Common wisdom says when you’re sick, go to the doctor, but modern wisdom says go to your refrigerator—or more appropriately, your fruit and vegetable drawer.
Just as the four food groups have given way to the food pyramid, which is now often criticized as well, so has the idea of relying on medication to fix chronic disease given way to the idea of modifying diet. Nutritionists, and many doctors, are teaching patients that in order to take control of their health, they need to take a proactive approach to what they put into their bodies.
Nancy Dale and Abiola Oladoke both preach the same gospel; that food heals. Both nutritionists believe its through natural foods that people can prevent disease—and even rid themselves of chronic disease—but they differ in their approaches.
Dale, who has offices in Santa Maria, Solvang, and Santa Barbara, believes certain foods are better for certain body types. Dale works with patients by evaluating their current eating and exercise habits and then reshaping that routine. During her eight-week program she customizes foods and exercise for each client. She often employs the use of Metabolic Typing, a method that analyzes an individual’s physical, emotional, and mental reaction to food and suggests adding or eliminating certain foods. By the third week, she said, most clients are feeling a lot better, not just because of relief from their illness but also about the lifestyle choices they are making.
Oladoke, on the other hand, takes a holistic approach to using food to heal. She incorporates Ayurveda, reiki, herbs, meditation, and other alternative therapies. Oladoke is the owner of Healthy Palate and Radiant Lotus Alternative Therapies in Santa Maria. In addition to serving up healthy fare at her restaurant, Oladoke meets with clients with health problems and tailors a nutritional and holistic therapy for them. She also offers an eight-week series of cooking classes in which she demonstrates how to cook foods properly and how to eat for optimum wellness.
Oladoke focuses on a gluten-free vegetarian diet, heavy in raw vegetables, seeds, and nuts. Meanwhile, Dale believes animal protein in moderation is essential, and for some people necessary for their bodies to function optimally.
Though their approaches differ slightly, both have one common belief; that nearly any health ailment can be prevented and even relieved by eating the right foods.
Why food heals
It sounds easy, in a general and vague way; maintain a healthy diet, exercise and good health will follow. There’s actually more to it than that, Oladoke said. The right foods must be consumed and even prepared in a certain way. Oladoke said most vegetables do wonders for the body, but only if they are cooked properly. Most people cook all the nutrients away, she said.
Some foods are power foods, those include things like amaranth, sorghum, dandelion, red clover, kale, collards, watercress, kohlrabi, mustard greens, turnips, parsnips, ginger, coconut, goji berries, golden berries, and sea vegetables because they contain beneficial nutrients hard to get anywhere else.
Other foods may lull people into a false sense of eating well. Oladoke said most people think things like pretzels or pita snacks are healthy, when they’re not.
Using an endless supply of colorful analogies Oladoke tries to get people to understand the importance of nutrition in terms they can understand.
“I asked a gentleman in one of my classes, ‘What kind of gas do you put in your sports car?’ He said, ‘Premium.’ I asked, ‘What would happen if you used regular?’ and he said, ‘Well, I guess eventually it would start to have engine trouble,’ and I replied, ‘What do you think will happen to your body if you put junk in it?’” Oladoke said.
Oladoke said she focuses on building up immunity because if immunity is strong, it cuts down on the risk of getting sick. Oladoke also believes it can help you get better once you are sick. She believes that the radical changes she made in her diet helped her defeat health problems she had, including endometrial cancer and a thyroid that was not functioning properly.
“I was very sick. When I realized the emergency room staff started to know my name, I thought this shouldn’t be happening, this isn’t acceptable,” she said.
That realization prompted Oladoke to make some serious changes in her diet and lifestyle. She prepares gluten-free, organic, and natural recipes for herself and formulates recipes for her clients that are designed to address ailments in different body parts.
Dale also believes that most chronic illnesses can be traced back to inadequate nutrition as the cause. Dale dispenses advice in a no-nonsense manner. In a way that suggests there is no room for excuses.
“What do people do when they get a headache?” she asked. “Take an aspirin, right? Well about 95 percent of headaches are caused by dehydration or a vitamin deficiency. Something is missing that your body needs. But we take aspirin. No one is deficient in aspirin,” she said.
Adequate nutrition isn’t just good for the common headache. It can also help patients with more serious illnesses like Type II diabetes. A disease that Dale said is almost always about too many carbohydrates for the patient’s particular metabolic type.
Dale speaks frankly about the state of health in American citizens. She speaks just as frankly with her clients, doctors, and anyone else she thinks needs to listen.
“Nutrition should be No. 1 in every disease,” Dale said.
This philosophy didn’t win her many friends in the medical community when she first moved to the Santa Ynez Valley 10 years ago, but her clients were seeing results.
“A lot of physicians rolled their eyes and would say, ‘Oh, you’re seeing her,’ but now they actually refer people to me,” she said.
