“I don’t know what you are doing here.” Has a doctor ever told you this? Or, has your physiotherapist hooked you up to that electrotherapy machine, only to then go make out with a colleague and forget all about you? Your gynecologist redoing her make-up while “listening” to you?

All the above experiences are mine, and there are more… Though it’s good stuff to show off a sense of humor, I also guess you now understand why I ended up in the field of “holistic medicine.”

But wait, no, this is not going to be one of those anti-conventional medicine manifestos. Obviously, I passed through the anti-allopathy phase, but nowadays I actually have a part-time job in one of the Netherlands’ best allopathic hospitals.

Both allopathy and naturopathy have their strengths. I cannot make you a diet plan that would mend a broken bone, provide a new liver, or remove arterial plaques that could cause a heart attack tomorrow. A good diet, however, can prevent those plaques from building, care for your liver, and keep your bones strong. Still, of course, when you fall, bones can break.

But the questions I want to get to are these: how many of us really know what the best diet is for our unique selves? Which foods and herbs prevent excess inflammation to minimize menstrual cramps? Does a teaspoon of nutmeg help you sleep, can you turn an onion into a band aid, and is watermelon really a natural Viagra? Grandma doesn’t teach us these things anymore, neither does school, nor your GP.

There is so much simple stuff you can do to support your own health! Sometimes all you need to feel better is a high dose of the herb that you sprinkle on your pizza. I want to help reinstall that knowledge back into society, helping people take back some control over their own health. And, helping us understand that healthy food requires healthy agriculture—one of the great lessons I learned during 3.5 years in the Peruvian Amazon. For our health and that of the planet which supports our well-being, we need an agricultural revolution (yes, I love simple solutions…).

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