Most people recognize that nutrition contributes to health and wellness. But viewpoints differ on the exact role nutrition plays. Northwestern Naturally asked six practitioners - two chiropractors, two acupuncturists, a naturopathic doctor, and a nutritionist - for their viewpoints. Each person had a different perspective. Our hope is that you benefit from the discussion and perhaps find new ways to incorporate nutrition and diet into your practice. If nothing else, perhaps this article will offer food for thought.
Food is Information
Paul Ratte, ND, a naturopathic practitioner at Northwestern Health Sciences University’s Woodwinds Natural Care Center in Woodbury, Minn., specializes in clinical nutrition, lifestyle counseling, and dietary counseling. Like other natural health care practitioners, Ratte says he treats his patients holistically.
“I don’t treat diseases or symptoms,” says Ratte. “I treat the people who experience them.”
Ratte sees food as information needed to communicate with the body. If people don’t give their bodies what they need, they won’t function properly, says Ratte.
“Skipping breakfast is the most dangerous thing people can do, because they aren’t giving their bodies any information,” says Ratte. He adds that he urges his patients to eat protein in the morning instead of carbohydrates. “Eating carbohydrates in the morning is like putting gasoline on the fire. We should be eating fewer carbohydrates in the morning and more carbohydrates at night.”
Making Better Choices:
Ratte says it is very important for people to pay attention to how they feel two hours after they eat.
“Do you have good energy?” says Ratte. “How’s your mood? Can you focus or concentrate? Are you hungry? Are you satisfied?”
He helps his patients see how the foods they eat affect their moods by suggesting they keep a diet diary.
“I often give my patients diet diaries,” says Ratte. “The diet diaries help people take responsibility for how they eat because they write down everything they put in their bodies. They also record how they feel after they eat.” He adds, “I encourage my patients to make better choices more often, rather than striving to be perfect.”
Ratte offers these tips to his patients to help them make better choices:
- Cook your own food. “We don’t place enough value on the importance of cooking our food. We need to slow down and spend more time in the kitchen.”
- Plan your meals. “If food is in a package and has a label on it, don’t eat it. If food doesn’t rot, don’t eat it.”
- Chew your food. “It’s hard on our digestive system if we don’t chew our food enough.”
- Eat more for breakfast and less for dinner. “We tend to over consume dinner and under consume breakfast.”
- Buy food in small quantities. “When we buy discounted bulk food at Sam’s Club, we tend to over consume.”
- Don’t listen to the food industry. “The food industry likes us to be confused about nutrition, because then we decide what we buy based on advertisements.”
- Eat a rainbow of food. “We tend to eat the same foods over and over. We need to eat more vegetables.”
“Nothing I do is an exact science,” says Ratte. “I believe there is an art to medicine in which the practitioner must combine hard science with clinical expertise and patient preference to help the patient in any way possible. That’s why it’s called the practice of medicine.”
Food is Medicine
Jennifer Blair, MaOM, LAc, an associate clinic faculty member at Northwestern Health Sciences University, practices Chinese medicine at Northwestern’s Edith Davis Teaching Clinic. In her practice, food is used to treat patients and bring balance back to the body.
“Dietary therapy is at the center of Chinese medicine,” says Blair. “It is said in Chinese medicine that when a patient is ill, first treat him with diet and lifestyle, and if you are unsuccessful, then you may intervene with herbs and acupuncture.”
Blair urges her patients to be aware of their states of mind around food, because food has the power to greatly influence what goes on in the body.
“Feel connected to the food you’re eating,” says Blair. “Be conscious of what and how you are eating.” She adds that the environment in which people eat may also influence the body. “It’s not just about what foods you need, but your environment,” says Blair. “Eating in the company of people we love is important. Making eating a sacred thing is important. To connect with food is important. Saying a short prayer before you eat or feeling grateful for the food that was provided is important.”
Blair suggests to her patients to make one change at a time. For one person, cleaning off the dining room table is a good change, according to Blair. For another, taking a walk after dinner is making progress.
To help her patients get what they each need, she recommends that they follow these five basic constructs:
- Eat in harmony with the seasons. “Every time of year has specific nutritional needs,” she says. “What is naturally provided is exactly what you need. In the spring, bitter greens come up like asparagus early lettuces. They have a slightly bitter quality to them, which drains excess heat from the body that comes from a long winter of eating heavier winter foods. It’s good to eat those foods in the spring. In the winter, you would eat more dried nuts and dried meats. If you didn’t have electricity or refrigeration, you’d be eating root vegetables, meat, nuts, and grains. In the summer, when it’s really hot, the foods that show up are very rich in water. Tomatoes ripen in August; they moisten the body and have the capacity to clear heat from the body. Watermelon also has the property of clearing heat from the body. They are great for preventing heat stroke.”
- Eat in harmony with your geography. “If you live in Minnesota, eat locally. If you are living in Minnesota in January, and you are eating mangos and bananas, that’s probably not the best thing for you. It’s not to say that you shouldn’t ever eat them, just not all the time.”
- Eat in harmony with your constitution. “We each come into the world with a different constitution. A big, robust guy who has a cast-iron stomach should eat to nourish that particular constitution. Someone who is thin, small and frail, and gets cold easily, is going to need to rest more and eat more warm and nourishing foods. Pay attention to who you are and how you show up in the world.”
