Many years ago when I started in Herbology one of the cardinal rules to restoring health was avoiding pretty much anything white in terms of food. You could still wear white tennis clothes and you didn’t need to write on cream colored paper, but if it was going in your mouth it better not be white. At that time white represented a big part of what you saw advertised, white bread, white flour, white sugar, white milk and of course all of the things you can make from milk. Most people ignored that advice and thirty years later obesity is common and the government is selling our country’s financial future to the drug and medical companies to deal with generations of people living on faux foods. As I’ve explained more times than I care to remember the main problem with white flour and milk is the glue. White sugar is sticky too but if it was introduced today it would have to be by prescription, that’s how much it affects the body. As a chocolate lover I’m rather glad that I don’t need a scrip for my afternoon treat, but you get the point.
If your health is great and you want to eat anything you want, why not? The reality is when people eat unhealthful foods they don’t enjoy great health. Keep in mind that great health is not simply the absence of a disease that can be diagnosed by a professional. Great health equates to high vitality, pain free mobility, good attitude and emotional stability, AKA happiness.
One of the reasons I’m such a fan of the Paleo Diet is that it takes those original lessons I learned as a young herbalist to heart. When I would hear ‘avoid white foods’ what they were actually saying was avoid grains, but if you have to eat them then have the unprocessed grain. Over the years I had shifted to sprouted breads and rice pasta and I thought that was pretty good.
I gave up dairy years ago but that’s because I must have been scared by a cow as a child. I limited sugar pretty severely, except for a little chocolate. But I was carrying extra weight and spent too much time in pain. When I embraced the Paleo Diet I recognized that it connected to my earliest herbal training and my weight dropped dramatically along with my pain levels.
Now when I use herbs and supplements the benefits are obvious and rapid. They don’t have to work against the resistance that my diet was creating. My mood is improved and I’m enthused again about herbology because I’m seeing its benefits so obviously in my own health again.