Food For Thought

Here is a nice article I read to remind us all that we still should try to do a little research and stay somewhat informed, although we try to eat clean.

 

‘Let food be the medicine, and medicine be the food,” Hippocrates.

People are learning from alternative media and taking nutrition education into their own hands, and doctors have become less and less trustworthy in the mainstream notions.

Most doctors are trained in diagnosing diseases and various ailments, pharmacology and working with specialists to send patients to the right one.

The Big Q: what about good, healthy nutrition?

According to a Y 2010 study, doctors have a long way to go despite public perception that they are authorities or even experts in this field.

Nutrition education in US medical schools was deemed “inadequate” according to a Y 2010 study from University of North Carolina Department of Nutrition Research Associate Kelly Adams and her colleagues, which was published in the journal ‘Academic Medicine.’

As of Y 2004, less than 50% of all US medical schools required the 25-hr nutrition instruction amount recommended in Y 1985 by the National Academy of Sciences, according to a survey published by Ms. Adams‘ team in the US National Library of Medicine.

In Y 2009, just 27% of the schools met the minimum standard of nutrition training

Medical doctors receive an average of just 19 hrs of total nutrition education in medical school, down from Ms. Adams and her team’s Y 2004 study that found an average of 22.3 hrs.

Medical doctors overall do not have adequate education on nutrition.

An April 2008 study in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition uncovered evidence demonstrating the lack of confidence many physicians have with their own knowledge of nutrition: a survey of 61 doctors in internal medicine found that just 14% of them felt like they were adequately trained to provide nutrition counseling, despite the fact that 94% said that it was their obligation to discuss nutrition with their patients.

Many holistic health journalists note that the doctors they have interviewed have often told them that their amount of nutritional training in college is far too low.

Because mainstream doctors are not always able to provide the type of nuanced and well-researched nutrition information patients need, many of them turn to registered dietitians for help.

There is a major problem with that approach.

The largest organization of food and nutrition professionals in the world, one that is highly influential in the United States, is sponsored by many of the worst junk food possessors in the world.

Surprised?

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, continues to list the following companies as its corporate sponsors: the National Dairy Council, something called the “Beverage Institute for Health and Wellness” which was created by Coca Cola (NYSE:KO), Kellogg’s (NYSE:K), General Mills (NYSE:GIS), Soyjoy, and Unilever (NYSE:UL).

The Dairy Council is the major supporter of pasteurized, hormone and antibiotic-laden milk from cows that consume an unnatural diet of GMOs.

Soyjoy is a seller of what are almost certainly products made with GMO soy using toxic extraction processes.

Kellogg’s is a major supporter of GMOs and a company that has been the target of widespread consumer boycotts.

Coca Cola’s credentials in the world of nutrition are not good at all.

Unilever produces chemical and GMO-laced foods.

General Mills recently lobbied to have GMOs classified as natural by the FDA.

Each one of the above companies is the antithesis of good, non-toxic nutrition and that many of them are shining examples of the profit-over-health model that has doomed millions of Americans to sickness and disease, facts that many doctors choose to ignore.

Considering the influence the these sponsors have over many dieticians, would you really trust them to prescribe the proper diet over an independent health coach for example that is not beholden to such corporate sponsors? No.

Many people are not getting healthy, or happy in the United States, they are just managing their symptoms with dangerous drugs that only exasperate problems down and often lead to disaster that are reported daily but not attributed to pharmacology.

Now there is a growing movement for people to take matters into their own hands and ignore the “experts.”

Thomas Edison said, “The doctor of the future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather will cure and prevent disease with nutrition.”

Prevention and cures through solid nutrition therapies are attainable, and there is no reason why doctors cannot begin working them in more often.

And the medical protocols of the West should be used to create a system that is outstanding at healing both short and long-term.

Solving this major health problem begins with admitting there is a problem, and realizing that the experts and authority figures in the West’s healthcare system are not the last world when it comes to sound advice, especially since they most often ignore the problems caused by GMOs and chemicals in our food supply.

It is up to the consumer to do the research and make the right choices while the system corrects itself from the imbalances it has created over the past 40 odd years.

Educated people have the power, they must trust in it.  If you need good nutritional advice choose an integrative, holistic physician for assistance.

Eat healthy, Be healthy and happy.

HeffX-LTN

Paul Ebeling