Professor Hristo Mermerski knows all secrets to healthy nutrition and lifestyle. Although he is eighty years-old, Professor Mermerski continues to work and host a TV show on healthy nutrition. He is now working over his next book on this topic. So far he has published 27 books together with his son Yonko Mermerski who followed in his father’s footsteps. They write their books together, although Yonko Mermerski lives and works in Washington (USA). “Food should be your medicine and medicine - your food”, is the main philosophy in their books which are among the most-popular titles for natural treatment and healthy nutrition in Bulgaria. Professor Mermerski is a cosmopolitan personality. He graduated the Agrarian Academy in Bulgaria and later defended a doctor’s degree. He specialized in Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Russia and the USA. Mermerski visited over 150 universities in the USA, Russia, Europe, Africa and Asia as a lecturer and a researcher. He studied in details many healing recipes and the reasons for their effectiveness.

“A research of the World Health Organization made nine years ago shows that 70% of the illnesses are due to bad or even “criminal nutrition”, Professor Mermerski explains. “Bad combination of foods is disastrous for the stomach which struggles to process this food. Unfortunately, none of the universities, starting from the medical universities, all the way to the agrarian colleges focus on the healthy properties of the food. For instance, one raw carrot only supplies our daily need of vitamin C and our four-day need of vitamin A. These two vitamins together with vitamin E are the so-called anti-oxidants. When we eat unhealthy, chemically- processed or canned food, the so-called free radicals form in our bodies and destroy the human cells and respectively make us age quickly. This would never happen if we consume mainly fruit and vegetables. Another research of the WHO shows that if we eat an average of 400 grams of fruit and vegetables on a daily basis, the chance to suffer from cancer diseases is very low, because these foods contain chemical compounds which destroy the cancer in its initial phase.  Tomatoes for example are among the vegetables with highest lycopene and anti-oxidant content. However, our nutrition habits are very bad. This is why over 1.5 million Bulgarians suffer from high blood pressure, over 500,000 suffer from diabetes, more than 200,000 are affected by cancer illnesses and hundreds of us are suffering from cardio-vascular diseases. Bulgarians usually have irregular food regime which harms them a lot.”

The books written by Hristo and Yonko Mermerski are based on a lot of research and analyses. They do not deny medicine, but also contend that people should not become “slaves” to the pharmaceutical industry. The abundance of useful advice make their books so successful and interesting.

“Natural medicine has four main fields”, says Professor Mermerski. “One of the main trends which started back in the 1960’s is entitled “How to protect our health through nutrition”. “The second field deals with the topic “How to cleanse our body and prolong ageing”, where we stress on the use of various herbal teas”. The third field is called “Treatment with healing herbs” and the fourth one is named “Treatment with natural juice”. We have studied so far the chemical and biological composition and the healing properties of over 200 foods and we have written in our books how we can protect ourselves from certain diseases or treat the existing ones.”

When Professor Mermerski was lecturing at the Massachusetts University in the USA, he was invited to settle abroad. However, he categorically rejected this proposal.

“Bulgaria is the country where I feel best”, says Professor Mermerski. “I was born here, my friends are in Bulgaria and my children were born in this country. I worked for a long time abroad and I am still receiving invitations to work in other countries, but I have no desire to leave Bulgaria.”