What we're NOT eating is making us sick!

Traditionally the conversation about a healthy diet has been focused on lowering the intake of unhealthy processed foods, but a study published in 2017 in the Lancet shows that low intake of healthy foods is the more important factor, rather than the high intake of unhealthy foods. (Health effects of dietary risks in 195 countries, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017). Basically, the lack of fruit and vegetables consumed is greater risk for chronic disease than fat, sugar and salt put together. We’re just not getting enough vitamins and minerals and it’s making us sick!

It's no secret that poor quality food is everywhere and we’re eating more and more of it. About eighty percent of the food on the shelves at the supermarket today didn't exist 100 years ago. This means we've become massively overfed (calorie wise), but chronically malnourished.

But wait......

How can we be surrounded with an abundance of food and be malnourished?

Being malnourished is when you don't get enough nutrients for optimal functioning. The foods we tend to eat are highly processed, high in salt, high in sugar, which means these foods are almost devoid of any quality nutrients. This creates nutritional deficiencies (more than 80 percent of the population has at least one). To date, 50 nutrients have been identified as essential for health and until any nutritional deficiencies are removed, the body simply won’t function properly. Every single chemical reaction in our body needs enzymes and every single reaction needs a co-enzyme and guess what co enzymes are? Vitamins and minerals.

Listen up though, it's not your fault you love shit food.

None of us asked for fried chicken or ice cream in the delivery room at birth. We were all born without preferences. Everything we like, we've been taught to like. In fact, junk food companies' advertising budget is 27 times bigger than cash the government uses to promote healthy eating. It's in the interests of the big food corporations and government to get you to eat as much of their food as possible to improve their bottom line. £££££££

What do I mean by sick?

90% of the health problems plaguing today's society result from weaknesses in the body's physiological foundations brought on by poor nutrition. It seems like everyone and their granny is suffering from some form of chronic condition these days. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, chronic fatigue, diabetes, IBS - The development of these conditions is heavily linked to diet and lifestyle choices, which means they are highly preventable.

Unfortunately, we treat these conditions by putting people on a cocktail of medication in the hope they get better. But guess what?………...they don’t. We’re prescribing pills to ‘cure’ dietary diseases. This simply doesn't work. We need a more integrative approach to help 'fix' these conditions. We HAVE to include dietary changes in the treatment plan.

You see, when you take medicine you’re targeting a specific mechanism within the body, where as if you approach the condition more broadly with food, you’re going to influence a variety of organ systems through one intervention.

We eat three times a day, 7 days a week, 365 days of the year. The body has an innate intelligence to restore, regenerate and correct itself when given the right conditions to do so. We should never underestimate or dismiss the effects our food choices have on our health both physically and mentally.