Healing Foods As Medicine

Hippocrates, the father of medicine, once said: "Let food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food." This is the essence of self-healing and super-aging.

Even if you are diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, such as myasthenia gravis, and you are taking steroid medications to treat your disease symptoms, there is no rhyme or reason for you to readily reach out for some over-the-counter medications to treat your everyday health issues and problems. 

Always use natural healing foods to combat diseases and disorders -- not pharmaceutical drugs!

To illustrate, Acai berries are a self-healing food. Acai berries from the rain forests of Brazil are loaded with antioxidants--much more than those with blueberries and strawberries. Despite the high calories of acai berries, they are rich in anti-inflammatory omega-9 fats, with only little sugar. The rich contents of essential fatty acids, calcium, iron, vitamin A, and fiber make acai berries a self-healing food.

Acai berries are good for sexual performance enhancement. In Brazil, acai berries with guarana syrupare popular social drinks.

According to studies, the potent antioxidants in acai berries can significantly reduce cell proliferation in leukemia patients.

Eat acai berries. Use them to make jams and sauces. Add them to make smoothies or beverages. Avoid heating acai berries to preserve their rich antioxidants.

Healing Gourmet: Use healing foods to heal inflammation, glycation, oxidation, depletion, and toxification. Food is medicine, and medicine is food. Eat to live well!

Food is medicine, because it gives the energy for growth and development. At birth, we all got our nutrients in the food consumed by our mothers during pregnancy. When we grow up, we get our nutrients from the food we eat. Our food choices produce the energy we need to grow and maintain our bodies throughout our lives. In that respect, food is medicine.

Food is medicine because we obtain our self-made energy from food. As we age, our self-made energy from the food we have consumed over the years begins to decline, and this is evidenced by our inability or difficulty to cope with the stressors of life, and our vulnerability to disease. To add insult to injury, our metabolic slowdown that comes with the natural process of aging makes it even more difficult to maintain our health and energy. Instead of focusing on the concept of using food as medicine, many of us begin to resort to a quick fix of our health problems, which is the use of dangerous pharmaceutical drugs. 

Take a step further: Let food be the "only" medicine. If you have developed a degenerative disease, start thinking of food is medicine, in fact, the best medicine, if not the "only" medicine. Your body is designed to digest and utilize food to get its nutrients and energy. But only wholesome food can do that—not even supplements, because supplements are just what they are called. 

When food becomes your medicine, you will also learn to trust your body; that is, you will learn what your body is telling you, and how it responds to natural, wholesome food. Food is medicine!

When you do become sick, learn to use herbs as medicine. Herbs from different parts of plants have different therapeutic values that promote self-healing without the use of dangerous pharmaceutical drugs. As a matter of fact, many common herbs, such as cinnamon, garlic, and ginger, have been used as "food" medicine for thousands of years. According to a Chinese saying, "You can never draw a line between foods and herbs. Herbs can cure many common ailments, such as constipation, cholesterol, high blood pressure, with little or no side effects. For example, use ginger 's anti-inflammatory properties to fight arthritis pain and nausea; use hawthorn berries for your cardiovascular health; use aloe juice to cure an upset stomach. So, why take dangerous pharmaceutical drugs? Instead, let food be your medicine.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau