Your body is comprised of over 70 trillion cells, and they all need some TLC. Entrepreneur and “superfood hunter” Darin Olien tells us how life gets better when we understand the five “life forces” (nutrition, detoxification, alkalinity, hydration, and oxygenation) and start giving the body what it needs to function optimally.

We don’t take the truism “you are what you eat” seriously (or literally) enough. The next time you reach for a donut or a syrupy carbonated beverage full of chemically-modified sweeteners, ask yourself whether or not this is what you want to be made of. Are these the building blocks you want for your body?

Every animal knows instinctively what foods to go for—except for humans. Closer to the truth is that we do know, but delude ourselves into thinking otherwise. We know “junk” when we see it, but we usually eat it anyway—telling ourselves it’s the last one or that the diet starts tomorrow.

Here’s a general guiding principle, one that holds for not just solid nutrition, but for hydration, oxygenation, detoxification, and alkalization: “Eat a wide variety of whole, fresh, clean, [raw] foods—mostly vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, seeds, grains, sprouts, and healthy fats.”

It’s so simple—maybe too simple. No asterisks or fine print. You’re either doing it or you’re not. The glaring absence of meat, dairy, fish, and eggs from that list is intentional. The truth is that the less of these you eat, the healthier you will become. This doesn’t require your becoming a vegan, and there are some for whom a vegan diet is nutritionally inadequate. But if you keep consumption of meat to a minimum, your body will thank you.

The University of Barcelona conducted an experiment of 7,000 adults that involved giving subject groups a variety of diet regimens. They found that the Mediterranean diet (lots of vegetables, fruits, nuts, fish, olive oil, very modest amounts of meat and dairy, all of it fresh) promoted health and longevity better than any other diet plan in the study. For those of us without a Greek grandmother as a de facto nutritional guide, this landmark study was an important one.

Here are some simple, basic suggestions to get your nutrition on track:

-Eat at least one meal of raw vegetables or fruits.

-Local organic is about as close to nutritional perfection as we can get.

-Don’t forget your sprouts. They are brimming with nutrition and easy enough to grow yourself.

-Try a fruit or vegetable you’ve never tried before every time you go to the store. Your body benefits from a wide variety of nutrients, and chances are your handful of go-to fruits and veggies won’t have them all.

If there were an organ that comprised two-thirds of our body, we would probably be pretty invested in its well-being, right? Scientists would conduct numerous studies on how it functions and doctors would have ready recommendations on how to care for it.

Water is obviously not an organ, but it constitutes so much of the body and is so integral to proper function that it is helpful to conceive of water in those terms. When water supply is good, it staves off numerous maladies. In utero, we were three-fourths water, a figure that moves toward 60 percent as we enter old age. Between the womb and the tomb, water remains a prominent feature of our existence. It shows up as blood, plasma, saliva, stomach acid, spinal fluid, semen, and cell membranes—among a host of other expressions. None of our bodily systems are possible without it. It helps us regulate internal temperature, it removes waste, it comprises 85 percent of our brains and 98 percent of our nervous system. When we are properly hydrated, we even smell better and look our most attractive.

Water is vital to our wellbeing, but we are losing water every moment of every day. Each exhalation removes water in the form of vapor. Moisture escapes through the mouth, nose, eyes, and skin, and through urination and defecation. It adds up to about three quarts of water loss each day. According to the CDC, 80 percent of people don’t replenish their losses, drinking less than the recommended eight glasses per day. Seven percent of adults report drinking zero cups of water a day. 

Water is so tied to optimal functioning that these oversights are surprising. It needs to become a higher priority. If we understand and appreciate this, then we could make the simplest life-improving tweak ever. Here are some suggestions:

-Drink a large glass of water first thing in the morning. After going eight hours without water, this is rejuvenating for the body. Kids need to do it, too, before they head off to school. Recent studies have found a strong connection between children’s hydration and their academic performance.

-Only drink pure water—filtered and distilled, with a pinch of salt—unrefined Himalayan salt is best. Bottled water has added minerals and other additives that don’t help us and can even harm us. Distilled water has a 7.0 pH level; it’s been stripped of all its impurities but also all that was beneficial. Without the unrefined salt, your body’s cells will donate their minerals to balance out the water’s absence of those minerals, leaving your body depleted. The salt provides those key minerals and makes the water more alkaline, which lowers the body’s acidity, and allows your cells to properly rehydrate.

