Welcome to the new word of Food as Medicine, where nature’s bounty has the power to ease, erase, and abolish many of the nagging health problems and major killers of our day. Actually, this is not something new, we are back to the basics.
Food can help heal what ails you. That is adding the right food in your diet, while leaving others off the menu, can bolster your body’s defenses against disease, treat disease directly, and even slow the aging process. This dates back to the Garden of Eden when God In Genesis 1:29 said: “Look, I have given you all the plants that have grains for seeds and all the trees whose fruits have seeds in them. They will be food for you.”
The tools of these medicines are not scalpers and scanners, but rather serving spoons and spatulas. You will spend lesser time in the grocers than in the pharmacy line. Start thinking of food in a novel way – as a form of therapeutic and preventive medicine – and you may need a lot less of the kind of medicine that gets itemized on insurance bills.
Snack on tangerines instead of candy bars, make breads with chewy slices of whole-grain bread instead of the nutrient-challenged white variety. Taking simple measure such as these can have profound effects on your health and well-being, and not just because they spare your body from a lot of unhealthy stuff, such as saturated fat and refined sugar, through that certainly is a good start.
Exciting new studies have confirmed what some healers have believed for thousands of years: Many foods are packed with beneficial chemicals that can promote health and protect your body from the ravages of disease.
The idea of nutrition therapy goes all the way back to the beginning. “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” said Hippocrates, the ancient Greek who was widely regarded as the father of modern medicine.
True to his word, Hippocrates prescribed a grocery list of edible cures, everything from bread soaked in wine to boiled fish. If those remedies don’t exactly perk up your appetite, don’t worry. Following next would be a cornucopia of foods that please the palate and contain remarkable medicinal qualities: Almonds, avocadoes, Strawberries and sweet potatoes; Fruity extra-virgin olive oil and delicacies from the sea.
You probably know that these foods are good sources of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients. But you may not realize that fruits, vegetables, and other plant foods also contain thousands of newly discovered compounds, known as phytochemicals or phytonutrients, that scientists are still busy cataloging.
FATS AND OILS
DEFINING GOOD FATS:
The human body is very good at making its own fat, stored in the most prominent places, the hips, thighs, and midsection. Eating a lot of rice, carrot sticks or rice cakes convert the sugars in those foods that it doesn’t burn as energy into triglycerides, the storage form of fat. However, the body cannot make some types of fatty acids – the building blocks of fats—that are essential to health. That is why the diet should include the aptly named essential fatty acids that come from plant oils and fall into the broader category of unsaturated fat – but mounting research suggests that you may not live as long or as well as people who do enjoy plenty of these other good fats.
MONOSATURATED FATS: OLIVE OIL AND BEYOND
Olive oil is the cornerstone of the traditional Mediterranean Diet. It is one of nature’s richest source of monosaturated fat. To say that it is the only thing that gives this nutritional power is wrong as there are also fruits and vegetables in the Mediterranean Diet that are also included in the frequently served meals. Canola oil is another good source of monosaturated fat. Nuts are also a good source as well as peanut butter and peanut oil and avocado.
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