The sad truth, says Mitra Ray, is that every Dorito you eat makes you age a little.
This very direct connection between what we eat and how we prematurely age is often ignored, says Ray, a biochemist and nutritional lecturer. "You hear that eating right and exercising is so important for your health, but most people don't truly get what that means."Our bodies produce toxins just from living, Ray explains. We burn oxygen when we eat, breath, move, and that process produces free radicals that cause havoc within our cells. To counteract the free radicals, we need to ingest anti-oxidants - and it takes great quantities of them just to keep the score even.
"Eating nine servings of fruits and vegetables is barely enough to balance out your daily activity. And then if you add Doritos (or any other food that provides calories but no nutrition), you're taxing your system even more."
Ray will speak about the connection between aging and nutrition at a free seminar Saturday, June 27, at 10 a.m. at the Salt Lake Airport Hilton. The lecture is sponsored by Juice Plus, a dehydrated juice capsule sold by a multi-marketing company called NSA. Ray until recently was a distributor for Juice Plus but divested herself of any monetary link to the company when she agreed to lecture about aging, she says.
Raw fruits and vegetables are the key to good health, says Ray, who has a doctorate in biochemistry from Stanford University. In addition, Ray recommends a small amount of protein at each meal and an adequate amount of essential fatty acids, the kind that can be found in nuts, avocado, cold-pressed olive oil and organic flax seed oil.
Avoid processed foods labeled "low fat," says Ray, because the fats in them have usually been replaced with corn syrup.
"The more fruits and vegetables you eat, the more you'll want," she says.