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Food Matters ~ You Are What You Eat October 26, 2011

Posted by nrhatch in Food & Drink, Health & Wellness, Sustainable Living.
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We watched a fascinating documentary last night ~ Food Matters.

With a staggering number of Americans suffering from obesity and other food-related maladies, this film takes a timely and hard-hitting look at how the food we eat is helping or hurting our health, and what we can do to live (and eat) better.

Nutritionists, naturopaths, scientists, doctors, medical journalists and more weigh in on everything from using food as medicine to the value of organic food and the safety of the food we consume.

While I’m not persuaded by everything they said in the movie, the underlying premise makes sense  . . . when we eat better, we feel better.

Instead of popping pills to cure our ills . . . we need to EAT BETTER FOOD. 

The human body is capable of curing a vast variety of ills . . . IF we provide it with the basic building blocks of nutrition: vitamins, minerals, fiber, and anti-oxidants to remove free radicals.

Food Matters opines that we can reverse conditions such as heart disease (high fiber, low fat diet), depression (3,000 mg niacin), cancer (IV’s of Vitamin C), and stress-induced illnesses (instead of Prozac, eat cashews) through improved diet, increased exercise, and better nutrition.  

If they’re correct, why don’t we hear more about natural cures?  Well . . .

* Medical schools don’t highlight nutrition as a vehicle for better health.
* Pharmaceutical companies get rich by pumping us full of drugs.
* Better health makes sense for us . . . but it doesn’t make anybody rich.

These days, TV commercials push prescription drugs as “cures” ~ the drugs  address symptoms rather than eliminating the cause of disease.  Instead of making changes to address the underlying imbalance, we are encouraged to take drugs for high blood pressure, depression, high cholesterol, and auto-immune diseases (such as fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus).

And we pay a price for all that pill popping ~ both at the drugstore and from increased mortality rates.  Each year, more than 100,000 Americans die from taking prescription medications as prescribed. 

In contrast, the side effects of nutritional therapy are negligible since there are very few documented deaths from eating fruits, vegetables, and grains.

What if changing our diets and sedentary lifestyles could CURE our chronic health  problems and IMPROVE our overall fitness, health and well-being?

Would that be worth exploring?

I think so. 

As I delve more into diet and nutrition in coming posts, please join the discussion with questions, comments, suggestions, links, ideas, tips and techniques.

Let’s eat better so we can feel better.

Quote to Ponder: Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food. ~ Hippocrates

Related posts:  Let’s Move It * Exercise, Exercise, Exercise * Get out! * Great Nutrition Starts On Your Plate * 10 Ways to Fiber Up Your Diet * Only A Fool Would Say That * Food, Inc. * Things You Should Know ~ Food Matters (Small Town Revelations) * Top Ten Reasons To Become A Vegetarian (AgriGirl)