Allopathic Medicine In Western Culture

As our Society becomes more educated on how our food choices affect our health and wellbeing, Allopathic medicine needs to recognize its value. Since the beginning of mankind, people have used foods to not only fill their stomachs, but also to heal their bodies. Food can affect our health and even our emotions in both positive and negative ways. Allopathic medicine, evidence based science, looks at food mainly for its caloric value: using food to heal is looked and frowned upon, as “Alternative” medicine. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Ayurvedic medicine though practiced for centuries have found their way into Western Cultures, becoming more popular as a way to become healthier.

Allopathic medicine is an evidence based science:

Diet and exercise along with medications are some of the main components of CAM. Because CAM recognized that diet is essential to our health, and food is important to each individual providing sensations of taste, smell and even plays on our emotions. It is becoming more popular in Western cultures (Zander, et. al 2004). Allopathic medicine does not recognize any medical model that uses food as medicine. There is clearly a place for both. In cultures that have used these “alternative” medicines it is found that the poor will practice these modalities more, where in the Western civilizations, it is the wealthy that will practice these. And the poor are more likely to go to the allopathic doctor. This needs to change; a proper diet is not only for the affluent in Western societies. We all need to embrace the idea that the food we eat can either heal or hurt our bodies. One of the main factors of why the affluent in Western Societies follow a proper diet and not the poor is due to the high costs of “real” food. It can be cheaper to eat at a fast food restaurant, than buying fruits and vegetables. This is a sad state of affairs, in poorer countries food is much cheaper, and going to a doctor is for the affluent. Diet needs to be an essential part of any comprehensive health system, and to work cohesively together (Zander, et. al

Because of doctors like these more and more of Western societies have become aware of what foods can do for our bodies. Their theory is that the human body does have a defensive system and ability to fight many diseases. (Xu, Xu, 2006) These doctors are few and far between, why do we know them? Because they are in the mainstream media, yet most Allopathic doctors will naysay them as quacks, they don’t know what they are talking about, and just looking for 15 minutes of fame. With the increased awareness, Western societies are becoming more aware of the effect of food and our health. With this increased awareness, Allopathic doctors need to recognize that more people are trying to take control of their own health. When these people go to their doctor they are afraid to say “I’m taking turmeric for my migraine and it works”, because the doctor will deny that turmeric will do this, that they really didn’t have a migraine in the first place. Or even that eating more chicken with ginger to help control their blood sugars (Hyman