Tom Malterre - The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook: Over 300 Delicious Whole Foods Recipes, Including Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Soy-Free, and Egg-Free Dishes

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.

Hippocrates

The diet and environment that humans have evolved with over the last tens of thousands of years have changed drastically within the last several decades. With these changes have come rising rates of obesity, skin disorders, childhood and adult cancers, heart disease, diabetes, and more. There is overwhelming evidence now that our food choices drastically affect our state of health. Humans are not meant to have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, chronic pain, or other common health problems. These health conditions are often a result of dietary, environmental, and lifestyle factors.

Food is powerful medicine. It is energy and information. Every molecule that exists in our body was created from the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe; we quite literally are what we eat! Whole foods, or foods in their natural unrefined forms, offer us the vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants we need to prevent and treat most diseases while creating a state of balance and health within us. Whole grains, beans, nuts, seeds, vegetables, and fruits provide thousands of important phytochemicals that work with our bodies to maintain and build optimal health. Eating food is so much more than a way to fill our bellies. Food affects our quality of life, how we look, how we feel, how much we weigh, how much energy we have, how we age, and how healthy we are.

As children, we both learned that food is powerful medicine. Healthy eating was hard-wired in our brains from the time we were very young.

When I was 10 years old, Dr. John McDougall, the renowned physician and nutrition expert, was my family doctor. I watched and learned as he treated his patients, including my family, using food as medicine. Seeing people reclaiming their health with each and every forkful of food shifted my lifes purpose. This interaction inspired me to learn all I could about nutritional sciences. While I was attending Bastyr University for my first degree in nutrition, I met Ali. At the time, I thought health food was reserved for people that had relatively inactive taste buds. My personal meals were extremely healthy, but they never tasted very good. I clearly remember my first dinner date over at Alis apartment where I got to assist in preparing food. She taught me how to chop vegetables properly and how to time the addition of every single ingredient to bring out the best color, texture, and flavor of the dish. I found the food (and the company) absolutely stunning! And I knew then that it would be possible for people to find bliss in eating their way to optimal health. Early in 2004, while working on my masters degree in nutritional sciences, I decided to try a raw food cleanse to see if it would help with my digestive discomforts. Within a week, 90% of my issues had either subsided or disappeared altogether. Upon the reintroduction of gluten, my symptoms started to reappear. I began to delve deeply into the science behind food sensitivities and health in order to help more people like myself. Could eliminating gluten really be the answer for millions of people dealing with so many health problems? I found that it did indeed play a very large role. My studies at Bastyr reaffirmed how powerful nutrition really is and deepened my awareness of food sensitivities and numerous other topics.