The Secret to Staying Healthy

Sometimes, the simplest truth is the hardest to take to heart.

If you don't have your health, you have nothing. Most youngsters have robust health because their livers are hardy detoxifiers. But this hardiness loses its stamina over the years. That's why older people often succumb to disease. Instead of energetically flushing out toxicity, which has accumulated over the years and that which newly arrives, older livers more easily become overwhelmed. Which is why most sick people are older people.

(The gemora [Bava M. 107b] suggests that all sickness relates to bile, or at least 83 illnesses can be attributed to the biliary system. And that, of course, means these are liver-related problems because the liver produces bile as a means to excrete toxins.)

Suppose you eat "bad" food, but not so much of it. Now suppose you eat "good" food, but lots of it. You may wince with surprise to discover that a lot of good food is worse for your health than the slight bad food you might eat. How much worse off is one, therefore, who eats a lot of bad food.

And who today, when the foods we eat are so far removed from nature or from nutritional value, does not eat bad food?

The secret to good health, therefore, is to eat less to maintain good health, and the older we get, even less than before. Of course, it follows, the older we get, the more our intake must be nutritious. If salads were until now a side dish, they should become a main dish.

That's the simple truth, as based on the Code of Jewish Law (see previous post for source). If you practice it, you'll be blessed with health; If you don't - just yet, you'll understand why sometimes the simplest truth is the hardest to take to heart.