Food has always played a vital role in health. When feasting relative to a celebration, a person's social status and wealth are associated with success. To carry extra weight was once seen as a sign of prosperity. Now, being overweight and obese is seen as an unhealthy epidemic. With food more readily available, food access is less of a problem, but food nutrition is more of a problem than ever because we see food as waste or waist issues. At the other end of the spectrum, the intentional restriction of food shows discipline and purity when looking at fasting. In certain cultures, you would be sent out into the wilderness without provisions to survive on your wits as a rite of passage. You would then come back as part of a vision quest, having clarity about your future intentions. Religions and virtually every culture includes periods of restricted eating or fasting. This healthy practice has mostly been eliminated or considered unnecessary. The reality is that a disciplined fast is very healthy for your body.

As a pharmacist, I have always had respect for those words. I grew up on a farm, having had a pasture for raising cattle, a chicken yard and coop for chickens, gardens for raising vegetables and fruits, a vineyard for grapes (that included a harvest for winemaking), and an orchard with several tree varieties of fruits. For the most part, it was an organic model for producing food. Good health starts with whole fresh food created naturally. This emphasis on whole foods empowers you, the reader, to make informed choices about your diet and health.

Nowadays, GMO food allows for the commercial utilization of herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides. Animals are given antibiotics not only to treat but also to prevent infections. Those same antibiotics can also change the animal biome to gain weight faster without adding more feed. Knowing that many pharmaceuticals were derived from plants, and until the twentieth century, the pharmacist was at the frontline for providing treatments, that model has changed. They can no longer afford the time to assist with natural herbs and spices that were dried or in compounded pills, ointments, and tinctures.

To take this principle one step further is a quote by Hippocrates, "All disease begins in the gut." Most people cannot visualize how you can develop heart, vascular, organ, psychological, autoimmune, and other diseases if the origin is the gut. How could such a saying given over 2500 years ago have relevance today? Apart from communicable diseases and infections, this second quotation by Hippocrates shows incredible insight. The exception to that statement is infectious disease. Sanitation, hygienic practices, then the invention of antibiotics and antibacterials improved longevity and the quality of life by reducing infectious disease. Then, soon after came the adoption of vaccines to augment the patient's chance to help prevent infections.

The incidence of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune disease in almost every category is on the rise. These disease categories have the impact of accelerating aging and shortening our lives. Potent synthetic medicines can intervene but typically do not reverse the disease or produce true remission. Obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension, Alzheimer's, and mental disease can be inflammatory. Foods can be inflammatory or cause oxidative stress (that can add to the problem of gut dysbiosis), reducing the health of the gut lining, mucous layer, and microbiome balance).

However, it is now evident that inflammatory diseases originate in the gut. While not the solution, healthy food can repair the gut lining, being anti-inflammatory and an antioxidant to assist in healing the rest of the body. Over 80% of the body's immune system is contained in the gut. Autoimmune diseases have a gateway to impacting the body at least part by having a weakened gut immune system and a leaky gut. Food in the form of macronutrients, micronutrients, and phytonutrients has a way to improve and prevent disease. This understanding of the preventive power of food empowers you, the reader, to take a proactive approach to your health. How far the body can fight back depends on food, proper nutrition, and lifestyle management. Thus, there is a choice – consider processed and altered food as bad medicine or look at fresh, whole, and properly prepared food as good medicine. Proper choices and discipline can make a difference.