Health on your plate

Long before the high-profile health gurus of today told their clients to go back to nature for a fit,healthy body,Dr Satyendra Singh Goindi steered many of his clients towards good health with the mantra of naturo-food therapy. His dream now is to start the Goindis Health and Nutrition Mission in collaboration with like-minded friends. Dr Goindi points out that even though society today is affluent,it is poor in terms of health. Low immunity,points out the 80-year-old,is not a question of affluence or standard of life. “It depends on your lifestyle and the challenges you face,” and one of the major causes of poor health are wrong living habits,including wrong eating habits. “More and more people work indoors and seek entertainment indoors,in multiplexes and malls. The rich are actually in a worse situation than the poor as far as immunity levels are concerned,which leaves their natural defences low,” points out Dr Goindi.

The doc and his wife Gurkirpal Kaur Goindi observe that with heavy advertising by restaurants and food chains,the middle class thinks going in for junk food or packaged food is a status symbol. “They do not realise that these foods are high in price,but low in nutrients and health-giving properties. The poor become ill due to malnutrition,and the rich are weak because they eat the wrong food,in the wrong quantity,” says Dr Goindi.

Obesity,stresses Dr Goindi,is the first disease. “With growing affluence of society,it is assuming proportions of an epidemic. The focus of medical science,he highlights,continues to be on treatment of diseases,and not on their prevention. “What we advocate is holistic prevention against all anti-health factors. We must be naturally fit and strong as nature means us to be,” he says.

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Some years back,Dr Goindi had successfully advocated his ideas in England,through the Holistic Naturo Food Therapy Trust. The couple went to England with Dr Goindi’s former patient Santokh Singh Parmar,who benefited much by their advice. “I was overweight,had diabetes,high cholesterol and osteoarthritis. My health has greatly improved after I followed their advice,” says Parmar,who made significant changes in diet at home and stuck to it through the years. Santokh Singh Parmar became so interested in naturo-food therapy after gaining good health that he worked closely with Dr Goindi both in England and back here in India. Along with Dr Goindi,Parmar now offers advice to patients on this therapy at a gurudwara in Mohali.

Dr Goindi’s other patient,Dr Bhagat Singh Makkar,had been a general practitioner in England for 35 years,with the National Health Service. “I had diabetes and took insulin daily,but have greatly benefited from Dr Goindi’s advice,” smiles Makkar.