Selling Sickness gives natural route to health

Having practiced as a naturopath for almost 50 years, one of Ronnie Plant’s consuming passions is the pursuit of feeling good and, more importantly, passing on the message of how to achieve that physical state of wellbeing the natural way.

Well known in the Clare area, having lived in Sixmilebridge for several years when the old saw mills were humming in Castlecrine, the octogenarian is a man with a natural remedy for virtually every conceivable health ailment.
For the past five decades, Ronnie, who lives in Wellingtonbridge in Wexford, has travelled the country advising people about the natural route to health through the use of natural and nutritious food and drink.
He has written extensively on the subject and is author of  Health is Wealth – A to Z Encyclopedia of over-the-counter Natural Remedies, a treasury of natural health-giving facts, as well as listing over 100 ailments and their no-side-effect remedies.
Now he had written a second book, Selling Sickness, and is hard hitting in that he claims a combination of eating and drinking of fast, factory made, additive filled foods and drinks and the overuse of chemical drugs and medicines “has resulted in us becoming a sick nation”.
He cautions, “An indication of this is the fact that our hospitals are full to overflowing. Appointments have to be made with doctors and consultants well in advance, in some cases well over 12 months. The state of affairs has only arisen in recent years as the medical profession and the drug companies combined way of thinking has led us down the cul-de-sac of over- prescribing.”
Ronnie admits he went down the road of ill health himself due to eating wrong foods, smoking, getting insufficient sleep and living an inferior lifestyle. He then turned to the natural way when he found that the many prescribed pills and medicines were not helping.
Since 1964, he has kept diaries of all he learned and studied, also working with his daughter in the health food business. At the same time, he built up a naturopathic practice as many came seeking information about diets and remedies.
Among many health facts outlined by Ronnie in the book is that a sizeable majority of Irish people are overfed, undernourished and that there is over-use of vaccines, pills and medicines, all of which he says “can lead to making people ill in both mind and body, with the mindset of all too many being there are pills for all ills”.
The book also chronicles much health-giving information and suggestions that can help one attain a feelgood factor. Set out are facts, figures and much enlightenment as to how the HSE has, as Ronnie claims, “expanded and mushroomed into the sickness industry we are now burdened with”.
His two slogans ‘we are as we eat, drink, sleep and exercise’ and ‘a change of lifestyle works wonders’ are explained and enlarged on. Having practiced as a naturopath for so long, one of his priorities is the pursuit of feeling good and, more importantly, passing on the message.
With boundless energy, the 83-year-old is well qualified to expound on the subject.