Dishing out nourishing food for thought
View(s):Senior dietician and nutritionist Sigrid de Silva’s clear message is that food is medicine. Bad food however sumptuous, is not a good prescription for anyone. Indeed it is bad medication that makes us sick. Good food is good medicine that can prevent, reverse, and even cure disease. Take away the bad food, put in the good food and hey, magic happens before you can say hey presto!
Most diseases are reversible with food. However, just eating healthily isn’t enough. The real secret lies in using specific foods to help specific diseases. Many diseases can be frequently reversed with common foods. This information can dramatically change medicine as we know it. After all, Hippocrates founder of medicine as a rational science endorsed the theory in the fifth century when he said: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food. Leave your drugs in the chemist’s pot if you can cure the patient with food.”
This approach can work faster and better than any medication. The power of simple diet change getting rid of the bad stuff and putting in the good stuff can often reverse the most difficult-to-treat medical problems and give people the experience of profound wellness, even if they don’t have a serious illness.
In our modern society more than ever, our dietary choices can mean the difference between health and disease. Sigrid in her latest book helps to identify those foods that we should all be eating, those we should in moderation and those we are better off without.
We take in food for nourishment, for sustenance and for pleasure. Some of us eat to live while a good many others live to eat. Sigrid, in this her third book, helps to identify any deficiencies and excesses in your current diet while helping to keep your palate satisfied and your taste-buds asking for more. Simply with the use of real food and any necessary nutritional supplements she attempts to help you reach greater health and wellness with fewer complications and side effects.
She advises you how to feel your best through proper nutrition, stress management, avoidance of ‘depleters’ and how to stop those sugar and carbohydrate cravings for good. You will learn how to eat to satisfy your hunger and bring your body into balance.
People are hungrier than ever for realistic options that empower them to make healthier choices, while bringing back the enjoyment of food. No one wants to feel guilty, especially when it comes to their food! Her helpful information and advice is presented in a non-critical and yet down-to-earth fashion. Again, the self help aspect is significant but the importance of professional medical supervision and monitoring is also emphasised.
Sigrid helps people digest food and nutrition information so they can make their own well-informed decisions based on facts, not fear. And better still one comes away with meaningful steps toward better nutrition and health.
The author provides the most current and comprehensive coverage of both ‘normal’ nutrition, such as digestion and metabolism, vitamins and minerals, and life cycle nutrition, as well as ‘clinical’ nutrition related to diseases, such as gastrointestinal, liver and cardiovascular diseases.
Besides, it answers all the key questions you want to know about the different kinds of sicknesses. It also offers a gradual approach to improving diet and increasing physical activity while providing strategies for staying motivated. Sigrid also goes beyond just telling you what to do to manage your ailments, because she also explains the whys and wherefores. By helping you understand the reasoning behind dietary and exercise procedure, the author gives you the knowledge you need to make intelligent decisions when presented with situations not covered by guidelines alone.
She seems to understand that everything isn’t the same for all in life, and that you have to make choices based on many factors. Sigrid has helped thousands of Sri Lankans become fit and healthy with her life-changing advice as a trusted, competent and sympathetic professional with a delightfully engaging bedside manner. Now, her comprehensive guidance and dependable expertise on diet and fitness counsels you in coping with the unique challenges of living with these conditions.
Contrary to popular belief, Sigrid tell us that we don’t have to live the rest of our lives in pain or rely totally upon medication to eliminate our symptoms, improve our health or reverse the disease process. You are offered up to date information on the latest research on clinical nutrition. Yes, it is all laid out for you from the proper function of the major organs and the role that proper nutrition plays in their functioning, to a breakdown of carbs, proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals.
Sigrid takes you on a journey of exploration of the chemical and functional components of food, how to properly assess your nutritional intake, the changing face of nutrition throughout the human lifespan, and so much more! This handy resource offers a wealth of information, and specifically addresses the growing ‘epidemic’ of multifarious diseases – including gastritis, indigestion, bowel syndrome, hypertension, gout, heart health, chronic kidney disease, weight imbalance, detox diets and stress. In fact the book includes a complete breakdown of the relationship between nutrition and chronic diseases.
You can reverse disease, reduce high blood pressure, lose unwanted weight, lower your cholesterol levels, prevent heart disease and cancer, and improve your health all without relying completely on drugs and fad diets. Sigrid also devotes a chapter to the dangers of consulting unqualified quacks and charlatans who offer diet therapies to unsuspecting patients.
Eat. Drink. Live! is filled with sound nutritional advice on what to consume and how to repair the damage when our good intentions slip. And more as in all her publications it is customised to the needs almost exclusively of a Sri Lankan lifestyle. Sigrid focuses on modern nutritional recommendations inspired by the traditional dietary patterns on our indigenous foods and their preparation. But her book goes even further as a comprehensive guide that dishes out clear, readable and reassuring advice on how to live life to the fullest with nourishing food for thought.
A delightful book, as entertaining as it is educational.
Book facts
Eat. Drink. Live by Sigrid S. de Silva. Publisher: Vijitha Yapa Publications. Reviewed by Gaston de Rosayro