Healthy Living DIY

Happy Independence Day to all of my US readers! One of my most appreciated freedoms living in this country at the present time is the many options we still have regarding where our food comes from. Citizens of many other regions can say the same. We're all fortunate.

I suppose it can't go without saying that food choices are an integral part of anybody's healthy living plan. In fact, if we were to spell out a "gold standard" for healthy food choices, here are the basics that many of us would like to begin with:

1. Eat a variety of foods
2. Produced locally, in the same region you live in
3. Grown in fertile soil
4. With no chemical herbicides or chemical fertilizers involved
5. Freshly harvested or naturally preserved
6. By someone whose lifestyle and growing practices you are familiar with

It's a tall order, but a worthwhile goal to work toward. Most of us won't make that goal tomorrow, but this isn't a black and white issue. If last year you met the "gold standard" goal 10% of the time and this year you make 20%, then you're moving in the right direction.

But what if you're a complete newbie? Someone whose best sense of healthy cooking is a box of Hamburger Helper prepared at home? What if the list I just made comes as a complete surprise? What if you just picked up Kevin Trudeau's "More Natural Cures..." book and heard him say: "Do not eat any food produced or sold by a publicly traded corporation or a "brand name" product?" (Pg. 268)

Where is a motivated newbie supposed to start?

Here are 3 simple tips you can use right now to get moving in a healthier direction:

Healthy choices: Can they be bought? It looks like the City of New York is about to find out.

Just in case you missed it, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is about to roll out a pilot program that offers cash rewards for making healthy lifestyle choices. You know, holding a job, keeping a doctor appointment, things like that.

The idea is to help people break out of a cycle of setbacks that can lead to continued poverty. It's a worthy goal. Who among us hasn't experienced, at least for a brief moment, that sense of hopeless resignation that our lives are plummeting out of control in a direction we don't like? Wouldn't it be great to have access to a "reset" button at moments like that?

And yet, the program's detractors offer a very interesting argument.

In the last article, I mentioned a trial program by NY Mayor Bloomberg where they plan to offer financial rewards for those making certain healthy lifestyle choices. I had a reservation when I first read about this program, wondering if the promise of modest financial gain would really have any long-term benefit on people's desire for a healthy lifestyle.

[By the way, I've heard about certain health-centric businesses offering large-scale financial benefits for long-term healthy behavior among their employees. Different situation, ok?]

Well, I kept my reservation in the "incubation" zone until I read about some research data that had just come in about similar programs offered to school children. According to the article, the US Federal Government will spend more than $1 billion this year alone on nutrition education.

Just how well can we expect this investment of our tax dollars to pay off?

If we want to choose healthy options, and most of us do...

If we know what those options are, and generally we could figure that out...

Then why don't we do it more frequently? You want to know. I want to know. And so does the United States Department of Agriculture (especially when it comes to healthier food choices).

The USDA did some checking around and figures that most of us believe healthier choices would be good for us. We thrive on books, magazines, and programs offering healthy advice. But according to their research, as a population, we're not consistently acting on what we know.

In their words, "Although we may intend to have a healthy diet, other preferences often beguile us into food choices that may eventually harm our health."

Why? According to a June 2007 article, there are 6 main reasons: