Christmas season offers joy, a time to reflect on our lives, and a resolve for the New Year. To people worldwide Christmas miracles are everyday possibilities. Miracles grow from natural dirt.
Dr. Terry Wahls is a professor of medicine in Iowa. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis a decade ago, for which there is no cure. She turned to the very best doctors and received great care.
Wahls undertook chemotherapy and the prescribed drugs but continually become more severely disabled. She knew that brains affected with MS suffered. Her body was ultimately ravaged and confined to a wheelchair.
Seven years later, she said, “In the fall of 2007, I had an important epiphany. What if I redesigned my diet so that I was getting those important brain nutrients not from supplements but from the foods I ate?”
Today Wahls is up, walking and teaching. She said “we, you are all starving ourselves.” As she lectures around the country about the miracle of food, Wahls is standing to show that “kale has the most nutrition per calorie of any plant.”
Dr. Pauline Chen noted the lack of education when she said, “Within days of being accepted into medical school, I started getting asked for medical advice … Should I take vitamins? What do you think of this diet? Is yogurt good for me or not? Each and every time someone posed such a query, I became immediately cognizant of one thing: the big blank space in my brain.”
Katherine Chauncey, a registered dietitian offered a solution when she said, “You can’t just keep writing out script after script after script of new medications when diet is just as important as drugs or any other treatment a patient may be using.”
It’s obvious that what we eat matters. But wellness and real food is seldom mentioned by leaders in Congress.
In Iowa, presidential candidates were asked about health care. None acknowledged the need for wellness or education toward better food choices. Diane Sawyer asked Rep. Ron Paul, a doctor, if there is anything that Congress should do toward healthy youth behavior on the front of bad habits, obesity or exercise.
Paul responded, “No essentially not, but they have to be a referee. If people are doing things that hurt other people, yes. But if you embark on instituting a society where government protects you from yourself, you’re in big trouble and that’s what they’re doing.”
Referees watch closely to ensure that players adhere to rules and settle disputes. Referees are intended to note the epidemic of obesity in children today. The solutions appear simple: less corn syrup, more vegetables, and a bit of exercise. Any referee would surely say that eating education is in order if we want healthier kids.
We Americans are tagged the fattest people in the world and pay the most for healthcare. But gratefully our food is the cheapest anywhere.
Kalispell, Somers and Whitefish schools have taken positive steps toward a healthier lunch menu. Somers grew a garden, while Whitefish is building a greenhouse.
The local Whitefish Lions Club grew potatoes for schools the past couple years. Whitefish schools have a history of gaining national recognition for healthier snacks.
Voters in California are putting onto their 2012 ballot a requirement that genetically engineered foods be labeled. There are no GE foods or crops in Europe. A shocking 75 percent of U.S. supermarket foods are in some way genetically engineered.
Grandma’s food was miraculous, not processed or laden with junk one cannot pronounce. No reason can explain how dirt, water and one tiny seed can grow such an abundance of healthy kale. Feel better and live healthier by making the wonder of eating real and good food your New Year’s resolution.