Everywhere we look seems to have someone trying to sell us a 'fool-proof' way to a healthy long life. If it's not a vibration machine, or a gold solution, it's an expensive book that promises if bought will teach us the secret to living forever. Each one of these products has a different business behind it, and a different celebrity that swears by it. And let's not forget the special powers it's gained from a different Power of the Universe. (POTU for short).



Is it even possible that all of these products can be correct? Of course not. Most of these products are backed by thieves. People that just want to con innocent people out of their money. The few that actually do believe the stuff they're selling people, are simply deluded and confused. They seem to confuse fairy tale stories for actual medical data, but know that people see want they want to see, therefore only the smallest scale of actual evidence is needed.

It seems that those crazy people selling health are mostly sick themselves. I'd send them get well gifts if I thought it would do any good, but that might actually be a continuation of the magical thinking, a confirmation that I think that positive thoughts bring positive results. So I won't send gifts, but I will hope that they see the light and start to act better. Hope that they see that there is no one secret to long life, but a way of life that can help stop, or slow down senescence.

Eating well is about the best thing I can offer for someone wanting to live a long time. As more and more research rolls in it seems that every disease out there can be cured (or at least palliated) with a healthy diet. A diet rich in green plants, fresh fruits and whole grains appears to be the best chance any of us have for helping our lives go on for a long time.

For example, are you aware of how many forms of cancer are lessened by a high fiber high plant food diet? I'm not sure of the exact number, but I am sure that it's a large percentage. Scientists have done research is caners as diverse as breast, lung, mouth, and bowel. All of them are affected by fiber, phytochemicals, antioxidants or poluphenols.

Even the best research into healthy foods has trouble pinpointing exactly what it is in a particular item that makes it better for you. Think about it: how could the remedy for eating too many processed, chemical laced foods to be a highly concentrated processed chemically laced pill? The research on soluble fiber, to take another example, and its effect on cholesterol and heart disease points to the need to get fiber in a bowl, from oatmeal or cereal, rather than from a bottle.

Even the research on soluble fiber and its effects on cholesterol and heart disease point to the need to take that substance in as a food, in oatmeal or cold cereal rather then taking a pill. This society has become very much a society of magical thinkers. Sometimes that magical thinking takes the form of religion, sometimes it takes the form of belief in homeopathy or "natural food cures", and sometimes it takes the form of the belief that anything that is good can be compressed into a pill. It just isn't so. Sometimes the answer to a question is both as simple and as complex as eating good whole foods.