I grew up with a mom who always served at least three different vegetables on our plate—and often added a side salad, too. She emphasized the importance of color, variety, and trying everything at least once. 

 👏 Hand clap for Mom.

She passed away 15 years ago, during a whirlwind season of my life - four young kids at home, a demanding corporate job, and very little space to process anything beyond the next to-do.

I wish I could thank her now for all the quiet lessons she taught me at the dinner table. 

Her wisdom—about food, nourishment, and showing up for family—has stayed with me in ways I couldn’t fully appreciate at the time.

What would you think if you left your doctor’s office with this type of prescription?:  

• Eat one cup of blueberries per week

• Eat 2-3 cups of tomato sauce per week

• Eat a handful of walnuts every day

And that’s just for starters.  Dr. William Li, a leading cancer scientist and physician, who also serves on the faculty at Harvard Medical School, has taken the notion of “food is medicine” to a whole new level.  

His book Eat to Beat Disease looks at the different types of foods that can make a difference in staving off cancer - and to which level those foods need to be consumed in order to have an impact.  It is pretty compelling.

While this may sound a bit extreme, when you get right down to it -  

Every morsel of food has the ability to prevent disease … or create disease.  It has the ability to amp up, or amp down, bad genes.