Sodium affects health in many ways.

Few people in the world get inadequate sodium. Most Americans consume much more sodium than they need. Some tribes in South America do quite well on less than 500 mg of sodium per day, despite very active daily lives. There is over 900 mg of sodium in a tablespoon of soy sauce. You could easily survive on that, unless you are a serious athlete. There are a few medical conditions that benefit from the consumption of more sodium, but Americans consume double or triple the recommended amount. I will discuss recommendations below.

Serious athletes and those likely to become significantly dehydrated, perhaps hiking in Montana, may benefit from a moderate to high level of sodium consumption. Still, typical people, even those who regularly work out, do not benefit from adding sodium to their diet. Unless you’ve been sweating like crazy, water is fine and much less expensive. To make it worse, most packaged food and some electrolyte drinks have more sodium than is healthy.

First, I want to remind you of a common error. Sodium is only part of salt. Most recommendations by major groups and nearly all product labels list sodium, not salt. You should think of the amount of sodium you are taking in because that is what your physician is thinking about. I discuss this in The Six Rules for a Longer, Healthier Life.

Excess sodium has risks. Most people know about the effect of excessive alcohol consumption on blood pressure. Elevated blood pressure (hypertension) is a significant risk factor for heart attack, heart failure, and stroke. Decreasing your sodium intake will likely lower your blood pressure. Until fairly recently, it was thought that dietary sodium only mattered for people who already had blood pressure or other heart problems. That is not the case.

Not only does a high-sodium diet increase blood pressure, which can increase the risk of heart disease, but sodium intake also has direct effects on the risk of cardiovascular disease. Increasing your sodium intake independently increases the risk of death. If you’re not worried about dying, perhaps you will consider that more sodium in your diet increases the risk of stroke.

The American Heart Association recommends “no more than 2,300 mg a day and an optimal goal of no more than 1,500 mg a day for most adults“. Other organizations recommend less than 2000 mg, and lower limits if the individual already has conditions worsened by elevations of blood pressure. 1500mg is a low limit, but it can be done. See my earlier post and my book. (Don’t be fooled by blood tests for sodium {Na.} Blood levels don’t reflect the quantity of sodium in your blood or body, just concentration or dilution.)

Most of the sodium we eat is in processed foods and food prepared by others. When you cook at home, you can control how much salt you eat. Pay close attention to anything in a can or box. I mentioned soy sauce, but some brands of cottage cheese add 500 mg of sodium to a 1/2 cup serving.

I want to mention electrolyte drinks and especially powdered mixes. A standard bottle of Gatorade has 380 mg of sodium. This is not a huge amount by itself, but since for most people it is unnecessary, I don’t recommend it. Liquid I.V., a powdered mix, has at least 500mg per package. LMNT usually has 1000 mg per stick. Since they are sometimes sugar-free, some people feel they can drink several of these drinks a day. Again, most people don’t benefit much from this type of hydration compared to water, so most of their effects are negative.

The reason I am singling out electrolyte drinks is that people drink them, thinking they are helping their health. Perhaps they are, but not significantly. Yet, like everything else, electrolyte drinks have risks. Too much sodium consumption in this country is a significant problem and part of the reason that ultraprocessed food is harmful. I am not saying you shouldn’t drink electrolyte mixes. I try to avoid saying anyone should or should not do something. The question is, are they worth the money and the risks? This applies to everything. There is nothing wrong with doing something that carries a risk. Just do it with intent.

Diminishing Returns are defined by Webster as “benefits that, beyond a certain point, fail to increase in proportion to extended efforts.”

Diminishing returns, sometimes called the Law of Diminishing Returns, often refer to businesses. For example, as a company increases the number of employees (labor), its productivity increases. After a while, the increase in benefits slows down—adding new employees doesn’t help as much as it used to. Eventually, the company will lose money if it continues to increase labor costs above a certain amount. I apply this law to health.

Look at this chart:

Along the bottom is the effort you put into a healthy habit. Let’s say aerobic exercise. On the left, going vertically, is the impact that exercise has on your health: on weight loss, heart attack risk, and a multitude of other issues. If you are at zero effort, meaning you don’t exercise at all, there is no impact, of course. As you put in more effort exercising and move along the curve to the right, the impact increases and your health gets better. When your effort reaches five or so on my chart, but every healthy habit is different for every individual, the increase in benefit diminishes. To clarify further, for each increase in exercise, you get less of an improvement in your health. It still improves, just not as much.

