Alcohol
Let’s face it: we were not made to drink alcohol. Even though we love to party with it, bask and wallow in it we know that it is absolutely not beneficial to our health. If we would get any benefits from alcohol, it would come from the grapes or source materials that provide iron and poly-phenols that act as anti-oxidants. In fact, there was nutritional value in beer years ago, but today, even the best beer hops are grown on the poorest of soils, assuring minimal nutritional value…unfortunately.
Statistics show that for every person that doesn’t consume alcohol, there is someone else around the corner that consumes around 74 gallons a year. So that alone, speaks of problems.
Alcohol’s simple chemical structure enables our body to easily absorb it through our stomach and small intestine, providing us with empty calories. Research shows that the metabolism of alcohol in the liver may not only disrupt the liver’s ability to produce energy, it may also drastically affect blood sugar. This may lead to hypoglycemia or hunger (this is why restaurants serve us booze before ordering our appetizer).
Alcohol also, when taken close to mealtimes, can act as a blocking agent that obstructs the passage of essential nutrients and vitamins to our body. Not only does it block the good stuff, it adds on 7 calories per each gram consumed! One night of drinks can easily add up to a full days’ food consumption! So what is the ‘healthiest’ alcoholic beverage? That would be: Red wine, for its nutritional quality and a simple vodka/soda for a low-calorie option.
Water
Simple H20 is the only thing we’ll ever need to drink. In seasonal countries it is suggested to drink an average of 8 glasses a day but in this tropical and humid atmosphere, the average person should drink up to 12 glasses a day (even more when one is active in this heat).
It is said that if the body is only 1% dehydrated, our cells start to actually shrink. Dehydration is therefore a huge stressor on our bodily functions. Without internal lubrication, it’s hard for our body to perform up to its full capacity and it will break down more easily. Aging is the process of our body actually loosing hydration. So remember, to prevent looking like a dried up prune inside and out, keep hydrated to slow the process of aging.
Milk, Juices, Sodas and Coffee
Americans today drink twice as much soda as milk and nearly six times more soda than fruit juice. This clearly demonstrates the power of advertising and certainly serves as a banner for addictive powers of both sugar and caffeine, particularly when combined. Adverse health effects from displacing water with soda pop, processed juice and caffeine include tooth decay, sugar/caffeine addiction, nervousness, insomnia and attention deficit disorder. Even though milk serves as a great calcium booster and coffee wakes us up, they are actually not natural to our evolution. Both have only become popular in the last 60 years. 8 hours of sleep and foods high in nutritional value should be the solution to a strong body and an alert mind. When it comes to sodas and juices, to get an energy boost, just eat a fruit. That’s it.
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