“Food as medicine”…..

“Food as Medicine: Preventing and Treating the Most Dreaded Diseases with Diet” is the latest annual round up video from Dr Michael Greger on NutritionFacts.Org, his excellent website. It is so worth a watch.

A word about NutritionFacts.org:

“NUTRITIONFACTS.ORG is a strictly non-commercial, science-based public service provided by Michael Greger, M.D., launched with seed money and support by the Jesse & Julie Rasch Foundation. Now a 501c3 nonprofit charity, NutritionFacts.org provides free updates on the latest in nutrition research via bite-sized videos. There are now hundreds of videos on more than a thousand topics, with new videos and articles uploaded every day.”

This website is a truly amazing resource and I use it nearly every day.  Anyone who follows me on social media will know that I often share Dr Greger’s excellent videos.

I wrote my quote  “What you eat today has to make your heart beat tomorrow…” a while ago when I started to realise how profound an effect my diet had been having on my health and how diet would affect my health, for good or ill,  in the future. My father had died of leukaemia at the age of 48.  I am the primary carer for my mother who has advanced dementia and my husband, who has had 3 strokes and now has dementia. I run 2 teams of carers. I have also power of attorney for a spritely elderly lady, who has been my  neighbour and dear friend for  30+ years, who now has dementia. I was devastated when my own health started to fail so I had to discover a way to regain my health. I was aware of the diets of my parents, my husband  and my neighbour. I knew I need to do a lot better with my diet to give me the best chance of not following the same health path.

I also have had several experiences of reacting badly to “over the counter medications” such as antihistamines, so much so that, one large Pharma company wrote me a letter to the effect that it would be grateful if I didn’t use it’s products!

I therefore had to see my food as medicine. When I thought about it this made a lot of sense to me. After all, what is the one thing we put into our bodies every day? I really wish I had made my dietary changes earlier in my life rather than waiting until I was forced to change by my worsening health.

Once I took all the animal products and processed food out of my diet, and started on my plant based, nutrient rich, high raw, way of eating, my body then started to change for the better.  A lot of my illness symptoms became more manageable. I lost weight easily! My skin rashes cleared up. I stopped choking during my sleep. My blood pressure went down and it is now 110/70.

Now I see my food as medicine….

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” – Hippocrates. – I am in good company then! 🙂

Don’t get me wrong, I am not a doctor and, when I am concerned, I go and see my own doctor and talk my health issues through with her. I am certainly not suggesting that you do not consult your doctor if you have health issues.  I am suggesting that you watch some of Dr Greger’s videos including Food as Medicine (link above) and take a look at one of Dr Joel Fuhrman‘s books some of which are  on my resources page here if you want an Amazon link. Both these good doctors have helped me enormously.

Please do some research about your health issues for yourself.  It really does pay off. Using Dr Greger’s website is a great start. Find NutritionFacts.org here. I have learned so much about my health and I now feel so much more in control. I find that being able to influence my health really helps my peace of mind.

When I now see a doctor I am able to have an intelligent conversation as I know so much more about my body. I ask: Why? Will it cure me? What are the side effects? What if I don’t take these? what are the pros and cons of this course of treatment? I feel I am at choice.

For me, it’s now about keeping myself as healthy as possible.  I go in for prevention now rather than requiring a cure! I really want to prevent myself becoming ill with an avoidable illness and I am willing to do what it takes. I have a weird condition already as well as arthritis which is always waiting to get me. I cannot afford to take any more risks with my health.

Please watch Dr Greger’s video: Food as Medicine or watch some of his short videos. Or do both!  Do your health a favour today! 🙂

Thank you, Dr Greger and Dr Fuhrman for your wonderful work. Without your advice I doubt I would be here now.

Food as Medicine