Here is a real-world example. As I said in a prior post, a key to good health is to concentrate on the big things first. Exercise is a big thing. Say you never exercise at all, and you start walking a mile, three days a week. As you increase to 7 days a week, your cardiovascular health improves significantly. You are on the left part of the curve, which we call the steep part of the curve. If you get in better shape and switch to running a few days a week, your health improves further, at a good rate. If after a year of working out, you’re running six days a week for three miles, you are probably at five or six on the graph, and the curve starts to flatten. If you increase how much you run, the benefits you see will not increase as much or as fast as when you started. That is the law of diminishing returns. Eventually, even with more effort, the benefits may not increase at all. This is called a plateau. Running six miles a day, six days a week is not much better than five miles a day. See my book for more details on the benefits of exercise.

The same law applies to the weight loss that follows as you improve your diet by cutting calories, cutting carbs, or, in my recommendation, getting rid of the bad carbs that hinder weight loss. When you cut back on enough calories or bad carbs, you lose weight. As you cut back more and more, you lose weight faster. Eventually, you may reach a level of cutting where the rate of weight loss slows down. You may still be losing weight, but not as fast. This happens more with cutting calories than bad carbs, but it can happen with any diet, even the new GLP-1 medications and bariatric surgery. If you use the diet I recommend, The Three Rules to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever, it usually doesn’t reach the plateau where weight loss stops until you reach your goal.

Sometimes, if you keep increasing whatever you are doing, you may start to make something worse. You know this intuitively because it’s true for many things. Sometimes, after the plateau, negatives occur. Adding salt to food is an obvious example. If there isn’t enough salt, adding salt makes it taste better. But too much salt will ruin the dish. This is the best portrayal I have seen.

This happens with many healthy habits. Cutting calories too much leads to malnutrition, and running too much can be dangerous. Most vitamins and supplements have diminishing returns at a fairly low level, and a plateau is quickly reached. After the plateau, if you keep increasing, even some vitamins can become toxic, including vitamins D and A. As you know, this often happens with medications, and the toxic dose varies for different medications. I am on a relatively low dose of a blood pressure medication. If I doubled the dose, I would probably have side effects. With medications and supplements, the problem is easily avoided by reading labels and checking with your doctor.

An important problem with diminishing returns is that you think you’re helping things by increasing efforts with one healthy habit, ignoring others where you could improve and make a difference. Many weightlifters keep increasing their efforts and ignore diet and cardiovascular exercise. Others take every supplement ever invented and don’t eat healthy or exercise. You can spend a lot of money eliminating more and more plastics from your diet and forget about losing weight. Some will read every label to eat only organic and non-GMOA and not work on their weight. You have to be aware of where your efforts fall on the curve above, and that may require consulting a medical source.

Ignoring the law of diminishing returns sometimes distracts us from things we could do for our happiness and well-being. Taking reasonable protection against infections is wise, but isolating yourself from others leads to loneliness and depression. Instead of exercising so much, I could spend more time with my family. I could also practice meditation or develop other habits that would help my mental health. Despite what some people say, butter and red meat have health risks. Working hard and cutting red meat and butter to twice a month can be helpful, especially if you’re at increased risk of heart disease. Cutting further to zero has no proven benefit. I like eating red meat and foods with butter in them, and will not eliminate them from my diet for no benefit.

I strongly recommend working on healthy habits and concentrating on the part of the curve that is to the left of the diminishing returns zone. A good guide is my book, The Six Rules for a Longer, Healthier Life. Now, there is one more thing I want to mention.

Keep in mind a very important concept: The Threshold Effect.

The threshold effect is when you attain little or no benefit until you reach a level of effort or change. This is extremely important if you are on a low-glycemic diet, such as The Three Rules to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever, or a low-carb diet like the Atkins Diet (similar to Keto), but it’s seen to some degree on a low-calorie diet. As you start to cut back on bad carbs or calories, you may not initially notice substantial weight loss, though some do. As you increase your efforts, the amount you lose on a weekly basis will increase rapidly. If you give up all bad carbs, as I usually recommend, you will definitely have crossed the threshold and will lose a substantial amount of weight every week. Eventually, you may eventually reach a plateau, usually when you’re at the weight level you want to be.

