Our bodies are made up of trillions of cells, and each one of them needs proper nourishment to maintain a high level of energy and vitality. This is why it serves your highest good to try and only consume foods and beverages that align with your true intentions. If you eat high-energy, high-vibrational foods, then cells will mimic that energy and vibration. As you eat and drink different things, your body is absorbing the life force, the true essence and energy of those substances. This is circulated to your cells and this is what influences your mood, your motivation, your creativity, your wellness.

This is why when we eat high-energy foods, we feel alive—and conversely, if we eat artificial substances, or human-made foods, we can feel sluggish, tired, and maybe even depressed.

Every 90 days your body has a completely new supply of red blood cells. So what you eat/drink today has real impact on your cells and on your vitality. Your body is constantly re-creating itself in response to the direction your life is currently heading. What an empowering concept! If you start today to make healthier choices than you did yesterday, by tomorrow your body will already have begun to respond.

General Guidelines for a Healthy Diet

Track your Nutrition

The purpose of completing a diet diary is to clue you into your own habits. You may be familiar with the term anaphylaxis, which is a rapid, life-threatening allergic reaction to particular foods. Peanuts are a common cause, but any food could potentially be an allergen. When you consume foods/beverages that your body feels threatened by, your body responds in a similar way that it does to infections. These responses create low levels of inflammation in the digestive system. Much more subtle than anaphylaxis, these distress signals may take 24 to 48 hours, but usually manifest in forms of skin irritations, stuffy sinuses, headaches, bloating, and other signs of congestion.

Keeping track of what you eat can help you change your dietary habit. If you eat a lot of grains and meat and you start to track how your body responds to this—you may be so inclined to try different foods and track how your body responds. Other non-food related but highly influential aspects to note are things like what time you ate, how much water or other fluids you drank, what you were doing prior and during the meal, how you felt shortly afterwards, and your energy levels.

Eat Natural Foods

These are foods grown under natural conditions on organic and fertile soil. Food is not natural if it is grown in depleted, chemically-treated soil. To meet the ever demanding needs of the world, foods are developed and grown much faster than is natural. Many fruits—including papayas and even pineapple—are becoming genetically modified. What this means is that companies are altering the genetic makeup of these foods so that they can grow faster, be resistant to pests or various diseases, and even have a longer shelf life. Commercially grown foods may sometimes look better than organically grown products, but the quality and nutritive value of these synthetically grown fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains, and legumes have been greatly reduced. The best way to ensure maximal nutrition is to either grow your own organic produce or buy only organic produce to supply your needs.

Budget Friendly Tips—Going Organic

• Growing your own organic produce. Even apartment dwellers can grow organic tomatoes, herbs, kale, and other foods thanks to inexpensive hydroponic systems. Another easy way to grow organically indoors is to grow your own sprouts and microgreens.
• Shopping at organic co-ops or farmers’ markets.
• Creating a community organic garden.
• Learning to make your own meals from scratch, using organic ingredients.
• Subscribing to organic delivery services such as CSA (community-supported agriculture) boxes, which are cost saving compared to most grocery stores.

The Way We Eat

When you eat something, you should do so for a reason. If you’re making the investment into your health by choosing organic healthy foods, make the most of that investment.

Enjoy having breakfast, lunch, and dinner and a couple of healthy snacks to bridge those meals. Everyone is unique and no right diet fits us all, but usually folks feel best when they have something to eat every 3 to 4 hours instead of huge, further-apart meals that can take a long time to digest.

If you are calm and relaxed, meditating on the concept of peace, everything you consume is going to be digested slowly. This will help your body take its time, and each little molecule of nutrition is going to be more readily absorbed. When you eat in a harried, frantic manner, then everything you see outside has that matching energy and vibration. For example, if you’re rushing around, trying to get the children ready for school while also taking bites of a piece of toast, your body is going to react very differently compared with sitting down at the table, relaxed, feeling the warm sunshine coming through the window, and enjoying your bowl of organic oatmeal. (Oh, I’m guilty of this one too, some days.

Our bodies are just so awesomely designed—and we sometimes don’t use them to our full potential. There’s a reason we have teeth and a whole digestive system, and they all can work masterfully when we allow the time. Taking big bites of food and swallowing quickly doesn’t allow the digestive enzymes to be secreted to aid in digestion. Some schools of thought on this suggest at least 30 chews per bite before swallowing. I invite you to try this. And if this concept is new to you, you will immediately note two things: 1) that your jaw gets sore, and 2) it takes you forever to eat.

