Dr. Nandita Shah: The Food We Are Conditioned To Eat Is Making Us Sick
By Dr. Nandita Shah
 Having trained as a homeopath, and being a homeopath at heart, I’m always looking at things from a holistic point of view. As homeopaths, we see a patient as a whole, and disease as a result of problems at the level of body, mind, and spirit together. Homeopathy is based on Nature’s laws and requires a practitioner to have a very deep insight into everything connected with nature, the state of the human mind and, of course, medical knowledge of the human body. Homeopathy, to my mind, is a process of growth of mind and body, to reach a higher spiritual purpose. As a homeopath, I was fascinated with the connection between nature and the human mind and body. Patients would get better miraculously if their remedy were clearly found. To take a medical case and to find the right remedy was exhilarating.
A permanent cure?
However, after many years of practicing homeopathy, I found that many of my patients came back to me after years, or months, or even weeks with the same complaints that I had given them a remedy for. So even when the correct remedy was chosen and the cure was miraculous, the patient could still fall back. This was not how it should be, I had thought. Homeopathy was supposed to be a permanent cure. Why was this not happening?
Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy, had already described the cause of these fall backs. Although, there was little that he did not know, there was a lot that we as practitioners did not follow. We did not understand so much of what Hahnemann had clearly stated in his book, the Organon of Medicine, a century ago. Hahnemann described the maintaining causes for a disease as our unhealthy habits, and sometimes, the unhealthy environment, or our thoughts. Today, because of our conditioning, it’s hard to even recognize that some of our habits are unhealthy.
Arriving at the truth through deconditioning or unlearning
Having always been interested in healthy living and a healthy diet, I found myself in this very same boat. Because of my conditioning, I was a vegetarian who consumed plenty of dairy, just because I was conditioned to think it was good for me. But about 28 years ago, still in my early stages as a doctor, I heard about the process by which milk from cows and buffaloes is obtained. Being a staunch vegetarian, because of the cruelty issues, this information was a shock to me. It started me on the path to becoming a vegan. And this is what opened my eyes.
For the first time in my life, I began seeing medical literature and articles related to health that I had never seen before. One of the first ones was an article in the Vegetarian Times which explained how, because of the high protein levels in cow’s milk, calcium was not absorbed from it. When I read it, I realized that all the patients with osteoporosis, who were regularly taking extra dairy, were taking calcium tablets, and they were never getting cured.
Inspiring people to make the change
One thing led to another, and I read the many links to medical literature on Robert Cohen’s Notmilk website and in his e-mails. I read Dr. Dean Ornish’s book, Reversing Heart Disease, which made a lot of sense. After having largely changing my own diet, I began suggesting these methods to my patients. I did not have a lot of success. Patients were attached to their conditioning and were not open to change, especially change in their diets. And I recognized that I had to do more, which opened a whole new process for me. I started with talks, then seminars and workshops, always learning and growing to see how my work could be more effective in helping people decondition and unlearn what they had been taught.
For me, this became all-consuming. This was even more holistic than homeopathy, and it made my practice look like mere puzzle-solving. Food as a medicine encompassed all. It was holistic, but not just for a single person. It had a wider significance for our planet, for the animals, and for all human beings as well. If everyone in the world were to change their diet, it appears that we could reverse climate change, we could save water, save energy, and feed every hungry person on the planet with food that is now being used to raise animals, only to kill them so that a few ‘fortunate’ people can get sicker upon consuming them. It could save billions of helpless animals from intolerable cruelty.
Getting to the core
What is natural, I thought, about eating food that is not suitable to our anatomy, and then taking medicine, albeit homeopathic medicine, or any other natural healing system medicine, to counter the effects of that food. This will never be a cure as this does not help get to the core, because every part of the patient is connected. I have seen patients with mental diseases like manic depressive psychosis, reverse this disease when they got off their diabetic medications. When we are treating patients at the level of the mind, if we cannot remove their physical illness first, we are at a disadvantage.
Removing the maintaining cause is essential to the cure
Our number one killers today–heart disease, hypertension, cancer and diabetes are all linked to our ‘rich’ diets.
