Your body is a temple

In their book, "God Is In The Small Stuff," Bruce & Stan commented that one of the mysteries of our culture can be found in the obsession with physical fitness. The mystery isn’t that people are exercising more. The mystery is that we’re in worse shape than ever. With the proliferation of fitness clubs and the emphasis on eating healthy foods, we should be the fittest people on this planet. Unfortunately, the sad truth is that we are gaining weight at an alarming rate.

Bruce & Stan ask, "What’s the problem?” We think it has to do with ‘intention’ and ‘attention.’ You probably have every intention of getting fit, but you don’t. You say you’re going to pay attention to the details of diet and exercise, but you don’t. When you put these two failures together, they spell “out of shape”. And out of shape usually leads to all kinds of disadvantages, such as shortness of breathing, sleepiness, lack of endurance, and obesity – none of which will add years to your life.”

“We may be spiritual creatures at heart, but while we’re on earth our spirits are being housed in our physical bodies. Our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Let’s do everything we can to keep the house in top shape.”

The message of Bruce & Stan is a wake-up call for all of us. If we want to stay fit and be healthy let’s be conscious on what we eat. I remember what my late mother-in-law would say to my late husband, “Don’t dig your grave with your teeth,”

Dr. Willing Ong and Dr. Liza Ong, in their book, “Stay Younger, Live Healthier," remind us to avoid the following food that we love to eat but are bad for our health.

•Lechon, crispy pata, and patatim. It’s a pig. It’s the fattiest and it may cause colon cancer. It’s also high in calorie.

•Pork chicharon, including chicharon bulaklak. All these unhealthy oils can accumulate and block your arteries and put you on the road to heart attack.

•Organ innards. Liver, kidneys, lungs, stomachs, intestines, hearts, and brain tissue are unhealthy. These are the possible contents of the best-selling Sisig cuisine. They are high in cholesterol, high fat and high in uric acid. In addition, some experts suspect that these may cause bowel cancer. Since pork intestines are the organs where the animal’s waste products are stored, then why should we eat it?

•Street food. Eating street food is a dangerous habit. If food handlers do not wash their hands, don’t wear gloves, or don’t used purified water, the parasites and bacteria can so quickly be passed to you from the delectable and tasty fishball sauce, queck-queck, betamax inwards and what have you.

•Half-cooked meat. Eating medium-rare meats can lead to various parasitic diseases. If you don’t cook the pork well, you can get infected with icy pork tapeworms (called taenia solium). Steaks should be well-done to kill the beef tapeworms (called taenia saginata). There are also fish tapeworms for those fond of eating kilawain. Make sure your chicken isn’t bloody, because that’s how you get bird-flu.