Let Food Be Thy Medicine
It took me more than 30 years to learn how to eat food. Biologically we are designed to eat what tastes good. Unfortunately there are lots of products that have been designed to taste good even though they aren't providing your body with the nutrients you need. For most of my life I have been overweight due to an abundance of calories and a deficiency of essential nutrients.
In 2009 I read The Omnivore's Dilemma by Micheal Pollan. This sparked my interest in using food as medicine. I became a vegetarian again, but I was smarter about it this time. My partner and I watched so many documentaries about food and the food system. The ones that touched me the most were: "Food, Inc.", "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead", and "The Beautiful Truth". We began to buy only organic food at the grocery store. We agreed that the best way to ensure that our food is nutrient dense and free from harmful chemicals is to just grow it ourselves. Suddenly, I was no longer struggling with my weight. I was discovering what actually tasted good to me. My body became more tolerant of exercise, which meant I was able to use exercise to manage my anxiety and depression. I was completely transformed, simply by changing my diet.
It is often said that herbal remedies take a long time to work. I think this is because most people are eating a typical western diet, so the plant medicine is overwhelmed by the damage that has already been done. When someone asks me if I can show them how they can use plants to heal a specific issue, my first question is always about their diet. No matter what your health complaint is, my first advice to you is to eat more whole foods, eat more fermented foods, make eating organic a priority, and prepare as many meals as you can from scratch. These are the rules I have created for myself, and the stricter I am about them, the better I feel.
Hippocrates said, "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food." Many medicinal plants are also foods, and if we incorporate these into our diet regularly lots of problems can be avoided. Oats, ginger, and raw garlic are some of my favorites. I eat oats every day for my digestive tract, and ginger periodically for its warming properties and digestive benefits. I eat garlic daily during cold season. Since changing my diet I have very few health complaints. I still get sick during cold season (usually I successfully avoid getting a cold by eating garlic, then I get cocky and stop eating the garlic, and the cold gets me) but it is shorter and less severe. I've had a few more serious issues, and I have been able to use herbs to remedy those in what felt to me like a very short time. I believe that the herbs worked so quickly because I am so strict about what I eat. Prevention really is the best medicine.
