Posted Aug 29, 2011
Can food heal?
Not in the way that Western medicine conceptualizes disease, as a set of numbers and symptoms. But for many diseases — Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer and others that are the result of genetic vulnerabilities coupled with lifestyle choices, improving your diet can bend the curve to lessen, postpone and even prevent disease.
It’s a matter of balance in the body, says Esther Cohen, founder of Seven Bowls School of Nutrition and a registered dietitian with a private practice in Longmont.
“When we’re eating so many highly processed foods, with sugar, preservatives, colorings and additives, we deplete the nutrients necessary to maintain homeostasis or balance in the body,” she says.
Focus on veggies
Improving nutrition is very much part of the complementary approach that HealthLinks Clinic uses in treating patients with cancer and other conditions.
“We focus on a vegetarian diet, gluten free,” says Registered Dietitian Megan Forbes. “We use vegetables as medicine in bringing down inflammation. “The different phytonutrients involved literally change how DNA functions.”
She says there’s less emphasis on taking away nutritionally empty and harmful foods — although minimizing these is an important goal. Instead, the focus is on adding a variety of highly nutritious and delicious vegetables.
“We eat foods to help the body. It’s a huge pendulum shift,” she says, adding that an occasional treat doesn’t do harm.
“Getting on track is savoring being in the moment,” she says. That means it’s OK to have one of your mother’s awesome homemade cookies every now and then.
“It’s really important to enjoy and taste and live in the moment when you’re doing it,” Forbes says.
They key is to enjoy the cookie, but also to enjoy the healthful, energy-giving foods you’re eating. To that end, Forbes encourages clients to expand their repertoire of recipes and to try new foods.
“People get in a rut. They eat carrots, celery, onions and spinach,” she says.
Trying new vegetables and eating in season to get veggies at the peak of taste and nutrition adds to the experience, she says.
Finding balance
Cohen of Seven Bowls Nutrition says Chinese medicine recommends getting a balance of the five elements every day.
Pungent foods such as garlic, onions and cayenne peppers are associated with the metal element and are useful for cleansing the blood, she says. Bitter foods such as certain greens are considered cleansing and are associated with the fire element.
“They’re also high in mineral content,” Cohen says. “Minerals are like the spark plugs in our bodies. They ignite all the enzymatic and hormonal responses in the body.”
Those who feel lethargic and who don’t have the energy to think clearly should look at balancing the bitter element, she says.
Salt is another taste, which is related to the water element. Cohen recommends using sea salts that have diverse minerals. Sweet is related to the earth element.
“It’s very harmonizing, which is why we tend to go for sweet in our diets,” she says.
However, the sweet elements should be from unprocessed foods such as honey or maple syrup or people should try to get their sweet taste from fruits, she adds.
The sour taste, which is the one Cohen says is most commonly missing from the Western diet, is associated with the wood element. Sour foods, such as lemons, yogurt and fermented foods like sauerkraut stimulate the liver to cleanse, drawing in impurities and allowing them to be released through the lymphatic system or in urine.
Color your world
If Chinese elements seem too complicated, Cohen has another framework: color.
Not only do you eat a diversity of vitamins and minerals in your diet by eating a colorful variety of fruits and vegetables, Cohen says.
“You nourish yourself through all your senses. It’s just quite beautiful.”
Eating with consciousness and awareness means that you’re taking in the sight, smell and texture of your food, she adds.
Eating in this way is self-reinforcing, she adds.
“There’s this point when you just feel better. People say this is how they want to eat for life. Their food tastes different. They feel better. Their energy level is better. It’s not a condition they’re trying to heal, but a lifestyle.”
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