IMMUNE FOR LIFE: SUPER FOODS

April 21st, 2009

Barely a day passes that I don’t read of a new study showing the effect of what we eat on our health. Research is proving that the Standard American Diet is dangerous to your “doctor within.” I tell my patients, however, that they can turn to an ancient book for a quick lesson in nutrition and health. In the biblical story of Daniel you will find a report of perhaps the first nutritional study ever made. In this story we learn that, although the king instructed his steward to feed Daniel and his three friends rich foods and wine, Daniel insisted on eating only vegetables, grains and water. At the end of ten days, Daniel looked healthier and better nourished than the men who ate the king’s diet.

Daniel knew that the fatty, sugary foods set on the royal table were unhealthy. Rather than subject his body to that disease-making diet, he ate nutritious vegetables and grains and drank pure, healthy water. Using the men who ate the king’s food as a control group, and himself as the experimental group, he demonstrated the benefits of a nutritious, low-fat diet.

Thousands of years have passed since Daniel’s nutrition study, but most of us are still eating the king’s rich diet. (You no longer need a king’s income to afford a king’s food.) Our Standard

American Diet, like the king’s diet, is loaded with fat, cholesterol and sugar, and it is low in complex carbohydrates. The S.A.D. is actually worse than the king’s diet, because we’ve added all kinds of toxic chemicals, plus large amounts of caffeine and salt, to our food. I tell my patients to learn to eat like Daniel ate. For when you dine at the “king’s table,” you’re asking for trouble.