Though her whole premise is on preventing chronic disease in the first place, Dale makes no apologies for her belief in the power of foods to heal.
“There’s not one medicine that I know of that ‘cures’ any disease,” she said. She added that food, on the other hand, could put your body back in balance.
Getting a second opinion
Geri French, a registered dietitian and certified diabetes educator for Sansum Medical Clinic agreed that the right food choices are vital to health. She stopped short of saying that diabetes or any chronic illness can be cured by eating right.
“I think you can control it as if you don’t have it, but if you go back to the old ways of eating it will come back,” French said. She added that often chronic diseases like diabetes are progressive and that someone who may be able to control the illness through food now may need medication down the road, but they at least can delay the progression of the disease.
Otherwise French strongly advocates taking a look at diet first and analyzing the food choices patients are currently making. She said more doctors are thinking that way as well.
“It’s happening more than it ever did. People are reading and researching on their own as well and telling their doctors, ‘I’d like to try diet first,’” she said.
Dr. Mark Juretic is an internal specialist at Marian Medical Center Clinic. He said that most doctors realize a healthy diet is important to treating illness.
“There are certain diseases, like high blood pressure, heart disease, and Type II diabetes, in which diet is absolutely crucial to effective treatment,” he said.
Juretic added that most doctors now spend more time emphasizing diet and nutrition than they did 10 or 20 years ago.
He said it’s not misleading to say that nutrition plays a role in preventing chronic disease, but he said he has a big problem when he hears people say diet can cure chronic illness. He explained diet can help someone with chronic diseases like diabetes but if that person falls off the wagon and goes back to old eating habits, the diabetes will come back or worsen.
“My experience is you can slow down damage, you can help improve health, and maybe even reverse it, but I have a problem when people say ‘cure it’ because that implies they will never get it again,” he said.
Juretic said there are some very good studies by Dean Ornish that analyze correlations between diet and health. Those results have shown significant drops in high blood pressure, cholesterol, and heart disease.
“But it’s pretty strict stuff. It’s hardcore. It’s not a diet most Americans will follow,” he said.
On paper it seems like anyone with chronic illness would overhaul their cupboards right away. However, French said the reason most Americans don’t follow healthier diets is because food trends are dictated by the food industry.
“People need to be able to see through those health claims by the food industry and vote with their forks,” she said. That means making choices of nonprocessed foods.
“When you really look at it, it’s getting back to the food that our great-great-grandparents used to eat,” French said.
It’s a lifestyle
Oladoke believes the same thing: “If you can’t just take something and plop it in your mouth and have it go down easily and feel good, and not have it sit in your stomach for a long time, then you shouldn’t be eating it,” she said.
According to Robert Young, C.N. for Lassen’s Natural Foods and Vitamins, Americans are increasingly abiding by better eating options, recognizing the impact on health.
“Not only are vegetarian or vegan diets growing in popularity, but raw food products (foods that are naturally fermented but not cooked) are the fastest-growing category in the natural foods industry,” Young said. Though certain foods and supplements go through trends, Lassen’s sees some products that retain popularity. Among the long-standing popular products at Lassen’s Natural Foods and Vitamins are Bragg’s Raw Apple Cider Vinegar and Bragg’s Liquid Amino Seasoning. Popular products include non-dairy beverages such as rice and almond milk for vegans or people with food sensitivities. Many gluten-free products are also available in a wide variety of food categories and increasing in popularity, Young said.
Among the most popular food supplements are products for cardiovascular health, such as flax seed and fish oil in capsules or liquid form. Popular joint health products include glucosamine sulfate and the remarkably beneficial spice known as turmeric.
Changing eating behaviors in such a drastic way isn’t always that easy though.
Dale puts it another way—and she’s not afraid to tell her clients so.
“Is this for everyone? No. If you’re lazy and want to take a pill and manage your disease, then this isn’t for you,” she said.
Both Oladoke and Dale said there are times when medicines are needed. Those instances are usually when diseases are severe or in emergency situations, but never to “manage” chronic disease, because food can do that.
Much of the medical community differs in that opinion.
Despite the best dietary intentions, some people are genetically determined to have health problems, the Sun’s sources said. High blood pressure is one of those diseases.
“It’s possible they can delay this, I’ve seen it time and time again,” Juretic said. “However, it may not be possible to completely prevent it.”
But regardless of what the future may or may not hold for your health, Dale said, people can start feeling better now by eating right.
“I want people to start questioning things when it comes to their health. We have a birthright to feel healthy and good and if you’re not feeling right and if you’re on medicines, you can change the way you feel,” she said.
Oladoke said drugs and surgery have their place but they aren’t designed for long-term use.
“We are all going to die? Yes, but you shouldn’t die from high blood pressure, you should die from old age. I don’t want to suffer with cancer. I just want to be old, and wrinkled, and gone,” she said.
Contact Arts Editor Shelly Cone at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 20-27, 2011.