My name is Ben Rockefeller. I edit HealthViaFood. I am a technical writer and commercial translator. I also have experience in IT, developing application software and setting up accounting systems.
I am 61 (in this picture), healthy and happy. My passion and hobby is maintaining my health myself. My greatest pleasure in life is simply being healthy. By the way, I am not skinny. I am a healthy ectomorph.
HealthViaFood summarizes and simplifies a series of ideas about health, food, nutrition, and cooking. The sources are books by unconventional medical doctors. These ideas make it possible to personalize nutrition, to forget about calories, and to lose weight effortlessly.
About twelve years ago, I had various health problems. I did not want to become dependent on prescriptions. I realized that the main choice I had was what to eat or not eat, besides getting sunshine, water, rest, fresh air, and exercise. So I read a lot of books. I gradually learned to change my eating habits. I transformed my health, and I can show you how to transform yours. I am so happy to be healthy that I published this website, which summarizes the ideas that made this possible for me. Of course, what works for me may or may not work for you. Metabolically, we are each individuals. Biochemical individuality is an ancient concept.
The app is in your mind, if you first open it. Specifically, the ideas are:
- food combining,
- acid-alkaline balance,
- blood type eating,
- detoxification,
- eliminations (sugar, dairy, wheat, and seed oils),
- chrono-nutrition, and
- intermittent fasting.
How to apply these ideas depends on the individual, their current eating habits, their concerned partners or family members, and their personal history. Many of these ideas are a hundred years old or more. Some are ancient. They have withstood the test of time. At the same time, their authors are not infallible. Each idea can be uncertain, perhaps twenty-percent uncertain.
Is an eighty percent chance of results not worth some of your time to try an idea for your health?
Let us assume that each of seven key ideas is only eighty percent certain (80% certain and 20% uncertain). If you combine three ideas, then you can reduce the uncertainty. Twenty percent of twenty percent of twenty percent is less than one percent (20% x 20% x 20% = .8%). So it is ninety-nine percent probable that a combination of any three of these ideas will work for you. I can guarantee it, conditionally, depending only on a change in eating habits and a few weeks of persistence.
Many people see results of even only one idea in as little as one to three weeks. If an idea does not work for you in one to three weeks, then you could try another idea. This simply requires the strength of mind to break some of your habits – for your health.
By the way, I am not selling supplements. There are no ads, no sponsors, and no commercial affiliates on HealthViaFood.
The simple biological fact is that if you are overweight for your innate body shape (morphology), then you are not healthy. For example, environmental toxins, such as heavy metals, accumulate in adipose (fat) tissue. If you lose the toxins, gently detoxifying yourself, then you lose the weight.
Before you assess an idea, I suggest that you do your own research, ask questions, compare answers, and think for yourself. Many conventional doctors have secretly used these ideas and the related methods to heal themselves and their patients of chronic diseases. I am not a doctor, so I focus on health. The law in Belgium, where I live, forbids me from making any “health claims”, any statements about diagnosis, prevention, treatment, or cure of disease. The law does not prohibit me from citing and referring to what doctors have already published in books and articles. References are included at the end of each article and in the links.
Who is responsible for your health? You are. What is the most powerful thing that you can do to improve your health? Learn to cook. It begins with a stable cutting board and a sharp knife. If I can learn to cook, so can you.
If you focus on your health first, then changing your habits is less difficult than focusing on weighing yourself weekly, counting calories, and referring to color-coded charts. For many people, losing weight is a natural side effect of gaining health. “Look for the truth, and your health will follow,” as Dr. Herbert Shelton MD, author of “Food Combining Made Easy“, put it. The truth is inside you, if you look for it.
Each of us has a vital force, a spark of life, that wants to be healthy and happy. If you are healthy now, then you are probably already conscious of some or all of these ideas. If not, why not keep an open mind.
