Leyla Weighs In: Health is wealth
“When you have your health, you have everything.”
I don’t know who said it first, but it’s true!
In fact, this message is more important today than at any other time in our lives.
The state of our healthcare system is growing more precarious with every passing enrollment period. Health insurance companies are charging more and covering less. Therefore we, as individuals, are tasked with taking the best care of ourselves we can to avoid acute illness and requisite hospital stay that today are driving more and more families to financial risk if not full on ruin.
While we can’t shield ourselves from every ill, and short of becoming a nation of paranoid recluses (that’s not good for health either!) there are steps we can take to lower the risk of accidents and illness. And along with looking both ways before crossing the street, and wearing a helmet EVERY time you ride your bike, there are multiple opportunities every day to manage the things we can control, such as the food we choose to eat and our lifestyle choices.
Choosing organic foods daily will help reduce exposure to toxins like herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, hormones and antibiotics. And don’t forget, you have the same opportunity to reduce your toxic burden when it comes to personal grooming products, household cleaners and even how you care for your lawn. We get some healthy exercise too when we manually weed our gardens rather than use toxic chemicals like Roundup (perfectly manicured lawns have always looked unnatural to me—I like dandelions!). And, you get to say NO to Monsanto.
If you have the real estate, consider growing your own produce. There’s nothing like walking out to your own garden to gather fresh vegetables and fruit for your next meal. The nutrition content of fresh picked produce surpasses anything we get at the store, even if it’s organic.
Stay healthy, and you’ll be wealthy the rest of your life!
As you may know, I’ve been doing a weekly “Q&A with Leyla” podcast feature with Dr. Hoffman. Now you can get my perspective and expertise every Friday on my own episode of the Intelligent Medicine Podcast. If you missed last week’s, you can listen here. To be sure you don’t miss out on any of my important insights and information, subscribe today!
