Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.
Hippocrates
Naturopaths get over 150 hours in nutritional education, trained by experts in the nutritional sciences. Additional we receive experience and mentorship in how to talk about diet and nutritional medical interventions. Allopathic doctors (the MDs) get on average less than 25 hours of nutritional education (some get only 2 hours!); and these courses are often taught by other doctors rather than nutritionists. The food we eat provides the majority of the building blocks for the replication and functioning of EVERY SINGLE CELL IN OUR BODIES (respiration and hydration are important for cells too). How crazy that a profession concerned with health isn’t devoting more time learning about the source of health or disease – our food!
Issues that arise in nutrition are plentiful. Naturopaths are trained to identify how nutrition is affecting our patient’s health; including food intolerances, nutritional deficiencies or imbalances, toxin build up directly linked to the kind of foods consumed, eating out of the parasympathetic state (hurried and anxious eating) and/or identifying interfering factors that prevent optimal break-down, absorption and assimilation of the nutrients in food.
Eating food that works well with your body is only the first part of good healthy eating! Food is also meant to nourish our spirits and our community, so eating relaxed and with those you love can be just as important as eating food that is good for you.
