Throughout my life, I’ve had an interesting relationship with my health. From the moment I was born, I’ve had an overinformed mom that’s really interested in holistic healing. At the age of eight and a half, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and that was a whole curveball. I have tried pretty much everything you can to see what could help: from liquid diets, to acupuncture, to infusions. I’ve also picked up a very healthy diet and know things that that your average twelve-year old doesn’t think about. For example, did you know that most things spicy and red are inflammatory like tomatoes, peppers, and hot sauce? I used to eat a lot of tomatoes— no more tomatoes for me. So here I am just trying to give you a few everyday tips to make your life easier.

Tip 1: eat with the seasons. Do you think that way back when people only farmed and ate off their farms they ate avocados all year round? They could only grow avocados from June to March. Those avocados would also only ripe towards the end of the season. So why when you go to whole foods why are there always avocados? It’s because they get shipped in from all over the world. Now you might ask what’s the difference between an avocado grown in Florida that I buy at Whole Foods or one grown in California bought at the same place?  The difference is the one that’s been shipped from California has been sprayed with chemicals to stay fresh and sprayed with color dyes to make it look more fresh than it is. This is one of the reasons Americans are generally unhealthy. The very things we call healthy may have chemicals that are hurting us.

Tip 2: be as Organic as possible. This tip may be hard to follow since organic is more expensive but there is an easy way to bypass that. This list is called Clean 15 Dirty dozen. It’s an easy way to start being organic. The dirty dozen is the list of foods most likely to have pesticides and should be bought organically. The clean 15 is a list of foods less likely to have pesticides. Here’s the list of the Dirty dozen: 1.Strawberry, 2.spinach, 3.kale/collard greens, 4.peaches, 5.pears, 6. nectarines, 7. apples, 8. grapes, 9. bell/hot peppers, 10. cherrys, 11. blueberries, 12. green beans, Clean fifteen:1. Avocados 2. Sweet corn 3. Pineapple 4. Onions 5. Papaya 6. Sweet peas (frozen)   7. Asparagus 8. Honeydew melon 9. Kiwi 10. Cabbage 11. Mushrooms 12. Mangoes 13. Sweet Potatoes 14. Watermelon 15. Carrots. The reason it’s so important to be organic is simple. If you are a farmer, how are you going to make the most money? The answer is buy farming the most products the fastest you can. How are you going to do that? You would have to use fertilizers that have chemicals like arsenic, cadmium, and lead. These are seriously dangerous chemicals and should not be used to grow our food. Another tactic that farmers use to make sure their products are bought is color dyes. Color dyes make farmers’ products more shinier and the color they are supposed to be. This can all be simply avoided by following the dirty dozen clean fifteen rule or just by staying mostly organic. 

Tip 3: don’t look at handheld devices one hour before you go to bed.  Any screen gives off blue light and blue light can wake up your brain and eyes. It is proven that blue light can trick the brain into staying awake. If you truly want to sleep well don’t look at any screens an hour before you go to bed but TV is OK. Sleeping well is vital to having a successful day and exposure to blue light can damage sleep which can lead to a bad day. Personally I love my sleep and really value it so I make a point not to look at too many devices before I go to bed. 

Reference: ewg.org dirty dozen clean fifteen list