Food and medicine are necessary elements of human life. And essential players in “Living Well Locally” (LWL). Here we explore ‘real food as good medicine’ (RFGM).
The definitions: Real Food is “a full plate of variety and color from high quality foods that are nutrient-dense (aka flavorful), toxin-free, minimally processed, and fresh (aka locally grown, seasonal).” Good Medicine “nurtures and does no harm to the body’s innate ability to self-heal, identifies and removes root causes of disease, restores healthy metabolic function, and engages patients in self-care”.
There is, of course, much work yet to be done, but things are moving in the RFGM direction: advocacy for local food systems is solid, and consumer support for alternative medicine has been growing for decades.
‘Good Medicine’ goes by many names: holistic, integrative, functional, lifestyle, environmental, and more. Most practitioners either advise on diet or actively use food in their treatment protocols. ‘Real Food’ consumption removes significant sources of metabolic damage such as pesticide residues, over processing, and food additives; provides nutrient density; and aids in restoring healthy gene expression. These benefits are all part of reversing chronic disease.
In its efforts to diagnose (or name) a disease, allopathic medicine focuses on symptoms and typically neglects to explore root causes. This has led to a general ‘poverty of awareness’ about why we are sick, which in turn means the toxins, beliefs, and behaviors that disrupt metabolic function continue to undermine our lives and our health. This lack of awareness is systemic. Almost unconsciously, we have become accustomed to being ‘fixed’ by things outside of ourselves, especially the pharmaceuticals of mainstream medicine.
The power of most lifestyle-based medical approaches is their ability to uncover root causes, motivate patients with personalized treatment plans, and encourage them in good self-care. This is significant for RFGM, especially for its application at the community level where collaboration between clinic, home, and field can drive a culture of health and rebuild local economies.
RFGM’s greater challenge, however, may simply be one of belief: can chronic disease really be healed? Can we really do more than prevent cancer and manage diabetes? The answer is increasingly “yes”. Lifestyle-based medicine is already being used in clinical practices and in academic institutions, training modules for health practitioners are available, and online directories help patients find such care. The ability to identify root causes and reverse disease is changing medicine. Lifestyle, diet, and environment can do more than prevent disease, they are powerful change-agents, they can heal.
And it gets even better.
Using Real Food as Good Medicine creates a powerful synergy that goes beyond the healing of humans. The growing of real food revitalizes soils and repairs ecosystems. Buying real food and using good medicine build wellness economies where many goods and services can be supplied by local farms, small businesses, and independent practitioners. Sharing real food and healthy lifestyles creates community and revitalizes spirit through personal empowerment, social engagement, and collaboration on shaping a healthy future together.
RFGM is not a magic bullet, but it can be the silver thread that pulls together, over time, the many pieces of our common human struggle, a thread that can teach us how to live well together, how to turn surviving into thriving, together. The real magic of RFGM lies in its ability to reconnect humans to land, to place, and to each other.
The Deep South knows good food. Not so long ago, Southern cooks nourished Southern sociability with well-spread tables and supported family life with home-cooked meals. Today, things are different. We live busy lives like everyone else. Fast food drive-throughs populate even small towns, catered social events are becoming the norm, and cooking is more often an ‘occasion’ than a routine ‘daily three’.
Now that ‘food as medicine’ is on its way, we Southerners will need to dust off our cooking skills, sit down with grandma’s recipe book, remove the sugary fare, and find the nearest farm stand. Although change has never been easy in this traditional culture, the Deep South is in great need of a ‘real food transfusion’. And, to reverse the wording a bit, we still have the ‘high quality sociability’ to nourish a transformative real foods comeback.
Next Up: “The Power of Community”
Up Ahead: “Agriculture’s First Question”, “Medicine’s New Frontier”, “The Many Faces of Medicine”, “How Local Can Wellness Be?”, “Coming Home to Heal”