Integrative Creative Health and Wellness
Say what! Yeah, it’s a bit of a mouthful but basically it’s the practice of treating the body using a combination of traditional clinical medical practices with natural and homeopathic practices. There are very few of these practitioners in South Africa and I was fortunate to attend a course hosted by one such, Dr Sedicka Laskery.
The course venue was another interesting find. Samaa Health Centre is located on a small holding in the Schaapkraal area. A scenic and tranquil oasis amidst the farmlands. The centre’s focus is on a holistic, preventative and restorative approach to wellbeing.
They believe that Therapeutic Holistic Healing, Integrated with Modern Medicine is most effective for the optimal functioning of all human beings, for the best quality of life. The centre is Muslim owned and practises an Islamic ethos with separate treatment areas for male and female as well as male and female therapists accordingly.
The centre was host to the 2 day morning course I was doing on Holistic Wellness, focusing on Nutrition. Dr Sedicka Laskery who presented it, has a background in traditional allopathic medicine but having studied the benefits of alternative and homepathic remedies has incorporated these treatments into her practice to offer and encourage a more holistic healing process.
This is not to say that there is not a place for traditional allopathic medicine but rather than take drugs or resort to surgery as a first recourse, she opts for the deeper treating homeopathic route which treats the root of the problem. Traditional pharmaceutical treatments also have many side-effects. Just read the insert on any one of your pills and the possible side-effects are quite frightening.
The central tenet of the course is captured that famous saying by Hippocrates, “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”. Your body can get everything it needs to heal itself if you are feeding it the right foods. I’ve always believed that if you’re eating right you don’t need supplements. Shockingly, this proved to be quite false.
We live in such a toxic environment nowadays that even trying to eat healthy and get enough exercise and rest is not enough.
There is so much pollution in the very air that we breathe and lack of nutrition in our soil, that even healthy food lacks the nutrition that it used to have. Even organic farming does not produce fruit and vegetables with the adequate amount of vitamins and minerals that the body needs anymore. So it’s back to supplements for me again. So first thing is to find out what my body needs before I settle for a random multivit.
Another topic on the list was GMO’s. Did you know South Africa has been farming GMO crops for 60 years already. 80% of our current crop yield is GMO. And here I thought the debate had just started over here with the big issue we had around Monsanto about 2 years ago. She explained very concisely exactly what GMO farming entailed and what exactly happens when something is genetically modified. So GMO stand for Genetically Modified Organism.
And how the process works is for example, you want to create an apple that lasts longer in the fridge. So you take genes for instance from a fish that lives in very cold water and can handle very low temperatures and you introduce it into the genetic make-up of the apple. And you end up with an apple that keeps really well and really long in the fridge. But you’ll find as soon as you take it out, within a day or two it’s mealy and you have to chuck it. It’s a real conundrum the whole GMO thing. On one hand it’s helping with hunger problems in third world countries.
But on the other hand, we really do have enough food on the planet and shouldn’t have a hunger problem at all! We also covered Macro and Micro nutrients and their place in the function of your body as well as toxins and detoxing and how to do it right.
I walked away from this course with a better understanding of food in today’s context and how it affects our bodies. It sounds simplistic and like things we’re taught in biology class in high school but there’s more at play in the world and in our environment than there was 20 years ago and we have to factor in all that when we choices about our health and what we choose to put into our bodies.
Even the difference between many so called healthy products on the market must be noted. With big industry all jumping on the health bandwagon now there are cheaper health products available. But always look closer.
Just recently I saw a 1 Liter bucket of Coconut Oil going for about R60 at a popular store but learnt that these cheaper options are usually refined and not nearly as healthy as the unrefined pure variety which unfortunately will be more expensive. Prices will only come down when more people shop for better products and demand becomes higher.
There was a lot of information imparted during the 2 day course and the one thing I would have liked was 1 or 2 practical tools as well. Like, how to read nutritional information on food labels. We touched on it but not in great detail.
The take home was basically, your body needs more than you think to function optimally and today our food cannot give us everything. Nobody on the planet is optimal. We need to make lifestyle changes, a little at time to live towards an optimally healthy life.
