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The Boston Solution
March 17th 2008
To: Paul Grogan
From: David Snieckus
Dear Mr. Grogan:
This is a both a request for a meeting on the feasibility of a grant and a health strategy paper answering the question posed by you in your cover letter for THE BOSTON PARADOX: Lots of Health Care, Not Enough Health.
As President and CEO of the Boston Foundation, you wrote in June of 2007, “How can it be that here, in the hub of American Medicine, we enjoy a world-class health care system, and yet do not have enough health. As this report details, some of the most important health strategies are preventative, including good diet and exercise. The Boston Paradox demonstrates that it is now imperative for Greater Boston to become innovative in public health strategies as we have been in medical strategies.”
The innovation in a public health strategy that I propose is:
Common Health for the Commonwealth!
I propose the introduction of the voluntary study AND application of an ancient, inexpensive health care plan and path that can easily show everyone how to obtain optimal health care at home rather than the current modern, expensive health care system that we have in doctor’s offices and hospitals.
For hundreds of generations, people have based their health on the principle of living in harmony with their environment and on the holistic understanding that mind, body and spirit are one. This is contrary to the current medical system which is based on the principle of disharmony and which considers the body, mind and spirit as separate.
The old paradigm empowered individuals to take responsibility for themselves in relation to their environment through self-care and understanding. This modern paradigm enslaves people by addicting them to doctors, drugs and medications through fear, lies and repetitive advertising. The traditional paradigm empowered independence and self-responsibility. The modern paradigm encourages a victim mentality and dependence in which people turn over their power.
Instead of doctors and nurses always recommending drugs, medications, chemotherapy, radiation, and surgeries that are expensive and often futile, consider a plan that teaches them to recommend plant-based, whole food dietary changes that are relatively inexpensive and scientifically proven with hundreds of scientific publications that “point the way to less cancer, less diabetes, less autoimmune disease, less osteoporosis, less Alzheimer’s, less kidney stones and less blindness,” as stated by T. Colin Campbell, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry of Cornell University in THE CHINA STUDY, the most comprehensive study of nutrition ever conducted, and which, based on hundreds of scientific studies and research, concludes that a plant-based diet can prevent and even reverse disease.
Everyone can begin this. Everyone can begin to understand that the most powerful weapon we have against disease and sickness is a good diet! They just need to be shown how! Together, we can teach the community to move towards eating locally grown, organic, fresh wholesome plant-based foods. Together we can teach people how to select, prepare and cook a vegetable-based diet.
In order for any innovative health strategies to become effective over the long haul, we must begin a revolution in public health consciousness that primarily pays attention to the holistic or mind-body-spirit connection to the food we eat!
For most of us, in the past seventy years, the responsibility to heal ourselves has been given up to the medical and pharmaceutical industry: doctors, nurse, hospitals and drugs. They may be able to save us in emergencies, but they surely can’t cure us. That’s why we have lots of healthcare and not enough health! With the increase of the use of pharmaceutical drugs, the appeal of corrective medicine has almost eclipsed preventive measures as the scientifically valid approach to healthcare. As drugs captivated and addicted the consumer consciousness, the traditional emphasis on self-care faded into near obscurity. However, today people are beginning to take back responsibility for their own healing. They are making the shift from processed foods to unprocessed whole foods, from delegating responsibility to doctors and drugs, to taking full responsibility for their health and learning the principles of “human medicine” as coined by Michio Kushi and described on the enclosure. Furthermore, lots of ordinary stressed out, strung out and worried people are rethinking their current lifestyle and desiring complete and lasting healing for personal growth. They have started with a solution that is right under our noses, literally and figuratively; they have started with what they put in their mouths! It’s time that the medical establishment catch-up.
Everyone knows we must eat! One fact I know, everyone loves to eat! The question is, “What food is best to eat?” By having our health based on high-quality food chosen and selected and cooked and eaten in a manner that creates health rather than destroys health, we actually can secure our present and future condition.
Common health for the commonwealth will be found in the selection, preparing and cooking of the food we eat.
Food is the most important and vital part of our lives. Food is any substance that we select, chew, ingest, digest, assimilate or internalize, and then make part of ourselves. We are the food we eat! The food we eat changes into our body and blood and affects our minds and spirits. Should we therefore not pay close attention to what we put in our mouths?
You may think eating properly is going to be a long and difficult task for Bostonians to undertake. But it doesn’t have to be. There are innovative ways to use The Boston Foundation’s resources before they are “eaten away by the costs of preventable chronic disease.”
I ask for a meeting to discuss how we can establish a grant to begin teaching and training the citizens of Massachusetts towards a plant-based diet! Over 25 years ago, there were bans on smoking which have resulted in greater health. A few days ago, articles in the media about eliminating trans-fats in our diets were widespread. These laws, these mandatory requirements, may have short term effects, but I believe encouragement, inspiration and motivation are better ways to make changes. I have been eating a plant-based diet for over 30 years after eating a meat-based diet for 30 years. I have the experience, the motivation, the drive and the conviction to go forward with a plan to help the commonwealth secure the common health they so desperately need. I can show by example, because I already am doing it.
I have a couple of ideas that we can go forward with that I’d love to discuss with you soon. I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely and Healthfully,
DAVID SNIECKUS
99 Crescent Street
Newton, MA02466
617-964-2951
www.davidsnieckus.com
