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How to Die Young in Five Easy Steps

Hey, it's easy. Just eat the following five foods everyday. ( Plus, don't exercise, smoke cigarettes, drink every day, weigh 30+ pounds over what you should weigh, have a very stressful job that doesn't pay you enough, repress your emotions, be perpetually cranky , talk trash to yourself, have no social life or friends and have no spiritual practice. Have I forgotten anything?)

1. Sugar
2. High-fructose Corn Syrup
3. White Flour
4. Hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils
5. Artificial sweeteners

1. MSG
2. Sodium Nitrate
3. Artificial coloring

"Waaa. Dr. Bea. Why can't I eat all these great foods? I love a good bagel in the morning with my cup of Folger's sweetened with Nutrasweet and 'creamed' with that diet hazelnut flavored artificial creamer I get at Safeway."

Well, what is wrong with this picture aside from almost everything? A bagel is made with refined white flour and this "bad" carbohydrate will raise your insulin levels which tells your body to "store fat" so you not only become obese but the elevated insulin will also create inflammation in your body which is a known risk factor for heart disease. Then the Nutrasweet in your coffee has been known to create many terrible things like brain tumors, lymphoma, dementia and insomnia while the artificial creamer is made from partial hydrogenates which are known to cause atherosclerosis and heart disease. Plus, I see absolutely NO nutrition in this breakfast. How are you supposed to get-up-and-go with this garbage in your body?

"O.K. Then I will just use some natural kind of sugar, like rapadura, or that brown unrefined sugar they sell at Whole foods. That's natural, right?"

Yes, it's natural, but not necessarily good for you. (Radon is natural but it isn't good for you, either.) Did you know that sugar is to cancer as gasoline is to fire? Cancer cells just gobble up any sugar and grow and replicate and grow and replicate some more until suddenly you have a bad diagnosis when a simple sugar moratorium may have prevented all of this bad news.

To me, the cancer promoting aspect of sugar is its most dangerous threat. Notwithstanding the fact that it ages you, promotes the growth of cataracts, promotes yeast growth in your body, hardens your arteries and makes you fat. When you want to visualize what sugar does to you, imagine the hard, brown caramelization on top of a crème brulee - that's what sugar does to your insides. It caramelizes everything - making your insides (esp. your arteries) hard and inflexible.

(Alcohol is sugar, by the way and an exceedingly absorbable kind of sugar. So, for ultimate health, that's a no-no, regardless of what the wine industry tells you.)

Notice I didn't mention that coffee is bad for you? It isn't and as a matter of fact, when you drink organic coffee, it's actually a positive thing: The latest research indicates that it is good for the prevention of dementia. (They are also giving coffee to hyperactive kids, which seems to calm them down a bit.) So I have my one medicinal cup of organic coffee per day. (Along with my one cup of black tea which is my ovarian cancer preventive!) Please note I did not say 10 cups of coffee or 10 cups of tea. Moderation, please.

MSG is an Excitotoxin which is very bad for you. If you want to read more about this and get sufficiently scared, please click on Hot News and scroll down to the Excitotoxin article or click here.

Sodium Nitrate is a powerful cancer promoter, so if you want a raging case of cancer you will eat hot dogs, salami, pepperoni, bacon and all lunch meats on a regular basis. When you buy meats at the deli counter you have to ask the person who waits on you to read you the label from the big hunk of meat - the turkey or the ham or whatever - they will be slicing your ½ lb. from. If it says sodium nitrate, don't buy it. Studies have shown that when you eat processed sodium nitrate meat, you have a whopping 67% greater chance of getting pancreatic cancer.

Artificial coloring is everywhere. Just avoid anything that doesn't look like nature's color scheme and look for hidden coloring on labels. These colorings like the red, yellow and the new bright blue are the worst kind of excitotoxin and when confronted with these strange iridescences, your brain will go "Phfffttt" and immediately stop working for you. Children's young and growing brains are very, very susceptible to these artificial colors, so don't give it to them.

While I am at it, I will also mention sunscreens which I am not a big fan of. We need natural sunlight touching our skins to prevent cancer and to promote the synthesis of vitamin D which is also a cancer preventor. But we are now a nation of scared sun phobics who slather on the sunscreen the minute we even think we will be in the sun. How did this come about? Does George Hamilton have cancer? Did all those sun-worshipping old guy health nuts like, for example, Paul Bragg die from cancer? No, Paul Bragg whacked his head surfing when he was 92 and died. But again, moderation is the key. Don't burn and blister and don't be stupid, but by all means feel comfortable getting some natural sunlight.

Simply put: Eat vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, meats and dairy and mostly organic when possible. Eat nothing artificial, eat from nature only, and try not to eat from a bag, box, can, jar or wrapper.

And you will be just fine.

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