Critical Filipino health challenges

Over the last 20 years, the landscape of health issues plaguing Filipinos has dramatically changed. So-called “lifestyle diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure and heart diseases have become leading killers when they were virtually non-existent until the 1980’s. 

“The biggest challenge is availability and affordability of healthy wholesome food, misinformation about what constitutes truly healthy food,” explains Angelo Songco, an entrepreneur behind Sugarleaf Makati, a one-stop resource assisting those sincerely seeking health and wellness. “Big companies have all the resources to advertise what is not necessarily the healthiest things to eat and drink.  Most people also focus more on convenience rather than quality when it comes to preparing food.  And this can get especially bad for young children.”

Given the easy access to convenient fast foods and processed, packaged food in brightly colored packaging in supermarkets, what can weary working parents do to mitigate the health risks and change their kids’ eating habits, as well as our own?

“Introducing natural, organic food in our diet, one kind at a time, we can start with eating fruits first at the start of the meal instead of at the end of the meal,” says Gina Yambot, an accountant and business operations expert who runs Sugarleaf Makati’s day-to-day operations. If we do it gradually and start with what we want first, then it is not hard work at all, we also have to listen to our body in order to know what works best. Your body will not lie, any effect of the food we take, good or bad will show up eventually.”

There have been many health trends sparked by documentaries like the classic “Supersize Me” and the more recent viral hit “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead”, which chronicled the impact of juicing on a young stockbroker from Australia, who lost over 90 pounds in two months of a strict vegetable juice diet. In the US, approximately 60 percent of people are overweight. Even children in the Philippines are gradually growing up sedentary and fat, a frightening change in our demographic which we will feel in the next few years. Juicing has been incorporated into the lifestyles of those who have been actively alternatives to what is readily available.

“If you juice a good combination of vegetables and fruit (up to 70 to 80% veggies), you shouldn’t feel hungry right away as there is good balance of nutrients,” adds Songco, a cum laude graduate in hotel and restaurant management from the University of the Philippines in Diliman. “However, we do not promote juice fasts and instead just encourage people to incorporate fresh vegetable and fruit juice into their regular eating habits especially for those who eat a lot of meat and processed food. Drink probiotics which help balance the intestinal flora of our digestive system. Many a health advocate will say that a healthy gut is a healthy body. Even if we eat the healthiest food, if our digestive system is not functioning properly, the nutrients will be absorbed optimally.”

Juicing is different from simply mashing vegetables and fruits in a blender. Blended raw food is too thick to really drink straight. Juicing separates the juice from insoluble fiber. Insoluble fiber can still be used to thicken soups and keep ground meats moist. However, a common complaint of those who’ve tried juicing is the claim that they get hungry right away. Some people have gotten used to the sensation of heaviness in the stomach produced by eating meats and fast foods. That feeling is absent when consuming only liquids, as in juicing.

“If you use a slow juicer, there are no hunger pangs. Personally, when I drink cold pressed, slow juice at 6 in morning, I am full until 12 noon,” adds Yambot. “Juicing should be a part of our daily diet, we maximize the nutrients and enzyme when we juice.”

 For health advocates like Songco and Yambot, it is important not to be preachy and threatening when advocating a healthy lifestyle, and not to give in to faddish diet trends. The repeated scare of illness and social need to lose weight makes changing one’s diet a pressure-packed, serious experience no one really enjoys.

“As a person who loves to eat (healthy food or otherwise), I am able to sustain a moderately healthy lifestyle because I am exposed to it in the store,” Songco explains. “But outside or when I travel, I make it a point to eat veggies as much as possible. I occasionally still eat fast food but seldom sodas. At home, we do not consume white rice, white sugar and commercially grown eggs and instead go for unpolished rice, brown, coconut sugar or honey and free range eggs.”

What is important is that we make a conscious effort to eat healthier, stay away from sugars, salts and fats, and try to get moderate exercise at least three times a week. Forming new habits takes a month or two until it takes hold, so it’s going to take some effort in the beginning. What will keep one motivated is feeling the effects of having more energy, being more alert, and the general sensation of being stronger. In this regard, Sugarleaf sort of took a page from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s book. In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, the young Austrian bodybuilder rocketed to fame by telling American media that bodybuilding was great for your sex life.

“We want to dispel misconceptions that healthy doesn’t taste good, is expensive, difficult to prepare, and is mostly just vegetables. For us, there is room in a healthy diet for some animal products, dairy and eggs as long as these are grown organically or naturally,” concludes Songco. “I recall a US certified nutritionist telling me that making “eat healthy so you don’t get sick” a motivation may not be too convincing for young people.  Instead, we go for people’s inherent vanity and tell them that eating healthy makes you slim, glow, feel and look young and have more energy – and who wouldn’t like that?”

Sugarleaf Makati is at the MediCard Lifestyle Center, Paseo de Roxas corner Sen. Gil Puyat Avenue, Makati City. They may be reached through telephone number +632-8127323, mobile +63917-8039055 and their website, www.sugarleaf.ph.