Welcome to the first official edition of The Sage Chef! I’m Barbara McNeely, the Sage Chef.
Recently, I was asked: “If you only had today, what would you say? What do you really want people to know?”
Without hesitating, I replied:
“You are in charge of your own health — not your doctor, not the FDA nor the CDC nor anyone in government. It’s up to you! We all have innate health and it is our responsibility to maintain it.”
In fact, that is the mission here at The Sage Chef:
“To empower people to take control of their health.”
It’s not up to your doctor
Your doctor likely means well, but they don’t have all the answers. They get very little training in nutrition. And sadly, in today’s world, too much of their training comes from pharmaceutical companies. That’s right! Big Pharma is in medical schools teaching future doctors how to prescribe medications.
It’s not up to the FDA
They’re the ones that recommend the Standard American Diet. Which, appropriately enough, abbreviates to SAD! Which benefits the food industry as well as Big Pharma.
It’s not the Food Industry
Which food industry? The food industry that produces all of the processed foods you find in the center of the grocery store? Processed foods loaded with sugar and unpronounceable ingredients that are usually code for “you don’t want to know.” I like to call the food industry Big Food. And they do not have your health as their top concern.
And it’s certainly not Big Pharma
When the processed foods begin to cause illness, along comes Big Pharma with patented, prescription medications to take care of the symptoms of that illness. It’s a lifetime subscription prescription model. But it doesn’t bring you health.
For a long time, I have thought that we do not actually have a Health Care system. To me, that would be a system that would help us to remain healthy all of our days. Which was once how humans lived.
Instead, we have a Sick Care system. One that simply manages illnesses without really helping people to be healthy.
To be clear, our medical system is the best in the world, for acute illness. If you have an emergency situation, if you're injured in an accident, you break a leg, or you need an organ transplant, or perhaps even open heart surgery, our medical system is what you need.
The problem is what's missing from our system. And that is a focus on keeping people healthy and thus preventing the chronic illnesses that we have come to call comorbidities when talking about the pandemic virus.
A True Health Care System
What might a true health care system look like? One that focused on keeping people healthy, rather than treating them after they have become ill?
Prevention of disease actually starts with what you put in your body. Health is our natural state and if we feed our body the food that it needs, it can do the rest. If we feed it junk, that is typically when disease can take hold. That is when we develop the chronic illnesses. Making people aware that their food and lifestyle choices can impact their health would be a good start.
Using all of the available modalities would also be helpful. For thousands of years, mankind has used a variety of natural, plant-based remedies. And proven healing traditions such as:
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)
Acupuncture
Chiropractic
And many others
Doctors are still important, though their role and their training could also focus more on prevention.
Sick Care System
The system we have today took all that away from us, or tried. All the thousands of years of natural healing traditions, herbal remedies, TCM, Ayurveda, acupuncture, etc. All of that is labeled as “alternative” and is deemed, by the system, as being not as good as the petroleum-based, patentable pharmaceuticals that are so often prescribed. Pharmaceuticals designed more to line the pockets of the manufacturers than to heal the body.
It was a truly sad day when I discovered, during my research, that it is true that we have a Sick Care System. And worse, that it was DESIGNED to be that way.
I don’t say that lightly. Next week I’ll break it down and show how we got to our current Sick Care System.
Why did I start The Sage Chef?
I like to dig deep into topics that interest me. Which is a lot about food, health, and health care. I believe that with understanding comes the desire to change. Once you see what is really going on. And why our systems have issues.
And cooking. I love to cook and to talk about cooking. I’ve been cooking since I could reach the counter tops! I’m working on a vegetable cookbook. Not because I’m vegetarian, but because I’m a firm believer in eating vegetables. For too many years, I ate them because I was supposed to eat them. Now, I eat them because I love them! It’s all in how they are prepared. I’ll be sharing recipes in the near future.
You have the power to take control of your health. I’m here to provide support, tools, and knowledge to help you take control.
What else?
I’m also fascinated with learning more about the human body. Such as learning that the human heart has a brain! That’s a future topic here, for sure. And also about what I call miracle healings. People who have healed in spite of anything the doctors said. People who have healed even after their doctors diagnosed terminal cancer! I want to tell their stories. And I have a couple of those stories that I’ll be telling here soon.
An Invitation
If your interest is piqued, and you want more, I invite you to subscribe to The Sage Chef using the box below! I’ll be forever grateful.
So proud to know you! It looks like a super idea and I will be reading!
Congrats and best wishes … looking forward to seeing more of your posts! Thanks! Neta Z