We are learning that eating a balanced and whole foods diet is not a footnote for living but that it is the cornerstone of health and wellness. Brain function, emotions, disease, quality of life, tendancies towards chronic issues; all of these can be connected back to the type, balance and quality of foods we eat.
Most things we have been told about what a ‘healthy diet’ looks like are beginning to be unraveled by new research. This combined with the commercialization of food, soil depletion, processing techniques, hybridization, lack of consumer information, environmental toxins in abundance and more internalized stressors adds up to what we are seeing in the statistics; an increase in ‘auto immune’ diseases, diabetes, chronic illness or being zapped of feeling vibrant and energized.
We truly are on the edge of a new era of how we connect to and understand food. It is going to be a learning curve that asks us to be more aware in our own bodies and towards making new choices.
We need to move away from just thinking of food as individual nutrients but as the sum of information that it gives your body, the genes it turns on and off, how it speaks to your cells and your microbiome.
Along with what we are learning about food is the intrinsic affect of stressors on our bodies, mind and health. There is no longer any question that how we think, stress and emotions are inseparable from our bodies and overall health, short and long-term. (I write more about the research under ‘Mind Body’)
I believe in Nutrition for Living which encompasses all these factors and is not simply limited to foods. It is the choices we make daily in our lives, the environments we put ourselves in, family, social circles, relationships, emotional landscape and more. We can no longer be on auto-pilot with these factors of our lives.
Foods affects how we feel but we must also understand that how we feel about ourselves affects how we eat, the people we spend time with and the choices we make. When we don’t feel positively about our lives and self, we tend to not choose nourishing foods. When we have an absence of Self Love and an abundance of fear, we tend to choose a diet that depletes us.
I believe that Nutrition for Living empowers us with new information and understanding of the complex systems that we are. It offers us greater potential for optimal health and wellness.