“Live simply so others may simply live.” – MUHAMMAD ALI.
*******
Healthy eating is the key to a quality, long life. This is how I assess today’s contemporary lifestyle. You are what you eat, right?
In simple, understandable layman terms, it is nutrition – the food one takes in produces the healthy person that one wants himself to be.
Conversely, you know what results if you do the opposite. Some people assume that eating as much as you can devour to satisfy your hunger is just okay. Yes, you get to witness this “habit” in ‘Eat All You Can’ restos because diners get so much pleasure in tasting all the food items they think are most delicious to their palate – and are available. Senior citizens like me are choosy.
We try to avoid fatty foods like pork and beef because these are the items in the menu that have been prescribed by doctors to avoid. Lisa Young, PhD, adjunct professor of nutrition at New York University and author of “Finally Full, Finally Slim, suggests: “Choose just one food at a time to introduce more frequently to your diet and be sure to incorporate healthy foods you also enjoy.”
In my particular case, I start eating small like a pair of slice breads sandwiching a scrambled egg sprinkled with plenty of spring onions. With coffee (I take one cup only a day), this is already my breakfast. I eat rice (1 cup) twice a day (lunch and dinner). Audra Wilson, MS, bariatric dietitian at Northwestern Medicine Dlenor Hospital, recommends: “Use veggies as a snack with hummus or fruit and a low-fat cheese stick so you get some protein and fat.”
For a 75-year old, am proud to say I take no maintenance medicines. I quit smoking in 1986 and my doctor friend said it was the best positive action I made for a healthy, disease-free living. Wilson has several advices. She said we must choose “clean” foods whenever possible such as whole foods that are nearest their natural form and those not of the heavily-processed or refined foods.
In Wilson’s long list are nuts, seeds, herbs, seafood, onions, sprouts, peas, avocado, sweet potato, squash, green beans, carrots, leafy greens, peppers, eggs, fish, turkey, chicken, bananas, coconut oils, mango, apples, kiwi, lemons, limes, grapefruits, berries and melons.
Young meanwhile stressed the need to know which are the food to avoid in order to eat healthy food. “Stay away from ultra-processed foods high in sugar and salt.” She also suggested limiting outside dining especially in fast-food places. Eating at home (which is my preference) is actually the best choice. You can control and determine the right amount of salt and sugar you put in your home cooked recipe which you can’t when you order food in a restaurant.
I have proven that fish and veggies are the ideal pair to consume rather than swapping fish for meat because the latter tastes better in the mouth. One of the leafy veggies that provides me satisfaction is ‘saluyot’ which I mixed with mushroom, alugbati, malunggay (moringa) leaves, okra and spiced with shrimp. I have noticed that Visayan households don’t relish cooking the malunggay fruit (horseradish) as much as I do.
This has so much therapeutic value as it helps boost the immune system, prevent gout and ease swelling and inflammation. Eating healthy should ideally be the basic principle that should underline our lives today as the issue of Coivid 19 refuses to die despite the WHO pronouncement that it is no longer a global threat.
I, for one, has not been bothered by the global panic it has caused but certain sectors continue to float the notion that Covid 19 infections are again on the rise (and here to stay). If one habitually eats a healthy diet and is therefore healthy, you have a strong built-in immunity against Covid 19 and the virus will not affect you as it did to those who had weak constitutions. Senior or younger, a person must eat healthy foods that are medically prescribed and have been scientifically proven to make a person healthy and add quality years to his life. This is the basic foundational principle of eating healthy.
Sorry to say but many of my peers have gone ahead of this deadline beater. As I looked back in retrospect, it is good that the realization about having healthy habits and eating healthy foods did not come late in my life. I tip my hat to all the health experts whose advice and books they wrote I have listened to and read. God bless you all!
(Email feedback to fredlumba@yahoo.com.) GOD BLESS THE PHILIPPINES!
