Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine your food, said Hippocrates,  Food and not drug should form the basis of healthy living. In today’s stress-filled life, either you neglect your health, or keep the physician’s coffers full.

Nature has given us abundant cures for various diseases — ancient remedies that validate their curing qualities.   It is asserted that eating raw or cooked vegetables doesn’t have as much impact as when its juice is extracted. Leafy vegetables, carrot and tomato top the list. They take care of varying problems, which are related to the digestion and purifying of blood.

Grapes, lemon, honey, apricot, figs, almonds, cashew, peach, banana and amla keep constipation at bay. Have cabbage, potato, and boiled lady’s finger or a spoon of methi seeds soaked overnight in half a cup of water and a month later, say goodbye to gastric ulcers.

Cabbage, bitter gourd, garlic, celery and carrot take care of arthritis problems  while apple and banana juice controls rheumatism. Try tulsi , neem, carrot and turmeric paste for eczema. See your skin glow with cucumber and lime and a papaya a day keeps those wrinkles away. Bottle gourd and radish leaves take care of urinary problems. Kidney stones can be treated with cranberry, radish, garlic and honey. Keep your heart ticking with beetroot, coriander, cabbage and apple. Teeth and bones benefit with mosambi, apple, figs, alfafa, cabbage and cinnamon.

Diabetes is a killer, say those afflicted by it. Control your sugar levels with cucumber, french beans, karela juice and soyabean in your diet, and for those who can’t handle only vegetables, a roasted spleen (goat)  a day.
Sore throats and cough vanish with honey, grape, turmeric, pineapple and beetroot. Keep your vision sharp with amla and carrot. Radish, lemon and tulsi for healthy teeth. For dandruff, rub vinegar, lime or curds or ginger paste. Decoction of carrot, alfafa and lettuce juice rubbed into the scalp is said to give lustrous hair.
Want to look fair and lovely? Throw out those medicated products, mix two teaspoons of honey, one lemon, and one teaspoon of pure alcohol, bottle it and apply for sunburn.

For a sharp brain, almonds top the list as brain food. Five almonds, one walnut, three to four times a week. Spinach, coriander, methi, carrot and karela..sure may not taste like nectar, but they are a sure cure for anaemia.
To prevent nausea during pregnancy, drink orange, bottle gourd and methi. A decoction of tulsi, lime, jaggery, black pepper, every few hours for malaria, and a decoction of mint, onion and lemon juice to fight cholera tiredness. Potato juice with honey  for prostrate malfunction.

A teaspoon of honey, prevents bedwetting and those numerous trips to the loo at night. You don’t have to drown gallons. Three to five ounces at short intervals is fine, in case of severe symptoms, otherwise drink 6-8 ozs first thing in the morning, and laugh your way through life, without strife.