In research done around the world we are finding out that when you eat a meal you enjoy you absorb more nutrients than meals you don’t like. My old mentor John Kitkoski told me that eating foods more indiginous to our heritage is more important than listening to doctors telling you what to eat. In a book put out by Barry Glassner from the University of Southern California called The Gospel of Food:Everything You Know about Food Is Wrong he tested that theory on Thai and Swedish women.

The women were fed a spicy meal which the Swedes objected to but the Thai women loved it. Surprisingly, the Thai women absorbed more of iron than the Swedish women did. When the meals were switched to meat and potatoes, the Swedish women absorbed more iron this time. When a meal was given that neither side liked much, neither the Thai women nor the Swedish women absorbed much iron.

Harvard University epidemiologist Dr. Karin Michels had a great comment – “It appears more important to increase the number of healthy foods than to reduce the number of less healthy foods regularly consumed.”

In other important correlations, it seems that disease prevalence is worse in communities where participation in civic life is low. Being involved in charitable, community based work isn’t just good for the world around you, but it’s good for your health.

Another quote, this time from Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine – ” Although we would all like to believe that changes in diet or lifestyle can greatly improve our health, the likelihood is that, with a few exceptions such as smoking cessation, many if not most such changes will only produce small effects. And the effects may not be consistent. A diet that is harmful to one person may be consumed with impunity by another.” Holy cow Batman, the concept of biochemical individuality may be at work here!!! People are different. What a concept.