FOOD AS MEDICINE

‘Let food be thy medicine…’ Hippocrates 460-377 BC

At the basis of Naturopathic philosophy is the practice of ‘prevention as best cure’. In the right combination, fresh whole foods from clean organic environments provide our body with all the nutrients needed for optimal health. An appropriate change in diet is, therefore, the simplest and most affordable long-term approach to maintaining health for most people.

A good naturopathic diet is a great place to start, but some people have additional nutritional needs. These may be the result of poor digestive function, previous dietary deficiency, restrictive diet, stage of life and the presence of disease or chronic conditions.

These people benefit from a more personal dietary programme and use of herbs and / or nutritional supplements for a period of time. In this case the dietary programme may be determined by Metabolic Typing Stage 1.

Metabolic Typing is truly a system for determining individual dietary needs. It is a dynamic, comprehensive system that encompasses all of they body’s known adaptation or homoeostatic mechanisms. It takes into account many different types of metabolic variables (including blood pH), which are active in adaptation or homoeostatic mechanisms. It is not a ‘new’ science but one that has been studied, refined and utilized by physicians, biochemists, dentists, physiologists, clinical nutritionists and psychologists since the 1930’s.

Our dietary needs are largely determined by our ancestral heritage, our ancestors geographic location and climate, naturally occurring vegetation and available food sources.

No two individuals share the same biochemistry and metabolism, this is our genetic heritage. For this reason a Diet or nutrient that works well for one person may have no effect on a second person, and may make a third person’s symptoms even worse.

Some people thrive on high protein and fat diets (Dr Atkins type diets), others thrive only on high carbohydrate, low fat diets (a Macrobiotic diet). Most people fall somewhere along this continuum, but sticking to the correct macronutrient proportion upon this continuum gives you the best chance of body composition optimisation (fat : muscle), strengthened immunity, ongoing energy and endurance and the ability to prevent and reverse many types of chronic illness.

For more information read The Metabolic Typing Diet by William Woolcott and Trish Fahey, 2000, Broadway Books NY