"FOOD"    oooh . . .   I'm ready to eat !!

But what can I eat?? "Hey don't panic, just buy and eat organic."  There is no safer medicine than "real" food.  Remember, you are what you eat.  "So let food be thy medicine and let medicine be thy food."  (Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine - 460-377 BC).  Click  "H E R E"  to see just how delicious and appetizing organic raw foods can really be!!

Critical food alert.  The Codex Alimentarius will officially go into affect December 31, 2009.  So what is the Codex and how will it affect you?  READ MORE . . .

Lets first look at the future of food.  See and hear Dr. Mercola talk about (GMO) genetically modified foods and  "The Future of Food."  This short eye opening video clip will help you understand how important it is to know what you are eating and about what is happening to our food today. >  Click  H E R E

Now lets look at how to eat to live.  Eating live and sprouted enzyme rich foods are the primary way to gain, regain and maintain good health.  Vitamin supplementation is secondary to eating real food.  What is real food?  Real food is organic enzyme rich foods.  Vegetables, fruits, nuts and grains.  Real food is not food from animal sources.  So how do you eat to live?  You take time and enjoy your meals.  It takes about 20 minutes before your stomach notifies your brain that you are full.  So chewing your food more slowly plus taking digestive enzymes will aid in better digestion of your food.  Don't eat until you are stuffed, eat until you are satisfied.  Nutrient dense foods are more satisfying.  You don't just feed your body you should "FUEL" your body.

When you feel nourished, you don't tend to over eat or continuously snack, because you are giving your body exactly what it needs.  We all need to learn how not to be an unconscious eater.  The in your face media TV advertisements of steaming mouth watering prepared foods entice us into fast food and sit down restaurants where we've learned to eat without a thought.  We read the menus but we really don't know what's in the food.  We eat it just because it's there.  So we take in many invisible calories just from unconscious eating. 

Those burgers, fries, pizza, donuts at the office, that extra cup of coffee with the non dairy creamers and sweeteners, the designer teas that you really like or the numerous colas, soda and pops that you just can't seem to do without.  You can improve your hydration by starting to substitute your beverages with water.  And substitute those others snacks with fruits and tasty veggies.  Changing your taste for more nutritional foods is the biggest challenge that you will face.   If you really want to feel better and you want to improve your health, here is a great place to make a personal commitment.  Remember, it's all up to you.

Families that eat together at least 5 times a week have stronger family ties.  And remember, when other people prepare your food, it may taste great, but you really don't know what you are eating.  The art of home cooking and food preparation is almost gone.  Some people are so accustomed to eating out that when they have real food, it just doesn't taste quite right to them.  Home cooked and prepared meals have been made into quality time activities like Thanksgiving, Christmas and birthdays. 

You can create an environment of harmony, peace and love within your home by coming together at meal times that you have prepared.  Eating with friends and loved ones, blessing our food before we eat and eating our food mindfully without distractions (TV, worries, negative thoughts, in the car, on the run etc.) is one of the most nourishing things that we can do for our physical bodies.  Our family and friend relationships are better when we bond over blessed food.  It shouldn't be just a meal, it should be a nourishing experience.  Hey, show your love, share your next meal with someone you truly care about.  

FOOD, we all need it, we love it, we live for it.  But at what cost to our health?  The food today is the new tobacco of our current time.  Our traditional foods have become addictive.  The business model for the food industry is to make it taste good, keep it cheap and sell it everywhere.  Foods today is made to attract us with taste, cost and convenience.  The Standard American Diet (SAD) is designed to sustain us with chemically altered, genetically modified organisms (GMO's) saturated with salt, sugars and fats, along with food additives to prolong the shelf life of our daily food choices, it is not designed to keep us healthy. 

So what about genetics?  Research has shown that genetics actually plays a very tiny role in your overall health out come as you age.  Genetics are only a problem or an issue if you eat and lead a life style that continuously (day by day, year by year) feeds your predisposition to an illness.  If you are concerned about your family history, improve your diet and life style and your family history will be history. 

Dead chemically altered food does not sustain life, thus predisposing you to illness.  Nutrients are best taken in and absorbed in their natural state.  Organic fruits, vegetables, nuts and sprouted grains.  The next best way to get your nutrients are through supplements.  Liquid and powdered supplements are better than pills. 

