Many of you have contacted me on some ideas for meals to prepare when trying to keep the body healthy and combining foods in the system. Here are some ideas and some philosophies to consider when thinking about your daily meals:
-Eat for sustainability, not entertainment. Food should not be your source of entertainment, that's what has brought us to this smörgåsbord mess in the first place.
-Vegetables work great as a substitute for breads. Example: Use large pieces of lettuce to replace your buns for your hamburgers. The first time I tried this I was extremely surprised. We don't realize just how much the buns actually take the flavor of the burger away. Sure it is a bit messier, but that's why we've invented the ability to wash our hands. Try lettuce to wrap up sandwich meat instead of bread. If you're going to do stir fry, don't add any type of noodles and throw in a "mess" of vegetables. Trust me, you'd be surprised just how good they taste, and I grew up hating my veggies!
-The way we consume dairy is extremely unnatural. As much as most love Cheese, there is a reason you do so... because it has a ton of sugar in it and is EXTREMELY acidic. Eliminate all dairy, even your beloved cheese. Instead of your nachos, try a taco salad, without the chips and cheese and sour cream. Throw more veggies onto it. Remember one thing when it comes to the arguments that support dairy; Why do baby's drinking milk from their mother? They don't have the teeth needed to chew their food, so they need all of their nutrients in a different way. The moment that they are ready to stop consuming milk (Human milk) the mom gets a very painful message... baby starts to bite with her teeth. You can find so much more vitamins and minerals in vegetables, including more calcium in your green vegetables than milk.
-Do your very best to eat seasonally. The food we eat has a direct connection with the present environment you live in. For example: Vitamin C from fruits conflict in your body when you're not getting your natural Vitamin D from the sun. Meaning, don't consume Vitamin C when it is winter in an area that is cold and gray. Fruit wouldn't be growing there in the first place. There's a reason that people in my home state of Washington deal with seasonal depression. They are convinced that Vitamin C will prevent colds and other illnesses. That gimmick is over 50 years old.
-Carbohydrates are not a bad thing, despite the gimmick of Dr. Atkins's dangerous diet. They are the fuel your body needs. But, if you were to fill up your gas tank everyday with $20 worth of gas whether you need it or not, you'd be overfilling the gas tank everyday, spilling gas on the ground and on your car. Your body doesn't need fuel throughout the entire day, just for the beginning and up to the "wind down" period. It doesn't need fuel when you're sleeping, so stay away from the carbs at night. The best carbs I've used in my lifetime is a good cup of brown rice in the morning (totaling about one medium/large bowl of rice), which will fill you up for much of the day. If you were to eat just the rice with nothing else, your body would digest it completely, leaving you nourished late into the day, without the need to consume more food until dinner time. The reason most are hungry by lunch time is because the food they ate for breakfast, at best, was partially digested due to the poor combinations. Just because you put it into your body, doesn't mean your body can break it down. It is all done through a chemical process.
-Eat fruit alone. Fruit will move past your stomach to your small intestines where it will be digested properly. If there is food in your stomach when you put fruit in it, the fruit sits in your stomach, ferments, like a wine, and goes bad, creating an acidic environment in your abdominal core that is one of the reasons for the low back problems that people get at about this time of year. Fruit is ripe, they eat tons of it with other food, poor digestion, acidity causing blood congestion in the stomach, back muscles spasm to balance out, go out and play or work outside, tension in back occurs that can even lead to a herniation (your "back goes out"). Fruit is a great source of nutrition, just make sure you eat it with at least 3 to 4 hours in between meals. If you think you'll be too hungry to just eat fruit, then have more fruit then you would normally.
-My menu for the average day consists of this:
-Brown Rice (1 cup) for breakfast
-Fruit (if hungry, mostly not) for lunch
-Vegetables and Protein (concentrated protein like beef, chicken, pork, fish. But not mixed together. Have one type of protein.)
-Try and eat the Vegetables a good 10 minutes before you consume the protein.
-NO DESSERT! You don't need to fill that tank up. I know, I love ice cream, pie, popcorn, and all the great tasty treats out there as much as the next person, but you don't need them.
-The rawer the better for the Vegetables as well as the protein. In Japan, they eat almost all of their meat raw, even Chicken, Eggs, and Beef. They do not deal with a Salmonella issue like many think they would. And if you were to study the Japanese life spans and overall health, you'd find that they are one of the healthiest countries in the world. The idea of eating food raw doesn't sit well with many here in America. That's just called good advertising. If the food is handled poorly, like most in this country, then there is a better chance for food poisoning. But I've had food poisoning twice, both after eating fully cooked foods. And I'm also a massive lover of Sushi, and not once have I had a problem with it. Remember this, we are the only species on the planet that cook our meat. We are also the only ones dying of Diabetes, Cancer, and so forth. Coincidence? Could be, but hard to think it is.
-If you want pasta, try and go toward the Brown Rice pasta. It doesn't contain Gluten and Brown Rice is so much better for you. Most processed breads and pastas contain an amazing amount of sugar. You can find Brown Rice pasta it many places. I get mine from Trader Joes. It tastes as good as regular pasta, with a just a little different texture, but not too noticeable. Also, if you go in the route of pasta, do without the meat, and go LITE on the sauce.
-Test it out! Eat really healthy with proper combinations for one week. Get through the sugar withdrawals because I promise you, you will have them. Those "cravings" you have... just like a drug addict. You want the foods that are loading with sugar; cheese, other dairy, pastas, bread, and so forth. Get through it, and you'll feel great. Your energy level will be so high, you'll clean your house ten times in a week, and wonder how you ever lived the other way. THEN, after a week, eat a meal, maybe a lunch, where it is fast food, or poor combinations like pizza, pasta with meat, hamburgers with buns and fries, etc.. Take a serious gander at your energy level then. You'll feel drained, bloated, slow, lethargic, and know that everyone is going through that when eating this type of food regularly. Most have just gotten used to it, but are also insensitive when the body starts to break down.
Well, these are some things to try. Good luck! The withdrawals aren't fun, but if you have the strength, you'll benefit greatly! Stay healthy, happy, and ready for anything.
