Wellness, stepping on landmines

It’s time to start taking exquisite care of ourselves and of our one and precious life.With that in mind, right away I thought that we have to address the elephant in the room guys, and right away thismight alienate some people.But it has to be said.You cannot be well while stepping on landmines.Now there are landmines and there are landmines. Some kinds of landmines WILL blow up under your feet and rip you apart.These land mines are: cigarettes, drugs and alcohol.If you are smoking, fooling with recreational drugs or drinking habitually, you must stop it at once. I don’t have any experience or advice to give you, but I know there are agencies who are dedicated to helping. Reach out. Get help. Do whatever you must, whatever you can to stop.But there are also the landmines which will blow up after a time delay, ticking away slowly underneath your feet while you keep standing on them.These land mines are: processed foods, sugars and a sedentary lifestyle.The good news is that there are ways you can lift your feet off those landmines and walk away.It isn’t easy and it will take more of your willpower and precious time and energy than you might think is worth it, but believe me, it will take a whole lot less energy than the energy you will need to fight back from a cancer, diabetes, or other unwell and aging related diseases.How do we begin to turn things around?I do know a few ways but the truth is I don’t know everything.I suspect the best way is to not subtract. I really don’t think that the answer is to deprive, starve, or withdraw all at once. For me the answer is to add something healthy every day. To add something healthy so that there is less room for the unhealthy. To slowly begin replacing.Say you want a sandwich. Buy a fermented bread, like sourdough rather than a refined flour white bread or a commercial multigrain. If you like cheddar cheese, then buy a white cheddar which doesn’t contain orange colourants. If you like meat slices, go for roast chicken rather than cancer causing nitrate rich hams and salamis. And then, stick some veggies in that sandwich. (Even if it’s only a tomato slice and a leaf of lettuce...not iceberg) You get the idea.Tell me what you like and I’ll find you a healthier alternative.Consider that processed meats, artificial colours in foods, anything sugar, glucose, fructose...actually anything ending in _ose, artificial flavours, corn syrups, palm kernel oils, hydrolyzed anything, refined anything, enriched anything, white anything, is all unhealthy and potentially cancer causing.Go for a walk, join a walking club...start a walking club. Take up yoga, join a gym, do some gardening.Buy some spelt flour spaghetti noodles, a real hunk of Parmesan and make your own tomato sauce without sugars, corn syrups and artificial colours. You can do it!And now you might be saying, “but, but, I like white flour noodles and I like Kraft type shaky in the container Parmesan cheese, and I like the convenience of opening a jar.” All that may be true, but at what price do you want those things? Do you want white flour noodles which turn directly to sugar in your body making your insulin spike and bringing on weight gain and diabetes? Do you want Parmesan cheese which is actually 40% cellulose filler? Do you want tomato sauce which has been artificially coloured red and has corn syrup (which has the same effect as the white noodles) and preservatives to make it last on the supermarket shelves?Try making this tomato sauce; which you can freeze very easily for next time:Pick up some local (organic if you can) tomatoes at your market. These days so many communities have local markets which pop up on weekends.Right now tomatoes which are not perfect, are perhaps a little over-ripe, have some blemishes, are at their peak and are being sold off rather inexpensively. They're often called "canning tomatoes". Go get some! Get lots! Invest one day worth of work in your wellbeing.Get some garlic, shallots if you like, and a wide range of fresh herbs. I love rosemary, sage, thyme and parsley as well as basil.Pour a drizzle olive oil into a roasting tin (the body can only absorb lycopene from the tomatoes in the presence of some fat, so olive oil is ideal), slice up the tomatoes and put them in the pan. Tear up a bunch of herbs and put around the tomatoes, crush a few cloves of garlic and put those around too. Now sprinkle with a little salt and pepper and roast for about 40 minutes.Do you have time to can the tomatoes? If yes, then process for 40 minutes, if no then go ahead and divide the roasted tomatoes into containers for freezing.There you go. One day invested for many Thursday night healthy spaghetti meals. (I do Thursday night spaghetti.)So let's do this.Begin taking your feet on those landmines little by little, gently, softly, until you are well and truly standing as far away as possible. And don’t turn back.Next week, let’s talk about emotions, meditation and the mind-body linLearn more about diabetes prevention at https://www.culturalhealthsolutions.com/prevent-diabetes/.