Does an Apple a Day Really Keep the Doctor Away?

It’s one of the most recognizable expressions around: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” But besides the fact that it rhymes, which makes it fun to say and easy to recall, does it really have any value? Could the common apple honestly help a person to maintain perfect health?

The first printed mention of this saying can be found in the February 1866 issue of the publication “Notes and Queries.” The publication printed the proverb like this: “Eat an apple on going to bed, and you’ll keep the doctor from earning his bread.” Nearly 150 years later, variations of this adage are still quoted. It’s unlikely that the saying would have maintained such popularity if there wasn’t some truth to it, right? With that in mind, let’s consider some of the apple’s components and their effect on our health:

• Pectin — Pectin is a form of soluble fiber than lowers both blood pressure and glucose levels. It can also lower the levels of LDL, or “bad” cholesterol in the body. Pectin, like other forms of fiber, helps maintain the health of the digestive system. Apples are an excellent source of pectin.
• Boron — A nutrient found in abundance in apples, boron supports strong bones and a healthy brain.
• Quercetin — A flavonoid, this nutrient shows promise for reducing the risk of various cancers, including cancers in the lungs and breast. It may also reduce free radical damage. Free radicals develop when atoms in the body’s cells have unpaired electrons, which can lead to damage to different parts of the cell, including DNA. Quercetin may neutralize free radical damage, which has been implicated in a variety of age-related health problems, including Alzheimer’s disease.
• Vitamin C — Vitamin C boosts immunity, which helps maintain overall health.
• Phytonutrients — Apples are rich in a variety of phytonutrients, including vitamins A and E and beta carotene. These compounds fight damage from free radicals and can have a profound affect on health, including reducing the risk of heart disease, diabetes and asthma.

Apples also act as a toothbrush, cleaning teeth and killing bacteria in the mouth, which may reduce the risk of tooth decay. They’re also low in calorie density, one of the trademarks of a healthy food. When a food is low in calorie density you can eat good size portions of the food for relatively few calories. In addition, apples are affordable and readily available.

With all of this information, it’s easy to see that, yes, an apple has its health benefits. But does eating an apple every day mean you’ll never get sick? And is an apple really healthier than other fruits? 

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I found this on another blog that I stumbled upon thanks to Pinterest.com and felt it fit in very well with my blog. It is just another example of the power of food. There is one thing that jumped out at me; phytonutrients. I've been reading and hearing a lot about those little things a lot lately. As mentioned above, they fight free radicals and can help prevent a handful of health issues but what exactly are they? Phytonutrients are an organic compound that come from plants and they are most commonly found in fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, nuts and teas. Studies on phytonutrients, also known as phytochemicals, are still in early stages and have yet to confirm any proof of their health benefits but they have been shown to lower risks for developing certain cancers and heart disease.

Currently, about 48% of Americans eat less than one serving of fruit a day and 10% eat less than one serving of vegetable. Only 30-40% eat their daily recommended serving of 2-3 fruits and vegetables a day. Knowing that fruits and vegetables contain the phytonutrients that can help prevent developing cancer, it's no wonder cancer rates are as high as they are today. According to the American Cancer Society, about 1,638,910 new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed in 2012. For now, it appears that an effective strategy for reducing risk of cancer and heart disease is to increase consumption of phytonutrient-rich foods including fruits, vegetables, grains and teas. Just another example of how powerful a healthy diet can be. So maybe an apple a day can really keep the doctor away, or at least the oncologist.


If that isn't enough motivation to eat healthier, here are so more reason to eat fruit.

I found this quote a couple of days ago and I love it. It really goes a long with what I have been reading in my book and talking about in this blog.
I read an article today that is a perfect example of how an unhealthy diet can affect your body. There is a story about a 17 year old girl who collapsed recently after eating basically nothing but chicken nuggets for the last 15 years making its way around the internet currently. (You can read it here: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/01/26/stacey-irvine-chicken-nugget-diet_n_1234217.html)
She claims that every since eating chicken nuggets for the first time at 2 years old, it became her favorite food and she never wanted anything else. So for the last 15 years she has had chicken nuggets every single day and has excluded fruits and vegetables from her diet. Well, it finally caught up with her because she collapsed at work and was rushed to the hospital. They found she had some breathing problems, anemia and swollen veins in her tongue. This story is living proof of how eating badly will slowly kill you.
Food is a powerful thing. Eating the right kinds can keep your body healthy and strong, inside and out. At the same time, eating too many "bad" foods can weaken your body and even cause sickness, such as gallbladder disease! A balanced diet is always the best way to go. You should eat a little bit of everything, basically. Even junk food is okay in small amounts; moderation is key!

Another way to help your body get the most out of what you eat is to chew! If you don't chew your food well enough, it makes it more difficult for your stomach to break it down which in turn makes it more difficult to pass through your small intestine leading to bloating, indigestion, heart burn or acid reflux. When food isn't digested properly is can spend too much time in your intestine and which leads to a build up of bacteria that can cause a number of negative effects on your body. Chewing is also important because it starts the digestive process. Your mouth contains an enzyme called alpha-amylase and it is responsible for breaking down food as you chew. Believe it or not, your teeth do not do all of the work. When you don't give the food enough time to be broken down by this enzyme, your body can't absorb as many nutrients from it as it passes through your digestive tract. So you are robbing yourself of all the good things that food as to offer when you chew too little, too fast and swallow it practically whole. So take time and enjoy your food, that's the best part of eating, after all.

