New Solutions to Old Problems - An interview with the producers of Food Matters
Sometimes I feel that it would be infinitely easier to pretend that our world’s healthcare problems do not exist. It would be bliss to trust that our food industry operates with the public’s best interests at heart and that the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry are committed to human health. I suspect however that you already realize that this is currently a fairy tale dream. Or perhaps you’re like many others and understandably feel confronted by criticism of these paradigms. Whatever the case may be, James Colquhoun and Laurentine ten Bosch have learned the hard way.
In 2003, James’ father experienced a severe health crisis. After decades of working in stressful conditions and consuming a typical western diet, Roy Colquhoun’s body completely shut down. Bedridden for months with depression, chronic fatigue, anxiety and severe flu-like symptoms, Roy sought the best medical care available. Psychiatrists and medical specialists recommended a myriad of drugs that did nothing to alleviate Roy’s physical ailments and, Roy asserts, actually worsened his mental condition.
“My life was a psychotic daze and spiraling downward out of control,” Roy recalls. “Ultimately, this lead to my psychiatrist admitting me to a specialist psychiatric hospital for a period of thirty days. This hospitalization did not help and all that was achieved was a change in the ingredients of my cocktail of prescription medication. Feelings of hopelessness started to predominate my life. Suicide was becoming a frightening and very real option.”
As a professional businessman with obstinate faith in conventional practices, Roy was initially very unreceptive when James and Laurentine encouraged him to read about the natural health methods they were learning about. Roy explains his attitude at the time was, “If the best of the medical profession could not help me, how could my son and daughter-in-law with their nutrition and vitamin-based approach help?”
James and Laurentine understood that it would take powerful measures to shock Roy into kicking his dangerous pharmaceutical drug habit. After realizing that he wasn’t reading the books that they sent him, the duo set off around the world interviewing experienced doctors, researchers, naturopaths and journalists. Their reasoning was that if Roy wouldn’t read the books then maybe he would listen to these experts on DVD.
“They arrived on my doorstep and I was told they were not leaving until I recovered,” Roy remembers. Seeing the filmed footage of all these experts clearly had its desired effect. “After five years on heavy doses of anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, anxiety medication and sleeping tablets, I started taking therapeutic doses of vitamins and minerals and within a week had withdrawn from all prescription medication.” Also, with some not-so-gentle persuasion according to Roy, “I was ordered onto a ten day detox, eating only raw food and no alcohol and continuing on a special cleansing diet thereafter.”
The results? Nothing short of spectacular. Roy suffered none of the serious drug withdrawal side-effects cautioned by the medical profession. Today, he is disease-free, drug-free, twenty kilograms lighter, running twice a week and enjoying a happy retirement. Roy’s return to health was incredibly inspiring evidence of the power of nutritional therapy. “What we learned throughout this journey was so astounding that we wanted to share it with others, and so Food Matters the documentary was born,” James explains with his characteristic passion.
The beauty of Food Matters is that its message has ubiquitous relevance - not only to those who are as sick as James’s father was but also to those looking to prevent illness in their lives but who seem to have become bewildered by the often contradicting health information available to them. With raw honesty, Food Matters cuts through this confusion to reveal how a poor diet coupled with a pill-popping dependency serves the longevity of big business - but not you. In the words of featured nutritional therapy expert Dr. Andrew Saul, “Good health makes a lot of sense, but it doesn’t make a lot of dollars”.
“We’re not suggesting that pharmaceutical drugs don’t have their place, we’re suggesting that our overburdened healthcare practitioners perhaps do not have the time to educate people about nutrition and healthy living,” James points out. “Food Matters was created to help fill that void”.
Experts such as Charlotte Gerson explain that the human body is self-curative when it functions in good health. She is adamant that “a normal healthy body cannot and will not develop cancer or any other illness for that matter”. Conversely, when our innate healing systems become damaged by an un-natural diet and a toxic environment, disease manifests. Whilst drugs have their place in medical emergencies, chronic use merely masks the symptoms of disease and impedes profound healing.
The journey to good health can sometimes feel too overwhelming to start. Part of the magic of Food Matters is that it is an entertaining and solution-oriented springboard for taking your first step toward feeling good. Food Matters does not involve hours of lecturing scientists or extremist New Age diet ideas. It’s just eighty minutes of powerful common-sense, practical solutions to our current health crisis.
It is very seductive to pretend that our current healthcare problems do not exist. What I’m beginning to realize is that I may never be able to change the way people eat but I can do my very best today to make choices that serve my body and our planet. Food Matters delivers the message that only you are capable of transcending the madness of our current ‘sickcare industry’ and reclaiming the vibrant health that is rightfully yours.
Visit www.foodmatters.com to watch the trailer to the movie and discover for yourself why this film managed to gain such strong momentum worldwide and sparked a revolution in natural healthcare solutions.
written by Kali Gray