For a real cure, we have to first remove the maintaining cause. Once we do this, a cure may ensue by itself or homeopathic remedies can work wonders once the cause is removed. But to work the other way around can be an uphill task all the way, never producing the results that are really needed. In order to help people to understand the maintaining causes of their diseases and how to remove them, and to help undo years of conditioning, I conduct health workshops. Currently these are in the form of the following workshops – Peas vs Pills, Reversing Diabetes, Reversing Heart Disease and Hypertension. Other workshops are planned, and updates will be available on my website. My latest is World Health Week April 1st to April 7th 2020.
Health and Nutrition
I have devoted a lot of time in the last years to explaining to people why the foods that we are eating are making us sick. And today these are often the maintaining causes to disease. Stress, the environment, how much we exercise, and how much our relationships support us are equally important and should not be neglected, but if you were to ask me which of these is the most important, I would still say food. Most of us know about the importance of the others. No one tries to get stressed or have bad relationships. It happens. But the food we eat is a choice we make every single day. And funnily enough it affects all the other factors.
To make this short, the best food for us is the food nature meant us to consume. To understand this would take a whole chapter, because we have been conditioned to eat all kinds of foods by advertisers who want to make money on the products they sell. We can hardly think about eating right when we are seduced by all kinds of packaging and are often slaves to our taste buds, which have also been conditioned. I have heard people say that they would rather die than not eat certain foods, and that’s exactly what is happening. Yet, surprisingly the healthiest food is tasty. It’s not a deprivation. It’s just an unlearning. And it permanently cures many diseases.
This will be covered in a lot of detail in a book I hope to finish soon. Until then, if you would like to learn to become your own best doctor, please come for any of our health workshops to get an overview. The biggest impact that you can have on your own health, and the wider health of the planet and every living creature on it, is by your food choices. Each of us has the possibility of becoming our own best doctors NOW.
Publisher’s Note: The Vegan India Conference is back 24th to 27th of July 2021!
After the overwhelming success of the first edition in Delhi 2019, the impact-oriented event – VIC is back bigger and better! VIC 2019 was a landmark event in the history of Indian Veganism with participation of over 18 countries. This year too VIC aims to put Indian veganism on the world map with a well-rounded experience for vegans and non-vegans alike.
With the same focus and enthusiasm, we are excited to invite you to attend the Vegan India Conference (VIC) 2021 virtually from the 24th to 27th of July 2021.
In a world where public health has become the top priority, emphasizing on a safer and more secure food system has garnered importance. Vegan India Conference is organised by Vegan First in partnership with Mohanji Foundation and World Vegan Organisation. This year’s VIC encourages you to rethink food, fashion, and technology through a plant-based lens.
Dr. Nandita Shah Bio:
Dr Nandita Shah is the recipient of the prestigious Nari Shakti Award 2016, the highest award for women in India, for her pioneering work in the field of health and nutrition from the President of India, the honorable Pranab Mukherjee. She is also the author of the book Reversing Diabetes in 21 Days.
She is the Founder, Director, and a trustee of SHARAN. She founded SHARAN in 2005 with the vision of helping people connect to animals and nature in order to heal themselves and the planet. Dr. Shah first became vegan because of ethical issues. She says, “I became a doctor to reduce suffering and when I became aware of the tremendous suffering that we inflict on fellow creatures used for food, I had to make the connection.”
Dr. Shah is a registered medical doctor, specialized in homeopathy from the CMP Homeopathic Medical College in Mumbai. She has been in practice since 1981
Back to Issue 2
|
January 26th, 2019 @ 10:22 pm
I am a farmer I have developed some veraity of Paddy which produce Germinated Brown Rice.this rice contain high protein low cab.and highly medicinal value. Bran oils present in this rice protect Hart disease.
Thanks
January 27th, 2019 @ 9:37 am
Respected madam, as I am studying I am interested to known what are all the diets I have to consume.
April 4th, 2020 @ 2:33 am
Hello Doctor,
I am Krishna 66 year old. I have some health problems like IBS,hypertension and some allergic disorders with very low immunity. I have pains in body and anemic with very low HB 6.80 now. I am suffering various problems for specially for the last one year. How I can consult you and what suggestion you want to give me please reply
April 4th, 2020 @ 3:08 am
Hello, you can get more information from our website http://www.sharan-india.org
April 5th, 2020 @ 7:56 pm
Very interest ing needs more information. Publications availablilty,how to get ? May prove life changing.
April 5th, 2020 @ 10:53 pm
Please see our website – sharan-india.org. Publications can be seen in the About Us section