How to Eat, Lose Weight, Look Great, and Enjoy Your Life, Part II

by

John Stephen Mauldin, MLA (not AI assisted)

All right reserved, copyright © 2025

•         A fever blister would appear on my lip after an episode of severe stress. That no longer happens. I believe it is because of two reasons: first, the dormant viruses, which manifested on my lips, may have left my body (if that is possible), and, secondly, pure nutrition empowers my immune system to protect me from new viruses that I encounter.

•         Like the underlying virus that would exteriorize as fever blisters, pleurisy would appear in my chest after being emotionally overworked. Pleurisy is typically the consequence of a bacterial infection, such as pneumonia, or a viral infection, such as the flu. That painful and potentially dangerous disorder is no longer in my system, and my fortified immunity ensures it is unlikely to return.

   I cured all of these ailments without medicine of any kind, whatsoever, except for the medicinal powers of clean, healthy food. That is why Hippocrates, the father of all medicine, said, “Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food.”

   I might also mention that I have plenty of strength and energy. I do 50 pushups in one set, 60 curls with 50 lbs., 40 shrugs with 50 lbs., and 150 stomach crunches with 30 lbs. on my shoulders. I also walk 3 miles, run up four flights of stairs each day, and run the 100-yard dash in less than 15 seconds.

   It may interest the reader to know that I turned 70 last month.

   These are examples of my typical meals, all of which are necessarily organic to avoid pesticides and preservatives.

Breakfast

Chickpeas, also known as garbanzo beans soaked overnight and mixed with olive oil, cayenne pepper, and turmeric. The chickpeas are crunchy and packed with vitamins and minerals. Olive oil, cayenne pepper, and turmeric are anti-inflammatories and more potent than aspirin or ibuprofen (which I never take).

Snack

Walnuts, dates, or carrots.

Lunch

I usually drink a smoothie made with spinach, kale, cucumber, celery, a granny smith apple, blueberries, pure water, and protein powder (made without sugar or dairy). This smoothie powerfully invigorates and fights free radicals and inflammation throughout our entire bodies.

Dinner

I often enjoy a salad of arugula, a whole avocado, sliced cherry tomatoes, black olives, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, lemon juice, and olive oil. These are all life-giving superfoods. Sometimes, instead of arugula, I use cilantro and parsley, which creates a distinct sense of hydration and well-being.

   Of course, the choices and creations for super healthy meals are limitless.

   Why do these meals heal our bodies so dramatically? It is because they are in their living form. For instance, I composted an onion a few weeks ago and yesterday noticed that it began growing and sprouting green leaves. But if cooked, it would have never sprouted since cooking would have killed it. In other words, cooking destroys living food, which might be problematic to digest. Thus, could cooked food coat the digestive tract, preventing nutritional absorption?

   “Most nutrients are ingested in a form that is either too complex for absorption or insoluble, and therefore, indigestible or incapable of being digested. Within the GI tract, much of these substances are solubilized and further degraded enzymatically to simple molecules, sufficiently small in size, and in a form that permits absorption across the mucosal epithelium[1] [which line the intestines].”  

   Is it possible that the absorptive epithelial cells might be compromised by unhealthy eating and lose their ability to adequately ingest nutrients, neutralized by a filmy mixture of mucus and putrefied food?

   Perhaps over time, less and less nutrition assimilates, causing malnutrition. I see people my age who never learned to eat, and I feel they are starving themselves to death since their digestive tracts might have lost their absorptive powers, which is a compliment to food remaining in the digestive system for far too long.

   It is similar to tobacco which coats the lungs of smokers. The bio-mechanisms that transport oxygen to the bloodstream, called alveoli, are, little by little, covered in tar until compromised, at which time the victim slowly dies of asphyxiation. Likewise, I feel that the epithelial cells lining the gastrointestinal tract are exhausted by undigestible, dead food, which causes disease, sickness, and mild yet prolonged starvation.

    Therefore, as the alveoli are to oxygen, so are epithelial to food. But, is it true that as nicotine is to the lungs, so is cooked food to the intestines?

   I cannot answer that question adequately, for it requires qualitative and quantitative statistical analysis; I can only observe what I have experienced, including the idea that we are the only member of the animal kingdom who eats cooked food. Is that only due to food distribution, availability, and habit? Are there other elemental reasons?

   Of course, we also distinguish ourselves by drinking concoctions rather than water, an observation that should pique curiosities about the matter. Why are we the only adult species, among all plants and animals on Earth, who drinks things other than water?

   It is probably needful to remind some people that colas subtract lipid acids from our joints, rot our teeth, and create disease, especially diabetes. Alcohol is a particularly heinous enemy of our vital organs, considering its addictive sway over living cells that demand more of its poison. Does anyone truly enjoy drinking this venom, or do they only obey the contaminated microorganisms which manipulate their thinking? Wine is equally ruinous since all alcohol poisons the liver and, according to the American Heart Association, “No research has established a cause-and-effect link between drinking alcohol and better heart health.”

   The resemblance of the destructive and addictive nature of alcohol to non-living food serves a meaningful purpose since disease-giving food is often equally carcinogenic and enslaving. Human cells infiltrated and compromised by noxious substances, mislabeled as food, behave equivalently to the cellular craving for more death from alcohol. Could there be any other reason, apart from marketing (which healthy persons dismiss), that we yearn to eat death-dealing substances? Like alcohol, it appears that non-living food, is cellularly obsessive and subjugates its victims to self-destruction from that biologically primitive point.

   “With the advent of research at the cellular and subcellular levels, perspectives on the etiology [or pathology] of drug dependence have also changed. Perhaps the greatest advance has been in the identification of specific receptors for each of the drugs, their target neurotransmitter systems, and the intracellular changes produced by them.”[2]

   In other words, unhealthy food can have the same addictive persuasion and power as drugs.

   When we eat is also critical. Eating after 6 pm places an extra strain on our bodies. Imagine if your boss asked you to work late every evening. That is what you ask of your body when eating late.

[1] National Library of Medicine, Gastrointestinal Function; Publisher’s Summary, 2008 : 413–457. Published online 2008 Oct 22. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-370491-7.00014-3

[2] Gupta, Swapnil; Kulhara, Parmananda Cellular and molecular mechanisms of drug dependence, Indian Journal of Psychiatry: Apr–Jun 2007 - Volume 49 - Issue 2 - p 85-90 doi: 10.4103/0019-5545.33253