Healing with food

The next time you’re eating something, chew on this: the nutrients that are present in food help the cells in our bodies perform their functions. Nutrients are essential for growth, development and maintenance of our bodies as well as for instructing our bodies about how best to work. To that end, absence of nutrients is absence of health. The connect is really quite simple.

While we’re on the topic of our body’s functions, healing is an essential body function. The process of recovering from illnesses — both major and minor — is best aided not just by medication and treatment courses but also by what you eat to get your body back on track. By that definition, using food as an adjunct therapy when recovering from something as simple as the flu to cancer, should pretty much be a done deal.

But how seriously is it taken?

That nutrition should be given significant importance while healing is not too strongly practised. Yes, some nutritional caution is advised when undergoing treatment for various conditions but the power of food is not usually emphasised to the extent it possibly could be. So many diseases like cardio vascular disease, Type II diabetes, obesity and even cancer, have been linked to improper nutrition. Ingredients like saturated fats, trans fats, high sugar and so forth have been linked to more diseases, than there are cures. But if food has caused so many conditions, why can’t it help reverse them?

As nutritionists, we are taught that if nutritional parameters are not fulfilled from the diet, the meds that you are taking for your conditions may not work as well. But, then again, if your diet is right, then you may not even need meds.

If food can obstruct, food can also release. If food can destroy, food can also heal. If food can overshadow, it can also take a step back, quietly allowing your body to do what it does best: heal. Over the next few weeks, I am going to introduce a slew of articles that better establish the relationship between various conditions and the role of food in their recovery process.

Do note that we don’t mean to replace prescribed treatments or allopathic meds, and it’s important to take your doctor’s approval before you attempt to make any nutritional changes just in case you have any co-existing conditions. However, the efforts behind this series will simply be to establish the fact that foods can heal or help faster and better. We will give you, in the series, nutritional guidelines that will help you work better with food while you are getting back on track. We’ll be addressing topics such as nutrition and cancer, nutrition and diabetes, nutrition and cardiovascular disease (CVD).

-Pooja Makhija
Consulting Nutritionist & Clinical Dietician