Picture this gloomy headline of a few years ago: “500 man-made chemicals found in a single cell of a ‘healthy’ 30-year-old.” It may not have stirred your mind one bit, coming as it did, perhaps, as just another entry in ‘Ripley’s Believe It or Not.’ There was, however, a striking paradox in the same article. It disclosed a stunning fact — that no chemical, or toxic, element was found in the cells of an Egyptian mummy. This would have certainly propelled you to ponder and think whether we eat a healthy, balanced diet anymore.
Well, the facts are as obvious as the early morning dew. Millions of people worldwide are ‘subject’ to some form of illness, or disease. Millions, likewise, have developed a flawed proclivity to gulping down tranquillisers, sleeping pills, antacids, and so on, at the drop of a ‘thought.’ A pill for every ill is now a norm, also style statement. What does this all mean? Answer: what was optimal health, in the past, is nothing but disease and death today — the most predictable roadmap of the average citizen. The best riposte to this is a well-balanced, nutrient-rich diet. It maximises our potential for optimal health and long life. It is, however, sad that individual and collective human consciousness, in the times we now live in, appears to have overlooked the fact that we eat to live; not live to eat. This is alarming, because it is yelling a modern aphorism at us — that our diet is ‘killing’ us.
The reason is simple — the downward health spiral is primarily a tizzy spin-off, thanks to a plethora of flawed, diets, environmental degradation and toxins in the body. Add to it our skewed lifestyle choices that most of us follow, or take for granted, and we have a string of ‘quick-fix’ remedies that seem to be worse than the disease. This is not all — lack of exercise, over-consumption of inconsequential, or nutrition-less food, fast-, or junk-food, and high-stress levels are the other pitfalls. There is yet another alarming factor; a normal phenomenon. Poor, or bad, nutrition can simply ‘ruin’ our gene pool — this can, of course, be stopped in its tracks with good, proper diet, appropriate nutrients and nutritional supplements.
The downside today also is intensive modern farming methods on barren soil deliver grossly polluted food, water and air. Mix this assortment in a bowl, together with the abysmally poor regulation of food producers and retailers by complacent governments and too much stress, too little sleep, poor preventative healthcare, lack of exercise, the gross misuse of antibiotics, pollution, and the suppression of positive nutritional information by certain quarters and what comes out is a problem that is staring us glaringly in the face — disease and high interventional healthcare costs.
‘Sick building syndrome,’ such as modern office blocks, creates sick people. Many people spend a majority of their lives in such places, shielded from the natural cosmic forces that are so important to a healthy body. Just think of this too — lack of fibre diet as a modern illness. It could be the latent trigger for a host of diseases — right from breast cancer, diabetes, heart disease, diverticulitis, high cholesterol, constipation, gallstones, colon cancer, varicose veins, piles, obesity and oestrogen overload to toxic bowels. Fibre is found in whole grains, vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts etc. It is imperative we consume such ‘nature-bestowed’ produce regularly, because many of us, including folks who believe that they eat a ‘balanced’ diet, are desperately short of fibre power. Remember — a well-nourished and well-exercised body has a far greater potential for healthy longevity than a ‘couch potato’ body. There is yet another dimension to the whole spectacle. 60-80 per cent of adults, somewhere in the world, swallow a medically prescribed agent, every 24 hours. This is a major abnormality, also addiction — a glitch that has outgrown all self-chosen, or more natural, forms of creating optimal wellness that encompasses a healthy balance between our physical, emotional and spiritual states.
Is there a way out? Yes, there is, provided we change the equation and organise, also manage, our health and wellness with simple common sense measures, viz., keep our body clean, internally and externally, supply it with appropriate foods in the right quantities and ratios, provide it with necessary nutrients and supplements [not medications], breathe fresh clean air, if it is possible, exercise, get adequate sleep and maintain a positive, accepting attitude.
— First published in First India
