Eat to Live

“He who does not know food, cannot understand the diseases of man. Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food.”.

Even though Hippocrates uttered those words centuries ago, they are as true today as they were then.

Without exception, the longest living and most healthy people in any part of the world live by eat specific types of diets.

The types of illnesses common to societies that eat conventional diets are completely alien to societies that eat living diets.

Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in many societies except in societies that eat living diets.

Why Does Living Diet Increase Your Quality of Life?

In his book entitled “The Whole Heart Solution” Dr. Joel Kahn described the functioning of the GI system, which is the first place our food lands when you swallow.

According to Dr. Kahn, the GI system is a tightly knitted tube and cell in which our gut bacteria live. Those bacteria munch upon our diets and transform them into fatty acids and vitamins.

Eating a healthy diet helps those bacteria produce fatty acids and vitamins. The exact opposite happens when we eat an unhealthy diet.

Instead of fatty acids and vitamins, unhealthy diets cause inflammation, which results in illness.

As T. McKeown MD. asserted “The nutrition of the host. The result of an encounter with a micro-organism are influenced not only by the inherited or acquired immunity of the host, but by the general state of health determined particularly, it will be suggested, by nutrition.”.

Dr. McKeown went further to say, the changes that occur when disease interacts with its host might be a reason for the decline of infectious disease.

In other words, when a disease enters your body, there is a fight between the disease and your body.

The victor in this fight depends on the strength of your immune system. And the strength of your immune system depends on your diet and lifestyle.

What Are the Best Diets For  Strong Immune System?

Japan has the highest life expectancy in the world at 87.3 years for women and 85 years for men.

And Japan has the highest ratio of centenarians (people over hundred years old) in the world, 520 for every million. The Japanese city of Okinawa has the highest life expectancy in Japan.

In their book entitled “Ikigai”, which means life’s purpose in Japanese, authors Héctor García and Francesc Miralles outlined the fact that behind the lengthened Japanese life expectancy is their diet.

According to Mr. García and Mr. Miralles, the average Okinawan food table is made of rainbow foods that include: “red peppers, carrots, spinach, cauliflower, and eggplant…vegetables, potatoes, legumes, and soy products such as tofu”.

Like most Asian cuisine, rice is the staple of their diet in addition to fish.

They eat one-third of the amount of sugar consumed nationwide and half as much salt as the rest of the country.

But most importantly, they fill up to only 80% of their gut capacity.

Notice I did not mention hamburger, steak, French fry or any of the popular western diets.

You need to realise that your diets determine your quality of life and the number of years you are likely to live.

So, think before you eat.   You could be eating medicine or poison, life or death.