Food As Medicine and Do I Eat my Broccoli?
Food as medicine fascinates me. I often feel that turning to foods for healing would be revolutionary. Tuning into their energetics, nutrients and properties, I think we could discover a lot about food as medicine. I also think that adding consciousness to our food ~ growing, selecting, preparing, eating and digesting adds to it’s theraputic properties.
So, do I always eat my broccoli?!
No. I love cabbage, especially in KimChi and Sauerkraut as pickled condiments. I rarely eat Broccoli or Cauliflower because I don’t love the taste and because unless heavily cooked, they interfere with the formation of thyroid hormone, which is something I avoid because I have bouts of hypothyroidism. If I loved the taste of these veggies, I’m sure I would eat them more. This made me wonder, “does my body know theses veggies are not good for me?” I do however eat Broccolini and enjoy it… this assignment encouraged me to look it up online to see “What actually *is* Broccolini?” Alas…a hybrid…between Broccoli and Chinese chard. And, in the US it is known as a baby broccoli and is trademarked by the Mann Produce Company, which developed the hybrid veggie. I actually didn’t know that it was a hybrid or that companies were trade marking produce!! This seems absurd to me but also doesn’t surprise me considering the culture we live in. I wonder if I’ll buy it again?
I think it’s interesting to look at how food works at a molecular level. According to the article in this week’s reading, cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower boost the body’s ability to repair damaged DNA and may prevent cells turning cancerous. According to research, the activity of 2 genes (BRCA1 and 2) both detect damaged DNA and activate a repair response in the cell. The studies did not seem to be done using food however, but used “natural chemicals” of I3C (found in broccoli and cabbage) and denistein (found in soya beans). I wonder why they did not do the study via the veggies themselves. It would have been interesting to do a study between the “natural chemicals” versus mass-grown versus organically-grown. We have no idea how the “whole food” work work to influence the body. It may intensify the healing effect, alter it or produce another effect.
Tao Within Massage 
Dear Tao (who are you?:) )
I very much agree that food as “real” approved medicine would be revolutionary. There is nothing that comes into our body with such regularity and amout like food and nothing with such subtle but persistent influence and strength!
I agree! This is an unbelievably understudied field!! Although many cultures have food staples they use in healing ie, chicken soup, curry, ginger, ginseng, there are very few real studies or cultures that consider the energetic nature of the food.
If you didn’t know that foods were patented you may not want to come to my presentation on GMO foods. It’s appears to be almost all patented and all owned by Monsanto 😦