"Let medicine be thy food, and food be thy medicine." Hippocrates of Cos, Greece, 460-377 B.C. How many times have we heard this much advertised message? As we live through the bustle of everyday life, the significance of this rings true to many.
Hippocrates was the founder and forefather of natural medicine. He believed illness to be a natural phenomenon caused by the imbalances of their environment and health. He believed strongly that poor lifestyle habits and food choices related to the course of illness. This idea has not lost its validity as research links many illness and ailments to poor nutrition.
In saying this, food can also be of benefit to us and work synergistically with our health. Research is now showing that food can provide medicinal benefits and those overall healthy eating patterns should be a priority.
The most important thing to remember is wholefoods, foods that are real. As we walk down the aisle of the supermarket, there are so many choices. Many of these choices are processed and are not real food. They can do our body harm rather than good and certainly don’t act as medicine. In order to build our immune system, the key to general good health, we need to choose foods that assist us with this mission. These include:
- Fruit
- Vegetables especially green leafy
- Fish, eg salmon, sardines
- Wholegrains
Food and Lifestyle is the recipe to the prevention of many illnesses. Diabetes, metabolic syndrome, weight gain, heart disease are just some examples of food related diseases. Many of these can be prevented and even cured by making the right food choices. With the guidance of a professional, either a nutritionist or dietitian, our food can be our friend rather than our foe, taking us on the journey to good health.
Originally published on Feb 28, 2013
