HEALING/FOOD IS OUR MEDICINE

Food is our Medicine

The bountiful earth has always provided and continues to do so, for she knows how to grow and support life from her conception to end. We have the five elements… all our needs are met with air to breathe and clear, fire to provide warmth and transmute, water to nourish, bath and flush, earth to shelter and feed, ether our spirit keeping us all connected to the present. All that is, was and will be.

Having our food and medicine provided for us, we just need to remember where to look and follow our intuitive senses of what to eat and be in touch with how we truly feel. Our senses become violated in modernised sped up cities with made up provided choices of fast foods with low nutrients and high fats and sugars, deadening our internal radars of how to feel what you need to source for fuelling your tank. Dieting (abstaining) from forced choices of man-made food will help resync your senses back to the world of fuel filled sustenance growing out the ground. For there is food and medicine everywhere.

You have an itch? I wouldn’t be surprised if there is chickweed growing nearby where you stand. Your liver is burdened or perhaps you have been ‘celebrating’ too often? I wouldn’t be surprised if you have been noticing a lot more Dandelions of late. Your bowels have been sluggish? You may have been passing patches of yellow dock in the swampy areas of your daily walks. Noticing nasturtiums or perhaps starting to get a hankering for the rosehips in your fancy teas and lattes from your local Boho coffee shop? Your body maybe crying for more vitamin C, a random craving for dark leafy greens or beets? Folic acid or iron maybe asking for a booster shot. There is a whole apothecary at our feet.

As practitioners we can provide answers to these queries so don’t fear not knowing what plants are where and what for. We are here at the Healing Centre to help. Just listening to what our bodies are saying, wanting or craving is a good start. With winter now knocking down its own door we are wanting more warming foods, more nourishing foods with heating spices providing circulation bringing blood flow to the extremities. Food as medicine can be as simple as a nourishing homemade hearty root vegetable soup with stimulating warming spices renowned for their anti-inflammatory properties. Anyone with a rheumatic condition or has previously endured a physical injury knows how much winters coldness can flare up pain and inflammation. Increasing circulation, we reduce inflammation. Nourishing food in winter is our medicine. Seasonal vegetables, seasonal fruits – get them into you!

Nicola Kelly is a Medical Herbalist and Iridologist at Gnostic Healing Centre – see page 27.