An Apple A Day

The digestive tract and our modern lifestyle

A good friend of mine once said "You can eat your way to health". the viewpoint being that, whatever ailment you have, mother nature has provided us with the right food to cure the ailment. Sometimes a little tweaking is involved, such as creating vinegars for stomach ailments or distilling essential oils from various plants to create more potent products. The bottom line though, is that all of the ingredients are there, inside the plants that we eat.

It seems to me that if the statement "You can eat your way to health" is true, then the opposite is also true. You can eat your way to illness. I see this evidenced in the diet of most people. All the food we really like to eat has a terrible effect on our digestive system. The wheat products, sugars, starches and fatty foods have one longterm effect on our system. They clog up the digestive tract with an unhealthy sludge and this sludge has a twofold effect.

1.) It slows down our body's process of elimination and

2.) It prevents our body from absorbing all the nutrition from the good food we do eat.

The process of elimination

When I say "process of elimination" I'm sure you know I'm talking about our body's ability to get rid of already digested food. This process of elimination is quite functional and healthy in the early stages of our life, but as we get older, the accumulated residue of countless meals begins to build up in the digestive tract. All sorts of discomforts begin to manifest. Heartburn becomes more frequent, sometimes an ulcer will develop, maybe two or three. Our energy level begins to drop and we feel sluggish and tired. Getting out of bed in the morning is not as joyful an experience as it was when we were young. All of this because our process of elimination has slowed down and our once healthy digestive tract, has become filled with a toxic sludge, coating the walls of our intestines and slowly poisoning us.

Eat yourself healthy

Okay, don't eat yourself. Eat your way to better health. There are some foods that Mother Nature has provided, that can actually help to relieve us of a lot of toxic waste in our system. High fibre unprocessed foods will go a long way towards helping your digestive tract get back to a workable state. Apples are a gift from heaven. An apple a day? I would take that one step further and say "Go on an apple diet". Take 3 weeks and eat only apples, even if you slip up and say "Please, No! not another day of just apples". Even if you give up half way, you would have done yourself a great service. Incorporate an apple a day into your diet and you won't regret it. You can eat yourself healthy, the choice is yours. This is one area of research you should never sneer at.

Drug companies will not make you healthy in the real sense of the word. They can maybe help you with a specific ailment. The doctor can prescribe drugs or recommend surgery to fix a problem, but only you can choose a lifestyle and mental attitude that will bring you the happiness you desire and deserve.