Let Food Be Your Medicine

And medicine be your food. Wise and excellent words from Hippocrates, the father of modern scientific medicine, and the originator of the oath that all doctors take when they agree to practice medicine. So why don’t doctors prescribe from this place? I, for one don’t know, but wait, I am going off on a tangent. An excellent tangent, one well worth exploring, but not where I want to go today. I don’t even want to take a look at why we, as Ordinary People, don’t work off of this idea, either. I just really want to look at is how we can help ourselves do that very thing.

Because in a world where people are getting it about eating foods that are “anti-aging” (in other words they are chocked full of anti-oxidants and promote prolonged youthful appearance) such as blueberries, almonds and omega 3 oils, we need to be willing to eat foods that are “anti-cancering”, and anti all sorts of other things for that matter, like “anti-heart attaching”, and so on. Yes, it’s true, I am hoping there is a way to get people to eat the foods that will boost their immune system and fight free radicals, which, by the way, in the case of the above mentioned foods, they do both things (anti-cancer and anti-aging), because, frankly, it is sort of the same job! Which I guess makes cancer a sign of aging, hey? Maybe that is the rally cry that will get people to stop consuming crap and start eating to really nourish their bodies.

Here are some tidbits I picked up over the years, things to know about food and health…

Ø You can only get out of your food what is in it.

Ø Food that is organic, fresh and ripe is good for you. Seems obvious, but not so clear when we go to the grocery store and see some (organic) price tags. But consider this, when a piece of fruit is at it’s sweetest, that is when the minerals are the most available, so buying local and what is in season, helps your body, and, gee, your pocketbook at the same time. So let that be what off sets the cost of organic. Besides if enough people were buying organic, then with the increased demand more growers would go into the organic market and the prices would drop. So get out there and get some fresh ripe organic!!!

Ø Oxygen and water are healing agents for our body, so drinking plenty of water, or water drinks that are good for your body (instead of ones that get in the way of your immune systems, like, say alcohol – think of all the pesticide soaked grapes that don’t even get washed before they get stomped and fermented -, or coffee, or soft drinks – what is that anyway, I mean is there such a thing as a hard drink?). Good for the body would include herbal teas (especially some of root teas, like dandelion root, or burdock root), and green teas.

Ø Our lymphatic system moves four times the amount of fluid that our blood does, but there is not pump like the heart to move it, it is exercising our bodies that moves the fluid of this health giving system. That is one of the reasons that exercise is so important. As is deep breathing, which also helps the lymphatic system (and remember, oxygen is a healing agent). I know, I am drifting off of food now, into general health, stay with me!

Ø There are foods whose job it is to boost your immune system. Think about that, when we don’t use them, we’re putting them out of work. And how wasteful to not eat the things that are built for that, designed for that, perfect for that. Some obvious examples: garlic, oregano, turmeric, ginger, shitake mushrooms, seaweeds and the aforementioned good friends of mine: burdock and dandelion root.

Ø There are some foods to steer clear of, and I know you will hate this, but suck it up, if I had to give them up, trust me, so can you. Hydrogenated oils. Coffee. Sugar. White vinegar. White flour. (Details of the whys and of the substitute suggestions can be found in Sally Errey’s Staying Alive, Cookbook for Cancer Free Living.)

Ø Some proteins are more digestible than others. Spiralina (a blue green algae) is very easy to digest and to extract nutrients from. Meat is harder to do that with. The body has to work a lot harder to get the nutrition; it has to burn off energy to get the energy. That is not efficient. If we had a car that did that (like say your car had to be running in order for you to put gas in it), who would buy it? Well, I guess the people that buy those really big cars; you know that ones that cost a mortgage payment to fill them up, but those might not be the people reading this blog.

As I keep writing I can see that this is not just one post (unless it is a pages and pages and pages), so I am going to do a bit of recalling, do a bit of research and bring some tidbits back to the blog about some good “do’s and don’ts” and how to do those and what it is really like. Stay tuned.