See the graph. You may not notice much, if any, weight loss until you reach the threshold. In my graph, I arbitrarily started the weight loss at about 2.5 units of effort. That might be eliminating 90% of bad carbs or cutting calories by a few hundred a day.

When you reach 2.5, you lose weight faster and faster until you get diminishing returns. You lose weight, but each time you cut calories or bad carbs, the weight loss diminishes. Eventually, you may reach a plateau.

A common mistake is to forget the Threshold Effect if you cut back on your efforts. You may expect to have continued success when you slack off a bit, because you are eating fewer bad carbs than when you started. Perhaps you started eating one or two cookies a day or a few pieces of bread a week. However, if you slack off enough, you will reach the threshold in reverse, and you are likely to stop losing weight and even gain weight. I have made that mistake too many times to count.

The threshold for weight loss can be very high for some people. To lose weight, some need to get below 1200 calories a day. On keto, they need to be below 20 grams of carbs a day, and on a low-glycemic diet, you may need to give up all or nearly all bad carbs. Fortunately, you can otherwise eat what you want and should never be hungry.

Cutting calories has an additional problem—tolerance. Your body becomes accustomed to the lower calorie intake. If you start at 2000 calories, your threshold for weight loss might be 1600 calories a day. But, if you eat that amount, you will see diminishing returns quickly, so that you lose none or virtually none after a month. You’ve reset the threshold. Now, if you go back to 2000 calories, you will gain weight when before you had been stable at that level.

Keep in mind where you are on the curves above. Push hard enough to cross a threshold, and be especially careful not to cross that threshold in reverse if you back off on your efforts. Additionally, if you have reached the level of diminishing returns, don’t continue to increase your efforts at the expense of another healthy habit you could work on.

Default to No is the first step to quitting a habit or something that could become a habit.

Just like my last post, Default to Yes, Default to No seems simple. Nancy Reagan proposed that when you’re approached with drugs, you just say no. It makes perfect sense, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. I use the term default in the same way they do with computers. According to Webster, to default is “to make a selection automatically in the absence of a choice made by the user.” I mean the same thing. When you default to no, you don’t make a choice; you just do it. Soon, it becomes second nature. Defaulting to no removes any bargaining you might otherwise make, such as “Just one Drink,” or “It’s a small cookie.”

The first step to defaulting to no is choosing what is important to you—what you want to stop doing. Start with only one or a few. In the Six Rules book, I discuss the risks of drinking alcohol. If you’re a habitual alcohol drinker, I strongly recommend you stop drinking. Make this your first default to no habit. At a minimum, do it for a month and see how you feel. Virtually everyone feels better after abstaining from alcohol for one month, and no one wakes up in the morning regretting that they didn’t drink the night before.. If you have several things you want to eliminate, quit drinking alcohol first, since alcohol makes it more difficult to quit anything else. When someone offers you a drink, don’t think about it. “No,” or “no, thanks.” (Once a friend knows that you don’t want to drink alcohol, I hope they don’t ask you if you want one. If they do, I see no reason to thank them.) Do it every time, and soon, you are a nondrinker. You will feel better and likely live longer. There will be hard days, but if you default to no and never override the default, soon, you won’t think about it.

If you have no issues with alcohol, choose the most important habit that you want to break. If you smoke, that would be the habit I would work on. No habit kills more people than tobacco. Mind-altering chemicals would be just above or just behind smoking, in my opinion. Since what distinguishes us from lesser animals is our mind, it would be a shame to damage it. That is not to mention the medical harms of most drugs, even cannabis. If you don’t smoke or do drugs, work on processed food and sugar. Default to no. If you have no unhealthy habits, be more productive by avoiding social media and mindless web surfing. If you have no undesirable habits, you’re better than almost everyone else in this world, and just keep doing what you’re doing.

If you’ve read my book, The Three Rules to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever, then you know I am all or none. I never significantly break a rule, and it’s second nature after many years on the plan. But, in the beginning, I had to have a default. I avoided even looking at the dessert menu. I said “No,” and I tried not to think about it. Now it is simple, and I can read dessert and drink menus without much risk of losing my resolve.

I haven’t had alcohol in more than eight years, and I still use the default, because in certain circumstances, I am tempted. If anyone asks if I want a drink, I say, “No, thanks.” There is no need to explain. In fact, as Benjamin Disraeli said, “Never complain. Never explain.” If you explain your actions too much, it invites questioning and negotiation. Your friend offering a dessert may tell you that it’s low-calorie, or one won’t hurt you, or a million other excuses people use when they eat things they wouldn’t otherwise eat. Many alcohol abusers have relapsed after having just one drink. So, it is best to say no, or “No, thanks,” and leave it at that.