Good health starts in the gut with healthy digestion. What is optimal digestion? It begins with an absence of constipation, bloating, diarrhea, stomach pains, and excess gas. It continues with absorption and assimilation of nutrients, minerals, and vitamins from your food into your blood, tissues, organs, and bones. It ends with complete elimination of waste. Good digestion can bring vibrant health, weight loss, and a long life. If your digestion is healthy, then you are healthy. This is ancient wisdom. It is not as simple as “eat a balanced diet” or “eat more fruits and vegetables”.
There is no quick fix. Gardeners and athletes know that it takes weeks or months to prepare their gardens or their bodies for the harvest or for the competition. Why do so many people expect instant results to solve their health problems and to lose weight?
I am not a doctor. Except for a certificate from a part-time nutrition school in Belgium (cerden), I have no formal academic qualifications to write about health, nutrition, or food. So why believe me – about your health via your food? Why? Because these methods work for many, many people, on only two conditions – a change of eating habits and a true desire to be healthy.
My knowledge of health via food comes mostly from self-study, trial and error, and observations over the last ten years. This irritates many health professionals, academics, and official experts like a fly in their soup. My question to them is: why in case of chronic illness is a change in eating habits the last resort and not the first resort? My question to you is: what is worth more to you – your health or your habits?
We have a food industry that takes almost no account of health at the same time that we have a health industry that takes almost no account of food. It does not matter what country you are in nor what language you speak. Even the World Health Organization points out that there are more people on earth who are obese than people who are starving. Many of the obese are malnourished. This makes no sense to me.
I am not here to complain, to criticize, nor to demonize anybody, but to offer specific, practical, positive information that you can use to maintain your health yourself, gently and naturally, via your food. Again, if you do not agree with these ideas, then you are free to leave your questions or constructive criticism at the end of each article. You can also email me. Let us tolerate different opinions, but avoid political discussion and discussion about disease on this site. Let us discuss direct observations, facts, methods, and ideas, and not personalities.
Again, I suggest that you be skeptical. Do not believe me. Check facts yourself. Verify. Do your own research.
What is the difference with this site, the ideas, and the methods?
- You can personalize your nutrition.
- You can forget about calories.
- I do not sell supplements.
- It is vegan-agnostic.
- It is not about a diet, but about ideas.
What did I do myself to transform my health? I learned to avoid refined sugar and to substitute small amounts of pure stevia. Gradually, I learned to cut wheat and to substitute oats, buckwheat, millet, quinoa, and starchy vegetables, and then to cut cereals and beans from what I usually eat. I then cut dairy and substituted coconut milk and water for milk. What works for me may not work for you.
I experimented with veganism, but it did not work for me. Then I switched to paleo. Then I found blood type eating, which explains why veganism is healthy for some people, but not for everybody. The body is a garden, not a machine. My garden is not your garden.
Regarding science, particularly the biology (physiology) of digestion, attributing cause-and-effect is never certain, but the relevant questions are always:
- What is the science, and who is the scientist?
- What is any personal interest or point of view of the scientist or their sponsor?
- Is the science, as described by the scientist, based on a grand theory, or is it based on the observations (or trial and error) of the scientist?
- What are the specific observations (or the trial and error)? If the observations are not direct, then who made the observations?
- Have others repeated these observations?
- Is it possible to prove that the conclusion is false, for example in a controlled experiment or with possible contrary observations? If not, then what is the proof of the theory?
- Can the science be used to predict anything with any accuracy?
- Is it new?
I am a healthy skeptic of what is often referred to as “evidence-based medicine“. For me and my health, medicine is for emergencies. Nobody has a monopoly on the truth. I am here simply to present ideas that you can use to gain health and to reach a healthy weight.
By the way, I am not acquainted with the family that exploited petroleum and undermined honest medical education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. My hobbies are reading, watching films, bicycling, cooking, traveling, and keeping myself healthy. If you have a medical condition, see a doctor.
Nothing in this site is intended to prevent, diagnose, treat, or cure any disease.
