Dr. Shmuel Shields on Health for Chazaq

What really provides us with a healthy life? How do we differentiate from efficient and cost-effective diets, and inconsistent and painful diets? Through CHAZAQ, Dr. Shields, an acclaimed nutritionist with over 20 years of clinical experience gave over some of his most important discoveries to the Jewish population in a gathering of the Orthodox Community of Queens at Congregation Beit Eliyahu. The first reality that Dr. Shields pronounced was the fact that diets don’t work long term. The bigger priority is having a healthy lifestyle, which can be quite simply obtained by adhering to the lesson of the Mishnah Berurah, that says one should eat and drink solely to maintain and support one’s health to fulfill one’s life purpose. A problem in our current society’s eating habits is the removal of whole foods from our daily meals. We should take care to eat grass fed red meat and the right types of fats. Some try to eat no fats, but what we should really aim for is eating monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, (found in olives/olive oil, seeds, avocados and fish). When it comes to carbohydrates, those accursed carbs we all try to limit, we should take care to eat carbohydrates rich in fibers, unlike potato chips, pretzels and cookies; all of which have had their fibers removed. A lack of fibers leads one to not be filled up, resulting in binge eating of these sugary foods. By following these lessons and others from Dr. Shields’ lectures may we all find ourselves living a healthy and fulfilling lifestyle. By Leon Alper