Another habit where the default helps is having multiple servings at a meal, or eating repeatedly from a bag of snacks. I call this “eating from the trough.” If you have a weight problem, it is best handled by always saying no. Never have seconds. You can’t be that hungry that you must have a second serving of cheesecake. Another helpful tool to avoid seconds is to do it preemptively. Serve everyone at the table and put any remaining food into the fridge, or even better, the garbage. Similarly, if you want to give up alcohol, dump it all down the sink. Then you’re not even tempted by alcohol or seconds because it is gone.

Quitting habits and making new, healthy ones are difficult. Most people never do it. Use every tool at your disposal to accomplish your goals. Define the most important habit you want to break. Start saying no every time the temptation arises. Don’t allow yourself to think about it. Don’t bargain with yourself or let anyone else bargain either. Default to no, and you are much more likely to succeed.

But, not as much as you may have heard. And remember, everything has a risk.

First, I want to talk briefly about the ethics of eating meat. We all have to decide for ourselves what we should eat. I believe that there is an ethical issue with eating meat. In my mind, there is no difference between killing an animal and eating it, and killing an animal while harvesting grain and vegetables. Many human actions hurt or kill animals. Building malls, bridges, parking lots, and stores, even natural food stores, kills and displaces animals. Farmers intentionally or unintentionally kill animals to protect their harvests.

We kill tens of thousands of deer and smaller animals on our roads, thousands of birds intentionally and unintentionally to fly across the country, and gazillions of insects and other bugs in the processing of all food, including vegan food. I accept these issues when I drive, fly in a plane, and eat meat. I don’t believe I can remain as healthy as I want to be without eating protein derived from meat, and I would be lying to myself that becoming vegan would somehow make me a heroic champion of animals. Regardless of what we eat, we should improve our treatment of animals.

For a superb discussion of the ethics of eating meat, see On Eating Meat by Matthew Evans.

I have chosen to purchase pork, chicken, and beef from farmers who treat the animals as humanely as possible. I buy beef from a butcher who sources from local farms, and I buy chicken from humane-certified farmers. I like Bell and Evans and Smart Chicken, but there are others, such as Pine Manor, which is sold at Whole Foods. Costco (which does not sell humane certified chicken) is about $8 a chicken, and Bell and Evans is about $16. If that is out of your price range, then you have to make a choice. I also find that air-chilled chicken tastes much better, which is another reason I no longer buy chicken at Costco.

Okay, back to health. We have heard for years about the harm of red meat. We heard that the fat was mostly saturated (about 50%), and saturated fat may increase cholesterol and the risk of heart disease. There is probably a small increased risk of heart disease in people who eat more red meat, especially processed red meat, such as bacon, sausage, and so on. Those contain more salt and curing ingredients, which are likely the cause of the added risks. This is a good review article on the topic.

In the article, the authors looked at numerous studies that compared people who ate quite a lot of red meat to people who ate little or no red meat. Some of the studies they found show a small increased risk that was dose-dependent, meaning that if I eat red meat once every week or two, it is not as harmful as three Big Macs a day. The authors’ analysis showed that most of the individual studies’ conclusions were of low or very-low certainty. That means there was a significant chance that the overall conclusion of the review, that red meat increases heart disease, was not meaningful. See my post on the difficulty in doing a meaningful nutritional study.

The review also looked into the risk of red meat and cancer. With low or very-low quality evidence, red meat seems to have a small increased risk of cancer.

Because red meat provides protein, and I enjoy it, I am willing to eat it occasionally. I eat it with intent, though. I will eat steak at a nice restaurant if there is nothing else on the menu that fits in The Three Rules to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever. At home, I make sure it is well worth it. I will eat a ribeye from the butcher, rather than a round steak from Dollar Tree. (Read about all this in my book, The Six Rules For a Longer, Healthier Life.)

It turns out that it might not even be the fat in red meat that slightly increases heart disease and cancer risk. It’s probably the heme, which is the molecule in hemoglobin that carries iron and gives meat its red color. Beef, lamb, and goat meat contain large amounts of heme. Chicken and fish have much less heme, and pork is in the middle. This may explain why pork may not significantly increase the risk of cancer or heart disease.