You Are What You Eat

Right now, I am watching a show called Taboo on the National Geographic Channel. This particular episode is about obesity, and it is profiling a man who weighs over 600 lbs. He blames his obesity on the eating habits instilled in him by his grandparents when he was a child. This makes me think; how much can we blame the habits learned as children versus our own willpower? When I was a kid, I remember being told I couldn't leave the table until I ate everything on my plate. As I got older, I remember feeling guilty if I ever left food on my plate. Although, I have learned to not feel guilty because you need to stop eating when you are full, not when all of the food is gone, I think that idea lead me to overeating at times. But I can't blame my parents because now that I am an adult I am aware that it is unnecessary to eat all of the food in front of me if I am full. So why is it that some people haven't been able to control themselves so easily? Leading them to obesity and weighing hundreds of pounds before they realize they have a problem.
Obesity has become a very serious issue in our society, with greasy fast food so readily available, people just aren't eating healthy food. My book, The Inside Tract, talks about how we need to get back to eating a whole food diet. This diet isn't a diet in the terms of cutting back food to lose weight, rather, it is simply just eating vegetables, fruits and whole grains and avoiding processed foods. This whole food diet is what our ancestors survived on. Think about the colonists and the kinds of food they had available to them. Everything they ate was either grown right in their backyard or they hunted it. They didn't have a McDonald's down the road to run to if they didn't feel like cooking one night. Even without the medical knowledge and vaccines that we have today, they were generally healthier people than we are now.
All of this comes back to the fact that the foods we eat have a large impact on our health. If you eat fast food and junk food all day then not only will you gain weight, but I can almost guarantee that a bevy of other health problems will come a long with it. And on the other hand, some, but not all, health issues can actually be helped by eating a healthier diet.
The whole food diet consists of the foods that our bodies were meant to ingest. Our bodies want and need nutrients from vegetables and sugars from fruits. Currently, I am in the process of switching over to a whole food diet. Obviously, this isn't something that can easily be done overnight. I'm sure if you had the will power and ability, you could cut out all junk in a day, but I will admit, I'm not that strong. I like junk food and some nights it is a lot easier for me to get fast food for dinner. I am also going about this realistically, because even though I want a majority of my diet to contain whole foods, I know that I can't completely cut out all of the junk. I am a strong believer that anything in moderation is just fine. I'm hoping that by changing how I eat, I will have less side effects that come with not having a gallbladder. Also, hopefully, I will put less stress on my liver and spleen, which are now stuck with the job of making up for the work that my gallbladder used to do.

Did you know...

Did you know that from beginning to end, your GI tract would be as tall as a telephone pole if you straightened it out? I just read that in The Inside Tract last night and thought it was very interesting.

Let me explain myself...

I realize this blog may seem a little strange to some people. I mean, who writes about their digestive system? Most people prefer to not even think about theirs. I never cared about mine, I used to eat whatever I wanted and never gave it a second thought. Even after my surgery, it wasn't long after and I was already back to eating foods that I wasn't supposed to. Deep fried foods have been the hardest for me to give up. I think we can all agree that anything fried is delicious. I love food so the thought of having to cut all kinds out it of my life is a very unsettling thought for me.
According to livestrong.com those who have had a cholecystectomy (better known as gallbladder removed) should avoid high fat and fried foods, red meat, whole milk products, caffeine, beans, legumes and gas-producing vegetables which include broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage. I feel like that's kind of a long list of food that I'm just not supposed to eat anymore. And when they say caffeine they really mean coffee and tea. Now let me tell you, talking to me in the morning before I've had coffee is like poking a sleeping bear. It's hard to believe one little organ tucked under your liver can have such a profound affect on your bodies ability to digest food.


So here we are today, after a good 6 months of ignoring my body and eating basically whatever I wanted. I'm fed up. For a while I thought I could handle my occasional "tummy troubles" but it really isn't worth putting up with. I stumbled across a book called The Inside Tract: Your Good Gut Guide to Great Digestive Health. This book has become my digestive bible. It is all about how much what you eat and what your body absorbs from what you eat can impact your health. I'll get more into the book later because I think I've written enough for tonight.

How it all began...

In April of 2011 I was diagnosed with having gallstones after experiencing multiple mysterious episodes of nausea and sharp pain to the upper right side of my abdomen. It was shortly after that in early June that I had my gallbladder removed. From that day on my body had changed. I can't eat foods that I used to love and I often experience GI upsets after a meal without knowing what I ate to cause the problem in the first place. I will spare you and not go into any further detail. This experience has sparked an interesting in the gastrointestinal system and how much it controls our overall health and well being. So this blog has become my collection of information I am gathering in a quest to learn how to eat better and feel better and altogether treat my body better.