We are waking up to the fact that doctors are not the answer to our problems. Dishing out anti-biotics to treat symptoms instead of the cause means that health problems are prolonged rather than cured. On top of that doctors waiting lists, the traditionally unhelpful doctors receptionist and the attitude of many doctors who take as little time as possible to treat us, drive us to an alternative.

Many of the health problems we have nowadays are because of our diet. Newspapers report it, and deep down we all know it, but the information is so conflicting that most people end up more confused than informed, and so we tend to ignore the information altogether.

We are brainwashed into believing that with new methods of farming, global food imports and the ready supply of processed foods in supermarkets, we are eating better than ever. The real picture however is that as our choices widen, the nutritional content of food is decreasing dramatically, and is going unnoticed and almost forgotten.

Our natural instincts are to eat food which tastes the best. This would be normally be fresh fruit and vegetables, however, the global food market pick produce when unripe and ship it in gas storage around the world, which means the nutrient levels are decreased and the taste deteriorated. In processed food the lack of nutrition is covered up by artificial flavours, salt, sugar and sweeteners, tricking our tongue into thinking we are eating real food when really much of it provides us with very little indeed. Junk food is so much more than just fast food chain burgers.

For thousands of years nature has provided for humans fresh fruit and vegetables, seeds and nuts for optimum nutrition. These contain high water content and are brimming with life-giving nutrients and micronutrients. In our scientific 21st century it has also been scientifically proven that fruit and vegetables can in fact lower the risk of a number of diseases and ailments. But with huge companies heavily marketing drugs to us to patch up health problems, we have not realised that the real way forward is to prevent disease, rather than just go in for repairs when we get ill.

Scientists have tried to make up for the lack of nutrients we have in our western diet, due to the tinned, pasteurised, concentrated nature of the food we eat, by replicating certain key plant chemicals, called vitamins, and providing them to us in their isolated form in pills. To some extent this has been effective, but due to their isolated nature and unknown optimum dosages, their effect is limited.

It seems we just cannot do better than nature and its 3 billion years of evolution, in the space of 100 years. The best formula for our body is to get the nutrition we need from the source the body understands fresh, organic, fruit and vegetables, nuts and seeds.

One way to make sure your body receives the correct nutrition is to see a dietician. The UN and governments, as well as the nutritionists and dieticians the world over, are recommending five portions of fruit and vegetables per day for healthier lives and anti-ageing. More and more it will be the dieticians, rather than doctors or even plastic surgeons, who will be worth a visit.