Paul White: What if we treated food as medicine?

YOU are the reason I’m about to share a different perspective than the one you’ve always had regarding what you eat and drink.

This new perspective can vastly improve your “Quality of Life” if you’re willing to accept it and take action adopting it.

I’ll share my journey that if you’re old enough to read is most likely similar to your own…that is, until I began to see things through a new set of eyes.

When I was growing up, the worst thing my parents could say was that something they wanted me to eat, drink, or consume was good for me. Just ask anyone who grew up in the 60’s, 70’s, or 80’s what cough syrup tasted like. Our parents told us it was medicine, was good for us, and forced us to choke it down.

The only good that came from the “cherry flavored” cough syrup was that it helped us develop our gag reflex. And, NO, it didn’t taste like anything even close to cherries.

When it came to despising vegetables, I was an early adopter. Driven partly due to growing up when the vegetables served at our family’s table were canned rather than fresh. While I’m sure that food processing companies were extremely proud that their canning of what were once fresh vegetables in a liquid preservative could allow the canned contents to be consumed 10,000 years later, I’m also sure that none of people that worked at the processing companies ever actually ate the vegetables they were canning.

Further reinforcement of my distaste for vegetables came from the middle school and high school cafeterias’ dispensing canned corn, green beans, or peas with glee. That’s why I always brought my lunch from home made with no nutritional value white wonder bread, bologna covered with mustard and a slice of american processed cheese, and either twinkies or ho-ho’s to round out my daily lunch.

It was around this time in world history that one of the powerful discoveries was made. The discovery that would change the world (not for the better) was when “high-fructose corn syrup” was created. I can only imagine that the same people who created a market for tobacco way back when, gathered  around a board room table with excitement and discussed how cheap high-fructose corn syrup was to produce, that it had addictive qualities, that it could become the driving force in obesity (which would create a massive market for other products they could market), and that people were dumb enough to consume anything made with it simply because it “tasted good.”

It didn’t even matter that the basis for all of the food and drink being consumed was being created in a lab and would have a huge negative impact on society, only that it tasted good and was addictive. It was a recipe for making companies that process food more money than anything else in the history of the world. It saddens me to say that even today the majority of processed foods remain heavily dependent on high-fructose corn syrup, which has recently had an impact on the backwards drifting of the average lifespan of those of us in the United States.

Having a 27-year-old son who became a type 1 diabetic when he was just 2 years old forced our family to become professional ingredient and nutrition label readers. This had a huge influence on the food and beverage choices for my wife and I and the choices we made for our four sons as they were growing up.

My wonderful wife took the lead in researching nutrition, the immediate impact food and drink had when we consumed anything, and the ongoing role nutrition played in the aging process. Studies suggest that individuals with type 1 diabetes may live 10 to 12 years less than the general population.

So, YES, nutrition became very important to us and not only for our diabetic son, but for all of us. That’s why our perspective began to convert to seeing the food and beverages we consumed each day as medicine.

The more we viewed everything we consumed each day as medicine, the healthier we all became.

Our shift away from processed foods provided immediate results in the way we felt, our energy levels throughout the day, our increased sleep benefits, and even helped me shed some unwelcomed pounds that high-fructose corn syrup had aided me in acquiring. We all increased our consumption of grown and then harvested foods from fruits and vegetables to whole grain products that didn’t rely on preservatives, to protein choices that included more fish, eggs, and mostly chicken as our meat selection. And water…we all consume a ton of water each day as our beverage of choice.

You can find something negative about every beverage choice in the world…except water.

Am I perfect? Heck no.

You might currently see me enjoy a donut a few times a year, partly because of the happy memories I associate with having a coffee and donut with my dad when we were working together.

I also admit that the transition to seeing everything I consumed as medicine didn’t happen overnight. The perspective grew over time as our family transitioned to reading every label on everything we purchased.

We’re grateful that the FDA requires everything in a package, can, jar, or box to include every ingredient in descending order of predominance by weight.

There are still products on grocery store shelves that list high-fructose corn syrup as the No. 1 ingredient. OUCH!

Back to YOU…It’s hard for me to emphasize enough how impactful and powerful seeing all the food and beverages you consume AS MEDICINE can be for your life.

You’ll live longer (there’s proof) and feel better along the way.

Begin embracing this new perspective by reading the ingredient and nutrition labels of everything you purchase. Even fast-food restaurants are required to have nutritional information available.

If you’re good at looking things up on the internet or on an app, all nutritional information is at your fingertips (Example - Lose It! App). Once you get started seeing everything you consume as medicine, your natural curiosity will help make reading labels routine.

You won’t believe how much better you’ll feel and how much longer you’ll live. 

Hey…I believe in YOU! GiddyUp!

Paul White is a newspaper columnist and author. You can contact him with your positive thoughts at [email protected] and find more information, links to ordering his book, and previous articles at www.theanswerdiscovery.com.