In Food We Trust

Healthy Eating at Hippocrates Health Institute

Over the last 60 years people from all over the world and from all walks of life have come to Hippocrates Health Institute seeking wellness and optimum nutrition, arriving with all sorts of food and eating related issues. It has become increasingly apparent to us people are not just looking to change what they eat, but also their relationship with food.

While this is a noble pursuit, to change ones relationship with food is quite a fundamental lifestyle undertaking and involves a great deal of soul searching and dedicated effort. This is why Hippocrates Health Institute places at the core of its program, both psychological and emotional support. We understand that eating is a highly charged emotional activity and nobody consumes food in a robotic manner without any feelings. Food also tends to be deeply linked with our past, be it family life, holidays, or good - bad memories. ‘In food we trust’, that comforting, soothing and securing best friend.

Our earliest experience with food was before birth in the womb. Our nutrition came from the mother, and from this sprung our deepest sense of well-being. Once we are born food is consumed orally and is more sensual and associated with closeness to our parents. If we feel hungry we don’t like it and cry, and our parents know to feed us, and so begins the pattern of ‘food-as-comfort’ and the associations of food as nurturing, food is love, food makes us feel better.

As we grow up our environment and family situation begin to bear upon us. If for example we suffered from severe food shortages as a child, this might influence our relationship with food as an adult whereby we over stock the cupboards or cook extra large meals for our own family. The act of cooking a dinner could become a powerful act of ensuring survival, equating eating with security driven by memories of fear and shortages.

We are constantly meeting guests at Hippocrates Health Institute who share with us their personal relationship with food, and very often it’s associated with love and fulfillment, comforting and suppressing negativity. The strong urge to eat in order to live elevates food to an almost religious status in our lives. For many people culture dictates food choices giving us a feeling of oneness with other people as well as our heritage.

Our approach at Hippocrates Health Institute is to encourage people to have self-control and not be dictated by habits, especially if those habits contribute to deterioration of health, and making choices that are centered on what’s best for wellness. During this process people often encounter insecurities or feelings of un-fulfillment emotionally or spiritually that they cover up with food. The journey to a healthy relationship with food involves us to re-center ourselves psychologically and emotionally, and to have a more authentic and healthful relationship with what we eat.

During the Life Transformation Program guests at Hippocrates Health Institute often go through a period of deprivation - staring at the raw food salad spread before them - like an addict going through withdrawal symptoms their bodies are detoxing as they struggle with uncomfortable emotions, yearning for the good-old-days of carefree, unconscious eating. At Hippocrates we have powerful tools to help them move forward, such as group support, individual counseling, and classes on how to live and eat healthily, instilling a new psychological approach firmly based on nutrition. By the end of the 3-week program at Hippocrates Health Institute the fog does finally lift (often by the end of the first week) and the light from ‘happy living-foods’ shines through, and feelings begin to soar. The burden of years of unhealthy eating and built-up toxins are removed and a new person is revealed - one that will be self-caring, self-nurturing and self-loving.

Believe in yourself and in the process and you will see what we experience all the time here at Hippocrates Health Institute. In living-foods we trust!