18 Healthy Snacks That Will Help You Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions?

“From mac '
' cheese to chocolate bars, you don't have to go hungry to eat healthy” says Yahoo News. While we’d like to eat those treats at the end of a meal, snacking goes against the grain of healthy habits or positive lifestyle, says Dr. Richard Ruhling, a retired MD who taught Health Science at Loma Linda University.

Loma Linda was featured in the cover story on Longevity by National Geographic (Nov, 2005) as the only ‘Blue Zone’ for health in the western hemisphere. National Institutes of Health granted Loma Linda University $40 million to discover why Seventh-day Adventists lived about 7 years longer than their neighbors, and Ruhling says it’s because of their diet…

From the day anyone is born, his/her body is built from what they put in their mouths. If born “normal”—and 97% are, then health problems that didn’t come from genetics. Positive lifestyle strongly affects which genes are expressed or repressed. Wise choices in eating is the key to better health, says Ruhling.

Loma Linda’s founder wrote much on health. Her Counsels on Diets and Foods was reviewed by Dr. Clive McCay, Professor of Nutrition at Cornell University who summarized a six-page review by saying, “In spite of the works of Ellen White being written long before the advent of modern scientific nutrition, no better overall guide is available today.”

Ruhling agrees, saying that at 75, he is in better health than when he was in his 30’s with headaches but he couldn’t figure the cause until an allergist tested him and said he was allergic to wheat, gluten, pasta, pastry—things that Ruhling had been over-doing.

At Loma Linda, Ruhling did yearly physicals on executives. One executive said sugar bothered his joints. Another said cheese gave him arthritis. A third blamed meat for his joint problems. They were smart men who had figured it out, but it’s usually difficult because of a delayed response.

For example, even though tobacco is a poison, people don’t get sick when they smoke. They get sick when they try to quit, on withdrawal. That’s why many don’t suspect their favorite foods can be the cause and they “ask the doctor.”

Bad idea says Ruhling, because Adverse Drug Reactions have made medical care a leading cause of illness and death. Ruhling was board-certified in Internal Medicine and says the Physicians Desk Reference is 3500 pages of bad things the Rx can do to anyone. He thinks if he had taken pain killers for headaches, he would probably be a drug addict by now. Drugs mask the symptoms so when one changes his diet, he can’t tell whether he’s better or not.

From Ruhling’s experience, it’s usually foods people like and over-do. These include animal products, especially dairy when they should have been breast-fed by their mothers. Wheat, peanuts, corn (syrup), egg, potato (nightshade plants may cause 30% of rheumatoid arthritis), shellfish, etc.

Loma Linda’s founder, (Ellen White) wrote a book subtitled Health & Happiness that can be read online--Ruhling recommends it for anyone with health problems.

The first of several chapters, Diet and Health, is here: http://www.whiteestate.org/books/mh/mh23.html

The chapter, The Physician, an Educator, offers insight to natural remedies, now known by the acronym, NEW START—Nutrition, Exercise, Water, Sunlight…etc.