Naturopathic Medicine: Creating a more vital and joyful life
A more vital and joyful life
I arrived at CLC at 13 years old with my sister Mallika, who was 11. We had been enjoying our summer holiday at home in Mombasa, Kenya. News of an attempted governmental coup d’état changed our lives completely!
Suddenly we were studying and taking entrance exams in the UK.
Our parents wanted to safeguard our education by sending us abroad and were very relieved when we secured places at CLC!
I feel that being at CLC, as well as giving me wonderful and dearly loved friends, gave me the confidence that I could be a strong, independent woman and aspire to live a well-rounded life.
I have always been interested in food and healing. When I was a child my mother gave us fresh, home cooked food from a kitchen where herbs and spices were culinary staples.
On yearly trips to my grandmother in India, I remember visiting a hakeem (traditional healer) for facial skin depigmentation and having to apply a powder that smelt of bark every night. This concoction completely cured my skin, unlike the creams suggested by my doctor.
In India, I would also go and see a homeopath and enjoyed the sweet powdery remedies which seemed to help my minor childhood ailments.
The influence of my uncle who is a medical doctor was also significant in my life and I went on to study medicine at Guys & St Thomas’s Hospital Medical Schools (now part of King’s College London).
I worked, got my MRCP UK and was specialising in Paediatrics when I got married and moved to the USA. There, I took the USA medical exams and managed to get a job in paediatrics in Washington DC where I lived.
Unfortunately, as I was on my husband’s visa, I was unable to get my own visa in time for the start of the job. I decided then that it was time to have children and I had two daughters.
I returned to London with two young children and a busy husband!
My elder daughter’s eczema led me to try and learn more about alternative medicine which, from my own childhood experiences, I already knew worked!
I did a part time Naturopathic Nutrition Diploma Course at the College of Naturopathic Medicine in London. This gave me a whole new perspective and added to my medical tool kit: I now understood what all the colourful supplement bottles that I would see in many pharmacies contained!
In working with clients I realised how powerful small dietary and life style changes could be. A new way of living and eating could act as a form of primary and secondary prevention from many diseases.
Educating people about the amazing healing compounds found in plant foods made a profound and positive difference to their health!
The aim essentially is to get people to lead a more vital and joyful life.
When seeing clients, I wanted to give them some easy breakfast recipes as this is the first meal that we could collectively make adjustments to. I asked a dear friend, Shital Shah, a creative chef and caterer, to help me with this endeavour.
We worked through various breakfast ideas and when we came to the chapter on plant-based milks we found that we could publish a book on plant milks alone! So we went ahead and self-published our book, Plant Milk Power.
Plant Milk Power is a book which guides one on how to make easy and quick plant-based milks, smoothies and chia bowls. We wanted to show how one can make a simple plant milk even more nutritious.
We also included an informative glossary of the foods we used in our recipes. This is a book for anyone looking to add more plant-based foods to their diet and it is especially useful for those who are lactose intolerant, vegan, vegetarian, who don’t like the taste of milk or who have had to give up dairy in order to reduce inflammation.
Following on from this we were inspired to start a small business making cereals and energy balls. At AharaLife, our products are freshly made using natural ingredients only. They are free from additives, artificial flavourings, dairy, gluten, oil and refined sugar. The process has been that of creativity and love.
We have enjoyed all aspects of it and it has been wonderful to see something come alive and into being which is helpful to others.
My life has not been a conventional journey but certainly an interesting one. I enjoyed working in medicine and equally embraced being a wife and mother. Now, with my daughters both grown up, I am excited by the next chapter in my life.
Dr Aparna Prinja
1982-1987, St Helen’s/St Hilda’s
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