“I’d like another serving of…medicine please.” This is not exactly what you will hear often at holiday meals, and given what is usually served during holidays, what you eat is probably not good medicine. But, like it or not, food is strong medicine, whether that medicine is good or bad. Whether we like it or not, our food is hurting us unless we eat much better than the typical American.
This is one definition of medicine: “a compound or preparation used for the treatment or prevention of disease.” Food is something that you prepare that can truly treat or prevent disease, fitting the definition well. If you eat good food, it contains many major and trace nutrients that give your body what it needs to fend off many diseases. We call that “nutrition”, because good food provides many vital nutrients to your body. Junk food is often “anti-nutrition”, because it costs you more than it gives, except for empty calories.
Rank amateurs
We have one the most advanced medical systems in the world, and we are number one in the world when it comes to medical research. Yet Americans live on average five years less than Japanese and Europeans, with the exception of the UK, where residents only outlive us by 2 – 3 years. America ranks 49th in the world for life expectancy. We even rank behind Cuba! How do we rank in terms of things that could explain our poor performance? We rank 10th in the world for overall air quality, so we have relatively clean air — though we could obviously do better. By most standards we rank number one in water quality. We know Americans are mostly couch potatoes, where only 23% of adults in the U.S. meet the federal guidelines for physical activity, but we still manage to rank 20th in the world in terms of overall exercise. So the culprit has to be the American diet — there’s not much left that could explain our poor performance in longevity.
The United States even ranks 13th in food availability. It isn’t starvation from food that is the problem; if anything, it is the abundance that is killing us. We are free to choose our food, with grocery stores offering more variety than much of the world enjoys. We assist our poor with food stamps, where they too can choose whatever they want to eat; in fact, that is a current controversy because food stamps pay for outright junk foods, and of those Americans on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), 23% of their charged budget is on junk foods. We choose our food very poorly in this country. But our food processing system has to take some blame, because stores profit the most from “shelf-stable” food products that can sit on grocery shelves for long periods of time, meaning that they are loaded with preservatives. Regardless, Americans are either poorly educated on how to those healthy food, or are, in their freedom, choosing bad foods when they know better — or perhaps it’s a combination of both.
Veggie Tales
Long ago a person by the name of Daniel ran what might be considered the first published clinical trial on the health benefits of good food. He had been taken captive to a foreign country, and the king there trained him and his companions to be high-level administrators. As such they were lavishly provided for, including being served food from the king’s table. They were then to be formally presented to the king and were expected to be in top physical and mental condition at that time. So servants offered rich food to Daniel, which was likely mostly meat, and Daniel, taking the role of a scientific researcher, proposed a special study. The servants were fearful to let Daniel and his friends do this because they had an expectation that the king’s food would make them the healthiest, and it would look bad if they didn’t present Daniel and his friends well to the king. As published in Old Testament writings, Daniel and his friends, group A of the study, spent the next ten days eating only vegetables and water, while the servants, as the control group, would eat the king’s food. After the research study concluded, Daniel’s team was healthier and stronger than the servants. His study is referred to in our time as “The Daniel Plan.” Daniel may have conducted the first recorded food health study in history.
Abundant research
Modern researchers have conducted more extensive studies. As you might expect, many studies have been required to quantify all the benefits and drawbacks of the many types of food available today and their impact on heath. Studies overwhelmingly show that certain plant-based foods reduce cancer and chronic disease incidence, while high sugar and meat increase risk. Published by the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation is a list of 37 peer-reviewed research studies on the societal effects of treating food as medicine, which collectively showed significant benefits of good, largely plant-based diets on health and eating patterns. The available research is massive, and rightly so, because food has the greatest potential of any medicine to improve society’s health. Other societies get this concept better than Americans, which is why we rank in 49th place. Europe in fact bans many American foods because they contain unacceptable ingredients in their processing.
Let’s take a closer look at specific research studies. As published in Exploratory Research in Clinical and Social Pharmacy, researchers from the Cedarville University School of Pharmacy conducted a systematic review of studies across a five-year period which collected data from hospitalization records of patients who were instructed to follow medically approved diets. They concluded that the U.S. healthcare costs could drop a whopping $27 billion at least, up to $48 billion, per year due to fewer complications, better chronic disease control, and hospital admissions/readmissions, just from greatly improved diets. That’s our money, costing our overall society to treat patients because of lousy food.
According to a review study published in Nutrition Today, chronic diseases affect about half of Americans and are responsible for 86% of healthcare costs. They note that a combination of medically tailored meals and groceries and “prescription food programs” are consistently effective in improving health and reducing healthcare costs. We shouldn’t be spending money and clogging hospitals with patients who are really killing themselves with their diet. Of course, we should treat them when they need help, but prevention would be so much more effective if they would not keep harming themselves with diet.
Daniel got it. Other nations are figuring this out better than we are. It’s partly a matter of education, and you, if you’ve been following these newsletters, are already at the top of the nation’s population in learning about food. You are way ahead even of the average medical community, because you have learned of the special value of raw, fresh vegetables, and the trouble with even “safe” meats and “health foods” that are still heavily processed. You should expect to run circles (perhaps even literally) around those who follow popular science and myth.
