“Your medicine should be food.” It seems that the doctors have finally remembered this dictum of the father of medicine, Hippocrates. And they are ready to prescribe their patients apples, tomatoes, peppers and other fruits and vegetables instead of pills. The ancient Greek knew a lot about the relationship between health and nutrition – in addition to” fatherhood ” for medicine in general, he is also considered the founder of dietetics.
“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are sick with,” said Hippocrates. I wonder what a great healer would say if he read the list of ingredients of familiar products. For example, chips:
- potato flakes, wheat flour, crackers, wheat and corn groats, lactose (whey);
- fats: sunflower oil, soybean oil, palm oil;
- food additives: natural identical flavors (cream cheese, dill, chicken, smoke, etc.), flavor enhancers E-623 (calcium), E-627 (disodium guanylate, and disodium and sodium), E-636 (maltol), emulsifier: E-536 (yellow blood salt), colorant E 132 (Indigo Carmine), preservative E 262 (sodium diacetate), stabilizer E 407 (carrageenan), thickeners.
Thick and thin
Twelve-year-old Quincy Poole has diabetes and a whole bunch of other diseases. But the main problem is the weight. This is provoked by all other ulcers. It is difficult for a boy to run and play with his peers.
In the United States, more than 20% of children are overweight.
According to the World Health Organization, over the past four decades, the number of obese children on the planet has increased more than 11 times – from 11 million to 124. And this is not counting the fact that children are simply overweight. And this statistic, apparently, is real: for example, among thirty classmates in all ten school years, I did not remember a single fat man. And now I see fat and very fat children more and more often.
Vegetables as medicine
And the main problem is that we eat wrong. Our children are predisposed to excess weight in the womb. According to doctors, 15-20 years ago, children were born with an average weight of 3.4-3.6 kg (7.5-7.9 lb). Today, the standard weight of newborns exceeded 4 kilograms (8.8 lb). Nutritionists are sounding the alarm, demanding a ban on fast food: all over the world, scientists note a significant reduction in the consumption of fruits and vegetables among the population.
Doctors in the city of Lynchburg (Virginia, USA) are now ready not only to recommend their patients to eat more apples and broccoli instead of hamburgers, but also to prescribe “medicines” from the garden.
The “Fresh RX” program, funded by the Centra Foundation, includes a weekly package worth about $ 20 with vegetables and fruits, which patients participating in the program receive free of charge.
In addition to free healthy foods, the program includes educational activities: lectures for parents about the dangers of poor nutrition, master classes on cooking vegetables, and so on.
But obesity is not the only problem of malnutrition. Ironically, even more overweight, the World Health Organization cares about the problem of hidden hunger – including those who weigh more than the norm.
A paradox? No: for the normal functioning of any body, you need not only calories, but also vitamins and minerals. As well as fatty acids, good proteins, fats and carbohydrates, amino acids. But they are something in the diet of modern man is sorely lacking, again, due to the reduction in the number of vegetables, fruits, dairy products, meat and fish in the diet. Pasta with sausages and mayonnaise for dinner-and you experience a hidden hunger.
Hidden hunger is more dangerous than overt hunger. The constant lack of a full and balanced diet leads to a decrease in intelligence, the development of various diseases, and infertility. And yes: according to some hypotheses, it is hidden hunger that causes obesity and overweight.