The uses of the drugs in herbs for their specific physical properties is the more advanced aspect of using food for medicine, but the use of the nutrition in food as preventive medicine is simpler and more important, since it guides the design of your diet. Below are the three contributions to dietary understanding that I value most.
Certain primitive cultures had a rare understanding of nutrition that would produce extreme vigor in their harsh living conditions, but that information is never talked about in school. Weston Price introduced me to this knowledge in his book "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration", and there is foundation in his name today spreading this information. He didn't cover the Hunzas, but they are another example of great health attained with nutrition.
I also stumbled upon the work of two seperate raw foodists, David Wolfe and Aajonus Vonderplanitz, one raw vegan and the other raw omnivore. Although I value both systems, the healing modality of Aajonus is far more potent, with great potential to add to the understanding of modern medicine, and it is my dream to get profesional medical researchers to perform a study on cancer patients using his diet. There are many who will try his diet for such a purpose on their own, so a hospital might as well monitor the process and results. This is the 5th chapter of his book for a sample of his viewpoint, and he will be interviewed here on live internet radio tomorrow June 5th.
Healthy living
I agree -- if more people would eat healthier, they would be healthier. There is so much emphasis on finding pharmaceutical methods to individual diseases that more effective and beneficial solutions are overlooked. Logic would dictate that cancer rates would be reduced with a reduction in eating processed & pesticide-laden foods, but I would love to see studies in this respect.