Panama is a healthy place to live. The one thing about what people refer to as a “third world country” is that there is almost no fast food! What a concept. While it might take longer to shop and cook here than in the US we never lack for healthy foods and we take pleasure in cooking together as well as calculating the cost of our delicious home cooked meals.

In Boquete and in Panama in general shopping is a multiple stop experience that we do together (like most everything ) with lots of chatting as you go around and we always run into people who want to pass the time of day. First to the farmers market, across the street to the grocery store, again down the street 2 doors for the bulk store for cheap cases of beer in recycleable bottles, back outside in the street for fresh fish and shrimp from the back of a pickup truck, across the bridge for delicious organic lettuce and then down the road to the fresh chicken and egg store. It helps to spread your money around a bit anyway.

I make our own whole wheat bread since fluffy white bread is what is mostly available here and we always have delicious vegetables. Fresh chicken breasts can be bought for $1.15 per pound and fresh fish for $2.50 per pound. Often we opt for roasted veggies for a quick and healthy meal that costs about $2.00 to feed both of us. We haven’t found great pizza here so have perfected our own “white pizza” topped with fresh veggies and since bananas are so plentiful we always have banana bread on hand for a treat. Fruits are whatever is in season from paypaya to pineapple, oranges and my new favorite cherimoya.

Panama has a host of healthful herbs for home remedies (see this article at 9 80 magazine online but if you get sick the Doctors here are very inexpensive and highly qualified so no worries. People are now beginning to travel to Panama for low cost medical procedures both the necessary and the optional procedures.

Outside of Panama City the air is clean and since many people do not drive cars there is very little exhaust or noise pollution.

Here in the mountains of Boquete with the streams and the mountain air it couldn’t feel any cleaner. This time of year it is 75 – 80 with lots of sunshine and windy part of the day.  As they say here in Boquete “the valley of eternal spring”.

Fresh air and great food has become a priority for us as it has for many of you and if you travel to Panama you will find plenty of both to make it easier to maintain your health.

I have a new favorite site created by Dr. Nicole Sundene on holistic health. Dr. Sundene is a Naturopathic Physician who has teamed up with a small group of other highly qualified health specialists to offer great advice for your general health, natural health remedies and dispel some of the myths about alternative medicine. Do yourself a favor and check out her great site at Kitchen Table Medicine.

As always please let me know with your comments what you think and how I can give you the information you are looking for in Panama.

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