This second of a series will be on food and how we as doctors can be more aware of what we are eating, for our health. We all agree that if we start looking at our food more carefully, we will be better health teachers to our patients.
I decided to educate myself on food after medical training. First, I went into chemical free farming myself, specifically biodynamic farming. I started first with farming rice because every Filipino will always look for rice. And this also meant studying how we could go back to un-polishing our rice and learning how to cook this high fiber rice. Eventually the brown, red, black unpolished rice became my first prescription in my clinic. But of course it was not easy. Patients found it hard to get used to this high fiber rice. Even medical students, inspite of a long long lecture and actually cooking the rice and eating it with their teacher found it really difficult to eat the rice. Very few bought the one kilo bags to bring home. Today, more people are eating unpolished rice compared to when I started talking about this in the 1990s.
The next task was to learn how to farm vegetables without chemicals, biodynamically. I enjoyed creating a paradise out of the biodiverse vegetables and insect repellling flowers I planted in my vegetable farm with the help of some mothers. I felt truly a doctor when I would be able to harvest vegetables in our farm for our patients and teach them how to enjoy eating them. Again , it was not easy.
How must we take care of ourselves as doctors? Be a foodie, a healthy foodie too.
I would say, start with eating unpolished rice and appreciating the healthy jaw work this bestows. And of course, the digestive clean up that eventually follows. First rule, make sure you know where your rice is coming from.
Next rule, make vegetables the center of your plate. And if you can have your own farm, and thus not worried about pesticides and amoeba — learn to eat the veggies raw most of the time. Juicing is one way too of nourishing through vegetables. But , high quality juice comes from juicing the proper way.
I was told by my father, that during the war they ate a lot of “talinum”, one of our locally available vegetables. I tried eating talinum raw and enjoyed it.
How do we take care of ourselves?
If we could step out of our clinic for awhile and farm or garden, that would be a blessing to behold. Then we can start bringing paradise into our dining table. Its a joy we will organically share with our patients. They may eventually need less and less of the doctor for the sick and look more and more for the doctor who helps them stay well.
If we help our patients stay well, we also stay well in return.