If you’re going to spend the time/money to purchase organic carrots, or grow them yourself, then please take the time to chew them properly; 3–4 chews isn’t sufficient and you’ll note this in your bowel movement. What our bodies do not digest and assimilate is flushed from our system, so to speak.

This is why many health conscious people are big into soups, juices, fermentation, and smoothies. All these processes in some way pre-chew the foods and offer up easy to absorb nutrition. Let’s take the raw carrot for example. We know eating raw is good for us as it contains enzymes for digestion, water soluble vitamins, fibre, and more. BUT if we aren’t going to chew it properly, then you’ve got options. Maybe you juice the carrot (and save the fibre remains for a muffin batch), or make a warming winter carrot soup, or lightly steam the carrots to soften them. Being mindful and present about the choices we have when it comes to HOW we choose to consume the foods can have a big impact. Referring back to your diet diary can be a friendly reminder for comparison—where you started and how you felt then vs where you are now and how you feel now.

Go Gradually

I still remember the first time I tried a shot of wheatgrass. It tasted horrible and I quickly developed a headache and slight nausea. Wheatgrass is so good for you, so why did I feel so terrible? My body was having a detox reaction in ways—the juiced wheatgrass, being so pure and concentrated, flooded my cells with goodness and it was just too much for my system. Even something good for you can and will take some getting used to. My suggestion is to start slow and work your way up. I know how yummy and awesome sauerkraut is (so easy to digest compared to raw cabbage and loaded with gut healthy probiotics), but to someone who’s never tried it, the smell may be off-putting, and if they do manage to eat more than a good fork full, well, then they may end up on the toilet with their own kind of detox happening.

Be kind to yourself. If you make healthy choices today, your body will respond with a better tomorrow. I’m more of a baby steps kind of gal vs big changes. Do not judge your beginning by someone else’s middle. As your body begins to reward you for the high-energy foods you consume, you can embark on bigger changes, incorporating more high-vibrational foods in your meals.

Interested in learning more? Want to connect in person to chat more about mindful eating, nutrition, or perhaps take in a free class on fermentation? If so, join me and many other amazing local health and wellness folks at the 4th Annual Yorkton Health and Wellness Expo. You’ll find me at my Garden Therapy booth.

RAW FOOD RECIPES

Sweet Aztec Porridge
(It is possible to make raw grains edible by soaking or sprouting them without having to cook them. Raw grains, unlike cooked grains, are rich in enzymes.)
Serves 4–6

4 cups quinoa, sprouted
1 1/2 cups date soak water
1 banana
1 tsp nutmeg

Blend all ingredients until smooth.

Nepalese Pulau
Serves 4–6

4 cups wild rice, sprouted
1 cup carrots, shredded
1 cup cauliflower, chopped
1 cup zucchini, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
1/4 cup sesame oil
1/4 cup fresh mint or cilantro
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp curry powder
Celtic salt to taste

Mix well and serve.

Fresh Lime Celery Juice
A delicious fresh juice with celery, carrots, and lime! Pure health in a glass!
Serves: 1 litre

3 celery sticks
1 apple
2 limes or lemons
a little piece of ginger
1/2 kilo of carrots
3 oranges
1/2 cucumber
1 tsp green powder (chlorella, wheatgrass, and spirulina)
a broken capsule probiotics (optional)

Wash all produce well under running water and peel the lemons/limes and oranges. Then juice all the fruits and vegetables through your juicer. Add green powder(s) and probiotics to your juice when you are done juicing.

References
Nutrition for Intuition by Doreen Virtue and Robert Reeves
Healing Ourselves by Naboru Muramoto
Conscious Eating by Gabriel Cousens

Recipes
Sweet Aztec Porridge and Nepalese Pulau from Conscious Eating by Gabriel Cousens
Fresh Lime Celery Juice by The Green Creator http://thegreencreator.com/fresh-lime-celery-juice

Stacey Tress, a Holistic Nutritional Therapist (HNT) and Young Living Essential Oil Distributor (#2282633), lives in Rhein, SK, with her husband and two daughters. She is the owner of Garden Therapy Yorkton—GT Bliss which offers fermentation workshops, active culture kits, permaculture consulting, essential oils, and more! To learn more, call 306-641-4239, email stacey.gardentherapy@gmail.com, or Facebook “Garden Therapy Yorkton—GT Bliss.” Webpage: www.gardentherapybliss.ca. Also see the display ad on page 9 of the 24.6 March/April issue of the WHOLifE Journal.