Red meat may not be as healthy as chicken or fish, but red meat is nowhere near as unhealthy as smoking, drinking alcohol, or being obese. When you decide if you want to indulge in red meat, I suggest you do it with intent. Do you really need to have it? If so, do it. Consider getting a better cut and buying it from a more humane source. If you think this way, you would eat less beef overall, which would benefit your health. You would also make a small contribution to the lives of the animals that feed us. You have to decide, but think about it, please. I will continue to eat red meat occasionally, and I can live with my choice. Most people don’t really think about what they eat. It only takes a minute at the store or restaurant.

Food Dyes are not as harmful as the foods they color.

Forty ice cream companies have agreed to phase out the use of artificial food dyes over the next few years. They’ve stated that the dyes are safe, and they are taking this step only to avoid disruption of sales as bans go into effect. The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has banned several food dyes in the last year.

When artificial food dyes are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), they have to be deemed safe. Increasingly, concerns have been raised about the actual safety of some of these dyes. Remember, not everything artificial is harmful, and not everything natural is safe. I would rather have a bowl of barley sweetened with saccharin than a natural cigarette. (I don’t use saccharin, if you’re wondering.)

Numerous studies have been conducted on artificial dyes. Some suggest harm in children, causing attention deficit and other behavioral issues. This is a review article, and I’ve looked at several of the studies they describe. Observational studies, where researchers observe what children eat without intervening, have several problems. This review article excluded such studies. The reason observation is inadequate is that food dyes are often found in foods that also have other risks. Most food dyes are in sweets, cereals, pastries, and sweetened beverages. Presumably, the dyes are added to make the foods more appealing. I wonder if they really help. If we eliminated the colors from Lucky Charms marshmallows, would kids still eat them? If blueberry ice cream weren’t as blue, would adults still eat it? I think so.

The review article stated that approximately half of the studies examined showed an increased risk of hyperactivity and similar symptoms. Yes, that sounds significant, but I’m not entirely convinced. Remember that there can be a publication bias. Any study that showed an increased risk is likely to be published. Studies that showed no risk may be less likely to be published. Even if that were not a problem, if only half of the studies showed risk and half did not, what does that tell you? It suggests to me that the risk is not that high. I would expect that nearly all smoking studies show significant dangers of smoking.

I am not saying that we shouldn’t ban artificial dyes. I think we should. They have no benefit to our health, may cause harm, and, worst of all, encourage people to eat food that definitely causes harm. As I mentioned, artificial (and sometimes natural) dyes are commonly found in sugar-sweetened foods. I have never heard of artificial dyes being put in unprocessed food. If you buy plain Greek yogurt, you won’t ever find red dye #3. You won’t find artificial dye in broccoli or steel-cut oats.

Ultraprocessed food and food with added sugar cause significant harm. Some have blamed obesity on food dyes, but we know that added sugar and high-carbohydrate foods can lead to obesity, yet these foods aren’t banned. I don’t care if the Twinkie contains artificial dye or not. (It does.) I don’t eat Twinkies because of all the other crap in them.

Similarly, banning food dyes may lower the risk of attention deficit because fewer kids will eat ultraprocessed foods, which are clearly linked to an increased risk of attention deficit.

Food dyes may cause harm. There are studies suggesting that they may increase cancer risk and other serious medical problems. But the most significant medical problem in the United States is obesity. Take a look around and see how many children are overweight. It contributes to diabetes, cancer, heart disease, pulmonary disease, mental disorders, and chronic pain. That is not from food dyes. It is at least partly due to junk food. I have two books that address the topic. Read my books for details: The Three Rules to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever and The Six Rules for a Longer, Healthier Life. The risk of food dyes is small compared to the risk of obesity. Maintaining a normal body weight is crucial for improving your overall health.

You need a kitchen scale, a digital one. Don’t spend a lot of money.

This is a short post because all you need to know is that everyone needs a scale. There are two reasons I love my scale, three if you count a game I play.

The first is for cooking better meals. Liquids, such as cooking oil, can be measured easily with measuring cups and spoons. Dry ingredients can be difficult without a scale. I don’t bake, but you will get different results depending on how you scoop flour, brown sugar, and other ingredients that can be packed down. It doesn’t really matter with ingredients like chopped onions, because most people don’t care whether they get a little more or less in their hash browns.

