11 Nov Let Food Be Your Medicine……

…….and medicine be your food, advised Hippocrates over 2500 years ago and it is still as valid today as it was then, although we seem to have strayed a long was from his path.

Hippocrates, the father of natural medicine, believed in good food and related ill health to poor nutrition and bad eating habits, he urged us to respect nature’s healing forces.

What Hippocrates was suggesting with this is that prevention is better than cure, eating a good, healthy, whole food diet will keep you healthier in the long term. Lets not forget the saying ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away!’ Donuts certainly don’t have the same effect!

So whilst eating a healthy diet should keep the need for medicine at bay, when you are ill can food really heal you?
I had never really related my own relationship with natural healing to this amazing man’s ethos but it recently dawned on me that when I, or any family member, feels unwell I usually turn to the kitchen or the garden rather than the medicine cabinet for a remedy.

Our medicine cabinet, in reality, contains very little medicine, there’s a pot of Vicks (for your feet,) some Tiger Balm (great to create heat for aching muscles,) a bottle of rescue remedy (for life’s ups and downs,) a packet of plasters and a bandage or two, antiseptic tea tree cream (great for cuts and spots,) probiotic tablets (to promote good gut bacteria,) effervescent multivits plus high dose vitamin C tablets (to stave off a cold) and a handful of essential oils, lavender, tea tree and eucalyptus mainly for baths, bedtime and reflexology. In another cabinet there are a selection of homeopathic remedies but that is another story.

I can’t remember the last time I took a tablet although we do always keep a few headache tablets and some Lemsip to hand!

In the kitchen I use the antibacterial properties of raw garlic for a bad tummy,* mix thyme, honey and lemon for a sore throat/cough, drink water as a headache cure, eat lots of blood tonic beetroot when a little run down or anaemic, vitamin C rich oranges and kiwi fruit when there’s lots of colds about, anti-inflammatory turmeric in a curry or soup for a back twinge and if we’ve over indulged a liver supporting vegetable smoothie full of broccoli, beetroot and mint.

There are so many natural cures out there, this is a mere handful, you just need to find the right one for you, and whilst they may not all offer an instantaneous cure there certainly won’t be any short or long term side effects like many medicines. Have you read the information leaflet with your medicine recently, it is like reading a horror story, the side effects are often similar or even worse than the illness itself, how can that be right?

With a bit of know how, you can start to treat your kitchen like your medicine cabinet and you will soon find you need your medicine cabinet a lot less!

* Cut a clove of garlic into small cubes and drink down with a glass of water before bed.