- Eat in harmony with whatever disharmony is going on in your body. “If you are suffering from a cold or the flu, you should eat foods that are appropriate to that. A person with cystic fibrosis who has a lot of phlegm shouldn’t eat damp foods like macaroni. They should eat soups and things that are easily digested.”
- Eat in harmony with your phase of life. “A pregnant woman, a 7-year-old child, and an 80-year-old man, all have different nutritional needs. Children’s digestion doesn’t develop until age 7, so they need to eat more simply.”
“In this country, we want easy,” says Blair. “Food is to satisfy cravings, desires, and to be convenient…We eat for gratification, and if we do eat healthily, we do it in extremes. We need to balance the five flavors. Each meal we eat should have a little salt, sweet, bitter, sour, and pungent tastes.”
Food is Energy
Joseph Sweere, DC, DABCO, DACBOH, a professor at Northwestern Health Sciences University, has practiced chiropractic for 25 years and has taught chiropractic for the last 20 years. Dr. Sweere recognizes the importance of structure and function in chiropractic.
“Chiropractors are particularly interested in the optimal preservation and maintenance of one’s structure, because function is completely dependant on the structure that nature provides for that function,” says Dr. Sweere. He adds, “The food nature provides is a product of the soil, the air, sunshine, and water. Those factors combine to yield the energy needed to drive the human body.”
Food is energy, according to Dr. Sweere. “Food is the conversion of the chemistry of the food to the chemistry of the body. The brain and the nervous system convert food into electrical energy.”
Alkalinity and Acidity:
One of the major nutritional problems is that people are over consuming acidic foods, says Dr. Sweere.
“The greatest single challenge that Americans face is we consume foods that are predominately acid forming rather than alkaline forming,” says Dr. Swere. He explains, “Alkalinity and acidity refer to the pH of the fluids in and around all the cells in your body. A solution with a pH of 7.0 is neutral, one with a pH of more than 7.0 is alkaline, and one with a pH lower than 7.0 is acidic. Under the best conditions, your salivary pH, which mirrors the pH of the fluid bathing all your tissue cells, should be in the alkaline range of 7.0-7.5 with an ideal of 7.4.”
Dr. Sweere challenges his patients to eat a ratio of 80 percent alkaline-forming foods and
20 percent acid-forming foods. Alkaline-forming foods include most fruits and vegetables. Acidic foods include most beans, dairy products, wheat products, meats, nuts, and sugars.
“Americans are overwhelmed by what I call the meats, and wheats, and treats, and sweets, and dairy, and soft drinks, and alcohol,” he says. “I think most Americans have their diets lopsided in the ratio. The ratio is almost 20/80 in reverse, and the concern then is inflammation. Inflammation sets the stage for the number-one killer of humans in America: cardiovascular disease.”
Acidic foods also cause a predisposition to atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, and disorders related to arthritis; and create an environment in which cancer thrives, says Dr. Swere. He says if people eat differently, most of those diseases can be prevented.
Hydration:
In addition to selecting less acidic foods, Dr. Sweere urges patients to drink enough water. “Most people don’t think of water as a food,” says Dr. Sweere. “But it’s profoundly important.”
He suggests dividing body weight in half, and drinking that number in ounces each day. For example, a person who weighs 160 pounds should drink 80 ounces of water each day.
“The human body is 70 percent water; therefore, every tissue cell requires water as an internal cleansing mechanism,” he says. “We dissipate our waste through our urinary tract. And water facilities the transfer of energy throughout the body through the electrolytes so that the minerals that are in the water are dispersed.”
The quality of water also matters, says Dr. Sweere. He suggests people have water purifier or filtration systems in their homes, rather than using faucets or drinking distilled water.
Organic Food:
Not only is the quality of water important, the quality of food is also very important, according to Dr. Sweere. He says people should make good food choices. For example, people should not eat artificial sweeteners or MSG, and when cooking, people should use olive oil, rather than Crisco. But more importantly, people should eat organic.
“People say that it costs more, but I say there’s no co-pay,” says Dr. Sweere. “Would you rather go to the doctor or the grocery store? Food is your best medicine; therefore, the best food is the best medicine.”
Side Dish: Three Other Takes on Nutrition
“People are eating processed foods, foods devoid of nutritional value and loaded with additives, preservatives, coloring. Processed foods give really bad information to the body. When you eat something with the ingredient red dye number 40, for example, the body doesn’t know what to do with it, and the detoxification system is burdened. Don’t eat food that has been monkied with; it’s not convenience that’s bad, it’s process foods.”
- Carolyn Denton, LN, a licensed nutritionist at the Institute of Health and Healing, an affiliate of Abbott Northwestern Hospital.
“What people eat should make them happy. People should eat foods that make them happy not just in the short run, like chocolate and pizza, but in the long run. The body needs easily digested foods like soups, greens, limited amounts of protein, cooked foods, unprocessed foods, and a variety.”
- Peggy Miller, LAc, dispensary supervisor at Northwestern Health Sciences University.
“Changing behaviors is very hard for people. Chiropractors and acupuncturists can help reinforce people’s diets more than medical doctors, because we spend more time with the patients and there are more opportunities for us to check up on them.”
- Jason Bartlett, DC, an assistant professor and faculty clinician at Northwestern Health Sciences University.
Source: Northwestern Naturally (Summer 2006), Northwestern Health Sciences University (written by Angela Olson, BA, public relations intern)