Measuring cheese and vegetables without a scale is difficult. Not enough cheese can ruin a casserole, and three cups of arugula will weigh vastly different amounts depending on how much you pack the measuring cup. It can also be a problem with nuts, broccoli, cauliflower, and other ingredients that vary in volume depending on how they are chopped. The best cooking sites I know, Serious Eats and America’s Test Kitchen, use weights for such ingredients. I’m not the best cook, but it is much easier to deal with weights. Then, if my chopping skills aren’t very good, it doesn’t matter as much.

Another reason to have a scale is to know how much you eat. Imagine if you are trying to save money for the down payment on a car. How would you do that if you didn’t know how much money you make or how much money you spend? If you want to lose weight and have no understanding of what you eat, it’s impossible. The nutrition label of a package of boneless chicken breasts says they are 110 calories per serving. That doesn’t sound like many calories. The serving size is listed as four ounces. You may assume that’s one breast. It’s not. I just weighed two chicken breasts that I’m making for dinner tonight. The two breasts weigh 19 ounces. So, each is 9.5 ounces. If I didn’t have a scale, I would have eaten more than double what I estimated.

If you want to lose weight, I recommend The Three Rules to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever. You don’t need to weigh anything to lose weight. Still, I like having a scale because I want to make sure I get enough protein and not too much. I talk about protein in The Six Rules for a Longer, Healthier Life. Inadequate dietary protein leads to muscle loss and frailty. These studies are difficult, and there are some studies with inconclusive results, but suffice it to say that you need adequate protein to stay healthy.

Without a scale, there is no way to track calories, carbohydrates, protein, or salt in your diet. A serving of shrimp usually has at least 300mg of sodium. A package I saw today at Fresh Thyme has 600 mg of sodium per serving. (They add salt when they freeze shrimp and other seafood.) You don’t know how many servings you’re eating if you don’t weigh it. A serving size of shrimp is 4 ounces. That is a small amount of shrimp for most Americans. In a restaurant, you get at least 8 ounces. Measuring food is important. You don’t need a scale, but people don’t measure the alcohol they put in an alcoholic drink. They may say they have one drink a day, but there may be 2-3 standard servings of alcohol in that one drink.

The first step in defining what you are doing is to quantify it. You need a watch to measure how much time your kid practices piano or reads. To measure the food you eat, you need a scale. So, which one should you get? America’s Test Kitchen recommends the OXO scale. I like OXO products, but I bought this scale from Amazon Basics. It costs much less than the OXO. I’ve used it daily for over a year and have never had a problem. If you bake, maybe you need the most precise, accurate scale ever made, but for under fifteen dollars, this scale suits me.

You need a kitchen scale for cooking and to know what you eat. I also like it for accurately dividing meals. I first try to divide it equally without the scale. Then I weigh it and see how close I was. My wife says it’s obsessive or compulsive to do that, but it’s fun.

My new book is available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback formats.

We all want to be healthy and live longer, and there is no shortage of theories on how to do it. In my book, I explain what science really says about your health. The book outlines what you can do to make yourself healthier and what isn’t worth doing. Following the six rules will reduce your risk of the most common diseases and improve your quality of life. None of the rules are complex, but like any goal, becoming healthy requires effort. There are no guarantees—there will always be factors we can’t control. The Six Rules give you the best chance for a longer, healthier life. 

The Three Rules to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever is still available on Amazon.

Big things make the most difference in your health and life.

If you want to improve anything in your life, work on the big things first. The big things are often harder, so we usually put them off. Students will spend hours deciding on a font for their term paper rather than starting to write the paper. If a kid is failing math, he’ll do anything before he starts working on his math homework. When trying to learn a complex piano piece, I usually play the easy parts many times before I even get to the difficult sections. We all want to do the easy things first.

With health, we do the same. Everyone wants to make easy changes, but most cannot or will not do what it takes to get healthy. If you’ve read my book, The Three Rules to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever, I talk about this. To lose weight, you have to cut out the bad carbs. That means all of them. If you want to lose weight, you can’t eat the bun and the fries in the photo above.

Most people will do anything but what it takes. They will cut back on carbs, eat a little more protein, go for a walk in the afternoon, take off the top bun of a burger, or a host of other things. They won’t do the important thing: giving up all the bad carbs.

