Wholesome Nourishment
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
~ Hippocrates, holistic Greek physician, considered by many to be the father of medicine.
In order to thrive, maintain health and heal, the body requires fuel in the form of nourishing food. The higher the nutritive quality of the food we consume, the more profound and beneficial its impact will be upon our health. In fact, aside from breathing fresh oxygen and drinking pure water, eating a diet rich in nutrient dense, naturally mineralized, unprocessed, wholesome foods is the single most powerful and important way in which we can fuel our bodies so they remain capable of maintaining good health and healing if we get hurt or sick.
Although the specific foods each of us chooses to eat is an extremely personal decision, here are some general guidelines and suggestions for choosing the most wholesome and nourishing foods possible:
Focus on incorporating as many whole, unprocessed foods into your diet as possible.
Seek out foods that are in as close to their natural, wholesome state as possible - just the way Nature made them - rather than relying upon highly processed, packaged foods for the bulk of your diet.
Consume more of your food it its raw state.
Raw food is unprocessed and alive with enzymes, vitamins and other phytonutrients that are destroyed by temperatures above around 113 degrees F. The enzymes present in raw food assist the body in the digestive process because eating foods rich in enzymes means our bodies don’t need to spend as much energy producing their own enzymes to facilitate digestion.
Choose foods that are grown organically.
Foods that are raised without poisonous petrochemicals like pesticides, herbicides, fungicides or synthetic fertilizers are a healthier choice, as these foods put less of a toxic burden upon our systems than their chemically raised counterparts.
Eat locally.
Seek out farmers’ markets, natural food cooperatives and small produce stands in your area, purchase their locally grown fruits, vegetables and other products, and if possible, make an effort to get to know the people who are growing your food. Eating locally means your food is fresher because it hasn’t had to spend time being shipped from a distance, and also generally means that the food you’re eating has been grown on small farms rather than being produced by large scale factory farm operations.
Eat seasonally.
If you’re not familiar with what foods grow in which seasons, do a little research and find out, and then make it a point to eat fruits and vegetables that are growing in season, preferably in your area if possible. Eating with the seasons means consuming a diverse assortment of different plant based foods throughout the year, thus providing your body with a wide variety of nutrients over the course of time. Eating seasonal foods also means your produce will be fresher, as foods that are out of season generally require extra time be shipped long distances from where they’re grown.
Soak nuts, seeds, grains and legumes before consuming them.
Soaking these foods stimulates germination and neutralizes certain anti-nutrients they contain, enhancing both their nutritional content as well as their digestibility.
Include fresh sprouts in your diet.
Sprouts are alive with nourishment! They’re pure, raw living foods that are enzyme-rich nutritional powerhouses. Sprouting grains, nuts legumes and seeds at home is easy to do and increases their nutrient content and digestibility exponentially.
Ferment your food.
Fermenting food is not only an age old method of preserving it, but is also a very effective way of increasing and improving a food’s nutritional value and digestibility. Sauerkraut, kim-chee, pickles, kefir, yogurt, kombucha, beet kvass, and sourdough starter for baked goods are just a few of the many fermented foods that can be made easily and simply in your own home. Fermented foods are rich sources of both enzymes and natural probiotics, and are some of the most nourishing, easy to digest foods we can eat.
http://www.wildfermentation.com/
Use only high quality fats for cooking and salads.
Contrary to popular belief, saturated fats are actually good for you! Unlike many new fangled refined and partially hydrogenated vegetable and grain based oils, (like corn, soy and canola to name a few) saturated fats such as unrefined coconut oil, palm oil, ghee and lard are much more natural fats that have been used by humans for cooking for eons. These fats are much healthier for us to consume in large part because they remain stable rather than turning rancid both at room temperature and when heated. Extra virgin olive oil is another nourishing, healthy fat that’s excellent for use in dressings for salads and other uncooked foods.
Consume raw dairy products from grass fed cows.
Unpasteurized, unhomogonized milk, cream, butter, kefir, yogurt and cheese from animals grazed on green grass are some of the most nutrient dense foods available, and are far, far superior in quality to any conventionally produced dairy products, most of which come from animals that are unnaturally confined, fed an unnatural diet of corn and soy, and often routinely given antibiotics and synthetic hormones. Dairy products from grass fed animals are also an excellent source of omega 3 fatty acids, which is a nutrient sorely lacking in the diets of many westerners.
Choose only eggs and meats that are from pastured, grass fed, free ranged animals.