Why? because pills have binders and fillers that powdered supplements don't have.  The downside to the traditional hard vitamin pill supplements is that there are hidden ingredients such as salt or sugar (mainly corn syrup) and synthetic preservatives in addition to binders, fillers, disintegrating agents and lubricants in them.  Corn starch or molasses might also be used as binders that help keep the tablets intact.  These substances can be potentially harmful with continuous ingestion.  The potency of such supplements are also questionable.  The full nutritional benefits are greatly minimized because the nutrient content is diluted. 

When other people prepare your food and then feed you, it may be absolutely delicious, but you really don't know what you are eating.  And for many people the food items from restaurants, fast food chains and processed foods from local super markets are so tasty to customers, they really don't care because they don't have to.  Fast food is fast for a reason.  It has to be profitable, taste good and keep you coming back for more. 

Food has become an addiction for far to many people today.  Why, because there are additives, chemicals, maximum amounts of sugar, salt and fats put into the food to keep you craving these foods and to keep you eating them.  With additives like sugar, salt, fats, preservatives and taste altering flavor enhancers like monosodium glutamate, it isn't hard to do.  Have you read food labels lately?  There are things that you can't even begin pronounce, but you have to eat.  Because it you don't eat it, you won't eat.  

And have you seen those huge buffalo wings that people are now buying and eating?  Franchise businesses have to bring a consistently available product to market or they can't stay in business.  So food businesses need to have the additives, preservatives, hormones and chemicals in foods like chicken meals, hamburgers and pizza to maintain shelf life.  So please learn to read food labels, and be aware of what you are eating.  The best way to avoid this dilemma is to prepare your own food with organic ingredients.  Brown bagging doesn't hurt.

Learning to eat to avoid foods that feed your illness is very necessary.  We must learn to eat nutrient rich and calorie poor foods.  Here is where the battle for your health can be won or lost.  Understanding the affects of food and nutrition on your body is one of the most important steps to improving your health and fitness that you can take.  When you understand how to eat to live instead of how to live to eat, you have taken a giant step towards improving your overall health and your fitness level.  Remember it's not just what you eat that makes the difference, its what your body absorbs in nutrients that keeps you healthy and fit.  When you eat foods that nourish you, you don't desire foods that are nutrient deficient or nutrient depleted.

The closer you eat food from it's natural source, the better you will feel and the healthier you will be.  Eating fresh organic foods, fruits, vegetables, farm raised pesticide/chemical free meats, fish and poultry is a great start.  Organic foods cost a bit more, but you can pay now or pay later with various major and/or minor illnesses over time.  The further you eat food from its natural source the sicker you will be (man made foods, processed foods, canned foods).  Here are 6 ways to evaluate the foods that you eat. 

• Eat fresh food daily, the fresher the better.
• Eat regionally grown food that is in season, i.e. farmers markets in your area.
• Eat organic food whenever possible. 
• Eat raw food whenever possible. 
• Eat what is right for your blood type.
• Eat what is right for your nutritional type.  What is your Nutritional Type?  Click H E R E to learn more about Nutritional Typing.

As a society, many of our food choices leave us over fed and under nourished.  With the overwhelming commercialization of our food and nutritional needs by constantly enticing us into restaurants and fast food chains, we have all but lost the value of what a real home cooked meal is.  The food today is not like the food of our grandparents and great grand parents.  Most of them grew their own food organically (foods cultivated and processed without fertilizers, insecticides, artificial coloring, artificial flavorings, fed fillers or additives).  They also purchased their foods fresh daily from local farmers markets to prepare for that same days meal.  Beef and poultry grazed on land in their communities and not purchased in the frozen food section of a supermarket chain.

There were no frozen foods to tough out or TV dinners and unhealthy (flavor enhanced, empty calorie) snacks to microwave.  But in today's modern society most adults and children have grown up on fast foods and processed foods.  Children are programmed early in their lives by the media to eat high carb sugary foods, i.e. Saturday morning cartoon commercials.  And they have little or no taste for the way their grandparents ate.  These enzyme depleted foods today along with starting infants out on man made formulas, medications and antibiotics for early illness has bread an epidemic of sick children, adolescents and ultimately sick adults.  But that can all change with a personal commitment to begin eating with a nutritional purpose in mind.  

Your primary goal should be to eat nutrient rich foods and then add supplementation with a full spectrum multivitamin for today's substandard nutritional environment.  What are vitamin supplements?  A supplement is designed to fill in where you are missing nutrients in your diet.  Supplements are not a substitute for poor diet choices or a bad diet. 

