There are so many health diets, health foods and health trends out there. It often seems difficult to know which is right and why. But here’s the truth: it’s not that hard. Surprisingly, there is a lot of agreement among doctors and researchers regarding the causes of the majority of diseases in America. There is also much consensus about what keeps our immune systems functioning well. So lets make health simple – in plain words and simple prompts.

(See some of my references at the bottom of this article, but there are many more studies that concur.)

What Makes Us Sick?

I just said “let’s make health simple” and here I am about to sound complicated.  But I promise, it’s really not.

Bear with me for a moment.

I know!  What the heck is biome depletion?  The Biome is comprised of many other organisms that live on/in us. Current medical research agrees that our body is an “ecosystem” hosting many different lifeforms. Sounds scary, I know, but we need all these lifeforms in order for our body to function effectively.  These lifeforms cannot live and thrive on processed foods, antibiotics or medicines. This is why probiotics and prebiotics have become so popular even in conventional medicine. It’s an attempt to add lifeforms to our ecosystem because too many of them have died.

Dr. Parker (Duke University School of Medicine), Dr. Staci Bilbo (Duke Neuroscience, previously Harvard Medical School) among many others in their field have done extensive research and publications about the “biome.”  The human biome is now believed to be a major factor destabilizing our immune systems.

So other than the “biome,” doctors and researchers agree that American “inflammatory diets”, sedentary lifestyle, stress and Vitamin D deficiency are the main other causes of disease and/or a malfunctioning immune system.

Health Simplified

So lets simplify. All that fancy language translate into VERY simple needs:

  • Food  – we need REAL food that grows or lives outside. This feeds not only our bodies but also the other organisms that live with us. Processed foods actually promote bad bacteria and kill off beneficial bacteria.
  • Movement In The Sun – we need to move, preferably outside in the sun among plants, dirt and animals. Not only is movement necessary but being outside and interacting with sun/nature/animals sustains and adds to our “biome” and gives us Vitamin D.
  • Lower Stress – we need to find what gives us hope and stability and eliminate what makes us anxious. All three of these allow us to sleep better, which is also essential.

Not so complicated, is it?  Scientific research is now showing what we’ve known for centuries – we need food, sun, movement and hope. All other supplements, probiotics, medications, exercise options, yoga, meditations, etc are just trying to fulfill these three basic needs so that our bodies can function properly – so we can be healthy.

Eat Real Food

What is real food? The official answer is that real foods are “whole foods (low in processed sugars) and simple carbohydrates. Again sounds fancy, but real food is simply food that grows and lives outside. That’s it! The less humans have “messed with it,” the better. Ask a simple question: can I go somewhere outside and pick or find this food? If the answer is no, it’s probably not real food. Since antibiotics and pesticides kill all organisms, especially the beneficial ones needed in our “ecosystem”, we want to avoid these chemicals as much as possible.

Don’t aim for perfection, it’s never going to happen.  There will always be days when we need that seven layer chocolate cake or those deep fried mozzarella sticks. But since you’re never going to find a breaded and fried cheese stick growing on a tree, it’s not real food. The same goes for our meats. If you eat meat, eat real parts of real animals that grow and live outside. A slice of pastrami from the local grocery store deli, for example, is not a real part of a real animal. It’s been “messed with” so much that most of us could not name the part or the animal it came from.

Is this real food?

So quite simply look at your plate every time you sit down for a meal and ask:

What on my plate is real food?  What has grown or lived outside and has not been “messed with”?

If you have to pick between the pre-made guacamole spread (with stuff you can’t pronounce in it) and a real avocado, pick the avocado.  When given the choice of fries (mostly from frozen bags with many more ingredients than just potatoes) or an actual baked potato, pick the real thing.  Eat a real orange instead of drinking pre-made orange juice.  Get the real piece of chicken, preferably not breaded, fried and covered with ingredients you can’t pronounce.  Bread that consists of 20 unpronounceable ingredients is not real food.  Simple flour, water, salt – those are real. Cut up fruit, nuts, and oats with real milk instead of a bowl of processed cereal.

