Whole Food Nourishment For Slow Self-Healing
Whole food eating creates a slow healing response in the body. Let’s step back to 1986 and The Slow Food Movement that began in Italy. Slow Food is a grassroots movement that began as a means to reclaim cultural food, the art and healing benefits of at-home cooking, and supporting the sustainable farming of whole, real food that is grown locally. This slow food movement is now a globally strong effort to reclaim the healing benefits of food, for humans and the Earth, from the world of corporate, packaged food.
It is time to put grassroots action into our self-responsibility for our own health and healing. Let’s call this Slow Healing, Slow Health Education and let’s begin with what we put into our mouths. The food we feed our bodies is what makes or breaks our health and vitality over our lifetimes.
What Is Whole Food Nourishment?
Whole food eating means feeding our bodies the way nature intended: eating foods in their natural state, as close to the perfectly “whole” state in which nature provides them. It also means following the natural growing seasons and eating more foods that are locally grown and produced. Whole food nutrition is eating in balance, which in turn keeps the body in healthy balance. Foods grown naturally develop with the right proportion of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats intended for that particular food. They contain balanced vitamins, minerals, phyto-nutrients, and enzymes. This natural balance for each food ensures that the body can properly utilize the nutrients contained within. Foods that have been refined or processed (parts of them removed or altered) or enriched/fortified (things added) upset this natural balance in foods.
Foods are meant to nourish your body cells not damage them. The health of your cells is related to the health of your food. Your body cells will replicate and regenerate based upon the food we feed ourselves and the available nourishment within that food. Yes, many other factors play into the body’s cellular health but right now we are focusing on food.
When we eat refined, processed, packaged, GMO, fast, and junk type foods, we are pushing our cell’s nutrition in the direction of depletion. Our body cells continual replication moves in the degenerative direction. Over the years, degenerative cell replication contributes to our chances of being plagued with degenerative lifestyle diseases.
Moving Away From Whole Food
The effects of moving away from whole foods and towards refined, processed, and convenience foods are very prevalent in our society. The cancer, cardiovascular, auto-immune, intestinal, bone, teeth, weight, and many other health problems are related to this change from whole food eating to our “modern” diet. Traditional societies, who continue to rely on whole food nutrition, have far less lifestyle related diseases.
As a society, we spend a lot of time looking for cures. The cure is most often in prevention. The best start in restoring health and preventing disease is to return to whole food principles of eating.
Men dig their graves with their own teeth and die more by those fated instruments than all the weapons of their enemies.The cure is the same as the prevention. Let food be thy medicine.
— Thomas Moffett, 1600 AD
The cure is the same as the prevention. Let food be thy medicine.
— HIPPOCRATES
On a simple level, anyone can tell that a baked or steamed, whole potato is more nutritious than potato chips. Use that thought process with every food choice. When choosing food to feed your body cells for vitality, longevity, and just plain good health, for both plant and animal-bases diets, there are a few questions to keep in mind.
Ask Yourself These Questions When Choosing Food
- Is this food in its whole state, as close to the way nature created it?
- How was this food grown? Were chemicals used?
- How was/were the animal(s) raised? Were chemicals, antibiotics, and/or hormones used?
- What was/were the animal(s) fed? Were they raised on their natural diet and free from agricultural chemicals?
- Has anything been added to this food or food product that is not natural? Examples are chemical preservatives, fillers, artificial colors and flavors, etc.
- Has anything been refined out of this food or food product? An example would be potato starch as opposed to dried, ground whole potato flour. Another example is proteins that are extracted from foods like peas, soy, or rice.
- Where was this food raised? How far from my home was it rasied?
- How does the farmer care for the soil that the food is grown in or the animals are raised on? The soil feeds the plants. Healthy, well nourished soil means plants are more nutritious and the animals (humans included) eating those plants are healthier as well.
- Is this food in season right now? Example: buying strawberries from California in January when our local strawberry season is mid-June into early July?
- Do the animals truly range free and can enjoy the sunlight, fresh air, and earth under their feet?
- How will this food impact my cellular health?
Packaged Foods
These are foods that are manufactured in a factory instead of being made at home from scratch. Read all ingredients carefully looking for 100% whole food ingredients. If you can purchase all of the raw ingredients, and make the food product at home, the packaged food is probably whole in nature. If there are ingredients that you cannot purchase, cannot pronounce, do not grow in nature, or you do not know if they are real… do not buy and eat this product.
Many food products are manufactured for the corporate bottom line, not your health.
Now keep in mind, there are companies out there creating quality products: real food, in packages, that are healthy alternatives to what you would make in your own kitchen. These products are sold on the shelves of health food stores, food coops, and in the health food section of grocery stores. Read all labels every time you buy a product. The shopper has to be the responsible one in the grocery store.
Read Labels Carefully For Refined Ingredients In Manufactured Foods
- Fillers used to enhance textures without using real food. Many gluten free products are full of refined carbohydrate fillers: potato starch, white rice flour, tapioca starch.
- Preservatives
- Artificial colors and flavors
- Fake sweeteners
- GMOs (genetically modified organisms)
- Fake fats: hydrogenated, partially hydrogenated, vegetable oils of most varieties (soy, canola, corn), and shortenings (like Crisco).
- Unhealthy fats from factory farm raised animal: meat/eggs/dairy products
- Refined sugars: learn what these are.
Bottom Line: fake ingredients / unnatural food substances do not belong in the human body disturbing cellular health.
Eat whole, local, seasonal, organic foods and experience the slow healing of your body.
I have people ask me questions like this one frequently:
“I have only been eating whole foods for 2 days and I can already feel a big difference in my energy, sleep, mood, etc. Is this possible?
Yes, you can see results that quickly. It is all about cellular health. When you starve the body cells of what they naturally need and then start putting those nourishing elements back into your body, you can feel the impact quickly.
Planning your diets with these whole food principles in mind will create health, lifetime wellness, and supports preventing lifestyle diseases.
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Scott
Thank you for this article I’m trying to eat whole foods in their natural state and truly let food be my medicine.
Paula Youmell
Good for you!
Food, real food, is truly our best medicine.