The Big Diet Trap

Think you’re eating right? Think again. And, again!

To bring home the point. “500 man-made chemicals found in a single cell of a ‘healthy’ 30-year-old,” screamed a newspaper headline, some years ago.

You thought, this was, perhaps, an original entry in Ripley’s Believe It or Not! No, it wasn’t—it was a real, life event in civilised Britain.

Millions of people worldwide are subject to some form of disease, today. We are no exception. Besides, millions have developed a “weakness” to gulping down tranquillisers and sleeping pills, anti-arthritic drugs, or antacids, at the proverbial drop of a symptom, including medications for high blood pressure, diabetes and cancer.

What’s gone wrong, you may well ask.

The answer is simple—this downward health trend is primarily due to a surplus of wrong diets, environmental degradation, stress, and toxins in the body.

It goes without saying that lack of exercise, over-consumption of valueless or nutrition-less food, junk-food, and high-stress levels are also the pitfalls ahead for many of us, if they aren’t already. When this happens over two or three generations, our gene pool gets weaker. This can further ruin an entire gene pool – with bad nutrition – unless it is stopped in its tracks with proper nutrients and nourishment, including supplements.

What we need, what we get

It would be interesting to know that we need about 60-70 minerals, 16 vitamins, 12 essential amino acids, and three essential [omega] fatty acids, together with sufficient oxygen and fresh, clean water for good health and long life.

It is also essential for us to obtain the former from high quality proteins, carbohydrates and unsaturated and certain saturated fats—or, natural organic foods that we evolved from. Because providing all of these, in our diet, would allow the body to assemble or manufacture thousands of other substances that are needed to keep it healthy. Is this possible? Your guess is as good as mine.

Intensive modern farming methods on barren soil deliver grossly polluted food, water, and air. Mix this lot in a bowl, together with the extremely bad or poor regulation of food producers and retailers by complacent governments. Also, add in too much stress, too little sleep, poor preventative healthcare, lack of exercise, the gross misuse of antibiotics, toxic wastes, and the suppression of positive nutritional information by certain quarters, not to speak of “chemical” food. What comes out is a problem that is staring us in the face: disease and rising interventional healthcare costs.

You still thought that we get all we needed from what we followed as “balanced diet?” You need to think, again! Because, there is more to this than what meets your nutritional and wellbeing needs.

To bring home the point. It is not a coincidence, for instance, that we seek out the mountains, oceans and beaches to relax and recuperate? “Sick building syndrome,” or SBS —such as our modern workplaces – creates sick people. This is now an accepted disorder. Many of us also spend the majority of our lives in office blocks, away from the natural cosmic forces that are so vital to a healthy body. We don’t walk, or do exercise, or eat quality food – this is disastrous to our health. The more active you are, the better your health and wellbeing will be.

There is more: lack of fibre diet is a modern “illness.” If I told you that I know of a substance that helped protect against breast cancer, diabetes, heart disease, blood clots, high cholesterol, constipation, gallstones, colon cancer, varicose veins, piles, obesity, oestrogen [hormonal] overload and toxic bowel syndrome, would you go out and buy it? Of course, you would! Get its identity? It’s called fibre – and, the power of natural fibre in your diet holds the key to good health.

Fibre is found in whole grains, vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts etc., We need to consume more fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains etc., because many of us – including those who believe that they eat a “balanced” diet—are desperately short of even the minimum fibre intake. In addition to this, we also need to emphasise that a correctly nourished and well-exercised body has a far greater potential for health and longevity than a “couch potato” body!

Prevention always better

The only way we can prevent illness is by harnessing a healthy lifestyle, not just by taking medicines alone, which don’t really cure ailments, such as heart disease, diabetes etc.,

Here’s how, you can change your health for the better:

The first and the foremost thing one can do is—eat healthy food, which is the cornerstone of a healthy lifestyle. When we eat smart and healthy food we will sure look good and feel good, whatever our age. However, there is a lot more to just looking good and feeling good with yourself. A healthy lifestyle, along with regular physical exercise, reduces the risk of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and cancer. It also helps you make the most out of everything that life has to offer.

If all this sounds quite simple and easy, it’s largely a matter of having the right mix of wholesome and nutritious food in your diet and getting the balance right.

However, there is a downside. Eating good food alone, even in the presence of a fitness regimen or exercise, may not always help you prevent allergies, arthritis, asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer etc.,

Reason? You may eat good quality food, all right, but you may still lack some of the most essential of vitamins and minerals in your daily diet plan. Because, the main causes of nutritional deficiency are –

• Vegetables [a natural source of vitamins and minerals] grown in soil loaded with pesticides and chemicals. Just also think of the vegetables grown alongside the railway tracks in some cities and townships, including Mumbai—with so much filth around!
• The quality of our soil being increasingly undermined by contaminants and debris.

Besides, we are also exposed to –

• Ultraviolet rays of the sun
• X-ray/radiation
• Industrial/automobile pollution
• Drugs, excessive use of antibiotics etc.,
• Alcohol abuse
• Tobacco use/smoke
• Chemicals and pesticides.

These, singly and in tandem, contribute substantially to the increased presence and activity of free radicals in our body. Free radicals are damaging to our body; they weaken our immune system.

Beat free radical damage

A free radical, in simple terms, can cause damage to cells and tissues. It can also lead to organ malfunction and early aging, and cancer. Free radicals can also clog your arteries, leading to atherosclerosis—in other words, heart attacks or strokes. This is not all. Free radicals are responsible for cognitive disorders, difficult learning, and loss of memory.

Inference? You need to knock the stuffing out of the free radical phantom—to keep diseases at bay, and maintain good health. One great way of doing this is through good nutrition, optimal fibre intake and physical activity, and by reducing stress—to the maximum extent possible.

This also brings us to life’s natural equation. In other words, the importance of healthy, or harmonious living, not to speak of good nutrition. To go back to ancient thought: within each one of us resides an innate and incredibly powerful healing, life-sustaining force. This “system” must be fuelled by essential nutrients on a daily basis to enable it to perform at its maximum potential. You may sure think of the Sanskrit parallel for the idea: the “resident” healing power called prana—or, what ancient Chinese medical practitioners referred to as chi.

What does this signify in our modern context? Every type of energy that moves through our genes moulds and maintains our unique individuality with all its strengths and weaknesses. The final expression of energy on a purely physical level is health or life force [prana], or the lack of it.

Energy is behind everything manifest, and that which is not. Food, water, air, thought, emotion, love, prayer, spiritual pursuits, and our will, to mention a few, flood our bodies with vibrational energy.

These energy frequencies influence the way we build and maintain ourselves as a totality. It also relates to what we eat—because, what we eat determines how we think and also live, and not just exist.