Not that long ago it was a fundamental belief among people and their doctors that a good diet was essential for good health. Considering that we are made up of cells, and those cells are built from the nutrients we provide for them via the food we eat, it would seem logical that the key to health is a nutritionally sound diet. Although we are still told that certain foods provide preventative measures against certain diseases, dietary intervention these days is really only considered a requirement for a pitied minority, such as those with Celiac Disease or diabetes. Sometimes it may be suggested as a last resort for the desperately sick, but that’s usually only after conventional drugs have failed and often at much eye-rolling from medical professionals. Yet until recently, Nutritional Therapy was accepted and respected as the best way to prevent and cure many diseases. So, what happened?
Around the middle of the 20th century, in what’s now evident was one of the worst ideas in human history, it was decided that the profit of a few was more important than the health of the masses. In a very short space of time, the average Western diet went from an easy to navigate, natural source of pretty high quality human nourishment, to a misleading maze of contradictions and outright lies, designed to make massive profits for food and drug companies at the extraordinary expense of our health. (Not to mention animal welfare, environmental impacts or the health of future generations, but those are all topics for another day…)
Along with the avalanche of junk foods and profit-driven misinformation about our true nutritional needs, the shocking truth is that mainstream medical doctors nowadays are given hardly any nutritional training, in fact I have read it is as little as one hour. The centuries old practice of treating patients via nutrition is completely ignored. Instead, our doctors are schooled in prescribing expensive medication, seemingly satisfied with doing their best to remove symptoms rather than uncovering root causes. Completely curing or reversing illness seems to no longer be a realistic expectation, instead ‘managing’ a patient’s condition is considered a successful outcome. Although medication may mask symptoms enough to restore a feeling of health (albeit often with side-effects worse than the original condition), the underlying problem those very symptoms were trying to alert us to continues to exist. This now accepted ‘solution’ to health problems is akin to hearing a smoke alarm go off in a room of your house, rushing in and removing the batteries, but not extinguishing the fire. Soon enough the smoke alarm in another room will go off – more symptoms, a new diagnosis, etc. Is it really a good idea to just mute the warning signals, or should you attend to the actual fire?
The majority of the most rapidly spreading health problems of today (diabetes, autism, heart disease, infertility, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, IBD, hypoglycemia, depression, arthritis… the list goes on) are not only preventable but often even reversible via Nutritional Therapy. The wisdom of our ancestors is still valid, and we need it now more than ever.
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