Food as Medicine

Food makes the world go round. Literally. Food is a source of prosperity, poverty and even war. It has been immortalized in every form: written, spoken, art, fossilized, traded, preserved, displayed, you name it and it's been done. Food is associated with everything. It is often referentially used as innuendo, as pain, as comfort, as happiness, as anger. There's a food for every emotion. There are even people named after food..Miss Apple Paltrow (I meant real people, not Candy or Cherry ...) Food is the #1 killer leading to skyrocketing obesity rates while simultaneously attributed as the cause of death for malnourished children worldwide. Ironically, being saturated as we are with food knowledge, pop culture and folklore, there's a disconnect in today's culture of food as medicine.

The weight loss industry is rife with wanna-be success stories. We've all seen the infomercials selling magic weight loss solutions, fitness routines sure to guarantee rockin' hard abs. In all the ads, all I notice are the images of tight bodies of models who I've never seen the like of in real life. "Belly blast your way to 12% body fat!" They're selling miracles. 

I've spent my adulthood winters attempting to combat what began as the winter blues. I'm now convinced my mental state has less to do with the cold and dreary weather and more to do with my actual mental health. This winter in particular. I have a strong desire to become reclusive and favor sleep in what free time I have. Some may call it depression. The more optimistic friends call it my body's response to stress and an imbalanced life style. So as a last ditch effort before I make an appointment to see the shrink, I decided to try a $600 experiment. 

A few years ago I did a fitness program. It was the best thing I ever did to my health. Not only did I become desirably fit, but I felt better than I ever had in my life. If it weren't for an accident 3/4 of the way through my program I would've finished it. I worked out 30-45 mins 3 times a week. That's it. What was it then, that made the difference? Food.

I am now on a quest to see if food, eaten in the exact prescribed amounts tailored exactly to what my body needs to be properly nourished, can change not just my body but my mental health. Every food I consume has been planed out for me, right down to the time I eat it. I'm not talking about medicinal  derivatives our modern pharmaceuticals are made of, I'm talking about plain old, buy-it-at-the-store foods. There's a lot of science behind it that's beyond my time, skepticism or brain power to understand so I'll leave that to the professionals until I have the time to understand it better.  In the meantime, 3 months from now, I'll post my findings on the power of food as medicine. Call it my ode to "China Study"/"fat, sick, and nearly dead" experiment. What exactly can it cure? 

Storing in my memory bank until next time,

"You don't get permanently well unless you permanently change the way you live[...]70% of diseases that affect us now are caused by our life choices: how we exercise, if we smoke and what we eat."
--Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead