Ogden Ace: Eating healthy can change your life
Michael McDaniel shops for fresh fruit and vegetables at the Old Town Farmers Market In Winchester, Va., on Saturday. Despite the wealth of research linking nutritious diets to disease prevention, the importance of food receives little attention in most physicians’ practices. But a shift is slowly happening, doctors say.
Dan Litchford of South Ogden
Editor’s note: Welcome to our new column, “Ogden Ace.” Each week we’ll focus on a local issue or topic from the perspective of an expert or someone who knows how to hack the subject or take advantage of special, insider knowledge. Let us know if you have a topic you’d like to learn more about, or if you have insider knowledge you’d like to share, by emailing us at cityed@standard.net.
One lesson I’m learning well is that God’s pharmacy is food.
And with farmers markets in full swing, now is the perfect time to fulfill your divine prescription with the best possible natural medicine.
Nancy Litchford, a nutritionist at Healthy Me Health Foods in South Ogden, said when you shop at a farmers market or grow your own food, you get much more than fresh. You get whole foods, freshly picked after being vine-ripened, offering optimum-quality nutrients.
Buying organic also ensures that you’re not getting pesticides in your fruits and vegetables, she said.
Litchford said when farmers markets go away, frozen fruits and vegetables that were “zapped” at a ripened state are the best alternative.
Litchford is putting me on the health track she’s studied since the 1980’s.
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She must know something. Her husband, Dan Litchford, is a well-known character in the community who often lends me his friends when I need a comment for a story.
He is retired as a technical sales professor at Weber State University and is well-known for playing the guitar while singing “Believe it or not, I care.”
It was Nancy Litchford whose caring nature has kept Dan alive. He was instantly in dire need for help absorbing his nutrition when he had his ulcerous stomach removed in 1973.
BRIAN NICHOLSON/Special to the Standard-Examiner
Stephanie Grotzky, left, purchases some produce from Bonnie Biskey of Tagge’s Famous Fruit and Veggie Farms on Saturday, June 24, 2016, during the opening day of the Ogden Farmers Market on 25th Street.
“I learned nutrition because I had to,” Nancy said.
My favorite part about this story is how Dan has beat the odds. I never heard of anyone else who survived for long without a stomach.
It’s possible though, and Dan’s the proof.
Litchford’s fascination with helping her husband has led her to collect many scientific articles and journals about nutrition.
She shared with me a quote by Dr. Oz in the Septeber 2005 Reader’s Digest: “We believe that the study of how foods heal is the next frontier.”
She showed me an entire issue of Science Magazine from March 23, 2001, dedicated to carbohydrates and glycobiology, the study of sugars.
Magazine drawings showed cells being covered in natural sugars that scientists said were used for communication in the body.
Brian Nicholson, Special to the Standard-Examiner
Crowds check out the booth of Arrowhead Urban Farms during the opening day of the Ogden Farmers Market on 25th Street Saturday, June 24, 2016. (BRIAN NICHOLSON/Special to the Standard-Examiner)
Litchford also showed me scientific research linking gluten intolerance to dozens of diseases.
While I was at the health food store, I met Marcia Carter of Layton, who believes her diet changes have kept her cancer-free after a bout with colon cancer nine years ago.
Carter said she can feel her body regress when she doesn’t eat exactly right, especially at restaurants that use ingredients from which she normally shies away.
Litchford said the most important nutrition idea for keeping a person healthy is keeping their blood sugar level steady.
“Keep blood sugar steady with the right fats, fiber and protein,” she said.
Litchford said a heavily sugared breakfast can wear off and leave a person feeling low, and it encourages fat to form. She said going too long without food also creates too much insulin in the bloodstream, which also contributes to weight gain and pulls minerals from their cells.
She said high amounts of insulin leads to inflammation, which leads to disease.
Her other suggestion was to make sure you are eating a good variety of colors in your vegetables, since each color serves a different purpose.
I told Nancy that I had been on a sugar-free diet and had lost 14 pounds in two weeks. She said to watch out. Natural sugars are necessary for healthy eating, she said.
Fats also are important, she said, recommending that everyone get their share of good fats, including avocados, olive oil, coconut oil, butter made from grass-fed cows and fish. She showed me a book titled “Eat Fat, Get Thin,” by Dr. Mark Hyman.
She’s not the only Northern Utah resident who has made healthy choices by eating well.
Neil Higley, of Hooper, said he doesn’t get into the whole “diet clique,” but he said following a regimen has helped him get off medicines for Type 2 Diabetes.
He said his life changed when he heard about Shane Ellison, known as “The People’s Chemist.”
“A co-worker introduced me to his book ‘Over the Counter Natural Cures,’ and that got me from the diabetic medicine I was on,” Higley said.
He also said he benefited from advice from Farrah Pliley.
“I’m now back on what she got me going on with meal plans, and what she’s done for me was to level out the ups and downs of my blood sugar,” he said.
Amy Kohler, of Perry, said she found the Pliley diet too strict, but she enjoys following the Clean Food Crush diet.
“I started out slowly and worked myself into it,” she said. “First I cut out caffeine and pop. I slowly started cutting out fast food and sugar. I didn’t want my body to have withdrawals.”
She said the payoff was her fibromyalgia symptoms were lessened, and she started losing weight.
Debbie Schultz of Hooper said she doesn’t totally stay away from sugar.
“I eat a Nutritarian diet, which is also an anti-inflammatory diet,” she said. “My MS symptoms and arthritis have disappeared; however when I do eat too much sugar, the symptoms start to come back.”
You may reach reporter JaNae Francis at 801-625-4228. Follow her on Twitter at @JaNaeFrancisSE or like her on Facebook.
