"Let Your Food Be Your Medicine"

"Let Your Food Be Your Medicine"

Hippocrates (460BC – 370BC), widely considered the “Father of Medicine,” said “Let your food be your medicine, and let your medicine be your food.”

Over 2000 years later, this is still the single best prescription for optimum health. Our abject rejection of, and failure to heed, this advice is the single largest cause and unifying explanation of the lifestyle diseases that plague Western cultures. These Western diseaseses including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancers, strokes, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer's disease are responsible for most deaths. They have become invisible diseases to the extent that we consider them part of normal aging. They are not.

As recently as 1900 cancer and heart disease combined accounted for only 13% of all deaths. By 2005, cancer and heart disease accounted for 50% of all US deaths. This meteoric rise occurred at the same time the intervening decades heralded significant advances in medical care and the explosion of pharmaceutical drug use.

The most dramatic change in the past 60 years that negatively impacted American health was the epic shift in the American diet and nutrition, compounded by an equal shift to a sedentary lifestyle.

  

Over the past 60 years the concept of “better living through chemistry” has dominated American life. Big Agra, chemical pesticide and processed food corporations, the restaurant and fast food industries, Big Pharma, and the medical care industry, as aided and abetted by the US government, have all redefined what and how we eat.

How and why this perversion of food occurred is expertly detailed in Marion Nestle’s: Food Politics. In short, it was the result of economic driving forces and special interests pressure on a government focused on driving down the cost of food; combined with bad, fraudulent, and corporate-friendly medical science, incessant marketing based on that science, a media functioning as a corporate mouthpiece, a medical system that feeds on disease, and a public in search of convenience in a fast-paced world with both parents working.

We humans foolishly believe that we can function outside of the laws of nature and the driving forces of millions of years of evolution that shaped our dietary requirements (like those of every other species) without consequences.

Our DNA is 43,000 years old, the same as our Paleolithic hunter-gather ancestors. As such, our food and exercise requirements are consistent with those of Paleolithic man, as dictated by that DNA. Nothing more, nothing less; except that we eat more (especially more simple carbohydrates and sugar, and chemical and processed foods) and exercise less, if at all.

The basics of health are simple:

1.      Eat natural/whole foods: fruits, vegetables, nuts seeds, meats, and fish. Basically, if it lives, grows, dies, and rots out-of-doors (and is within our species specific diet), you can eat it. Cut out, or minimize, all dairy, wheat, corn, pasta, breads, grains/cereals.

2.   Stop eating chemically processed foods, fast foods and snacks, sugars, artificial sweeteners, and high-fructose corn syrup.

3.  Take Omega 3 fish oils and Probiotics.  

4.   Drink a lot of water.

5.   Stop drinking all sodas, carbonated beverages, power drinks, and so-called vitamin waters.

6.   Stop smoking, completely.

7.   Exercise at least 30 to 60 minutes, or more, every day: a mix of cardiovascular (running/walking/biking/elliptical, dancing, etc) and weight training.

8.  Get plenty of sunshine without sunscreen. Do not allow yourself to burn.

9.  Commit and connect: have meaningful commitments and connections to other people and/or groups.
10.  Cultivate hobbies, goals, etc. to give purpose and meaning to your life.

11. Stop using toxic body, hair, and bath products and sunscreens.

12.Commit to health and get off as many, or all, of your medications as possible. “Let your food be your medicine, and let your medicine be your food.”

Health largely boils down to your choices, priorities, and personal responsibility. Do you want to be healthy or do you want to be sick. The choice is up to you. But it is not a matter of what you want. It is all about what you are willing to change and do.

Toxic World

I am 58 years old. It doesn’t take an environmental scientist or health specialist to observe the dramatic changes that have occurred in our planetary environment and human health since way back in 1953. Our planet is sick, and so are we.

Quite simply, “there is no separation between environmental issues and human health.”

