Dr. Oz and Viewer’s All-Time Favorite Health Tips: Comparisons and Counterpoints For Your Consideration
Dr. Oz compiled many of his viewer’s email messages and comments about the advice and tips that he’s given for the past two years. Today he invited some of these people to his show to tell the audience about their favorite health tips.
Let’s compare some of the health tips that were presented on this episode. For review, here is the link to the Doctor Oz website that describes these tips:
Doctor Oz’s Viewer’s All Time Favorite Tips
The first tip was to use blue agave syrup as a natural sweetener. This is excellent advice. I do. The syrup is sweet, but not too sweet. It’s easy to use from a squeeze bottle with a texture a little less thick than honey. It is very balanced and will not overstimulate the adrenals. It’s a winner!
Natural sweeteners are the ONLY way to go. I would suggest that you refuse to put any food or beverage into your body that is sweetened with artificial or refined sugar ever again. There’s no reason to compromise your health when there are plenty of fantastic choices for natural and organic sweeteners to select from depending upon your personal preferences.
Some people love honey. Honey comes from so many different areas with subtle variations in the taste and color of the local honey. Honey is fantastic on desserts and in beverages as is blue agave syrup, brown rice syrup, and maple syrup. These all dissolve in hot liquids very easily when compared to crystalized sugars.
Organic sugar cane crystals are perfect for baking and confections, especially when you need to cream your sugar with eggs in many recipes. Wholesome Sweeteners carries my favorite types and can be found in Whole Foods Markets and most Food Co-ops as well as online. You can also find date sugar, stevia, and other natural sweeteners easily at most stores that carry whole foods.
Manuka Honey can be used both for sweetening teas, beverages, and even granola or yogurt as well as using it for its antiseptic properties. It’s more expensive, but it is well worth the extra amount of money given that it really does support your Immune System’s function. If you can find bandages that already have Manuka Honey applied, then that will save you from making a sticky mess and wasting this costly golden honey.
I am perturbed with Dr. Oz for setting up audience members when he knows that some herbs and teas are going to taste terrible straight! That is NOT the way to introduce alternatives to a naive audience… It’s an irresponsible oversight on his part, because it deters people from even trying a perfectly good product when the tester makes a face upon tasting. The Golden Seal powder could have been presented in a more palatable form as could the two other anti-bacterial substances. Sometimes Dr. Oz shows little respect for a good bedside manner for the sake of a laugh.
OK…let’s look at the second viewer’s health tip: Glucomannan or Konjac Root. Most of us in this holistic community know this as glucomannan which has been an ingredient for decades in many product formulations. Maybe calling it a root might help it make a comeback after we dismissed it, because we found better products. It isn’t the type of product that I would recommend to you. It is an artificial way to create a sense of fullness. You need to REALLY be full, instead of another silly band-aid solution that doctors resort to with drugs to deal with real health problems.
Instead of using this root, if you want to feel full the authentic and naturally healthy way; then chew your food more completely. Most people inhale their food and barely chew it enough for their digestive system to break it down without a lot of effort. Chew, chew, and chew some more… Most macrobiotic instructors will remind you to chew each bite fifty times before swallowing. Can you do that? If you can, you will never need an artificial substance like Konjac Root to do the job your mouth and teeth should be doing.
Your brain is wired to signal you when you are truly full after so many swallows of food bites. If you eat too fast or swallow food without adequate chewing to mix your food with saliva, you have robbed your body of it’s first step in digestion. Slow down, chew your food, savor what you are eating, and then you won’t have to resort to ridiculous fixes to feel full. It will be a natural result of eating whole foods. This is preferable to manipulating your body with this root or eating a bunch of noodles with little nutritional value just to quell your food cravings.
The third viewer’s health tip is preposterous! No one in their right mind would add all of these spices to Green Tea. It’s a tip about what you should never do for anti-inflammatory health ideas nor to boost your metabolism. Cumin, curry powder, turmeric, cayenne, cinnamon, black pepper, ginger root, and paprika should all be used in food preparation the proper way…not in Green Tea! Spices release their bio-active components with heat and oil. Think Indian cooking… Most cultures which are healthy will prepare their spices in oil before adding meat, beans, tofu, legumes, or any other protein food source for the body to get the most out of the health benefits and the nutrition of these spices. The only Tea that I can recommend to you with spices is to drink Chai. Although with ginger root, you can grate the fresh organic ginger root and combine it with honey and hot water. It will be soothing for the stomach and support digestion. Dr. Oz needs a staff that understands food preparation and proper tea brewing
The viewer’s tips about poop and re-inventing favorite recipes to be healthier are fine. It’s one thing to examine your poop and quite another to know what to do about it when it’s not the right color or consistency. If you are chewing your food, preparing whole foods with spices, and eating plant-based recipes that contain organic ingredients; then your poop is most likely going to be perfect. Sometimes you are going to have to give up certain recipes which just cannot be tweeked into healthy renditions of your original ones.
Sometimes I wish that there was a better TV show that could instruct you in better Wellness and Health information than the average Dr. Oz episode like this one. We know you want this knowledge and it needs to be presented without all of the hoopla that Oz brings to his stage. Someday…
