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"Let
thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food." -
Hippocrates (460-377 BC)
Conventional
medicine has finally acknowledged the central role diet plays in
a person's overall health. But achieving a good diet is not as simple
as it sounds. Eating the right foods no longer ensures proper health
due to toxins contaminating the earth's food supply. Therefore,
it is important to pay attention not only to what food to eat, but
to where the food was grown or raised, and to what chemicals it
might have been exposed to before it reaches the table.
The
typical modern diet of the past few decades has increasingly included
more processed and contaminated foods than ever before. At the same
time, we now suffer from more degenerative diseases, causing many
physicians to suggest a strong link between what one eats and how
one feels.
Over
the years medical research has shown that saturated fats, white
flour, refined starches, red meat, and chemical additives and pesticides,
all common elements of the modern diet, are major contributors to
poor health and disease.
The
1988 Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health acknowledged,
"What we ear may affect our risk for several of the leading
causes of death for Americans, notably, the degenerative diseases
such as: atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease, strokes, diabetes,
and some types of cancers. These disorders, together, now account
for more than two-thirds of all deaths in the United States."
Therefore
we should exercise highest care in selecting what is wholesome in
the matter of food and also conduct and behaviour.
Food
is the principal factor which materially contributes to the strength,
complexion, and vitality of animated beings. A proper measure of
food is what which when taken is digested in due time without impairing
one's health. An excess or surfeit of food is markedly harmful unless
the gastric fire is increased by hard exercise. He alone can remain
healthy, who regulates his diet.
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