“Are herbs food? Or are foods herbs?”
A feature of our nutritional healing program is that we do not make a distinction between foods and herbs. Many common foods are used as medicinal agents. For example, celery and dandelion are used to detoxify the kidneys, beets are used to strengthen the liver, buckwheat is excellent at strengthening blood vessels. Additionally, many herbs such as Ginkgo and Echinacea have outstanding nutritional value as foods. While the best approach is to eat a diet composed of healing foods, we realize that it is almost impossible to do so in our current environment of commercial farming and depleted foods.
To make up for nutritional deficiencies that contribute to poor health, we evaluate our patients for targeted vitamin and mineral supplement needs. In our experience, taken properly – not random recommendations from magazines or the Internet, vitamins and minerals have a dramatic impact on a patient’s recovery.
Many Foods Are Now Poisons
An interesting (and somewhat frightening) phenomenon is that many people have actually become allergic to certain foods that at one point were a regular part of their ancestral diet. Can you imagine that? People actually being allergic to foods!
A hundred years ago the whole concept of people being allergic to natural foods was absurd. Today it is so commonplace that it has become a medically accepted phenomenon. Just because something is now common does not mean that it is right! This applies to the current epidemic of food allergies.
The main reason for this is that the food that we eat today is NOT the same food that our ancestors ate. The crops of 100 years ago were grown on better soil, not exposed to pesticides and chemicals, not genetically engineered, not heat processed - which destroys vital enzymes, not contaminated with preservatives to prolong shelf life, and so on.
The animals that we eat today are EXTREMELY different from the ones that our ancestors ate. The livestock of our ancestors were not injected with antibiotics and steroids – which are transferred to the people who eat them. Spiritually, these animals were not subjected to the cruel conditions that are commonplace on today’s commercial farms. We feel that when you consume animals raised in these conditions, you not only consume the chemical poisons in their flesh, but the energetic sorrow that they felt as well.
Can you see why we are now having such a high rate of food allergies in today’s children and adults? It is because we are eating foods that the human body was not designed to eat.
Realize that when the body develops an allergy to a certain food, it is because it has recognized that food as being poisonous to its health, and it is trying to protect itself from entering a state of alarm – an allergic reaction.
Did you ever notice that there are some foods that you have difficulty swallowing, or notice that there are certain vitamin pills that you have trouble swallowing, even if they are small in size? The reason is that your body, in its innate intelligence, recognizes the substance as an allergen and tries to close up your throat as an allergic response. It is trying to protect you!
Two Aspects of Our Nutritional Healing Programs
For patients who come to us for nutritional healing, we have two objectives. The first is to customize the most effective eating plan for their unique body, including identifying any food allergies and determining the best foods to assist with the healing process.
Remember: Food is the original medicine of nature.
Do not think of foods as just calorie sources. Each food has a medicinal property if used correctly. For example, did you know that eating lamb can restore thyroid function, certain vegetables have anti-tumor effects, and that organic eggs contain every essential vitamin, mineral, and amino acid with the exception of Vitamin C?
With our training in dietary healing (from both Eastern as well as Western schools of thought) we will teach you how to heal yourself using the most basic form of medicine given to us by nature - food.
The second objective is to accelerate healing using nutritional supplements that are targeted for that person’s unique needs.
For patients who are coming for a chronic, difficult to treat illness, supplements are often necessary to support the healing process. Please realize though that most of our patients, no matter how ill, take only 1-3 different supplements that are tailored to their individual needs. We do practice or recommend “mega-dosing” of supplements and actually feel that taking more than a handful of critical supplements can be counter-productive.