Food Facts

Garlic is one of the most valuable and versatile foods on the planet. Garlic belongs to the Allium family of vegetables which also includes onions, chives, shallots and leeks.

Calcium is one of the most popular dietary supplements on the market, largely because of the widely circulated belief that regular supplemental doses of this mineral are essential for building and maintaining healthy bones. As a result, many people believe that taking a calcium supplement is one of the best -- if not an essential -- strategy to prevent bone fractures resulting from osteoporosis.

I have long stated that if you want to be optimally healthy, you should spend 90 percent of your food budget on whole foods, and only 10 percent on processed foods. Unfortunately, most Americans currently do the opposite, and their health suffers as a result.

With most foods, the closer they are to nature, the better. It's possible to have some processed foods that are still healthy; for instance, frozen green beans have been "processed" as has butter, grass-fed ground beef, or freshly prepared almond butter.