-When you feel lethargic or emotionally worn out, drink a glass of water. Dehydration is the culprit more often than we would guess.

What happens when the workers of a waste management company go on strike? Trash begins to pile up outside the proper receptacles. If the strike lasts long enough, sidewalks become difficult to navigate. Rats, roaches, and other pests tear into the bags, feast, and spread diseases. The stench grows from annoying to odious. Eventually, it becomes unlivable for humans. When we don’t undergo detoxification, the body’s systems eventually go on strike, too, overrun with poisons accumulating within it.

Our bodies have a wonderful set of systems for detoxification. Lungs are a vital part: they take in air, separate the oxygen from other particulates, and then expel the toxins along with carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Our skin is another line of defense that blocks pathogens and poisons. There’s also the lymphatic system, which regulates the production and allocation of white blood cells, as well as gathering up the toxins and harmful particulates in the lymph nodes for destruction. Our body’s most vital detox centers, though, are the kidneys and liver. They process the most toxins. Each of the 70 trillion cells that comprise the body produce “bio trash” and leave it on the curb, so to speak, to be transported to the kidneys or liver for processing and then removal via bladder or colon.

On top of the waste that accumulates through normal cellular processes, toxins come to us in minute amounts through the foods we eat. Even in wholesome, healthy food, there are often some toxins present. These are often defense mechanisms that plants develop to dissuade predators. Apples and peaches contain prussic acid, which can harm oxygen use in large quantities. Goitrogens are toxins found in cruciferous vegetables (cauliflowers and broccoli), which can interfere with the thyroid.

This is all normal and the body is equipped to handle it, but we complicate our body’s detoxification programs when we introduce junk like processed food, drugs, alcohol, and artificial dyes and flavors. Some toxins are introduced through no fault of our own: herbicides, chemicals, car exhaust, heavy metals like mercury, lead, and arsenic, and so on. These inorganic substances find their way into our blood, bone, muscles, and fat and sit there for decades if not eliminated. As they percolate in our bodies, these xenobiotic substances clog up the body’s detox systems. One study found 200 different chemicals and toxins in the umbilical cords of babies randomly chosen from United States hospitals, showing that the toxification process begins early into gestation.

The Environmental Protection Agency is on the lookout for substances that are extremely toxic, but it tends to miss most of the substances that are killing us slowly and reducing our quality of life. The agency is scanning the societal waters for great whites while we get nibbled at by piranhas. The accumulation of toxins that harm the body’s ability to purify itself creates an omnipresent inflammatory response that further depletes us. The body can only take so much for so long.

So what do we do?

-Don’t abuse drugs or alcohol. There are already enough toxins in the air and water, and in some fabrics and cosmetics, that we should avoid piling up the poisons where we can. Your liver and kidneys will thank you.

-Eat brightly-colored fruits and vegetables, which are usually high in antioxidants.

-Find foods that are rich in iron, copper, zinc, folic acid, the co-enzyme Q10 and Vitamins A, B6, B12, C, and E.

-Take hydration, oxygenation, alkalization, and especially nutrition seriously. These fixes are mutually reinforcing, so the wins compound if you stick with the plan.

We remember hearing our science teachers lecturing about pH in grade school, but what does it actually mean, and how does it relate to the body?

It refers to the power or potential of hydrogen in a substance. This power is determined by the balance of acidity to alkalinity in an aqueous substance. The more hydrogen in a substance, the more acidic the substance; the less hydrogen, the more alkaline it will be. It ranges from a scale of zero to 14. Pure water is a 7, the exact midpoint separating acid from alkaline substances. A Coke is about 2.5—highly acidic. Ammonia is 11.6—extremely alkaline.

Alkalization is one of the more difficult aspects of health to grasp and implement, in part because talk of striking a proper acid-alkaline balance is absent from the cultural ether and even among health specialists.

Grasping this matters, however, because most of the body’s systems are slightly alkaline. Our blood’s pH, for example, is 7.35-7.45. The pH of our eyes is between a neutral 7.0 and 7.3. Our stomach acid is between 2.0 and 3.0 because it needs to break down our food efficiently. It would take stomach acid of 0.8 to properly digest animal proteins into usable amino acids. We function best when we maintain alkalinity. The body’s proteins do their best work at slightly above neutral pH levels. Acidification inflames the body’s tissue, making it disease-prone. Conversely, alkalinity is like a cooling balm. It increases the capacity of cells to hold more oxygen enabling them to fight pathogens and remove toxins. Some of our enzymes stop working when the environment is acidic, making it difficult to metabolize food. The inability to effectively convert food into usable energy, in turn, augments the environment's acidity, creating a vicious cycle of poorly operating systems.

