Sometimes it isn’t just what we are eating but what we are missing out on.

When I was a teenager in a school of 1200 pupils, there was no violence, shouting abuse at teachers or swearing, and it wasn’t just the thought of being expelled that kept us in check or a wallop from our parents (although these were certainly deterrents to some degree), we were just not that way inclined. We were from all walks of life, rich and poor, some from council estates and some from more privileged backgrounds, yet we hardly even heard of a murder or child abduction, the only two that stand out in my mind are the James Hanratty and the Moors Murders. The reason, I am sure, is to do with the lack of additives in our food and the fact that frozen wasn’t readily available. There were certainly no frozen ready meals. I feel sure that Michael Ryan who went beserk in Hungerford, shooting and killing 16 people and injuring 15 others before turning the gun on himself, had been subsisting on a diet of junk food.

Although terrible in itself, it is nothing to the crime rate of today which has gone through the roof with a gun related incident every 55 minutes in the UK and roughly 11 murders a week. This escalation started about 30 years ago along with a rise in depression and other so-called mental illnesses, (a term I dislike because any mention of the word mental is automatically exchanged for ‘mad’ or ‘nutty’). There are many factors which contribute to its cause.

My mother used to buy fresh food everyday on her way home from work. No tinned food, no frozen food and nothing containing preservatives, artificial sweeteners, artificial sugar or colouring. That was the norm, but with the advent of ‘fast food’ and of the hypermarket situated just out of town so that one has to pollute the atmosphere to do a weeks shopping, most of which ends up in the freezer or endless tins stacked up in the cupboard, so we have one of the reasons for our ills.

Food that is frozen loses its goodness; the enzymes needed to digest it properly, as well as its vitamin and mineral content, being washed away in the water from it when it thaws. If the food isn’t organic, cooked fresh with minimal cooking or eaten raw, it has very little nutritional value. With the increase of stress in our lives, of the bust and boom economy, of being under pressure at work and afraid of losing our jobs and our homes, the worry of our children because of the pressure they are under to achieve at school never mind what may happen to them when they are out and about, is it any wonder we feel depressed, angry or even suicidal, without suffering from defective nutrition into the bargain, which alone can cause these feelings.

I have worked with people who have suffered from depression, anxiety, forgetfulness, confusional states and a whole range of other mental disorders and the first thing I do is check what they are eating before we investigate other avenues. Although I firmly believe that many problems go back to childhood and birth trauma, and the effects of rape, bereavement and other major incidents, unless it is obviously one of these, then food must be considered first. Even the food you eat at night can influence the way you feel in the morning.

Food is such an important factor that I have re-named ‘serial killers’ to ‘cereal killers’ after a report by Dr. C Keith Connors of the Children’s Hospital in Washington, DC, who ‘established a deadly link between the consumption of sugar with carbohydrates (such as breakfast cereal, cake and biscuits) and violent behaviour, hypertension and learning impediments.’ Whilst in another report, chronic violence in prisons was remarkably reduced simply by eliminating refined sugar and starch from prison diets and in Singapore in 1991, all sugary soft-drinks were banned from schools and youth centres, their reason being that it posed a danger to the physical and mental health of children.

People who suffer from depression and related problems do not need psychiatrists, even if the problem is one of trauma. No amount of talking about it will make it go away. Trauma can be dealt with homoeopathically, the next port of call after the person’s food has been checked.

To this end I have written a book entitled,

*Depression, Food and Homoeopathy: Your Gateway to Health.

This is a guide to enable the layman to treat himself or at least have an informed opinion on where his or her problems lay, and will give insights to, I hope, to those who are wrongfully institutionalized, through their relations or friends increased awareness, and, hopefully, those more enlightened of the medical profession who are humble enough to admit they don’t know it all.

*Depression, Food and Homoeopathy: A Gateway to Health, gives in-depth advice on diet and depressive and mental states, as well as a wide range of homoeopathic profiles to help with everything from simple depression, anxiety and panic attacks, mental confusion, suicidal tendencies, violent and bizarre behaviour.

Available from June 2008, price to be advised, but will not be more than £5.00 excluding postage and packing. To reserve a copy or to be notified on its immediate availability, please email me on:-

starlightdevi@yahoo.co.uk

For consultations on the above, general enquiries as well as allergy testing, please telephone me on (01686) 668076.