Seek out those products which are from animals that are not factory farmed, and are instead raised without the use of artificial hormones and antibiotics. Buy only products from animals that are fed the way Nature intended for them to be fed, and whose feed is free of toxic petrochemicals and GMOs. These kinds of naturally produced animal products are much healthier choice than any that come from factory farms, and are also yet another good source of omega 3 EFAs.
http://www.eatwild.com/index.html
Choose wild caught fish and seafood, preferably those that are low on the food chain.
Avoid farmed fish, and don’t eat fish that are too high up on the food chain. Sadly, our oceans have become contaminated with heavy metals and other pollutants, so the higher up on the food chain a sea creature is, the greater the concentration of toxins will be found in its flesh. For this reason, it’s a good idea to limit one’s intake of wild seafood and avoid consuming large fish that are at the top of the food chain, such as marlin, shark and swordfish.
Consume freshly juiced or blended raw fruits and vegetables.
Fresh raw juices are extremely easy for the body to digest, and the nourishment they contain is quickly assimilated into the bloodstream. Blending raw produce in a high speed blender and drinking it fresh is another very effective way of providing the body with high quality, easily assimilable nourishment. Consuming this kind of liquid nutrition is also very cleansing for the body, and can be an important and useful tool for internal detoxification.
Add sea vegetables (seaweeds) to your diet.
Kelp, Dulse, Nori and Arame are just a few of the many edible seaweeds widely available for human consumption today. These vegetables from the sea are super nourishing as they’re brimming with essential minerals, many of which are sorely lacking in our modern diets due to the radical depletion of trace mineral in our soils since the advent of industrialized agriculture. Besides being a rich source of a wide range of trace minerals, many seaweeds are also a rich source of polysaccharides, which when consumed on a regular basis provide many outstanding health benefits to the human body.
Learn about and incorporate more ‘medicinal’ herbs and spices into your diet.
Numerous commonly used culinary herbs and spices such as garlic, onions, ginger, horseradish, turmeric and cumin all have potent healing, nourishing and medicinal qualities, and their inclusion in our diets can provide us with myriad health benefits. Additionally, there are many, many other herbs available today from around the world with which many of us are as yet unfamiliar. Some of these herbs are medicinal, some are known as tonic herbs, and others are called adaptogenic herbs. You may wish to some research and learn more about herbs such as astragalus, ashwaganda, schizandra, he shou wu, rehmannia and goji berries to discover more about their long history of use as well as their profound healing properties, many of which are well documented in current published scientific literature. There are many plants in Nature that have some sort of healing or medicinal quality, and it’s well worth taking the time to explore this subject further to learn more about the remarkably beneficial healing and nourishing properties of herbal foods and remedies.
Explore the powerful healing and adaptogenic qualities of medicinal mushrooms.
Medicinal mushrooms, such as Reishi, Chaga, Cordyceps, Maitake and Shiitake as well as many others, have been used successfully by natural and traditional healers all over the world, particularly in Asia, Japan and in Traditional Chinese Medicine, for many thousands of years. Besides having remarkably effective nourishing and adaptogenic properties, extracts of these remarkable fungi have the ability to support the body’s immune function and natural healing abilities in a variety of different and very beneficial ways. Aside from possessing unique healing qualities, medicinal mushroom extracts are also extremely safe to consume, having few if any known side effects.
Add wild foods to your diet.
Seek out Mother Nature's own bounty, and add her wild grown foods to your menu. Wild foods such as dandelion greens, watercress, huckleberries, black and red raspberries, fiddlehead ferns, chanterelle mushrooms, nuts, seeds, as well as many different kinds of herbs grow wild and are readily and freely available for the picking in many areas. Foods that grow wild generally contain higher concentrations of minerals, and they can also often be much more robust than domestically grown foods. The strength and adaptability wild plants must develop naturally to cope with the rigors of growing in natural settings is contained within them on a cellular level, and these qualities are conveyed to us when we consume them.
Eat superfoods!
From spirulina, chlorella, bluegreen algae and marine phytoplankton to goji berries, acai berries, camu camu berries, mangosteen and noni, the variety and availability of extremely nutrient dense superfoods these days is simply unprecedented. Many of these superfoods not only have astonishing nutritional content, but are also very beneficial for the body in terms of their ability to assist with internal purification and detoxification. When incorporated into our diets, superfoods can have a dramatic effect upon our overall ability to heal cleanse ourselves from the inside out, and achieve and maintain good health.