Know Where to get Good Nutrition Information

There is a vast amount of mis-information on what constitutes good nutrition in this country. I am going to point out some of the misgivings that will become more obvious to you as you continue shifting to your True Self/Higher Consciousness that recognizes "real truth." I am going to provide you guidelines to use in order to decipher intellectually whether or not the information you are hearing or reading about involving good nutrition can be relied on as truth. American’s nutritional information has been compromised by “nutritional experts” who construct the standards of good nutrition (The Four Food Groups and the Food Pyramid), and at the same time, sit on boards of big food and biotechnology companies. Therefore, providing the real truth to Americans is in conflict with the big food company’s profits and agendas. Imagine these experts telling Americans that a mostly wf/pb based eating plan was the most favorable and healthful eating plan to adopt. What would happen to the dairy industry (milk/milk product) and the meat, poultry, egg, and seafood industries? Obviously this change in nutrition policy and guidance would not be good for the profits of these billion dollar industries, just as stop smoking bans have affected the tobacco industry which was killing people for years on end. Americans are confused about good nutrition because science seems so unreliable. However, science isn’t perfect because the human body is so complex and the nature of scientific research that is supposed to be curious is sometimes hi-jacked by scientists who have an agenda and are looking for their study to be well received. Add insult to injury, and we have medical doctors that are not trained to prevent or reverse disease in medical school; instead they are trained to heavily rely on pharmaceuticals and surgery. If nutrition were better understood, and prevention with natural treatments were more accepted by the medical community, we would not be trying to save people’s lives through pills and surgery in the late stages of deadly diseases. The status quo has miserably failed and it is time to make a shift in our food consciousness toward eating from our Higher Self by eating Mother Nature’s bounty of a mostly wf/pb eating plan.

The answer of where or who to get good nutrition information from is not simple, but I will give you a framework of guidelines to help you decipher if you are getting the truth.

Guideline #1 – Check Your Source

Look for proper credentials (Ph.D, MS, RD, LD, LDN). If someone claims they are an expert without proper credentials, be wary. A certification in nutrition without a degree in nutrition means that individual spent minimal hours compared to an academically trained individual. Chiropractors or nurses teaching nutrition seems reasonable, but they are not  experts and neither are M.Ds. Personal trainers and Life Coaches are typically among the worst sources you want to get your nutrition advice or plan from, although Americans seem to do so a lot. Be careful of individuals who do not have a nutrition degree, who interpret research. First of all, scientific literature has a language of its own and the average person is not going to be able to understand or interpret most nutrition studies. Look for the academic institution where the persons earned their credentials; there are a lot of online degree programs these days, which do not hold the reputations of brick and mortar colleges and universities. Tufts University and Cornell have one of the most prestigious nutrition programs in the country and of course there are others. If your source is an organization, do not assume that if it is a government agency that you can rely on the information to be true. If the information from a government entity is raw data like the USDA National Nutrient Database or Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity Values (ORAC) – then you are pretty safe with that data being reliable. Otherwise, look to organizations that conduct research like the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) or independent watch dog organizations like the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) for more reliable and neutral advice and recommendations. 

• Guideline #2 – Listen to the Language Used

If the information being presented is sensationalized with words “like poison or supernatural,” be wary. If it sounds like a panacea, be wary. If it sounds like it’s a magic bullet that requires restriction, special foods, or a special routine, be wary. If the information sounds “black or white” with no grey area, be wary. Look for information that can present both sides of an issue or provide an outcome or opinion that is passionate, but balanced at the same time. There is a difference between presenting vague information and neutral information, you want neutral.

• Guideline #3 – Always be Cautious

Be a super sleuth! Do not take information to heart without taking time to look into it more. If your intuition is making you wonder, that’s your Higher Self asking you to check in with your resonance of truth, just as I did with the Stanford scientist for the Atkins study.

A Conscious Cleanse can be Transformational

Most cleanses involve starvation, but a conscious cleanse goes far beyond the narrow emphasis of other cleansing programs that offer just food intake strategies, tonics, or pills. A conscious cleansing plan integrates mind, body, soul, and only whole food. A conscious cleanse is a holistic approach to cleansing that is a rare gift, encompassing a process that is more involved than the usually unconscious route of just focusing on foods, tonics, restrictions, and starvation.

Why do I believe in a cleanse? First, it is a way for your body to recharge, rejuvenate, and renew. The word cleanse stems from the word clean. Therefore a cleanse will clear your pipes, and  “clean” your cleansing organs along with laying down a foundation of new healthy flora for your gut (just as a gardener lays down nutrient rich soil). Once you embrace a state of food consciousness which encompasses a mostly whole food/plant based eating plan, a cleanse prepares your body to fully absorb and receive Mother Nature’s bounty more than if you did not make the choice to journey on a cleanse. 

Second, a cleanse is much more than a nutritional body cleaning, it is also a spiritual experience. I recommend either a 4 or 7 day cleanse of ingesting only whole/raw plant foods and plants in freshly blended juices, smoothies, soups, salads, or raw state. A conscious cleanse may bring up  emotional and soul level layers that require your attention to go to your center, use meditation, and utilize energy healing tools. Feel your feelings fully….you may want to journal what comes up for you and the food combinations that excited this transformation. Explore and love what is awakening in you, as your cleanse may feel difficult to complete because your mind may play games with you by trying to interfere with the process and make you feel uncomfortable. As with most spiritual experiences, your cleanse will connect you deeply with your body, mind, and soul which offers you improved energy, mental clarity, and anchoring to your God-self. Cleansing has the potential to awaken your body to heal on many levels. Almost every religion has some type of fasting or cleansing ritual – Lent, Ramadan, Yom Kippur, and the Buddhists and Hindus as these spiritual teachings recognize purification within starts with food energy.

