WHAT SHALL WE EAT?

Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us.

Peter De Vries

“A man is what he eats,” an old proverb goes. A modern doctor would echo it by saying “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.”

The American Association of Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine puts a strong emphasis on healthy nutrition. Why has the medical profession changed its mind after so many years of neglecting the age-old subject of a good diet?

A ll diseases are caused by… food?

Many chronic diseases afflicting sixty to eighty percent of seniors start at a young age and resist medication. That is, treatment may temporarily alleviate the symptoms and bring some indicators (say, blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol), back to normal for a while. This recovery is an illusion. In fact, the symptoms and indicators get worse from year to year and the dose of medication has to be gradually increased.

While food defines the source of our maladies, it can also save us from suffering once and for all.

Recent research shows that while food may be the source of our maladies, it can also save us from suffering once and for all.

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.

Hippocrates

Just think about it. The people who cannot survive without cakes and sweets, who never pass the dessert and tirelessly bake cookies for the family, almost inevitably get trapped by diabetes. Excess blood glucose makes their muscular tissue less responsive to insulin and therefore overburdens the pancreas. OK, take Metformin, a popular medicine, increase this responsiveness. But why on Earth bother with drugs at all? Exercise and a proper diet (a) do exactly the same thing, (b) have excellent “side effects” and (c) help you gradually reduce the dosage of your diabetes medication.

Nothing is good for the body but what we can digest.

Benjamin Franklin

Beef, bacon, and butter lovers fall victim to increased cholesterol levels and atherosclerosis. Animal fat not assimilated by the muscles and the brain forms deposits first under the skin. These are followed by deposits on the inner walls of the blood vessels, making them stiff and narrow. Once fat is gone from your diet and the hypodermic areas, it immediately starts leaving your poor atherosclerotic arteries.

Remember that every meal is a message to our bodies. We can either tell it: “I love you, I’m sorry for you, I help you and you help me,” or “I’m sick and tired of your whining, you're on your own, and I'm going to eat whatever I want.”

What is to be done?

Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is nature's bequest to the salt lovers. Sodium that accumulates in your system makes your arteries stiff and unable to stretch in response to a higher heart activity caused by stress. It also draws excessive water into the blood vessels. The answer to both problems is simple: restrict your salt intake! Just remove salt from your diet for a while. Replace it with some sour condiments to make your food less bland. Then slowly return salt to your kitchen pantry – but never forget that too much salt may wreck your blood vessels.

These simple steps can “treat” the stomach, the gastrointestinal tract, the joints, the spine, the kidneys, the lungs, and even the brain. Nutritional awareness is just plain sensible. What we do to ourselves at parties and in restaurants amounts to methodical self-destruction; good health is simply not compatible with a harmful diet. Remember Einstein’s definition of insanity? “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” In simple words, stop stepping on the same rake before it deals you a fatal blow.

Reject all food that causes inflammatory processes, messes up with metabolism and numbs your brain. Do not think of this as a way of losing a few pounds, as a punishment or a sacrifice. Proceed gradually, with resolution and joy. In a short while you will bid farewell to many ailments and even to some serious diseases. Just believe that your recovery is feasible and imminent if you slowly but surely refuse to be a slave to your stomach.