Reboot Healthy Pilipinas! How Can You Get A Better Diet Except Via Healthy Foods?

Is the PH Department of Health (DOH) fully aware when presenting to the public what it calls “7 Healthy Habits (for) a Healthy Heart”? The list: “(1) Move More, Eat Right. (2) Be Clean, Live Sustainably. (3) Get Vaccinated. (4) Don’t Smoke, Lessen Alcohol, Say No To Drugs. (5) Care For Yourself, Care For Others. (6) Practice Safe Sex. (7) Do No Harm, Put Safety First.” I see the DOH knows – but not enough!

But something is wrong with “Eat Right” – it does not explain that the foods we are eating right now, from babies to adults to seniors like me, are unhealthy foods – they are grown with chemical fertilizers and pesticides! Don’t our doctors know that?!

And there is something missing with “Live Sustainably.” According to the Cambridge Dictionary (dictionary.cambridge.org), “sustainable” means “able to continue over a period of time.” Therefore, “sustainable” means there is neither deterioration nor improvement in the status. I prefer “regenerative” – specifically Regenerative Agriculture, where the best features keep on reproducing themselves: naturally healthy soils & crops & animals & farmers – including healthy incomes and healthy villages!

I say that for its public campaign “Healthy Pilipinas” (“Healthy Philippines”), the DOH must be aware that much of our crops are being grown using chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides – and therefore the foods that our farmers produce have chemical residues in them, which our bodies absorb and cannot get rid of healthfully.

How do we do regenerative agriculture? Among other things, inorganic fertilizers are taboo and only organic fertilizers are applied – those derived from natural substances (once-living matter).

Now therefore, “Eat Right” must be changed to “Eat Organic!”

On its Facebook page, “Healthy Pilipinas” says it is a government organization. It has a website: Healthy Pilipinas (healthypilipinas.ph), where it says:

Slogan: “Healthy Barangay, Healthy Pilipinas!”
Choose a healthy lifestyle and say no to harmful substances.
Let’s work together to promote a smoke[-]free, alcohol[-]free, and drug[-]free community.

“Healthy Pilipinas” does not realize but I do that the foods we eat, from Philippine farms or imports, have been produced via Chemical Agriculture that use, let me repeat: chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides. Those chemical fertilizers and pesticides are harmful substances; they are drugs and therefore, our agriculture and the foods that it produces are not drug-free!

Now therefore, the Fiesta of Health should begin not with the Department of Health but with the Department of Agriculture (DA). Currently, most of the foods that we eat are grown via Chemical Agriculture: chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides. So, what kind of food do we get from our farms? Assuredly, laden with chemicals!

On its Facebook page, “Healthy Pilipinas” says:

Muli, lagi natin tandaan, para katawan ay laging win, 7 healthy habits ang sundin!
Para sa isang Healthy Pilipinas!

(“Again, let us always remember, for our body to always win, 7 healthy habits must be in mind” – my free translation.)

My parting words to my country’s Department of Health: “Do no harm, put food safety first!” Better: “Always, Fiesta of Health begins with Healthy Foods!”@517