Next time you go grocery shopping, buy more real food than boxed stuff. Nothing changes perfectly overnight so don’t stress.  Just teach yourself and your family the question:  Is this real food? What stuff in my cart can I replace with something real? Make it a game – you each have to pick one thing in the cart to replace with something real.

Go Outside

Oddly enough, we were not created to live exclusively in doors.  We NEED the outside.  We need the sun and we need to move, run and stretch while breathing fresh air. We actually need nature – plants, dirt, trees, water, animals, bugs, organisms we can’t see. All of this is essential for our “ecosystem” to function properly.  No one is suggesting you start running marathons.  But we can all certainly find something to do outside.

Everyone is always looking for quality family time – do it outside. Go to a nature park and actually play or race each other.  Climb trees or at least try – make it a competition.  Find a local farm and go pick some fruit together – it’s cheaper that going to the movies. Line up your cars and wash them all at once – maybe even barefoot if it’s summer and you’re on grass.  Find something fun outside and make it a habit, a tradition.

Choose To De-stress

Here are some of the known stressors in our current lifestyles.  We can choose to purposely cut some out of our lives.  You actually don’t need to check the news, Facebook, or Twitter every hour. It turns out that our brains were not made to take a never ending barrage of information without stressing out.  So pause the barrage on purpose and do something that relaxes and uplifts you instead.  Read an actual book, pray, take a nap, sit and play a board game – whatever helps you breathe and chill.

As for family and work stressors, those are much harder to control.  I wrote about some of that in my post The More We Have, The More We Can Lose. It’s important to find what sustains you, that which you cannot lose.  Other people cannot be controlled or predicted.  Sometimes they bring us joy and sometimes they cause us sorrow.  We cannot base our peace on them.

Maybe the solutions to de-stressing are not obvious or immediate.  However, knowing that it is such an essential factor in our immune system, it’s certainly a worthy question to ponder:

What helps me be at peace?

Breathe in and let this question just bounce around in your mind for a minute.  Remember the last time when you didn’t feel like the world was pressing down on you. Can you incorporate one thing in your week that helps you feel at peace? For me this is spending time with God. He is what sustains me.  He is where I belong.

I can let go of the wrongs I cannot right in the world, for He will. With Him. I can have hope for my failures and shortcomings to be redeemed and for my character to be constantly changed for the better.  He is my home, my friend, and my hope – He is that which I cannot lose. Where do you feel at home and at peace?

Thriving Instead of Surviving

It really is simple.  Health is allowing our ecosystem to function properly by fulfilling it’s simple needs.  The problem we all face is that there is no magic pill for this. No medicine or supplement can give us the health benefits of real food, sun, nature, movement and hope.

There are supplements & medicines that can help fill in some of the gaps.  Here are a few of my favorite ones because they are WHOLE FOOD based – meaning they are made from real food:

Multi Vitamins: Live Long Vitality Pack   or Vitamin Code Women’s and Vitamin Code Men’s

Vitamin C: Garden of Life Vitamin C Whole Food Supplement

When you’re getting a cold or flu: OnGuard+ Softgels and Gaia Herbs Echinacea Goldenseal

However, no supplement can compare to the real thing. Feeling the sun on your face, tasting some freshly picked grapes, chasing your kids around in the dirt, finding and treasuring a moment of peace – these are not just needed by your immune system, but also by your soul.

So yes, I know that you have a long list of things to do today and many more tomorrow, but think about this  – you are living your life.  You are fortunate enough to get a today, a tomorrow, another chance, a new beginning. Why not thrive instead of surviving?  What if making that one change makes your life easier and better not harder?  Pick one simple thing to do for your health and try it.  The results may pleasantly surprise you.

Here are some of the scientific articles and publications:

The “hygiene hypothesis” for allergic disease is a misnomer

Reconstitution of the human biome as the most reasonable solution for epidemics of allergic and autoimmune diseases

Evolutionary Mismatch and Chronic Psychological Stress

Foods That Fight Inflammation 

Inflammation and Diet