Question: What are the basics of a good diet?

Dr. Brownstein's Answer:

Human beings are designed to take nutrients from food to make energy and support the body’s metabolic processes. Some of these nutrients are used right away; some are stored away for future use. Eating an unhealthy diet causes the body to use its own source of nutrients to try to digest the food and maintain normal body function. In the long term, eating foods that are lacking vital nutrients leads to poor energy and illness.

Think about it: If you fill up your car with poor-quality gas, will it run efficiently? We all know it won’t. Similarly, a poor diet will eventually cause your body to malfunction. The problem is, you only have one body — you can’t trade it in like a car.

So what is a healthy diet? That’s simple: one that supplies the nutrients the body needs, including adequate amounts of protein, fat, and carbohydrates from healthy sources. It doesn’t include refined sugar, flour, salt, and oils.

Furthermore, the food in a good diet is free of pesticides, insecticides, and synthetic hormones — this is true of either a vegan or an animal-based diet.

Here are a few guidelines to follow in building a healthy diet:

• Cook with coconut oil. It fights viruses and infections and prevents atherosclerosis.

• Choose beef and dairy products from pasture-fed cows raised on organic feed without hormones, antibiotics, or pesticides.

• Eat organic eggs.

• Eat plenty of organically grown fruits and vegetables. In addition to being toxic, pesticides in conventional produce deplete iodine.

• Stay away from refined carbohydrates.

• Avoid sugars, including high fructose corn syrup.

• Don’t drink or eat anything that is artificially sweetened.