Aging doesn’t have to suck

By Wendell Fowler

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Are you persistently sapped and mentally done in? Feel like a wrinkled up dog-doo snow-cone? Do tackling weekend mental and physical chores feel like swimming through Jell-O? Is that what’s bumming you out, bucko? Guess what? You’re aging. The oxidative effects of aging are predictable, but you needn’t hand over your youth to age-related disease until you’re darned good and ready. After all, no one is charge of your health but you. Disease is not a natural progression of aging. It’s a result of nutrient deficiencies and, occasionally, genes. You are what you absorb from food and drink. What you eat becomes part of you, profoundly affecting the aging process. Maximum-quality building materials from the universe, not a CEO, make a measurable difference in how you feel now and how your body wears for tomorrow. If you feed yourself poorly, you’ll look and feel old sooner rather than later, and all the spa spackle on earth won’t conceal it. [ad#single-post] With the back-breaking cost of healthcare, chowing sun-drenched antioxidant-dense foods becomes germane. Tonight Show host Jay Leno recently displayed his dented intellect saying, “I don’t think I’ve ever had a salad, actually. And I don’t think I’ve had a vegetable since 1969.” Jay, there’s a reason 57 percent of savvy Americans are improving how they eat by consuming more fresh fruits and salads: nutritional literacy and personal stewardship. Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish oils, nuts, seeds, clean water and green leafy vegetables speed-bump aging. “Dietary choices are critical to delay aging and age-related diseases, and the sooner you start, the greater the benefit,” states the American Dietetic Association. How we age is affected by everything we place into our often indiscriminate mouths. Even though fewer calories reverse the aging process, it’s simply not enough; it’s quality over quantity. We take a load off our digestive tract by eating less and zeroing in on easy-to-digest whole foods in balance with our bodies. Highly nutritious lentils and the seed quinoa are wonderful examples. Your daily diet needs informed planning to maximize nutrition. But you already know this. The uber-American lifestyle and the consumption of dead food nibble at the crispy edges of a nation’s collective health, weakening its stability. Eating processed food with unpronounceable fuel sucks the life right out of your health equity. That’s shifting as numerous green chefs and green grocers are embracing local foods, supporting the concerns of their customer’s increasingly nutritional awareness and sense of community. Still, the food best suiting holy temple biochemistry comes from locally procured sustainable foods combined with your own scratch efforts in the home kitchen where you manage the ingredients. As you feed the temple fresh, clean, pure foods bursting with the intelligence of the cosmos, you’ll feel the rush of nutritional righteousness speed-bumping the aging process. By contrast, greasy fast food sweetened with fructose, contaminated with trans-fat is a real drag for your body to digest. Such food terrorizes your innards, holds energy hostage; freaks out bodily functions putting the aging process pedal to the metal. If food doesn’t occur in nature, put it back on the shelf, slowly back away and no one will get hurt. You’ll send a powerful message to the ethically malnourished clowns who make it. You deserve to age gracefully. Life is such a beautiful gift, but way too short. To discover your fountain of youth, eat a balanced diet of whole plant foods, reduce calories and take a multi-vitamin food-based supplement. Savor an occasional nap, sit in the sunshine, do a good deed, adopt a pet, develop a sense of humor, loosen up your sphincter and get some moderate, daily exercise. Your body is your buddy.

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