People want to be healthy, but often ignore their most important health problems. Someone with a drinking problem talks about their evening walks. A walk may help your health, but heavy drinking causes cancer, heart disease, liver disease, stroke, and cognitive decline. I have seen many smokers who believe, or at least say they believe, that a glass of wine at night helps their heart. A glass of wine might help a little (I doubt it), but smoking is the worst thing you can do for your heart and your general health.

I support veganism for ethical reasons and environmental benefits. Being a vegan is healthy if you take the vitamins you’re missing and avoid bad carbohydrates. However, the small health benefits of veganism don’t negate smoking, drinking too much, a lack of exercise, or obesity.

What about organic and non-GMO (genetically modified) foods? There may be a small benefit to eating only organic food. I am unaware of any substantive data showing a significant risk of consuming GMOs. If there is a benefit to eating organic and avoiding GMOs, it is small. Yet, people eat organic, at a significant financial cost, and don’t accomplish the important things, like losing weight. The reason is simple. Eating organic is easy—pay a few dollars more. Giving up your favorite bad carb foods is hard. Working out five days a week is hard.

I like the financial analogy of credit cards. Clipping coupons can save you money—several dollars a week. But, if you have a credit card debt with 19% interest, that is the important thing to work on. Keep clipping coupons, but work on your credit card debt right now.

As Franklin said, “There are no gains without pains.” If you want to get healthy, it takes hard work. Ten percent of Americans smoke. That is their biggest health problem. Over forty percent are obese. If they don’t smoke, then obesity is their biggest health problem. Lack of exercise is likely the third biggest health problem in the United States. It takes hard work to do the important things and correct these problems.

Do it anyway. The best day to start doing the work and getting healthy is today. Start with the biggest thing.

The Benefits of Flaxseed Oil are its effects on cholesterol.

Flax has been cultivated for centuries for its strong fibers and its oil. I used the oil as a kid to work in my baseball glove. When it is consumed, we call it flaxseed oil. When used in resins, solvents, and gloves, we call it linseed oil.

Flaxseeds are often taken to help with constipation, and flaxseed oil is usually taken to benefit the heart and possibly to prevent cancer or aid in cancer treatment. Flaxseed oil has antioxidant components and may have anti-cancer properties, but I am not convinced it is worth consuming for these benefits alone.

The benefits of flaxseed to the heart are a different story. Flaxseed oil has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Chronic inflammation is a risk factor for coronary artery disease, and anything that reduces chronic inflammation may benefit the heart.

The main benefit is its effect on cholesterol. Despite what you’ve read about seed oils, and maybe some are not so healthy, flaxseed oil is very healthy. Let’s save the cholesterol benefits for last. Flaxseed oil contains various chemicals that benefit our health, including lignans, tocopherols, polyphenols, and phytosterols. These give flaxseed oil antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer properties.

Animal studies have shown beneficial effects of flaxseed oil on several different cancers, including breast cancer. Some of these effects were due to the oil’s non-lipid components, but alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), an omega-3 fat, also plays a role. This fatty acid has anti-inflammatory properties and holds promise in degenerative diseases, though we will have to wait for long-term studies to confirm a benefit.

Flaxseed oil is one of the best oils for our cholesterol and heart. It has been said that since flaxseed oil doesn’t have eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), it is not as healthy as fish oil, which does contain EPA. Flaxseed oil contains alpha-linolenic acid. Don’t confuse that with linoleic acid (LA). I believe LA is also good for you, but it is at the center of the seed oil warnings from some people. What makes little sense is the claim that flaxseed isn’t as good as fish oil because it doesn’t directly have EPA. Who cares? So long as ALA and everything else in flaxseed oil is beneficial, what’s the difference how it got that way?

The EPA/ALA concept is at the heart of the problem with many medical theories. You can always have a theory, but you need empirical evidence to prove it’s right. Richard Feynman said, “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”

Flaxseed oil helps the heart through several mechanisms. One of my favorite little studies shows that linolenic acid lowers small, dense LDL, the most harmful form of LDL. LDL is often called bad cholesterol, but only certain forms of LDL are harmful. I have reviewed many studies on flaxseed oil. It shows promise in preventing heart disease, diabetes, and bone loss. Since I have yet to come across significant risks, I see no reason not to incorporate it into your diet. (If you are pregnant, I would talk to your doctor before taking anything new.)

