Foods as Medicines – Yes or No

Food is one of the biggest necessities of living beings. It nourishes the human body-sustaining our existence.

Food does much more than simply providing us with fuel. It may promote or worsen our health, depending on what,when and how much we eat.

Eating well and healthy reduces the risk of physical health problems like heart disease, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes etc. It also helps with sleeping patterns, energy levels and prepares us for day to day activities. Food is also psychologically linked to us as what we eat affects our mood.

Food as Medicine is a much debating and emerging concept worldwide. Decades of scientific findings support the integral role of diet in health management. The core of a healthy diet is built on high intakes of nutrient dense foods and beverages including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, dairy, healthy fats and oils.

Food as Medicine generally refers to prioritising food and diet in an individual health plan, with the goal of preventing, reducing or reversing symptoms of a disease. It mainly depends on the consumption of varieties of foods and limited intake of highly processed foods such as sugar, junk and alcohol.

Foods rich in vitamins and minerals such as berries, avocadoes, vegetables, fish,herbs and honey can be included in the diet which are healthy as well as healing to our body

Simply transitioning to a diet rich in healthy foods is the simplest way to reap the medicinal benefits of food.

Also food as Medicine is cost effective, because using ”food as Medicine ” could conceivably reduce medication cost hence reducing severity of diseases, fewer medications and fewer hospitalisation bills.

Though food alone can not take over medicine, especially in today’s generation where lack of time, stress-strain , sedentary lifestyle made us couch potatoes and necessitated health supplements for an individual also some diseases can not be cured by changing diet alone, medicine is still necessary and should be used in conjunction with appropriate medical treatment.

It is observed that food contributes to health and plays a big role in the prevention and management of certain diseases, but food is not medicine alone and no diet alone can replace good health care and medication. Physical activity with clean and healthy diet can help us not only in getting desired body but also health.

Getting started is the hardest part , so what we can do is moderating our lifestyle and choosing healthy over unhealthy.