Diet. Nutrition. Food. So very important, yet largely overlooked as medicine in this country. If we just improved our diets, many health problems would melt away or lessen and we would be much less prone to dis-ease. No kidding.
I’m not talking about going on a diet or judging yourself because you’re not the ideal weight (whatever that is). This is about improving the diet of an entire nation, eating only the highest quality foods that will nourish our bodies and decrease stress, inflammation, and sickness from poor food choices.
A nutritionist once told me about eating only what you can buy along the walls of the grocery store. In the middle are all the processed foods. “Don’t go there,” she said. Our bodies were designed to eat real food, like vegetables, fruits, meat, etc. Our poor guts don’t know what to do with highly processed food, which they don’t recognize as food. They’re a challenge to our digestive systems and empty calories. Click here for a Harvard Health article on the subject.
The goodies are in the fruits and vegetables–vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and so forth. Organic works best, and you can taste the difference: more alive, juicy, and delicious. Paying a bit more for good health seems a reasonable trade-off, considering the cost of health care and feeling poorly.
But taste isn’t all that’s important in buying organic. Pesticides and chemicals on produce and in food find their way into the body, creating disease on a cellular level. Yes, heavy metals in the body can be a factor in inflammation, chronic disease, and autoimmune disease. And that’s not even considering the unhealthy potential of fats, GMO products, gluten, and dairy. (Click here for a good article about organic food.)
So that is my dream. To make our nation healthy, we clean up our diets. If we all ate organic and healthy foods, the cost would come tumbling down, my guess. We have the resources in this country to offer food that’s rich in nutrition.
You say you don’t have time for this? Now that’s another blog post. That one’s called Let’s All Slow Down and Figure Out What the Rush is All About. Consider trying an organic meal once a week. Make a healthy meal and slow down to taste it. Above all, pay attention to what you eat, for the quality of your life depends on it.
CATHY CORN loves to eat, but learned new ideas because of long-term digestive issues. She writes novels that aren’t organic. You can connect with her on FB at Cathy A. Corn, writer, at her websites www.CathyACorn.com and www.CACHealing.com, and email her at pghpenms@hotmail.com.