For those of you who don’t know me, I own a tiny Canadian food manufacturing company. We make all natural and organic as well as fair trade certified food products for general consumption, specializing in Fresh Pepper Sauces.

So, when Suzie asked for something that would be useful information for business people to improve their business skills, etc. I thought, what better way to improve one’s business than to improve their lives. So, I sat down to write such an article.

Here’s what I wrote…

How to Increase your Bottom Line and in so doing Rescue the Economy by Changing your Eating Habits

A loud refrain during the latest Presidential election was all about creating jobs in order to help the economy. Both sides trumpeted how it was going to happen. But nobody really presented a solution that seemed workable at the John Q Public level.

As an outsider looking in, it seems pretty obvious to me that the easiest way to fix the economy is to improve the productivity of those employers who are already feeding the economy, lower their bottom lines and they’ll quite naturally invest further in their company feeding the coming economic boom.

Follow my train of thinking here.

75% of business owners are single proprietorships. That means that you as a single business owner, really are the economy. The better your business does, the better you do.

So, how do you do better?

Well, for starters, if you aren’t already there, get healthy. And I don’t mean go out there and start an exercise regime, although, exercise is a very valuable part of it, I mean start eating right.

According to the most naturally holistic meal programs going, the best thing you can do for your body is to eat the best quality food you can afford. That means, eliminating all chemicals whose traces may be left in your food and eating a balanced meal, eliminating GMO ingredients and irradiation by eating foods you’ve grown yourself or which are monitored such as organic certified food in balanced meals.

What’s a balanced meal? well, according to Livestrong.com Five servings of fruits and vegetables, 2 proteins and 50% of what you eat should be carbohydrates. Ideally you’d want to turn as many of your red meat dishes a week into another protein; fish, chicken, pork, eggs, cheese, beans, nuts, etc. So you’d take a bowl/plate about the size of what you’d eat. 50% of should be rice or pasta or bread. 1/4 of it should be fruits and vegetables and 1/4 of it should be proteins.

Figuring out how much to eat is going to depend on each person, if you really want to go to the extreme, you can hire a dietician to help you create a specific diet or you can go all loosey goosey and just eat when hungry, as I do.

Avoid fat, high fructose corn syrup and salt, and eat chilli peppers; as hot as you can stand.

Why chilli peppers? Well, in 2000, the University of Laval published findings that 200 calories were burned per day through the simple practice of ingesting chili peppers. These studies have since been replicated by an American University and a Japanese one. Eating chillies lowers your caloric load. Seems a no-brainer to me.

However you do it, know, that the healthier you eat, the less you will weigh. And personally eliminating the obesity epidemic will go a long way to contributing to your financial bottom line.

Here’s how.

Peppermaster Hummus Dip

It is a proven fact that the more overweight, or obese a person, the less productive they are and the more medical intervention they require. The numbers of chronic diseases increase with excess weight; Type II Diabetes, heart disease, cancers, and other problems. Interestingly, obesity has also been implicated in creating a higher risk for accident in the workplace. All of these things combine to create a financially detrimental atmosphere. Insurance premiums are higher, direct health costs are higher since chronic conditions tend to cost the patient not their insurance plans and overall productivity is lower through lower output as well as higher use of sick leave. So, it behooves the small business owner to get healthier and improve their bottom line.

Interestingly, though, you can actually improve your bottom line by instigating a company-wide health and diet plan, as a business expense. Since the larger your workforce, the higher your insurance premiums — and I mean that in the size of the waistlines. You can shrink your waistlines and shrink your insurance premiums. You can also lower the direct costs related to the health problems as well; because as you get healthier, you require fewer prescriptions or direct health care costs.

So you see, if you get healthier, lose a little weight,  the whole economy benefits.

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Tina Brooks, VP Marketing, co-owner Brooks Pepperfire Foods

Tina is a retired Financial Advisor, currently working in sales and marketing with her husband and Peppermaster, Greg Brooks. When not working with their food manufacturing company, Tina runs a successful private Tarot reading practice from a tiny specialty food shop in Rigaud, Quebec, Canada.

You can find Tina posting as @Pepperfire on Twitter and on Facebook.