Plants: The best way to be healthy

Can you think of something that is good for the environment and beneficial for us as human beings? Because there are a lot of answers to this question, but just one is the most important and it also is the topic of this essay: Plants. If I have to think of one of my first experiences with plants in my life, it would be when I was in elementary school where for a final project, the whole class had to grow a bean seed and record their progress for 3 months-ish. It was an interesting task to do, being able to see the progress of a plant from scratch until it comes to fruition was incredible. Since then, I realized that something as small as a seed can become something so important to our world. So in this blog entry, I'm going to talk about how plants can be used as part of a healthy diet; then, I'll mention the importance of plants as resources for medicine; and finally, I'll explain how plants can improve our outdoor and indoor environments.

It is well known that eating a diet where plants are part of it is highly recommended by health professionals, but what is the reason? We know that they are healthy because it is something that we learn from our childhood when our parents made us eat all kinds of vegetables at all costs in different possible presentations. We refused to eat them because they "tasted bad," which was a complete lie. A diet that includes plants doesn't have to be the opposite of a tasty diet because currently there are a lot of different ways to add them to our dishes in a creative and delicious way suitable for each person's taste. They can provide us with all their nutrients, vitamins, minerals, and fiber in every meal of the day if we make eating plants and vegetables part of a daily routine.

Plants used as medicine are, perhaps, one of the oldest ways that have existed to cure people's diseases, since the data that has been investigated so far indicates that plants have been used as medicine since prehistoric times by our ancestors. Thanks to this, we now have what are already considered "medicinal plants." Some of the most popular and known for their healing properties are: chamomile, aloe vera, eucalyptus, ginger, thyme, and lavender, among others. Their use still persists, despite the fact that there are already many drugs to treat many types of disease, being used more in places like towns that do not have full or no access to a medical center or even a doctor. Currently, we can use and find these plants and herbs as part of a treatment in pills, syrups, and creams.

We can have the most nutritive and healthiest diet and make a lot of exercises to stay in form or even use medicines when we’re feeling sick to supposedly have a great quality of life, but all of that doesn't matter if plants cease to exist. Humans need plants for survival and that is a fact. Plants play an important role in the way we live our lives, just for the simple fact that they are responsible for producing the air we breathe every day. They also regulate water resources, provide a source of energy and reduce the effects of climate change. On other hand, plants can help us a lot in our indoor spaces too because when was the last time you saw an office or your own house without a plant there? Not so often, right? This is because plants can make us happy, reduce our stress, boost our mood, improve our creativity and concentration, and make the environment nice just by being there.

In summary, we can say plants play an important role in our lives for all of the many uses they have and for this silent impact they provoke in our world. They're the only ones that keep us alive. Also, we can use them as food in our everyday meals, as medicine when we feel sick or just aesthetically to decorate a room and make it look nice. The more beautiful a space looks, the more comfortable we feel, but we need to look after them not only because they bring benefits to our lives, but because they’re also have life and are our partners in this world.