Eat This, Not That! 5 Healthier Alternatives To Valentine's Day Food Favorites

By Dr. Larry Deutsch and Dr. Jeff Schweitzer

1. Instead of: A box of chocolates
 Try: An edible fruit arrangement
 Here's why: Still a thoughtful gift for your loved one, most fruits are low in calories per gram because they have high water and fiber content. Chocolate is empty nutrition, a high energy density food, meaning the calories are more densely packed into the sweet than a piece of fruit.

 2. Instead of: Chocolate covered strawberries
 Try: Strawberries with light whipped cream
 Here's why: When you're eating whipped cream, most of what you are eating is air. One or two tablespoons of light whipped cream typically has less than 30 calories and little to no fat. A little dollop on strawberries is a delicious alternative to dipping them in high-calorie, high-fat chocolate.

 3. Instead of: Eating out at a restaurant
 Try: Cooking dinner at home
 Here's why: At home you can control your portion sizes and what goes into your meals. At a restaurant, most people have more difficulty avoiding high-caloric food and giant sized portions.

 4. Instead of: A cocktail
 Try: Red wine
 Here's why: Although alcohol itself doesn't contain fat, it is loaded with calories. And when you add in mixers, juice, sugar, and other ingredients, the calories can really add up. A glass of red wine, in moderation, is lower in calories and has been shown to increase levels of "good" cholesterol and protect against artery damage.

 5. Instead of: cookies or cupcakes for the little valentine in your life
 Try: a lower energy version of their favorite treat or simply reduce portion size by ten percent
Here's why: Putting your little one on the road to healthy eating can never start too early. Indulging them in a sweet every now and then is ok, but consider substituting in healthier ingredients. Instead of oil, substitute for applesauce, instead of whole eggs, consider using egg beaters. Their treat will still be just as delicious but a little healthier and that is the best gift you can give them this Valentine's Day!

Bottom line, follow these four simple rules:  eat less, choose well, be active and restructure your relationship. You will enjoy Valentines Day without adding unwanted pounds!

DR. LARRY DEUTSCH is a family physician and hypnotherapist with over 35 years of experience. A leader in the area of hypnosis in medicine, Dr. Deutsch is a frequent speaker on the role of hypnotherapy in health and medical seminars throughout the world. For more information, please visit http://www.drlarry.com/.

DR. JEFF SCHWEITZER is a biologist, consultant and internationally recognized authority in ethics, conservation and development. He served at the White House during the Clinton Administration as Assistant Director for International Affairs in the Office of Science and Technology. For more information, please visit http://www.jeffschweitzer.com/.

They are the authors of Calorie Wars: Fat, Fact and Fiction.

Why Dr. Ray Strand joined ARIIX

Dr. Ray Strand, author of five books including Healthy for Life, has joined with ARIIX of Bountiful, Utah in promoting their nutritionals.  He will be serving as the company’s medical advisor.  

Famous for his low glycemic food plan, he extols the virtue of eating low glycemic foods combined with exercise and supplemented with vitamins and minerals as a way to lose weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

ARIIX products, he says, surpass his criteria for cellular nutrition.  Cellular nutrition provides

all the essential nutrients to the body or cell at their optimal or advanced levels. 

He explained that RDA, the recommended dietary allowance of vitamins and other nutritionals, was created as the minimal amount required for acute deficiency diseases like pellagra, scurvy or rickets.  But research shows you need to have much greater levels than the RDA to obtain the health benefits that are shown in the medical literature.  He calls these greater amounts optimal or advanced levels, which he says ARIIX products have.

Multi-vitamins, on-the-other-hand, do not meet these requirements.  “You would have to look long and hard to find any study that shows a multiple vitamin has any health benefits,” he said. While 70 percent of the U.S. population in the US claims to take nutritional supplements, the majority are taking a multi-vitamin which doesn't have any health benefit.  

Before associating with ARIIX, Dr. Strand looked at their manufacturing process. Because the nutritionals market is largely unregulated, he said most of the companies that produce nutritional supplements in the U.S. today really don't follow any manufacturing standards. It was important to him that ARIIX meet high manufacturing standards.  

When companies claim they follow food grade manufacturing standards, only 30 percent of the contents in a tablet need to be itemized on the label.  The rest may be fillers.  

Dr. Strand found that the ARIIX manufacturing plant was FDA registered.  They follow pharmaceutical food manufacturing practices in producing their products.  This means they purchase pharmaceutical grade raw products and then manufacture much like a pharmaceutical company manufactures their drugs.  To meet pharmaceutical standards a hundred percent of what is in the capsule is stated on the label.  A hundred percent of ARIIX products are listed on the labels.

In addition, ARIIX follows what is called USP guidelines or standards.  Following USP standards guarantees that the tablets or capsules dissolve so the body gets the maximum benefit from the ingredients.  In his studies he found that only three of nine pills or capsules on the market dissolve. “If your pill or capsule doesn't dissolve it really doesn't matter what is in it,” he said.  “It's not going to do any good.”   So he was impressed that ARIIX follows USP guidelines.

Another thing that excited him about the ARIIX manufacturing plant was that it has been approved to do OCD or over the counter drugs.  To get this approval a manufacturing plant has to follow quality processes. Their facility can and does manufacture over the counter drugs, he said.   

Finally, third party endorsement is important to support product claims.  He said he was excited to find that ARIIX uses NSF to provide third party certification of products.  NSF certification is the most respected third party testing in the industry.

Dr. Strand was asked how he could join ARIIX when Lyle MacWilliam, the author of the NutriSearch Comparative Guide to Nutritional Supplements, reviewed their products and only gave them a 3.5 star rating. Dr. Strand was involved in developing the mathematical scale MacWilliam uses in evaluating products.

Dr. Strand found, however, that MacWilliam had not talked to ARIIX and got all his information from the labels on the products. Many of the formulas are proprietary, so only the ingredients are listed, not the percentages. MacWilliam rated these at zero. It became understandable why ARIIX got only 3.5 stars. If he would have included these ingredients, his results would have been more accurate.

“This is a five star product if not five and a half,” said Strand. “It became very evident to me that ARIIX products are the best in the market place and I wanted to be part of ARIIX.” 

Dr. Strand graduated from the University of Colorado medical school in 1971. He says that for the first 23 years of his practice he told his patients that “supplements and vitamins do nothing but create expensive urine.”  Then his wife who suffers from chronic fatigue fibromyalgia started taking supplements and her health improved.

He started to study the medical literature to see what benefits his patients could receive if they took high quality balanced supplements. That was the start of his career in nutritional medicine.  

More information about Dr. Strand is available on his website http://www.healthconceptsint.com/.