Why Nutritional Therapy Means More Not Less

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the contradictory messages we are all given about food. Scroll through social media, or even pick up an old-school magazine or newspaper, and you’re likely to be bombarded with articles about what you should or shouldn’t be eating to achieve optimal health/a perfect body/great skin/improved mental health…I could go on.

At its most basic, food is about energy and getting enough nutrients for your body to function properly. But it’s also much more than that. We use food to bring people together, to celebrate, to nourish, to comfort. Think of all the religious festivals, across many faiths, that end in a feast. We bake birthday cakes and mark special occasions with a meal out, we invite friends over for dinner, make nutritious soup if loved ones are poorly, crave warm comfort food in the winter and gather round the barbecue the moment the sun comes out. It would be such a shame to lose this enjoyment of food in a (probably) futile attempt to achieve some theoretical ideal.

The good news is, food really does have the power to make us feel physically better as well as happier. Broken down into its component parts – proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, antioxidant phytonutrients – food fuels every process in our body. Even better, the body loves variety, so the more different foods you eat, the better. A healthy diet isn’t necessarily about cutting things out, it’s about expanding your menu: eating a range of colourful fruits and vegetables, trying new grains, such as quinoa and buckwheat, adding different beans and pulses, like black beans, pinto beans and Puy lentils, eating nuts and seeds and being more adventurous with your choice of meat and fish. We are lucky in this country to have access to so many foods, even in the cheaper supermarkets, so it seems a shame to stick to the old favourites.

I am passionate about the effect good nutrition can have on our physical and mental wellbeing. I know from personal experience and from seeing the effect of nutritional therapy on members of my own family, that simple changes can have a huge impact. It’s not always easy. Our digestive system can be negatively affected by a range of things, from stress to poor sleep, environmental pollutants to too much ultra-processed food. It can take time to undo the damage to our gut microbiome, but ultimately adopting a varied diet high in plant food and good quality protein will not only make you feel better, but you’ll probably get more enjoyment from eating too, and that can only be a good thing.