Written by: Jenny Howell, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
For centuries humans have explored and enjoyed the healing power of plant foods, and the incredible practice of using food as medicine has been passed down through generations.
As far back as 5,000 years ago, Ayurvedic Medicine used air, herbs, and water, and 3,000 years ago, Chinese Medicine promoted the use of herbs.
The Greek Father of Modern Medicine, Hippocrates coined the phrase "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food" and formed the first set of standards and ethics that we still refer to today as the Hippocratic Oath.
Yet somehow, little by little, much of our connection with the natural world has been eroded and along with it, our once unshakable belief in the healing power of food to fuel our bodies and nourish our souls.
We have drifted from enjoying the deliciousness of whole foods nature provides towards a diet centered around 'convenience,' a hang-up from the post-war era. Convenience foods are typically ultra-processed, far removed from real whole foods, and found in bar-coded packets and boxes with an unnaturally long shelf life.
We have become distrustful of the term 'Natural Medicine,' forgetting that real, whole, unprocessed foods are nature's medicine whose ingredients and mechanism of action underpin many of the pharmaceutical medications used today.
The foundations of health
We have forgotten the importance of food and lifestyle as the foundations of good health. After all, and there is no money to be made in berries and kale. These foods cannot be patented and monetized!
Whole foods are bursting with incredible vitamins, minerals, and phytochemical compounds, which, when consumed as a whole, have abundant synergistic benefits, some of which are still being discovered today.
Of course, modern medicine is a magnificent thing and in an acute or life-saving situation, there is nowhere I would rather turn. But acute conditions are not where we are falling short or letting people down.
We are failing to tackle preventable chronic diseases (or non-communicable diseases) such as Cardiovascular Disease, Obesity, Autoimmunity, and many more.
Symptomatic treatment of chronic conditions may never tackle the root cause. A multitude of contributing factors is often ignored or largely left unaddressed, leading to a condition being managed instead of resolved.
Our sex, genetic predisposition, and other acquired factors can set the stage for chronic disease, and nutritional insufficiencies, inflammation, stress, toxicity, environmental pollution, and other lifestyle factors can drive these conditions even deeper in the body.
Many of us navigate life managing symptoms such as low energy, bloating, brain fog, joint pain, skin issues, and more, not aware that we have a chronic condition or disease! Sadly, many of us come to accept this as 'normal for us', and may feel strangely reassured that the same or similar symptoms are normal for other family members and common amongst our friends or peers.
As symptoms become more severe we develop coping mechanisms to battle on and manage day-to-day. Depending on how these symptoms of imbalance arise in our body, we may live in discomfort, we may hide our skin, and we may live in pain. The symptoms of chronic conditions though common for many are not inevitable.
Chronic conditions manifest in the body from imbalance and result in us experiencing symptoms. If we view these symptoms as messages we can find our way back to health.
Genetics plays a vital role in our lives and may give us predispositions, but our environment determines whether our genes will be expressed in certain ways. Our diet and our lifestyle are key determinants of our health and much can be done to restore balance.
Restoring balance
We have more power over our health than we know or are led to believe. Diet and lifestyle are handed down to us in the same way as our genes but influence our health to a greater extent than genetic predisposition.
Periods of acute stress, infection, or an accident may mark a line in the sand, a turning or tipping point. The foods we eat, the environment we live in, and our lifestyle can bring us back from the edge and restore balance or tip us over into dis-ease.
We can trace back the origins of our symptoms, conditions, and diseases and find the missing pieces and with the right nutrition and dietary changes, we can restore balance and solve the puzzle.
The Functional Medicine approach looks past symptoms to all body systems and seeks to establish and determine why the condition arose. We can break the cycle and restore balance and this is where transformation truly occurs.
Simple foundations of bulletproof health lie in addressing nutritional insufficiency, toxicity, and vitality. We can start by eating an abundance of health-promoting plant-based whole foods, maintaining a relationship with the natural environment, prioritizing movement and physical activity, maintaining social connections, and finding our purpose.
This is my journey.
Life is sunnier now. I help others transform and thrive through an integrative body systems approach to nutrition.
Links
Institute of Functional Medicine ‒ What is Functional Medicine? | IFM
WHO (World Health Organisation) ‒ Noncommunicable diseases (who.int)
WHO (World Health Organisation) ‒ Diet, nutrition and the prevention of chronic diseases: report of a joint WHO/FAO expert consultation, Geneva, 28 January - 1 February 2002
Jenny Howell, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Jenny Howell is a Naturopathic Nutritionist and Nutrition Consultant with specialist interests in Sports Performance & Plant-Based Nutrition. A natural investigator and former Police Officer, Jenny fought and won her own health battles with IBS, auto-immune disease, skin conditions and burnout by identifying the root cause of her symptoms and restoring balance through Naturopathic Nutrition and lifestyle interventions. Her method is to combine personalised Sports Nutrition with an integrative, body systems approach of Naturopathic Nutritional Therapy to support optimum health and performance for the clients she serves. Her mission is to empower women to live longer life in better health and better shape.
