Detour to a Healthy Life.

As a young man, I was amazed at the advice in the words, wisdom and rhyme evident in the songs of that era. Poetry made it so much easier to remember the words and they still hold meaning for me to this day. "Detour" was a song I loved to sing:"Detour, there’s a muddy road ahead. Detour - paid no mind to what it said. Detour - all these troubles that I find – should have read--that detour sign." Well, life is all about taking the right road and so I passed that advice to my sons, "If you are going down a road with pot holes, slippery shoulders and obstacles galore - you might want to head back to the fork in the road and take it." Of course, Yogi Berra said, "When you come to a fork in the road - take it." Well, the point is — we can change our health-outcomes depending on our choices. More and more, people are telling me that the research I provide has changed their lives. I don’t use the word "cure" because eating healthy is something you do before you need a cure. It is "preventative" and is the equivalent to building strong muscles to make doing everyday chores easier.
Now, you’ve tried pills, and then pills to treat the side effects of the pills prescribed to you in the first place and the pyramid builds, until you find 65-year-olds taking a handful of pills a day and Walgreens popping up on every corner. There’s another road to consider - take a detour to the land of colorful fruits and vegetables. It isn’t that I’m against the doctors offering medicine that works, because most doctors really are thrilled to be instrumental in bringing about healing.
You see, no matter what humans do to isolate chemicals and vitamins, then binding them into a pill, they can’t duplicate the art and science of "mother nature." Good food is a combination of vitamins, herbs and minerals in a form that is conducive to good health. It is true that ethnicity enters into the equation. Where your forefathers came from makes a difference. Their bodies evolved and those who survived were doing something right.

Eating whole-food provides you with plant-based nutrition, free of chemicals, and powerful combinations of vitamins you need in a special design by mother nature. By avoiding the trans-fats, additives and refined carbs, that set your body up for every kind of disease, including diabetes, you will see excess pounds melting off — which is also anti-inflammatory. Exercise, play, having fun and surrounding yourself with friends and family is part of the lifestyle that helps your body, mind and spirit thrive. Staying away from processed sugar, high sodium, high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated vegetable oil and trans-fats is part of that equation. It’s not "rocket science" but it will get you down the right road to a healthier, happier life.
Cooking methods have been proven to cut cancer. All the research done over many years supports the use of Brassica vegetables—cabbage, cauliflower, collards, broccoli, turnips, watercress, radishes, kale and the like — to decrease your risk of cancer. The cancer-fighting teeth in these foods come primarily from your body’s conversion of compounds called glucosinolates into isothiocyanates like DIM and 13C.
Now, a novel study has examined the effect that cooking and storage have on the glucosinolate content of various vegetables. Researchers from the University of Warwick bought fresh broccoli, cauliflower, green cabbage and Brussels sprouts, then began boiling the vegetables soon after purchasing them. Boiling for 30 minutes caused severe glucosinolate loss—by 77 percent in broccoli, 75 percent in cauliflower, 65 percent in green cabbage and 58 percent in Brussels sprouts. They found that boiling these vegetables even for 5 minutes led to losses of 20 - 30 percent.
Other cooking methods were less damaging. Steaming for up to 20 minutes, stir-frying for 5 minutes, and micro-waving for 3 minutes created no significant loss of the anti-cancer punch. Another pleasing result of this study was that normal refrigerated storage for up to 7 days led to only minor losses of glucosinolate.
There wasn’t any reference to "crock-pot" cooking at low temperatures, but I believe that this method of cooking is healthier than high-heat exposure to foods.
If you have been following a long, you know the importance of fiber. Most people think of fiber when they are stopped-up. Fiber enhances your health in very unexpected ways, far beyond regular bowel movements. There’s just one catch, though: You need the right kind of fiber.
Fiber usually brings to mind things like All-Bran cereal and whole-wheat bread. But those foods contain chiefly insoluble fiber—fiber that doesn’t dissolve in water. It’s what makes a plant’s cell-walls rigid so they don’t collapse, and forms part of the glue that holds the plant together. It’s found in whole grains, most kinds of bran, the edible skin of fruits like apples and pears, and root vegetables. Its primary benefit for you is that it’s like a broom that helps sweep out your colon. An honorable and important service, for sure.
Then there’s soluble fiber. Plunk it in water and it quickly swells up into a gelatinous sponge. It’s found in oatmeal, fruits, vegetables, barley, beans and seeds, and it’s what they call a fermentable complex carbohydrate—meaning that friendly bacteria living inside your colon can digest it (by fermenting it) as their primary source of food. They need it, to support their own colonies, which are a major part of your immune system. They protect you against armies of pathogens that are trying to invade you body via your gut. As those good bugs thrive on the soluble fiber you eat, they produce byproducts called short chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which just happen to be the favorite fuel source for the cells that make up your colon. Those cells need SCFAs to survive, stay healthy, function optimally, and heal.
Many medical researchers now believe that a lack of fiber is the biggest contributing factor in the current epidemic of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and colon cancer in the U.S. or us. Here’s the straight talk on these and other health problems than can be caused by too little fiber, and held at bay when fiber intake is restored.
Next time you part with friends and family, try bidding them goodbye by saying, "Stay Healthy." The first time I used that phrase, an elderly, sophisticated, gentlemen praised me by saying, "That’s really good!"