If we can reach populations in developing countries and help them understand the value of their indigenous diet and lifestyles rather than copying ours, perhaps we can reverse the exponential rise in cardiovascular disease that is plaguing them.
Interpretation
Promoting indigenous diets can help combat health issues in developing countries.
Dean Ornish emphasizes the importance of understanding and valuing traditional diets and lifestyles in developing countries. He argues that by appreciating these practices instead of imitating Western habits, communities may be able to address and potentially reduce the increasing rates of cardiovascular disease that they are facing.
In practice
In a health workshop discussing heart disease prevention, this quote can highlight the significance of traditional diets.
When we understand the connection between how we live and how long we live, it's easier to make different choices. Instead of viewing the time we spend with friends and family as luxuries, we can see that these relationships are among the most powerful determinants of our well-being and survival.
Your body has a remarkable capacity to begin healing itself, and much more quickly than people had once realized, if you simply stop doing what's causing the problem.
Eating a vegetarian diet, walking (exercising) everyday, and meditating is considered radical. Allowing someone to slice your chest open and graft your leg veins in your heart is considered normal and conservative.
I've found that if I tell somebody 'Eat this and don't do that,' it's not only not helpful, it's counterproductive because even more than being healthy, we want to feel free and in control, and as soon as somebody tells us to do something, there's a tendency to do just the opposite.
Whether you're six or sixty, if you go on a diet and lifestyle program and feel constrained, you're likely to go off it sooner or later. Offering a spectrum of choices is much more effective; then, you feel free and empowered.
People who are lonely and depressed are three to 10 times more likely to get sick and die prematurely than those who have a strong sense of love and community. I don't know any other single factor that affects our health - for better and for worse - to such a strong degree.
It is the duty of all papas and mammas to forbid their children to drink coffee, unless they wish to have little dried-up machines, stunted and old at the age of twenty... once saw a man in London, in Leicester Square, who had been crippled by immoderate indulgence in coffee; he was no longer in any pain, having grown accustomed to his condition, and had cut himself down to five or six cups a day.
Some people who are obsessed with food become gourmet chefs. Others become eating disorders.
It is both auspicious and peaceful for people to choose vegetarinism.
Laughter boosts the immune system and helps the body fight off disease, cancer cells as well as viral, bacterial and other infections. Being happy is the best cure of all diseases!
Chronic disease is a foodborne illness. We ate our way into this mess, and we must eat our way out.
We all need to start making some changes to how our families eat. Now, everyone loves a good Sunday dinner. Me included. And there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is when we eat Sunday dinner Monday through Saturday.
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