This difference between slightly above and slightly below sounds like splitting hairs, but the slide from one number to another along the pH continuum is not arithmetic in sequence, but logarithmic. In other words, potency doesn’t increase linearly, but by the power of 10. So a pH of 4 is 10 times more acidic than 5, and 100 times more acidic than a 6. If a Coke has a pH of 2.5, then it is 50,000 times more acidifying than pure water (7.0). Think about that before you’re tempted to send another caustic liquid down the hatch!

Just about all our bodily processes naturally acidify the body, from the creation of energy to dispensing it, from breathing to digesting. If it’s just these normal mechanisms at work, then the body will naturally return the body to slightly alkaline. But when the body remains chronically acidic (through excessive meat consumption, a dearth of raw vegetables, consistently shallow breathing, and prolonged stress) its systems don’t function well. Cancer cells thrive in an acidic environment. So do other diseases.

There are a number of things that we can do to restore a more alkaline environment:

-Eat mineral-packed raw foods everyday. Cooking food makes it more acidic.

-Find ways to eliminate extraneous stressors. Negative emotions like stress will increase acidity in our tissues.

-Spend time with people whom you look up to and can laugh with.

-Read the ingredients in your everyday products: shampoo, soap, and toothpastes. Keep your eyes peeled for harsh chemicals and additives that encourage metabolic acidosis—a condition of the acidified internal environment.

-Exercise regularly—the aerobic kind that requires the use of oxygen.

Oxygen is one of the most powerful, vital substances on the planet. You can go several weeks without food, several days without water, but no more than a few minutes without oxygen. The presence of oxygen allows for combustion, corrosion, decomposition, but it also provides a cleansing, deodorizing effect.

Within the context of anatomy, too much oxygen can damage us. The body needs oxygen to convert nutrients into usable energy. This process of breaking down nutrients also releases free radicals. These are atoms with an odd number of electrons, so they are chemically unstable and “steal” electrons from other atoms in an attempt to stabilize. The result of this process is a chain reaction of destruction: These free radicals move through the body like miniature tornados, wreaking havoc on the body’s cells. This damage is linked to cancer, diseases, and aging. This is why antioxidants are so vital to health: They take out the free radicals.

At the other extreme, oxygen deficiency (hypoxia) harms the body as well. Hypoxia constricts vessels around the brain and heart. Chronic low levels of oxygen take a heavy toll on the body’s systems over time. It’s also very common and usually goes unnoticed. Many of us are shallow breathers and don’t even realize it. Oxygen-deficient cells are less capable of adapting to body changes and fending off the toxins we allow into our body. A state of oxygen deficiency also activates our sympathetic nervous system, which transports us into an on-edge, fight-or-flight mindset. Other side effects of low oxygen levels in the cells are fatigue, indigestion, achy joints and muscles, pain intolerance, acid reflux, depression, memory loss, and poor immunity.

On top of the physiological factors that deplete life-enhancing oxygen levels, there’s also less oxygen in the world than there used to be, thanks to deforestation and the depletion of other oxygen-producing organisms.

There are, however, several keys to staying properly oxygenated, and these keys are found in other life forces: nutrition, hydration, alkalinity, and detoxification.

-Make sure vegetables feature prominently into your diet—especially leafy greens with lots of chlorophyll, like kale, chard, and spirulina.

-Eat plenty of raw produce, as cooking vegetables accelerates the oxidation process.

-Stay slightly alkaline by avoiding toxic foods, drinks, or emotions that will make your body acidic. Removing junk will also give your body a chance to detox, which promotes higher levels of oxygen in tissue and blood.

-Enjoy the great outdoors. There’s more oxygen out in nature than indoors.

-Breathe. Consciously. Deeply. Consider taking yoga or regularly engaging in some kind of aerobic activity—those exercises that require the utilization of oxygen. Your body follows your breath. If your breath stays quick and shallow, your body will be tense and constricted. If you breathe deeply, your body will relax and become more limber.

-Breathe through your nose. It filters out dust and nasty particles that otherwise go straight to your lungs.

Living a healthy life doesn’t have to stay a mysterious, ever-elusive goal. Oxygenation—along with nutrition, hydration, detoxification, and alkalization—will put your body on the road to recovery, health, and eternal awesomeness.