5 Pillars to Healthy Eating in Today's Age

I get a lot of questions from friends, relatives, and colleagues about how to eat healthfully, and usually, how to reduce bad cholesterol. I usually send them some sort of email that includes 5 pillars of eating healthy in today’s age. Here are my 5 pillars in no particular order:

1. No Trans Fats (Partially Hydrogenated Oils): Increases risk of heart disease by raising the bad cholesterol and increasing fat reserves. Several intensive studies showed that trans fats significantly increase the amount of visceral and other abdominal fat.
2. No Artificial Sugars (Saccharin, Aspartame, Sucralose, etc): We have no feedback mechanism for shutting off the intake of artificial sugars. If we eat too much real sugar, our body tells us to stop. This doesn’t happen with artificial sugars. And since most sweet things are high in saturated fat and other unhealthy constituents, we end up eating more of these unhealthy constituents than we would have otherwise.
3. No Red Meat: High in saturated fats which lead to high levels of LDL and obesity. You should intake a modest amount of omega 3 and polyunsaturated fats, lesser amounts of monounsaturated fats, and severely limit saturated fats. By eating red meat, you are doing the opposite. Moreover, you are flooding your body with the opposite which means that you have to eat obnoxiously large amounts of say monounsaturated fats to block the formation of LDL.
4. No High Fructose Corn Syrup: It is believed that HFCS is worse than regular sugar because higher levels of fructose increase triglyceride levels which ultimately lead to obesity. There are a lot of studies that correlate HFCS and obesity, but I think they are a little biased because, in general, cheap, bad foods contain both HFCS and other cheap, bad ingredients; they go hand in hand.
5. No Dairy: After all the journals and papers that I have read on dairy, I have come to the conclusion that it is one of the worst things that we can eat on a regular basis. Dairy blocks the absorption of zinc, iron, and calcium. In addition, it raises the body’s acidity which further drains these nutrients from the body; especially calcium. Also, dairy is very high in saturated fat; 2nd to red meat for the average American.