Long before Hippocrates (460 – 370 BC), the popular Greek known as the father of medicine coined the quote: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy nourishment.” The Holy Bible had made reference to the medicinal properties of foods. and herbs. They represent the health and longevity of the Almighty God. Therefore, the importance of diet and food preparation and consumption was often seen as a spiritual act.
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At that time, the emphasis was on fresh, natural foods called field plants or “field plants.” These include herbs, roots, and leafy green vegetables like tomatoes, corn, and beans. According to the book of Leviticus, clean meat is defined as the meat of any animal whose hoof is split in two and which chews the cud. Examples of clean meat include beef (cattle), buffalo, sheep, goat, deer, gazelle, antelope, and mountain sheep.
As for seafood, anything with fins and scales is allowed, but anything without such as shellfish is prohibited. For birds, everything is allowed except eagles, vultures, kites, crows, ostriches, seagulls and owls.
Unfortunately, the modern lifestyle has turned to processed foods, most of which are fried, fatty, canned, with additives such as sweeteners, flavorings and food preservatives, some of which have serious side effects.
Nutritionists and food scientists strive to promote healthy and healing foods. So the focus is on healing foods such as apples, bananas, oranges, pineapples, tomatoes and lemon (all fruits). Others include beans, cashews, carrots, cocoa, olive oil, coconut oil and cod liver oil. Plant materials like herbal teas and green tea are also highly recommended. As for healthy animal food sources, raw goat’s milk, turkey meat, and an egg a day are all recommended.
In fact, healing foods are so important that one Dr. Ax Fans developed the Healing Foods diet. He boasts that it’s not just a diet but a tool that will launch you into a total health transformation. This diet was designed to help everyone overcome diseases such as: diabetes, obesity, heart disease, autism, digestive disorders, fatigue, depression, hormonal imbalance and cancer prevention.
So, what are the scientific explanations for their effectiveness and functions? The first is that they reduce inflammation. According to Fans, most diseases today are caused by inflammation. Inflammation damages your cells and artery walls and causes high blood pressure, high cholesterol, arthritis, and digestive disorders like Crohn’s disease, to name a few. By reducing inflammation, your body is better able to heal from any illness.
Second, they alkalize the body. Your body should have an average pH of 7.36. A can of soda literally has a pH of 2.5 and it would take about 30 glasses of water just to balance things out. Juices from green vegetables like wheatgrass and spinach help restore the body’s proper pH. All diseases, including infections, osteoporosis and cancer, thrive in an acidic environment. By alkalizing your body, your cells can heal and regenerate at the highest level.
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Third, they lower blood sugar levels. One of the main causes of diabetes and weight gain is burnout and insulin receptors. By lowering blood sugar, insulin receptors can heal and your body can begin producing normal amounts of insulin to cure diabetes and leptin to lose weight.
Another important reason is that they eliminate toxins. Toxicity has now become epidemic in our society and is a major cause of increasing hormonal imbalances and autoimmune diseases. The diet helps with issues like female disorders, infertility, hypothyroidism and headaches by balancing hormones and helping reverse autoimmune diseases like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, heart disease. Alzheimer and autism.
So good too that they optimize nutrients. Many current illnesses are caused by nutritional deficiencies. Most of the foods we eat today are processed and stripped of all vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and enzymes. This diet slows down the aging process, improves mental capacity and increases energy levels.
The Healing Foods diet involves eating equal amounts (33% each) of clean protein sources, healthy fats, and low-glycemic carbohydrates in the form of fruits and vegetables.
Steps to take include eliminating bad fats and replacing them with good fats. Bad fats such as hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils, trans fats, soybean oil, canola oil and vegetable oils cause heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, chronic fatigue and neurotoxic syndrome. Bad fats create chronic inflammation throughout the body, causing disease. Good fats are essential for hormone production, cancer prevention, brain development, weight loss, cellular healing and anti-inflammation.
The next step is to change the meats you eat. There are hundreds of studies linking commercial meats to cancer and heart disease. Grains fed to animals created to eat grass alter fatty acid ratios (too much omega-6, not enough omega-3) and denature good fats, leading to modern diseases.
Dr. Fans emphasizes that the bioaccumulation of commercial pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics and hormones in meats causes a toxic attack, which leads to many cancers, neurological disorders and chronic diseases. Grass-fed and free-range meats offer many fatty acids missing from the Standard American Diet (SAD), such as: aracodonic acid, linoleic acid, and omega-3 fatty acids.
Additionally, consciously remove all refined sugars and grains from your diet. These include white rice, white pasta and white bread. 1/3 of sugar comes from soft drinks, 2/3 from hidden sources including: lunch meats, pizza, sauces, breads, soups, crackers, fruit drinks, canned foods, yogurt, ketchup, mayonnaise. High glycemic or refined sugars cause high blood sugar, which elevates insulin, leading to premature aging and degenerative diseases such as type II diabetes, heart disease (inflammation of the arteries), and cancer.
Sugar is an antinutrient providing insignificant amounts of vitamins and minerals and depriving your body of valuable nutrient stores. This inevitably leads to diseases of the new millennium such as chronic fatigue, heart disease, diabetes and cancers.
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Low-glycemic carbohydrates in the form of fruits and vegetables contain high amounts of fiber, enzymes, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants that help you age more slowly, improve your energy levels, lose weight and naturally detoxify your cells.
Note: This concludes the previous topic on “Foods that protect the body’s vital organs.”