Wise Pre­ven­tion Helps Keep You Healthy, Youth­ful and Vigorous!

Length­en­ing life by spe­cial treat­ment for chronic mis­eries often means merely adding years of ill health and mis­ery to a person’s life. This is often called the liv­ing death. Who wants to extend life just to suf­fer? We say, the healer’s func­tion is to pre­vent sick­ness and dis­ease. No per­son is able to heal you! Only you can heal your­self! In order to be healthy it’s essen­tial to learn how to live healthy in order to be healthy always. They say – An ounce of pre­ven­tion is worth a ton of cure!

Apple Cider Vine­gar for Feet Com­bat­ing Corns, Cal­louses and Warts

For Corns and Cal­louses: First soak affected areas in warm water with 1/3 cup ACV for 20 min­utes. After soak, rub areas briskly with coarse towel, then gen­tly use a pumice stone or wand. Now apply full-strength ACV-soaked gauze ban­dage overnight, and in the morn­ing pre­pare a fresh ACV soaked ban­dage for day­time use. These treat­ments help soften and dis­solve corns and cal­louses. Check shoes for com­fort and fit. Wrong shoes are main cause of corns, cal­louses, bunions and blis­ters. For casual wear, Birken­stock shoes are great and use orthotic inserts when needed. Give your­self weekly pedi­cures, mas­sages and exer­cise feet daily. Doing this while watch­ing TV is ideal. Treat your­self to foot reflex­ol­ogy ther­apy (page 108). Walk­ing bare­foot on sand, grass and at home is ben­e­fi­cial. Be good to your feet – they carry you through life! We kept famous foot Dr. Scholl going strong, healthy and alert to almost 100 years young!

The Healthy Plant-Based Daily Food Guide

The Healthy Plant-Based Daily Food Guide Pyra­mid is much dif­fer­ent than other food guide pyra­mids you may have seen. This food pyra­mid is based on a more opti­mal diet eat­ing plan of healthy veg­e­tar­ian foods. There are no “junk foods” found in this pyra­mid. For those want­ing to eat a health­ful, bal­anced veg­e­tar­ian  diet, this pyra­mid pro­vides an excel­lent guide. It is in har­mony with the Bragg Healthy Lifestyle prin­ci­ples of opti­mal nutrition.

At the foun­da­tion of the pyra­mid is distilled/purified water. We rec­om­mend dis­tilled water as the opti­mal source of water to drink. It is the health­i­est and purist type of water. We rec­om­mend drink­ing at least eight glasses of dis­tilled water daily. Rec­og­nize that you also “eat your water” by eat­ing healthy plant foods such as raw fruits and veg­eta­bles. The eight glasses you drink is in addi­tion to the water you take in from your plant-based foods.

After the water base, the next pyra­mid level is whole grains. This includes all whole grain foods, includ­ing cere­als, pasta, and brown rice. We rec­om­mend eat­ing three to four serv­ings a day of whole grains. An exam­ple of a serv­ing of whole grains is one slice of whole grain bread, one-half cup cooked grains or cereal, or pasta. One ounce of a ready-to-eat whole grain cereal is also a serv­ing in this group.

We next rec­om­mend eat­ing at least six to eight serv­ings of veg­eta­bles every day. Try to eat two-thirds of these veg­etable serv­ings raw and only one-third of your serv­ings lightly cooked for opti­mal nutri­tion! Exam­ples of a serv­ing of veg­eta­bles are one-half cup of cooked veg­eta­bles, one cup of raw veg­eta­bles includ­ing salad, and three-fourths of a cup of veg­etable juice.

We next rec­om­mend eat­ing at least four to six serv­ings of fruits 4 daily. Here again we rec­om­mend to have most of your fruit serv­ings raw, organic and uncooked. Exam­ples of a fruit serv­ing include: one apple, banana, orange or pear; one-half cup of fruit, three fourths of a cup of fruit juice, and one-fourth cup of dried fruits.

It is impor­tant to have at least four to six serv­ings each day of calcium-rich foods. You do not need to get your cal­cium from dairy prod­ucts. There are plenty of other non-dairy, veg­e­tar­ian cal­cium alter­na­tives. (See chart pg. 52). These include soymilk, tofu and high cal­cium greens. Exam­ples of serv­ing sizes for the calcium-rich food group include: one-half cup of soymilk; one-quarter cup of tofu; one cup of raw or cooked calcium-rich greens like kale, col­lards, broc­coli or Chi­nese greens; and one-quarter cup of almonds.

Beans, legumes, nuts and seeds, and veg­e­tar­ian meat alter­na­tives are excel­lent sources of veg­etable pro­tein in the veg­e­tar­ian diet. It is rec­om­mended to have two to three serv­ings from this group each day to meet your pro­tein needs. Exam­ples of veg­etable pro­tein serv­ings include: one cup of cooked legumes (beans, lentils, dried peas); one-half cup of tofu; one serv­ing of a veg­e­tar­ian meat sub­sti­tute such as a soy-based veg­e­burger or “veg­gie” meat slices; three table­spoons of nut but­ter; or one-quarter cup of raw nuts.

In order for you to get your essen­tial fatty acids we rec­om­mend eat­ing health­ful fats from foods such as nuts and seeds (flax seeds and wal­nuts are excel­lent sources of omega-3 fatty acids), flaxseed oil, and Bragg Organic Extra Vir­gin Olive Oil. Tak­ing dietary sup­ple­ments that pro­vide vit­a­min D and vit­a­min B12 are also rec­om­mended because some­times these nutri­ents can be miss­ing or at low lev­els in cer­tain veg­e­tar­ian diets if they are not prop­erly balanced.

The Healthy Plant-Based Daily Food Guide Pyra­mid pro­vides you with nutri­tional guide­lines that can be help­ful in prepar­ing health­ful, deli­cious veg­e­tar­ian meals for you and your family.

Plant Based Food Pyramid