When food is medicine and medicine is food, you can take charge of your health in more ways than one and a recent exhibition at Indian Institute of World Culture called ‘Sacred Science’ spotlighted this aspect as well.
Food Is Medicine (FIM) is a concept with little evidence until more recently that dates back to Hippocrates, who is attributed with saying, “Let food be thy medicine.” Even more remotely, there was reference in the Bible to the “Daniel Diet,” which was a plant-based diet, endowing Daniel with perhaps a clearer, more focused mind and purpose.
Acccording to a 2020 article published in The BMJ, “one of every five deaths across the globe is attributable to suboptimal diet, more than any other risk factor including tobacco.” In response, “there is increased experimentation with the use of ‘food is medicine’ interventions to prevent, manage, and treat illness.”
Food as medicine, also known as “food is medicine,” sits at the crossroads of nutrition and healthcare. The urgency to address diet-related chronic conditions has never been greater – Type II diabetes, hypertension, obesity and other chronic diseases are reaching epidemic levels not only in the United States but also in nations around the world. However, we hold the power to reverse these trends.
The concept of “food as medicine,” emphasizes the therapeutic potential of healthy eating habits, and “food in medicine,” highlighting the integration of nutrition within the healthcare system. The momentum for Food as Medicine is an opportunity to demonstrate the potential of nutritious food to make a lasting impact on health and chronic disease. To avoid further degradation to human and planetary health, it is imperative we use food as medicine and change the trajectory of human history.
Read the full story that first appeared in Our Bangalore dated July 5-11 here:
Leave a Reply