to present a post giving hints for healthy eating. Since I ( Engineer R) do not know much about healthy eating, I decided to turn to the internet for help. When I Googled "How to eat healthy...," the first prompt I got was "How to eat healthy at Cafe Rio." Whaaaaaat? That's why you go to a place like Cafe Rio, so that you do not have to eat healthy. I get the chicken burrito with pinto beans and hot sauce, enchilada style, every time. Yeah, it's probably like 40,000 calories, but who cares. I would rather eat 40,000 calories of something that tastes good than 400 calories of something that tastes bad.

It reminds me of those people who go to Baskin Robbins and order a fruit parfait. I'm one of those awful people that goes with the church youth group to an ice cream parlor and orders an ice cream cake.....for myself........and consumes it on-site.

But, to cut to the chase, here are seven tips for healthy eating that we usually follow here at DE. After an introduction such as the one above, you may doubt the credence of some of these tips. Nevertheless, rest assured that they are all based on sound medical research (and are AARP approved).

The king of slim, Richard "Slimmins" Simmons

If you are already following some of these tips, try taking our advice with a grain of salt. Of course, do not literally eat salt, since you should cut down on your sodium intake. But figuratively, take these pointers with a crystal or two of sodium-chloride.

1. Smoothie it. One fad that I have seen lately is "The Smoothie." The concept is as follows: The less appealing you food looks and tastes, the more calories you will burn. And the more calories you burn, the thinner you will be. A leads to B, B leads to C, ergo, A implies C. One common mantra recited among the Smoothie Folk is that smoothies taste so good. I always think "Compared to what?" (Credit Marcel the Shell; "One time I nibbled on a piece of cheese and my cholesterol went up to 900." ). If you were raised on pickled pigs' feet (is the whole hog pickled, or just its feet?) and lead paint chips, I could see that Smoothies would be an improvement. However, blended beets, eggplant, cucumber, and cruciferous vegetables (with a dash of lemon peel extract) usually makes for a gloop that the casual observer would mistake for cat sick. Maybe that is why Smoothies are so effective (See A implies C). Nevertheless, I cannot knock a health tactic unless I have tried it. Maybe one of these days I will have to try a kale-blueberry-lychee special. 
   
   

   

   Try not to let your mouth water.




2. Non-GMO, Gluten Free, Organic. When purchasing food at the store, these are some buzzwords to look for. I don't know what GMO stands for, but I think that it stands for gluteus-maximus-over-inflating. So unless you want your gluteus-maximus to be over-inflated, you better opt for the non-GMO option.  "Non-GMO" is a buzzword to look for.
   
   Another buzzword is "gluten free." This is not to be mistaken with "glutton free." Chocolate covered crickets are glutton free, since you probably will only be able to eat just one. But gluten free indicates that a product does not contain gluten. Some people have legitimate reasons for not consuming gluten. Moreover, although most of us actually can eat gluten, it has just been poo-pooed by the health people as bad for everyone. So only buy foods that are gluten free.
   
   Finally, consider going fully organic. "Organic" means that your food is fresh and raw, right as nature intended it to be. By eating organic, you can up your consumption of roughage by 38%. Although organic food usually costs more, please keep in mind that it is much more expensive for a farmer to not spray his or her crops with pesticide. (Wait, why is that true...?) Just keep in mind that you will get what you pay for. If you cheapskate out for apples sprayed with crude oil and wheat watered with "irrigation grade" water, you will probably die much more quickly than if you had anted up for the organic versions of these foods. 
3. Do not drink soda. Anything with the word "soda" in it should be avoided. Soda pop, Soda crackers, baking Soda, you name it. Do not drink any of these. Although, unlike baking soda, baking powder is fine to drink. Just as long as you mix it with a little bit of ginger extract, baking powder can do wonders for your health. As a wise woman once told me,

   "Didn't your momma ever teach you the difference between baking soda and baking powder? One makes your teeth yellow, and the other makes your teeth white."

   Unless you want yellow teeth, avoid all types of soda. I mean, why do you think that soda crackers are the same color as tooth plaque? 




4. The secret is seeds. Seeds are extremely healthy for you. This is why baseball players eat so many sunflower seeds. Who needs PEDs when you have a bag full of protonitroglyero-omega-gamma-kappa-antioccident nutrient packed seeds? Seeds, my friends, are the answer to much of what is wrong with sports nutrition. Do not even get me started on flax seeds. Flax is the worst card in Pit (even lower than hay), but the seeds of flax are America's wonder seed. Now picture what would happen if you put a handful of flax seeds in a Smoothie. Talk about a burst of 1.21 gigawatts. And the best thing is, they are gluten free.
   
   
   

   

   A 1919 version of Pit.




5. Eat foreign foods. According to a study done "a while ago," 87% of Americans could lose weight if they stopped consuming American food. This is why we are suggesting that readers consider eating exclusively foreign foods.  It is a well known fact that people from other countries are not fat. This is because foreign foods are all very healthy for you. In keeping with this foreign foods movement, we cooked a food called 부대찌개 this past week.
   
   

   

   This is 부대찌개

   
   부대찌개 is a food that contains many healthy things like noodles, cabbage, onions, and trace amounts of MSG (Mega Super Good-for-youness). 부대찌개 also contains a meat called 스팸 (literally translatiterated "spaem"), which is full of natural ingredients. I think that we even can claim that 스팸 is organic, since I do not believe it has been sprayed with pesticides. This meat comes in a sealed airtight can to keep non-organic things from profaning its naturalness. 
6. Zumba. The Urban Dictionary defines Zumba as follows: "A popular and highly suggestive dance exercise that has taken the world by storm." Why wouldn't you want to lose weight while being suggestive? (Or is being suggestive the reason you want to lose weight? Something to ponder on).
   
   Becoming involved in an exercise regimen is the leading cause of weight loss next to mortality. Might we suggest (but not suggestively) that you include Zumba as part of your exercise regimen? It is one of the few exercise programs where men are allowed to get away with wearing pink stretchy pants and gold sequins. (Besides Richard Simmon's programs of course, but he's from an era when pink on men was still acceptable. Gold sequins....not so much).
   
7. Honey for Health. According to Men's Health, honey has powerful health properties. They suggest using honey as a disinfectant for cuts. But why stop there? Topical application of honey is a good first step, but ingestion is better. I once had a roommate that would take a chug from the honey bear every morning before going up to school. This allowed him to go out in public without having to spray pesticides on himself. So organic!

We hope you enjoy these health tips. Good luck with your non-GMO flax seed smoothies. Comment below if you have any other great health tips we should share with readers. Please refrain from suggestive suggestions, however.