Making Informed Decisions About Your Health

For the Health of It!

In this section we are going to list some basic nutritional information along with some well-sourced, respected links.

Since we are not doctors, nor pharmacists, nor practitioners of any sort, our Medical Disclaimer applies to all information we offer. We encourage you to educate yourself in order to make informed decisions about your Health.

Health is not just about eating the right foods and taking the right vitamins. Our Health is also dependent on the way we view the world and the type of information we "ingest". Words and emotions can be just as destructive as poor diet, poisons, and lack of sanitation.

Prophylaxis is a fancy word for “preventative measures”. It means to "guard against". Especially now, it is used to describe what can be done to protect yourself from “dis-eases”. It is always good to keep your body clean, especially your hands and face, since they have the most exposure to the world.

There are many ways to protect yourself from illness. Pharmaceutical drugs and surgery can be helpful, but your best line of defense is to Stay Healthy!

The Importance of Self Care

Most of us know that proper nutrition is important to maintain Health, but we often don’t know what is optimal. Our world, including our food, water, and air has been inundated with man-made chemicals. Although the body can mitigate a certain amount of chemical overload, it can be slowly overwhelmed until it may no longer be able to handle the load. That’s when things begin to break down; we lose energy, begin to feel tired all the time, and ultimately can become ill.

Symptoms like achiness and pain are the body’s way of trying to get our attention; to let us know that we need to take action – more rest; less toxic substances; better nutrition; etc.

Often though, because our lives are busy, we hope it will go away and we take something to ease the pain or give us more energy.

Squelching the symptoms is the same as seeing the warning lights on your dashboard and then letting your car run out of oil. It will keep going for a while, but let it go too long and you have real issues.

If your car breaks down, it will cost you, but it can probably be fixed. If your body breaks down, it’s harder to fix and spare parts are not often available. Please take good care of You!

Where To Find Nutritional Advice

Most MDs have very little nutritional education and pharmacists are mainly about pharmaceuticals.

According to Michael Greger, M.D. FACLM of NutritionalFacts.org, medical students are still getting less than 20 hours of nutritional training over 4 years of education. This same point is made in an article on the U.S News & World Report site, on the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and a plethora of other sites. One might conclude that asking your doctor for nutritional advice would not be your best choice. Most M.D.s excel in diagnostics and prescribing medicine, not in nutrition.

The USDA Nutrition.gov site offers a wonderful array of information on basic nutrition; diet and health; shopping, cooking, and meal planning; and other information that most anyone could use to educate themselves on the care of their families.

This article on Healthline defines the differences between a Nutritionist and a Dietitian.

On the Subject of Masks

The wearing of masks is a controversial subject and perhaps one of the greatest collective arguments ever to hit our society. There are certain professional protocols provided by organizations like OSHA, the Mayo Clinic, and others that offer the latest guidelines on mask-wearing. The information has been altered over the past two years, as suits the rhetoric and can be very confusing. There are also experts who actually work for OSHA and other professional organizations who claim that the casual wearing of masks can cause more issues than not wearing them.

Most of us are trying to follow guidelines to help keep ourselves and others safe. There is much confusion on what type of mask is best, and can they actually protect us from a thing as small as a virus? Our best advice is to educate yourself as much as you can and then decide if you feel safer wearing a mask, or not. No matter what your choice, please allow others to make theirs. We all get to choose.

For your consideration: Virus vs. Mask

Good Eating Habits

ALWAYS Eat Fruit on an Empty Stomach - According to many nutritionists and studies, eating fruit with other foods can cause fermentation in the bowel and other digestive issues. Fruit digests quickly and is a wonderful appetizer, so eat it prior to your meal.

Prepare your food with love. Relax at meals; don't rush. Focus on your food and feel gratitude for it.

Don't drink a lot of liquid with your meal and stick to water as much as possible.

Chew! Chew! Chew! Eat until you're full and then Stop! Gorging yourself will not help the starving people in Ethiopia nor elsewhere.

Breathe and Smile!

Monitor Your Health

Keeping a Pulse Oximeter and a Thermometer on hand is a good idea, and an easy way to monitor your health.

SARS-CoV-2[severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2] is the name of the virus indicated to cause the disease called COVID-19. The symptoms include: dropping oxygen in blood; increase in heart rate; slight raise in temperature (fever).

Keep a chart when Healthy, so you know when blood oxygen drops and temperature rises.

For the average person, blood oxygen under 85 combined with temperature over 100°F is indicative that you may have COVID-19 symptoms.

Take Charge of Your Life!

Ultimately You are responsible for the care of your body.

Educate yourself.

Weigh and balance all information without fear or bias.

Look in your community for nutritional practitioners and other experts in nutritional Health. Interview them to discover who you would like to work with.

If you were going to buy a house or a car or an appliance, chances are you would do quite a lot of research before you made your purchase.

Your Health is just about the most important investment you can make in this life. Doesn't it make good sense to learn everything you can about it?