People often ask me what’s the most important thing they can do to live a long, healthy life. While there are numerous possible answers, I often start by asking them some questions about their lifestyle in an effort to determine the best recommendations.

Certainly there’s no shortage of information available to us, in fact I think we’re being bomb-barded with too much data. Yet while we all seem to know what we should be doing, we’re just not doing it. The real question is why? Perhaps we’re all looking for a quick fix, simple, easy way. And while that’s not a likely or realistic solution for most aspects of longevity, there’s good news on the nutrition front that I believe should be shared.

I’ve always said that if someone figures out a way to put diet and exercise into a pill, it would be the most widely prescribed on the planet.  While I’ll likely be waiting a lifetime for a way to improve physical fitness without doing the physical work, the area of nutrition is quite another story.

Now I must clarify -- when I refer to nutrition, I’m talking about whole foods -- which contain important nutrients, i.e. the word nutrition. What I’m definitely not talking about are multivitamins, which are part of a mult-billion dollar, non-regulated industry that a lot of people confuse as being part of nutrition. Most everyone thinks multivitamins offer the same benefits as nutrients, however, there’s a huge difference between the two.

Consumer Reports September 2010 edition’s cover story on supplements and multivitamins reported that there’s virtually no evidence multivitamins improve the average person’s health. Yet 84% of people taking them cite staying healthy as their reason for doing so. While the article does state there are some people for whom a daily multi is clearly necessary, i.e. women who are pregnant, breast-feeding or trying to conceive, or people on restricted diets, or those with a condition that depletes nutrients, other than that, the benefit of a daily multivitamin for the average person is seriously questionable.

What we really need to do to improve our health is get better nutrition from whole foods, i.e. fruits, vegetables and grains. We don’t have a vitamin deficiency problem in this country; we have a whole food deficiency problem. Most Americans don’t eat enough fresh fruits and vegetables and fall way short of the American Cancer Society’s recommendation to eat at least 7-13 fruits and vegetable servings a day.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported discouraging news – only 26 percent of American adults had three or more servings a day of vegetables, including those who count a tomato slice and a lettuce leaf on a burger as a serving. That means, roughly 80% of U.S. adults scarcely eat any vegetables at all.

While most everyone knows the benefits of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables lowers the risk of many types of cancer, stroke, heart disease, type 2 Diabetes and other chronic diseases, we still don’t do it.  Even those of us who do try to eat healthy, we likely don’t do it every day, and can come up with every excuse in the book for why we don’t, from lack of time to not liking the taste and it’s inconvenient or even it’s too expensive.

As I stated earlier in this article, if someone figures out a way to put fruits and vegetables into a pill, it will definitely get my attention. They have, it’s ingenious, and is the most thoroughly researched brand name nutritional product in the world. I believe it’s the solution many of us have been looking for, and may become the answer to a growing problem that if not addressed, will likely result in a significant increase in serious health problems in this country, even effect people’s longevity. 

I was introduced to this product and company over a year ago and was beyond impressed by the clinical research conducted at top universities and published in numerous medical journals. The product is recommended and supported by medical and health-care professionals in growing numbers, including Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld, a leading medical authority and author of several best-selling books on health and wellness and Dr. William Sears, a well-known pediatrician and also best-selling author on child care and nutrition.

I’ve never, ever endorsed a product, even though I’ve had numerous offers. But this one was different -- it intrigued me, it meets a definite need, and it’s backed by scientific research. And since I’d always said, if they build it, I will come, I’ve just added this new nutrition link to my website too.

So they’ve really done it – a 40-year old, privately held, debt free company with $8 billion in sales since inception has the patent and has produced a product that is a whole food concentrate consisting of 17 different fruits and vegetables vine-ripened, juiced to their natural essence, dried under controlled temperatures to eliminate the salt, sugar, calories and water and placed this whole food-based nutrition into capsules that you take 2x/day for $40/mo – less than $1.40/day.

But all that really matters is you, and if you, like me are looking for a simple, affordable way to bridge the nutritional gap, I highly recommend you check out this web link and see for yourself: Bridging the Gap Scroll down to the video clip, take a look and see if it makes sense to you. It did to me.  Plus, the Research link and others at the top of the page provide even more info about the product, its benefits, ingredients, etc.

While nutrition is only one part of living a healthy, long life, it’s an essential one indeed – and one that too many of us are frankly disregarding. But maybe like me, you’ve never heard of this concept of putting fruits and vegetables into a capsule – so I’m sharing it with everyone I know. In fact, I believe so strongly in the benefits of Juice Plus that I’m happy to share the other secrets to aging in extraordinary ways by offering a free, signed copy of my book, What’s Age Got To Do With It? to anyone who places an order on the link above by 2/11/11.

We all want to live a long, healthy life, but we also must recognize it’s up to us to make the right choices every day. We know what we need to do – now we need to just do it – and now we can!

Kelly Ferrin, gerontologist, longevity expert and author of “What’s Age Got To Do With It? Secrets to Aging in Extraordinary Ways” has been studying aging and retirement issues for over 25 years. She was one of the first to ever receive a degree in this field from the prestigious Andrus School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California, the top school in the nation for the study of age-related issues.

website: kellyferrin.com ••• email: ageangel@earthlink.net