Spreading the good news of natural therapy

Spreading the good news of natural therapy

When Peter Lim walks on the streets, he is sometimes approached by strangers who recognise him as a pioneer in the organic food movement in Singapore. Seeing others believing and benefiting from what he does has been a great encouragement for the 72-year-old president and CEO of Nature's Glory, who quit his job 24 years ago as a highly paid business consultant to set up an organic food company.

The decision to start Nature's Glory at 48 - merely seven years before retirement - confounded many around him. But Mr Lim was determined to have a more meaningful career in the second half of his life. The step into the organic food movement was also an unconventional one at that point, and one that was derided by naysayers. "I was like John the Baptist, talking to nobody in the wilderness," Mr Lim, a Christian, recalls.

It was one that Mr Lim, however, held a strong conviction in, stemming from his personal experiences in battling health challenges. From young, he had been a sickly boy, falling ill every month and also having had to remove his tonsils at eight.

Tired of a perpetual dependence on antibiotics and drugs, Mr Lim started wondering why wild animals could recover naturally on their own. "Then I began to read health books and discovered organic food, which is food grown in the wild without the wisdom of man," he says.

Three months after starting on an organic food diet and taking health supplements, his health improved significantly. Now, he has not taken antibiotics nor painkillers for 27 years. Having seen the benefits of organic food for himself, he has become a keen evangelist of leaning on nature for health remedies. In his view, Nature's Glory is not just a business selling organic food, but also part of a health mission in nation-building.

"Many of my clients are top brains holding key positions in companies. That's why they can better afford organic food which is more expensive. Your health is very important because without it, your productivity will be affected, and your next generation will be affected," says Mr Lim.

"We are doing nation-building through health and productivity. So instead of getting sick often and attending to migraine problems, people can have fewer distractions and focus on their work."

On a bigger picture, this is important since companies need their employees across all units to be pulling their weight. "You need all the specialties to function. If you're one person short here and there, there will be a chain of reaction and productivity being affected," he says. Besides improving productivity, it also means that individuals can spend more time with their family, he adds.

On top of selling organic food, Mr Lim has diversified into nano-energy boosters (NeB), a therapy that makes use of a range of technologies including nano-quantum and stem cells to boost energy at the cellular level. This, according to Nature's Glory, can reduce energy blocks, boosting immune systems, and "harmonise the organs towards optimal performance". Mr Lim says: "I needed to have a differentiating edge in my business strategy, because if everybody is doing organic food, where do I go?"

With this technology, Nature's Glory sells NeB skin patches that change the frequencies within the human body to target viruses, bacteria and parasites in a non-invasive manner, building up the immune system, and restoring damaged organs to their optimal health.

While a lot of customers now believe in organic food, the process of healing through food takes a long time. "The window of recovery is short, especially for cancer patients. I wasn't satisfied - there must be something more."

When in the US in 2007, he came across a professor who had special patches for healing energy. Though initially sceptical, Mr Lim resolved to dig deeper into it and to give it a chance until he could prove it wrong.

He was eventually convinced five years later, when he used both remote healing and these patches to treat his mother, who was then terribly ill with various viruses and parasites. Doctors gave her only days to live, but with the treatment, her life was prolonged by 11 months, seven of them free of infections, says Mr Lim.

Even so, given the obscurity of this technology, Mr Lim finds himself once again having to win over many "doubting Thomases". Convincing his son, too, took some time. Christopher Lim, a microbiologist by training, had joined his father in the business in 1998 - a decision the elder Lim is extremely thankful for, solving the problem of succession. "Otherwise, Nature's Glory will become a historical monument," he quips.

Looking ahead, Mr Lim, like many other small- and medium-sized enterprises, is concerned about rental costs and manpower shortage. He recently moved Nature's Glory organic food mart from the 11th storey in Tan Boon Liat building in Outram Road to the first floor after 24 years, as the landlord wanted to hike rental rates by 30 per cent.

His wish for Singapore on its 50th year of independence is that Singaporeans would be open in changing their mindsets, especially in embracing natural therapies with technologies that hold great promises in his view.

"Medisave, no matter how much you have, will not be enough if you don't change the way you see things. Go back to nature - learn how the wild animals survive," says Mr Lim. "Our mindset must change. The success of Singapore is because of our mindset change. Otherwise this red dot would have sunk in the ocean by now."


This article was first published on July 16, 2015.
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