Back in the 60’s we used to say: when you throw something away…there is NO away. Another lesson we never learned. At only increasing rates, we continue to dump billions of tons of toxic wastes into our lakes and waterways, our soil, air, and food supply. And, either stupidly or naively, we believe it doesn’t harm the planet, or our health or the health of our children. 

“One of the most alarming disasters facing us today is the invasion of man made chemicals into every corner of the world, including our own bodies.”

Our planet and our bodies are under siege of a toxic load they can no longer bear. The evidence abounds before our eyes, yet we fail to see it, let alone act to change anything. Increased incidence of extreme weather is devastating the planet and becoming the norm, just like the rapidly rising incidences and pandemics of cancers-obesity-diabetes-and heart disease are ravaging the human population.

“A child born today faces high odds of developing at least one of the following ailments: ADHD, autism, learning disabilities, diabetes, obesity, cancers, abnormal genitalia development, infertility, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s diseases. All have been linked with prenatal exposures to toxic chemicals.”

 Our delusional response is to increase medical testing and screening for earlier detection and treatment. This after-the-fact disease-care model conveniently generates massive profits for the health care industry (companies which, all too often, are either the same companies, or have strong ties to the companies, that are generating the toxic wastes creating disease) but does nothing to find solutions that stem the rising tide of disease.

           

Better to declare a war on cancer, and create another multi-billion dollar industry, than force industries to spend billions to stop polluting and clean up their toxic dumps. Corporations and their political minions will do nothing to adversely affect the bottom line or the economy. It is tough to realize that human life, and life on the planet, really don’t matter.

Our best corporate-sponsored scientists scratch their heads and write scientific papers authoritatively broadcast by the media as fact;  linking these diseases to the sun, animal fats, red meat, our genes, etc…all things natural; and never to corporate byproducts of toxic wastes, chemically raised foods and  artificial food concoctions, and toxic home and personal hygiene products.

While they struggle for explanations and answers, this third-grader’s science experiment lays it out for all to see with a simple elegance, that most often, characterizes the truth.

 As difficult as it may be to believe, it was President Richard Nixon who championed major environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act of 1970, which included national fuel economy standards for cars. He also created the Environmental Protection Agency. He called for new laws “that ensure that the price of goods…be made to include the costs of producing and disposing of them without damage to the environment.”

We would do well to heed the words of his 1970 State of the Union Address:

“The great question is, shall we surrender to our surroundings, or shall we make our peace with nature and begin to make reparations, for we still think of air as free. But clean air is not free, and neither is clean water. The price tag on pollution control is high. Through our years of past carelessness we incurred a debt to nature, and that debt is being called.”

*Here is an interesting link to “to obtain your community report on land contamination.”

http://scorecard.goodguide.com/env-releases/land/community.tcl

Obesity in America: A Growing Problem (Part 1: The Stats)

Obesity In America: A Growing Problem (Part 1)

70% of Americans are overweight, and 32% of them are obese. The numbers, and the people, are only expanding.

By 2015, at this rate, 75% will be overweight, 41% obese.

Lifestyle diseases related to obesity, including: heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes are the top killers, and account for a huge portion of overall disease care costs.

These are preventable diseases.

The 15 leading causes of death in 2006 were: (Bold = obesity related disease deaths)

1. Diseases of heart (heart disease) 631,636

2. Malignant neoplasms (cancer) 559,888

3. Cerebrovascular diseases (stroke) 137,119

4. Chronic lower respiratory diseases 124,583

5. Accidents (unintentional injuries) 129,599

6. Diabetes mellitus (diabetes) 72,449

7. Alzheimer’s disease 72,432

8. Influenza and pneumonia 56,326

9. Kidney disease 45,344

10. Septicemia 34,234

11. Intentional self-harm (suicide) 33,000

12. Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis

13. Essential hypertension and hypertensive renal disease (hypertension)

14. Parkinson’s disease

15. Assault (homicide) 17,034

• USA Obesity Rates Reach Epidemic Proportions
• 
  
• Eight out of 10 over 25's Overweight
• In 2008: 19.6% of children ages 6-11 obese
• In 2008: 18.1% of children 12-19 obese.
• 33% of African American and Hispanic children overweight in 2001
• 78% of American's not meeting basic activity level recommendations
• In 2002, 38% completely Sedentary
• 76% increase in Type II diabetes in adults 30-40 yrs old since 1990

