Why have we completely forgotten about this medicine?

by | Sep 23, 2012 | Fitness and Nutrition

Food is the original and most powerful form of medicine. Unfortunately, with the advent of modern, westernized medicine, we have completely lost touch with the medicinal power of food. When I went to medical school 20 years ago, nutrition was taught in ONE half day lecture. I am told things have not changed much since then. Now “medicine” comes in the form of pills that work against the normal physiology of our own body, a body that is designed to heal itself.

When was the last time your doctor asked you, “what are you eating and drinking?” And I don’t mean the question like, “How is your diet” and you answer, “I eat pretty healthy” and that is the end of the conversation. This used to be the extent of my nutrition history. What you are eating and drinking is, more often than not, at the very root of how you feel, your overall health, and your medical conditions.

Over the next several weeks, we are going to dispel some food myths that you very likely have believed for decades. So open your mind and be prepared to learn some true facts like:

  • Cholesterol is GOOD.
  • Eggs are not bad for your cholesterol.
  • Fat is GOOD.
  • Eating fat DOES NOT make you fat
  • and more…
I would HIGHLY recommend that you get the book Food Rules by Michael Pollan, a short and easy read. Use this book as a “daily devotional” for nutrition. The “experts” and the media have led us to believe that nutrition is extremely complicated. While the physiology of nutrition from a medical standpoint can be complicated, eating healthy IS NOT complicated. In my opinion, the more knowledge we attain and the more we try to dissect that knowledge and literally dissect our foods – taking whole foods apart and putting it them back together in ways that it is not meant to exist – the more we move away from health. Here are just 7 of the 64 of Michael Pollan’s food rules:
  1. Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.
  2. Don’t eat anything with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can’t pronounce.
  3. Stay out of the middle of the supermarket; shop on the perimeter of the store.
  4. Don’t eat anything that won’t eventually rot.
  5. Always leave the table a little hungry.
  6. Enjoy meals with the people you love.
  7. Don’t buy food where you buy your gasoline.
“Human beings ate well and kept themselves healthy for millennia before nutritional science came along to tell us how to do it; it is entirely possible to eat healthily without knowing what an antioxidant is.” -Michael Pollan

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