This can be as important as the food itself to your overall health.  High quality vitamins, minerals, essential oils and Probiotics must be taken daily to counteract poor diet choices, substandard food nutrients, stress and environmental factors. 

You can eat foods that you truly enjoy and feel much better while doing it.  Learning to substitute the foods that you like with healthier alternatives is the best way to start.  There are delicious alternatives that not only taste good but also make you feel great.  And when you feel better that's your body telling you that you are moving towards healing and vitality.  So you can feel and look better as you age.

So what are high quality vitamins, minerals, essential oils and Probiotics?

• High quality vitamins - Because most people eat cooked and processed foods, tend to eat out are restaurants and do not prepare many of their own meals, vitamin supplementation is very important.  Taking vitamins is the quickest way to get the most essential nutrients daily that you need to support good health.  These should be taken at meal time.  The best forms to take them in would be liquid, powder or capsules with water, not hard pressed pills. 

• Minerals - Are critical in helping your body use the important nutrition's in your daily diet.  They promote vitality, strengthens your immune system and helps with good elimination.  These should be taken at meal time.

• Essential Oils - The main sources of Omega-6 fats are vegetable oils such as corn oil and soy oil, which contains a high proportion of "linoleic acid." Omega-3 fats are found in flaxseed oil, walnut oil, and marine plankton and fatty fish.  These should be taken daily at meal time or bedtime.   READ MORE . . .

• Probiotics - To begin to heal the body from the "inside out," Probiotics are essential.  They are an absolute must to replenish the good bacteria in your intestines that have been wiped out by immune suppressing drugs like penicillin.  Antibiotics have far reaching side affects, that doctors are beginning to realize.  So if you have ever taken antibiotics, one time or several times, for any reason in your life, you need Probiotics.  These should be taken at meal time.  READ MORE . . .

• Coconut Oil - What about heart disease and Coconut Oil?  The research over four decades concerning coconut oil in the diet and heart disease is quite clear: coconut oil has been shown to be beneficial. This research leads us to ask the question, "should coconut oil be used to both prevent and treat coronary heart disease?"  READ MORE . . .

• Eating for maximum nutrient absorption - It's not just what you eat that makes the difference, it's what you nutritionally absorb in your system that heals the body.  Have you ever had that unsatisfied feeling after you've just finished eating a meal?  Do you crave something sweet at the end of your meal?  Are you hungry about an hour after you eat?  Do you have gas and bloating after you eat?  Understanding how to maximize absorption by learning how to combine your foods is important.  READ MORE . . .

• Salt - Iodized Table Salt, "Natural" Sea Salt, Celtic Sea Salt.  Salt is salt, Right?  WRONG!  There's a big difference.  READ MORE . . .

• Enzymes - Most cooked and processed foods are enzyme depleted.  Enzyme depleted foods do not nourish the body.  Enzymes are needed for healthy cellular and immune functions daily.  So people are now taking enzymes to breakdown cooked and processed foods so the body can digest them better.  The more raw foods you eat the more natural enzymes you ingest.  Enzymes should be taken with every processed and cooked meal.  READ MORE . . .

• Green Foods - "UNCOOKED" Barley Greens, Wheat Grass, Kale, Spinach, Romaine Lettuce.  High nutrient greens.

• Living Foods - Are sprouted and fermented grains, nuts, seeds and vegetables that are naturally rich in organic enzymes.  Living foods are not cooked foods. 

• Raw Foods - These are enzyme and nutrient rich foods.  Uncooked / unprocessed, preferable organic when possible, vegetables, fruits, nuts and grains. 
• There are countless dishes that can be prepared into a variety of delicious healthy meals by soaking, marinating, blending, freezing and dehydrating foods into tasty dishes like raw sweet corn chowder soup, raw cashew cream pie, date and almond or pecan pie, dehydrated corn chips, raw almond pate', chocolate almond and vanilla nut milk, vanilla, chocolate or strawberry almond ice cream, zucchini pasta pesto, zucchini spinach lasagna, banana, blue berry, strawberry or apple smoothies, hummus, guacamole, raw apple, raisin pie, flourless chocolate cake, dehydrated raw carrot burgers, protein cookies, zesty tomato sauces, coconut crunch treats, nut and seed cheeses just to name a few.   Hey, you really don't know what you're missing!!

  "And God said, behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed [vegetables], which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, on to which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat."  Gen. 1:29
   

   

  Wheat Grass

        One of the best natural ways to cleanse your system of toxins.