For most of us there are many unexplored assumptions in our daily existence, and this is especially true for food and nutrition.
How many of us stopped eating butter and switched to margarine? Or thought that low-fat options were the most healthy?
Thankfully, now mainstream nutrition is being revised and we all understand that butter is healthy and is back on the menu!
We have listened to food advice from different sources, for different reasons and, overwhelmed with the variety of disparate information, we are all having to choose for ourselves what most suits our body.
My view is that we need to eat the foods we thrive on. Not the foods we can simply survive on. In this respect, we have quite a challenge in our family.
Prune
Thrives on: cooked vegetables, cooked fruits, fermented food
Does well on: legumes (pulses), dairy, occasional meat (1 x 10 days), regular fish (2 x week)
Detrimental: grains, raw fruit and vegetables
Collin
Thrives on: legumes (pulses), cooked vegetables
Does well on: meat, dairy, most carbohydrates
Detrimental: having too much food (especially carbs)
Rowan
Thrives on: grains, very regular meat, raw milk
Does well on: carbohydrates, raw fruit and vegetables, shellfish
Detrimental: dairy (he does not do well on milk unless it is raw milk)
Ellarose
Thrives on: cooked vegetables, regular fish
Does well on: dairy, meat
Detrimental: grains, legumes (pulses), carbohydrates
So do we cook different meals for each individual? No, we ensure that each meal has the nutritional needs that each of us require and then apportion the foods accordingly. Such self-selection of the foods at the dinner table enables each of us to eat the foods that we need in the quantities that suit our whole-body system. But this does also show that there is no right diet for all people. Each of us have very specific, ever changing nutritional needs.
Food is sacred. And there are traditions all over the world that recognise and honour such sacredness. Our foods are homegrown whenever possible, with organic, local meat and fish caught along the coast one mile away. And I feel connected to each and every mouthful of what I eat. I have stroked the cows that our milk comes from and watched my children play with their calves, we have planted vegetable seeds and helped them grow, we love the chickens that provide us with eggs and laugh at their funny antics in the rain and sun. We steward (and yes, have been stung by), the bees whose honey we eat! The connection to the sacred within each mouthful is a large part of the delight of food, as well as connecting us to the energetic power of what we eat. When we eat with this kind of mindfulness then if ‘you are what you eat’ then we all have the potential of being vibrant, healthy, interconnected and powerful.
And, no matter how far removed from the growing/nurturing of the food chain you may be in your own lives right now (and not everyone has the time, space or inclination to nurture vegetables or animals) you can still connect into it through your consciousness and your energy.
One powerful way of doing this is to say a blessing as you are ready to eat. You can either say it aloud for your family to connect with, or say it in your mind as you connect to it in your heart.
‘I give blessings and thanks to every person who has helped to create this meal, and to all the people who care for them’.
I recognise that sometimes there are only a few people involved, but usually, there are 10s, 100s, 1000s of people who are involved in bringing the food to my table. For example; if I am eating rice…my blessing of thanks goes to all the people who planted, tended, and harvested the rice, and their carers (by this I mean the people who nourished the rice planters…perhaps the parent, spouse or child who was at home cooking for the family member who was harvesting the rice). Then the people who sorted the rice and packed it into sacks, those who put the sacks onto the truck to take it to the ships, those who put it on the ships, those who work on the ship that brought the rice to England, those who unloaded the sacks and delivered them to my local shop, the people who put them on the shelves and then took my money as I paid for it. And all the people who cared for them. And this is just for the rice portion of my meal!
That one line of conscious blessing goes a long, long way, in a great circle that comes back to the food on our plate and directly into you; your body, your cells, your energy systems, and your consciousness.
Next time we’ll explore how to energy test for food so that you know what food your whole-body system needs to thrive.
With love, Prune