What Are The Top Ways To Stay Healthy And Live Longer?

If you care about yourself and your loved ones, then there is one major question that is always on your mind. What can you do to help yourself and your family live longer and stay healthy while doing it?

To really give you the best possible answer, we are going to answer the top Googled health questions below.

These are the questions most Googled in the United States in regards to health within the last one year at the time of writing this article.

Please have look all the way to the end as were pretty sure you’ll find several that you’d like to know the answer to as well.

Since this article has become so popular we have published a part 2 to this which you can view here: Click here for part 2

Disclaimer: The following is for educational purposes only. We are not advocating a change in dietary, health or exercise protocols. Please seek the advice or council of your nutritionally educated health care practitioner prior to engaging in any dietary or exercise changes.

Will Preparing Your Foods Correctly Help You Stay Healthy?

You bet it will. The CDC estimates that over 48 million Americans get sick every year from food poisoning with the majority of those illnesses caused by under cooked or unwashed meat dairy, fish, seafoods, eggs and other animal products.

Then you have all the contamination worries where foods are recalled because of improper handling, being contaminated by exposures to workers feces in the growing fields, improper temperature storage and many more.

In fact, at the time of writing this there was a smoked salmon recall for a smoked fish company just today!

It’s quite common, you hear about it on the news so often that it hardly even phases you anymore.

You can get sick just as easily at home as you can at a restaurant. If you under cook pork, chicken, eggs or even beef and seafoods you can be in for a nasty bout of food poisoning that the CDC says kills more than 3,000 American’s each year.

These illnesses can come with long term health consequences. People report all sorts of maladies after having to use the antibiotics that are the standard treatment for food poisoning bouts.

Many also start to develop food sensitivities and allergies after being sick.

There are cases where people permanently damage organs such as the liver or kidneys (the filter organs) after a severe go round with food toxins and or food poisoning or the antibiotics used to treat them.

Any way you look at it, please learn proper food handling guidelines and then apply them to all the foods that you eat. It’s far better to be safe than sorry in this situation.

Can Cleaning Your Hands Properly Help You Stay Healthy?

Yes, it can. You touch so many things in a single day when you’re out and about that you don’t even realize it. You touch the same door as hundreds of other people when entering restaurants, stores, offices and more just as one example. Who knows what the person in front of you has or the one you don’t even see who touched it 5 minutes ago.

They could have anything. Plus, then there’s children. They pick their nose, wipe their nose, scratch their butts and then touch that door handle.

So, yes absolutely, proper sanitation of your hands can help you to stay healthy.

Then, there is the next level. You should always wash your hands with soap and hot water prior to eating or preparing food. This should just be a given.

It’s so easy to touch the food that you then eat. If it was on your hands, it’s now in your mouth. Enough said on that point. But yes, please, wash your hands thoroughly before food contact.

Will Eating Vegan Help You Stay Healthy And Live Longer?

Yes, there is absolutely no doubt. There are study after study after study showing that vegans out live animal consumers and have healthier lives while doing it.

We all know that women used to live longer in the old days because men hunted, were in wars, fought, did very dangerous jobs and more.

But have you ever wondered why women still live longer than men even today?

Yes, even when you adjust for all the risk factors of war, jobs and the rest they still outlive men by an average of 5 years in the USA.

That’s a pretty significant number. We’re not talking just 6 months or something rather nominal. It 5 years!

Why is this still happening?

One study looked at exactly this. Their conclusion was that women tend to eat on average 42% less meat on an annual basis than do men.

The reason this is a great discussion point is that you can see this everywhere around you, basically no matter where you live.

You don’t have to read studies or trust them; you see it every day. Women tend to eat more salads and fruits than do men and they eat nearly half as much meat. You’ve likely noticed this already in your life and then you see them living longer as well.

Not in every case of course. There will be outliers on both ends, some men die very early as do some women and some live very long as do some women. But we are talking about national averages.

How Bad Is Alcohol For Your Health And Life Expectancy?

There have been a tremendous number of studies on the subject with some great ones coming out of Russia and Europe. You may know that the alcohol consumption in Russia is nearly legendary and in many villages, vodka is a way of life.

Studies show that straight across the board you can simply deduct years off your life by the number of drinks you have per day. That’s oversimplifying it of course, but it really is that easy to correlate.

Many people think that a small amount of alcohol not drunk to access is ok. Studies show that even these modest amounts can pile up long term harm that translates into fewer years on this planet.

As an example, the average life expectancy in Belarus is 3.70 years less than the European average because of the amount of alcohol they consume. Just for your information Russia’s is 2.88 years less and the Ukraine is 2.47 years less.

There are outliers on both extremes. Sure, there is the occasional person who drinks quite a bit and lives to 100 or more. That’s the outlier, the freak, not the norm.

So, we will leave alcohol consumption up to you. If you want to, then at least you know the consequences.

Will Regular Exercise Make You Stay Healthy And Live Longer?

Yes, it will. When scientists studied just a minimal amount of exercise, they found that: “Compared with individuals in the inactive group, those in the low-volume activity group, who exercised for an average of 92 min per week or 15 min a day had a 14% reduced risk of all-cause mortality and had a 3 year longer life expectancy.”