So, how do you get more flaxseed oil? Well, you can take a supplement, but I prefer not to. Most studies on supplements and vitamins show that it is better to consume them through diet. Also, it is usually much less expensive to buy flaxseed oil that is made to be eaten with food. I have tried several products and prefer this one, but several are good.

You cannot heat flaxseed above about 200 degrees F. Above that temperature, it oxidizes, making it less beneficial and not as tasty. I like to mix it in yogurt. It adds creaminess and a slight nutty taste. You can also add it to a salad dressing as you would olive oil.

The best oils are the ones that you make healthy meals with.

If you keep up with the news, you’ve read about the debate about seed oils. Some people claim that seed oils are unhealthy, even poisons, because they may be inflammatory. They advise using animal fat, or tallow, instead of seed oils. Longstanding science has said that healthy plant-based diets that include unsaturated fats, are healthy, lowering the risk of heart disease and other chronic diseases.

The seed oils that are said to be the most dangerous are soybean, canola (rapeseed), corn, grapeseed, cottonseed, safflower, rice bran, and sunflower. Other oils made from seeds include flaxseed, sesame, almond, and walnut.

There are studies that suggest that some of the seed oils can increase levels of inflammation in the body. Chronic low-grade inflammation does have harmful effects, including autoimmune disease, heart disease, and cancer. However, there are few, if any, well-designed studies that show these harms occur more in people who consume seed oils. Most studies suggesting harm are in animals and at high doses. Even cottonseed oil, which is rarely defended as healthy, doesn’t appear to increase inflammation.

Numerous well-designed studies show that overall, unsaturated fats derived from plants and their seeds lower the risk of heart disease compared to animal fats. Rather than quoting and referencing hundreds of articles, I reference this superb review. Of note, the authors discuss inflammation and oxidative stress (another proposed risk of seed oils) and show the strong evidence that plant oils are not a cause of these problems. This study from 2025 shows that plant oils, including canola and soybean, lower the risk of dying of heart disease or cancer. I could go on and on. Unsaturated fats from plants, including seed oils, have unsaturated fats and clearly benefit human health.

For those of you who really want to learn about the science of fat and inflammation, I refer you to this article. It describes that both unsaturated and saturated fats can sometimes increase inflammation under certain conditions, such as the other foods the person is consuming.

A big problem with studies on fats is that rarely does someone eat only the fat being studied. And even if they do, something else always changes. If you take people who are eating a lot of olive oil and substitute canola oil for it, you may see something negative. But the apparent harm could be from the removal of olive oil. Replacing tallow and lard with plant oils has shown significant benefit. Some could be from the plant oils, and some from not eating the saturated fat. Regardless, you are better off.

The most important factors are what you eat the oils with and how you prepare the food. Over the last several decades, we have been eating far more seed oil than in decades past. Those against these oils blame the oils themselves. I don’t entirely dismiss that possibility, but we’ve also been eating far more ultra-processed food (UPF), which now represents more than half of the calories consumed in the United States. We know ultra-processed food causes inflammation, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer. Eating the high-calorie, high-sugar UPF is the cause of these conditions, not the plant oil. I bet if you made Twinkies and jelly doughnuts with olive or flaxseed oil, two of the healthiest fats known, people would still become ill.

If the rest of your diet is healthy, unsaturated plant-based oils are better for your health than saturated fats from meat. That is why the Mediterranean Diet is so good for you. If you use olive oil every day, you are better off than if you use tallow every day. If you believe you have evidence from well-designed human studies to the contrary, please email me.

If you want to be healthy, eat mostly plant-based oil. If you’re afraid of seed oils, though I think they’re fine, you can cook exclusively olive oil and avocado oil, as I do. Use avocado for high heat, and olive oil for everything else. You shouldn’t cook with flaxseed oil, but I add it to yogurt. It’s very healthy and makes it creamier. If you want to be as healthy as possible, don’t eat ultra-processed foods, regardless of the oils they contain.

One final point. Robert F. Kennedy, the Health and Human Services secretary, is pleased that some fast food chains are using beef tallow to make their french fries. I don’t have strong feelings about what a restaurant does, but the main point should not be their frying oil. The more important thing for your health is not to eat french fries. We know that frying food isn’t healthy, and french fries have a high glycemic index. With the other foods served at fast food restaurants, you’ll gain weight. Read my book. If you follow the Three Rules, you’ll lose weight. If you also follow the Mediterranean diet, with or without seed oils, you will be even healthier.