We are in a remarkably free society. You are free to choose from the widest variety of food available on the planet. Choose well—many of your neighbors are not doing so. As John F. Kennedy is credited with saying, “a rising tide lifts all boats.” If you eat well, you will be healthier; if others around you eat well, they will be healthier — and if more of us stay healthy, we all will spend less on resources to patch up those who needlessly fail in health. So what is stopping us? Is anything stopping you?
Dr. Nemec’s Review
What is food meant to be?
- Nutrient filled — meaning it has vitamins, minerals, trace minerals, biophotons, and enzymes
- Natural medicine — meaning it should contain anti-inflammatory antioxidants, along with phytochemicals, just to name a few.
What is the standard American diet?
- Anti-nutrient — this means the food doesn’t have the nutrients and actually depletes you of the nutrients that your body requires.
- Anti-medicine — if medicine is what treats disease, then anti-medicine forms disease. The standard American diet promotes disease; it does not prevent or eliminate disease.
Is there one diet that fits all?
To answer that question, you have to go back to the beginning. In the original plan of the human race, what were we designed to eat?
If the origin of the human race was Adam and Eve, it’s obvious what the plan for the human race was: God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. (Genesis 1)
If the origin of the human race was by evolution from a lower life form that eventually evolved into a primate and eventually into a so-called Neanderthal man, their diet was an omnivore diet which consisted of meat, fish, birds, plants, seeds, nuts, and fruits.
What diet is best for you?
Well, we can start with what diet is NOT best for you, and that is the SAD (standard American diet). Once we wipe the slate clean from the American diet we can start building a diet that promotes health and longevity.
Most important ingredients
- Green plants
- Vegetables
- Fruits
- Seeds and nuts
- Herbs
All top present day research points towards a plant-based diet for longevity and increased health span. So universally, across the board, you must have plants in your diet, and the higher the percentage the higher the level of health — that is the bottom line.
So, whether you believe in a creation diet or an evolution diet, both diets include the power of green plants, vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts, and herbs. The only difference is the caveman, the hunter gatherer people, included the animal products but still ate the plant products whenever available.
The absolute best diet for you
At Revolution New Medicine for the last 40 years, we have built a scientific foundation protocol for health, longevity and maximum health span. This protocol includes custom nutritional genetic testing and targeting your specific genes for the ideal diet and supplementation for you. There’s only one in the world that has your genetic make-up. We check over 4000 genes, and there are no two people alike in the world that have the same genetic make-up, unless they are identical twins.
Interestingly, they have done studies on identical twins which showed just by changing their diets — one eating a standard American diet, one eating a plant-based diet, their level of health and longevity greatly varied, the plant-based twin having less issues with health, and having greater quality of life, along with greater quantity of life.
The power of genetic testing
There’s no more reason to guess with your diet. Everyone would benefit from a plant-based diet, but to nutritionally hone in on what is ideal for your genetic make-up, that is why we do the nutritional genetic testing and customized diet recommendation.
The best diet
It is the diet that suits your genetic make-up perfectly. It also includes a customized supplemental micronutrient formula made from your genetic testing that optimizes your health at an extremely high level. Now you have the ideal diet for you, and you also have the ideal supplementation for you.
Could it get better than this?
Yes, food is only one of the factors in the Seven Basic Steps to Total Health and Longevity that we have been using in our protocol for the last 40 years.
Isn’t it time for you to transform your health and life? You don’t have to wait for a disease to knock on the door to make that change. It’s far better to do it proactively instead of reactively.
Here are the ways we can help you in your health journey:
- Outpatient Comprehensive Teaching and Treatment Program-has the most benefit of teaching, treatment, live classes and personalized coaching. This program has the most contact with Dr. Nemec with 3- 6 month programs that can be turned into a regular checking and support program for life. This is our core program that has helped so many restore their health and maintain that restoration for years.
- Inpatient Comprehensive Teaching and Treatment Program-is our four-week intensive inpatient program for those that are not in driving distance, usually over 4 hour drive. This is the program that is an intensive jumpstart with treatment, teaching, live classes and coaching designed for all our international patients along with those in the US that do not live in Illinois. This program is very effective especially when combined with our new membership program support.
- Stay at Home Program-is offered to continental US patients who cannot come to Revolution New Medicine but still want a more personal, customized plan to restore their health. This program also includes our Learn Membership Program.
- Membership Program is our newest program offered for those that want to work on their health at a high level and want access to the teaching at Revolution New Medicine along with the Forums: both Dr. Nemec’s posts and other members posting. And also, to have the chance to get personalized questions answered on the conference calls which are all archived in case you miss the call. The Membership Program has 3 levels to choose from: Learn, Overcome and Master. The difference is at the Overcome and Master levels you received one on one calls with Dr. Nemec personalizing your program for your areas of focus.