“Every additional 15 min of daily exercise beyond the minimum amount of 15 min a day further reduced all-cause mortality by 4% and all-cancer mortality by 1%.”

Those are some amazing benefits for just 15 minutes of exercise. That’s a crazy good return on investment when you think about it.

Other finding from studies all over the world have shown that these results are at least typical if not understated. In one study they looked at those who resistance trained (weight trained) 3 days per week and did cardiovascular exercise 3 days a week (so, total days exercising 6 days per week for at least 30 minutes had a 22% decreased risk in all cause mortality.

They also showed a 54% decrease in hip fractures in the advanced age elderly as well.

As you may be aware; most people think that you fall and break your hip in old age. When in fact the majority of the time you fracture your hip and then fall as a result.

Resistance exercise is critical to sending the bones the message that they are still needed and that they must maintain themselves as we age.

Can Breast Feeding For 2 Years Help My Children Be Healthier?

The answer is a resounding yes. Mother’s milk contains more than just protein fats and carbs. It also provides newborns with colostrum which contains lactoferrin, taurine and immunoglobulins that build the immune system, bind excess iron to prevent constipation and fully develop the neurological system.

It is known that breast feeding passes beneficial bacteria to the gut of the infant that is needed to set up a proper microbiome. This microbiome will literally dictate hundreds of health conditions throughout that child’s lifespan, such as but not limited to, obesity, cancer and diabetes.

There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that, because we’ve fed a few generations formula instead of breast milk we’ve created the vast majority of today’s health challenges that are kicking our butts.

This stands to reason when you consider that, breast milk builds the immune, neurological and bacteriological systems of the body from birth to the first 2 years of life, and this profoundly effects your health for the rest of your life.

We are not advocating the following, just reporting on it. There is a group of people that put people on a breast milk fast using wet nurses. They say that it restarts these systems of the body. Is it true or are they just trying to milk your bank account dry? They have a little science to back it up, so it looks like time will tell.

Does Drinking Filtered Water Really Help Your Health?

You bet it does and here’s how. If you’re buying bottled water, you’re spending in many cases over 100 times what regular tap water costs, so to save all that, your best bet is to get a high-quality water filter and filter it right before you drink it. You then can help eliminate the chlorine, bacteria, coliforms, heavy metals and other toxins that are harmful to you and your family.

What Is The Best Water Filter To Buy?

In our estimation the best is going to be to buy a silver impregnated, granular activated carbon filter that filters the water just before it goes into your glass or cooking pot. The reason being is that, if the filter is inline and say 20 feet away from the sink those 20 feet of pipes can be full of rust, gunk and contamination.

So, sure you filtered the water but then sent it back through a set of corroded pipes, not all that helpful.

However, when the filter is a countertop model, which are a whole lot cheaper than the inline models, it filters it right exactly before it goes into your glass.

One little tip. When you turn on the filtered water, rinse your glass with just about one or two seconds worth of the filtered water and dump it out. This will rinse off any dishwasher soap residue and dust that might be at the bottom of that glass.

You should really do that for your pots, kettles and anything else you fill with the filtered water as well.

So, How Does Drinking Filtered Water Benefit Your Health?

If you’re comparing it to tap water, there is no comparison. Tap water tastes like a swimming pool. The reason it tastes so bad is the levels of chlorine, the heavy metals, the gunk from inside the 30-year-old water pipes that the city or town uses to pipe the water to you and more.

None of those things are good for your health, not one. They say that it’s not enough to hurt you, but do you really believe that?

Plus, the difference in taste alone is enough to drive you to drink only filtered water.

When you compare it to bottled water it’s still superior, here’s why.

Most companies don’t wash their bottles before they fill them with water. Yes, that’s correct, you can see videos about it on YouTube where they go under cover to the water bottling plants.

Who knows what may have gotten inside that bottle? But at a minimum it would be dust and dirt.

Then, plastic water bottles leach their plastic gases into the water which has been shown in studies to cause gynecomastia in men (the growing of male breasts).

We feel that none of these are things you’d want in your water, so we highly recommend getting a reputable water filter right away.

Now that you’ve finished part one, click here for part 2 of this article: Click here for part 2

Sources

1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0195666384710075

2. https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/234456/files/jan97d.pdf

3.https://www.proquest.com/openview/8e4ca7efd4a53868562c6bc3a28940ff/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2029995

4. https://meridian.allenpress.com/jfp/article/63/11/1538/169717/Prevalence-of-High-Risk-Food-Consumption-and-Food

5. https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM191504151721503

6. https://www.meatfreefitness.co.uk/vegan-nutrition-information/why-do-vegans-and-vegetarians-live-longer

7.https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=PY0KUnaIU5AC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=vegans+live+longer&ots=H68fhvZ_Tc&sig=axd6blHoYli3_QI_Vg4y5bxrhk8#v=onepage&q=vegans%20live%20longer&f=false

8. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0261561420303952

9. https://medium.com/the-nature-of-food/the-irony-of-gendered-meat-consumption-15371fe0cfcd