• Surge in Childhood Diseases
• 
  
• New study suggests one in four overweight children is already showing early signs of type II diabetes (impaired glucose intolerance). Of children diagnosed with Type II diabetes, 85% are obese
• 70% of obese youth already have one risk factor for heart diseases
• As overweight and obese young people get older, they will require earlier medical intervention and management, and health care costs will soar.
• As overweight and obese young people get older the average lifespan of an American will get shorter.

Science Fiction

Science Fiction

In the last 50 years or so a new science emerged that now dominates and influences almost all, if not all, fields of research: corporate science. The name itself exposes the obvious conflict of interests between the corporate profit motive and scientific independence and integrity. This bottom-line driven science leaves little, to nothing, to chance, let alone real science.

Perhaps, the only real and accurate corporate sciences are their self-serving studies on population demographics and human motivation/psychology as they affect profit, i.e.; consumerism.

Corporate profit-driven science, as endorsed by the government, and glorified and broadcast by the media has created a through the looking glass reality that has us believing incredible non-science, non-sense; selling us spin as science that is literally making us sicker, and killing millions annually as profits soar.

We have come to rely on their science, disguised as television and media news, informative ads and magazine articles, patient advocacy groups, etc., as our prime source for health and nutrition information. More so than any other source. And then, conveniently, they sell us the cure.

Could the atmosphere be any more conducive to manipulation and corruption? Yes.

Our belief in science has been carefully cultivated and nurtured to elicit a knee-jerk, hypnotic-type, unquestioning and accepting response to key words, phrases, visual and auditory cues that drive our buying habits.

We have been indoctrinated to respond to unsubstantiated words such as: studies show,

scientists say, doctors agree, FDA –AMA-American Heart Association or American Cancer Association approved, low-fat, cholesterol-free, high fiber, vitamin-fortified, omega-3, heart healthy, calcium-enriched, anti-oxidant, osteoporosis, acid-reflux, etc.; visual cues such as actors in white coats, a stethoscope, a clogged artery, an acid-filled stomach, a gurney, an ambulance, an ER, an MRI machine, a ‘Healthy Heart’ logo, and now, a ‘Smart Choice’ logo, etc.; and, auditory cues such as a heartbeat or the electronic sound of an EKG, and the never-ending drone: "ask your doctor if you need."

The mere fact that most people even know these scientific words, phrases, visual and auditory cues is testimony to the extent and effectiveness of the indoctrination. Why else, but for marketing reasons, would your average person even know words like cholesterol, anti-oxidant, osteoporosis, trans-fat, etc.?

How else could you possibly explain the labeling of non-food chemical concoctions such as:

vitamin-fortified, high-fiber, low-cholesterol, fat-free Froot Loops and Popsicle with anti-oxidants, as ‘Smart Choice’ healthy foods?

We are willing, if not unwitting, participants in this science of deception. We continue to allow ourselves to be duped and manipulated by corporate science to the extent that we have lost our most basic understanding of our own health and how to nurture it.

Sadly, as we have listened to corporate science over the past 50 years we have gotten only sicker. All of their scientific non-food products have led to skyrocketing rates of the chronic degenerative diseases: diabetes, heart disease, obesity, osteoporosis and cancer. We then seek salvation from corporate run medical science and pharmaceuticals taking us through the looking glass to a place where drugs, tests, and procedures supposedly equal health, but in reality only equate with profits.