A body cleanse is an ancient practice of the Egyptians and the Greeks. They would target specific organs that can putrefy and produce toxins and then utilize a cleanse with plants to purify the body and detoxify cellular accumulations that would otherwise harm the body. Our bodies naturally cleanse every day. It is a normal process that goes on within the cleansing organs of the skin, colon, liver, lymphatic system, and lungs. These systems and organs perform functions on our behalf every second of the day just as our heart beats without any thought given to that physical miracle beating in our chests. However, modern life and the tribal mind of socially conditioned eating interferes with our natural cleanse, hindering what our bodies truly deserve. Pollutants, chemicals, and other synthetic substances have burdened our natural cleansing system with more than it can handle. Therefore, the body has made an adjustment of storing these toxins in body fat, which is stored in a manner outside the regular elimination system, so we do not get poisoned. As you can imagine, these adjustments our bodies make because of our unconscious choices are not good for our health in the long run. 

You are what you eat….and what you have eaten and not eliminated! Animal foods and animal products such as beef, pork, chicken, turkey, fish, shellfish, milk, dairy products, and eggs all create acidic blood. Other foods that affect your cleansing organ systems are: sugar and sugar substitutes, baked goods, processed and fast foods, soft drinks and sports drinks, alcohol, coffee, prescription drugs and recreational drugs, cigarettes and other forms of tobacco. A conscious cleanse relieves the body of the stagnation that is created with foods that metabolize acidicly and elevates the soul with clean pure energy from Mother Natures bounty.

Recognizing Your Body as a Temple

Out of all the blogs I have covered so far....none are more important than this foundational concept. It is the Divine key to realizing wholeness and consciousness. This ideology is the closest to my heart and the essence of Food Conscousness.

 I have a strong resonance with this bible verse: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” 1 Corinthians 3:16. This scripture is the very reason that I pursued two nutrition degrees and dedicated my life’s work to health care. It was very apparent to me as a youngster that health and a healthy body would be my passion and driving force in life. There is an old Arabian proverb that embodies a universal truth: “He who has health has hope; he who has hope has everything; so guard your health as your most precious possession”.

I like to substitute the word “gift” in the place of “possession,” as the word possess is of the ego and the word gift comes from a giver, which is of high vibrational energy. Your state of health is determined by the absence of symptoms in your body. Your health and your body are almost synonymous, so the Arabian proverb is stating the obvious truth that your life will not exist if you do not take care of your body. Yet, we have more than fifty percent of Americans slowly killing themselves and their soul purpose with every unconscious lift of the fork, among other low vibrational choices.

All the moments of your life - from enjoying the flavors of food, listening to music, and observing the beauty of a sunset - were all made possible because of the magnificence and complexity of your body. Our bodies create life and give birth to soul and flesh. It can create Egyptian pyramids and Golden Gate Bridges from our imagination. The body can run 100 meters in 9.72 seconds and climb the highest mountain in the world. In order for our bodies to perform any of these gifts they must send thousands of electrical signals known as neuro- transmissions throughout the body and maintain a rhythmic heart beat, which are by and large molecular miracles.

You may forget about these miracles happening inside your body and take them for granted, but why do we do this knowing the quality of our health is determined by how we take care of our bodies? This is where the disconnect to Source will lower your vibration and, as a result, your food choices will be less than Divine. Your body is always trying to maintain homeostatic health and metabolism for your optimal well-being, no matter how badly you treat it. Your body is always talking to you, although most of the times you choose to ignore what it is saying.

Symptoms, pain, and illness will eventually surface in order to get your attention. Illness is a mirror of your inner thoughts and beliefs, which tells you there is a false idea in your consciousness. In other words, something that you are saying, believing, taking on, or doing that is not for your higher good must be taking place – otherwise the symptoms, pain, or illness would not be created in your body. Your body, mind, and soul are all vitally involved in creating or healing illness. If you want to heal an illness, yet you still believe the answers are outside yourself and you do not clear the emotional or spiritual issues that surround that body ailment, it will remain in your body or reoccur again and again. Illness can be your greatest teacher. When you realize that every cell in your body responds to every thought you think….then your life, your health, and your spiritual well-being will be forever changed.

The Two Connections to Conscious Eating & Consciousness: The Second is.....Self-Worth

The philosophical journey to conscious eating and consciousness continues.....see if any of these portrayals look familiar to anyone you know in the mirror.

Although much of who you are changes as you journey through life, your inherent worth remains constant. You may have heard the term self-esteem to mean self-worth because the two are used interchangeably, but to your surprise they are quite different. Self-esteem is the measure of how you feel about yourself at any given time. However, your self-worth is not a product of your health, looks, talent, intelligence, or accomplishments. It is how you perceive your oneness with Source and the infinite power of that realization. Your self-worth cannot be taken from you or damaged by life experiences, yet it can be disconnected and hidden as if not there.

You are born worthy – your self-worth encompasses every fabric of your being. Your perception of your own self-worth is reinforced by your thoughts, words, choices, and actions. Each day that you appreciate yourself, treat yourself kindly, define your personal boundaries, be proactive in taking care of your body temple, and put God first in your life, you express your gratitude for your innate value. During periods when you lose consciousness of your self-worth, you may feel a lack of energy in your body temple from that disconnect. Simply awakening to this concept can allow you to rediscover your awe-inspiring self-worth within you because now you realize that your self-worth is not based on the fulfillment of expectations.

There may be times when you question….why it is that you do not know more about yourself and how you have been living. You may even criticize yourself for repeating the same mistakes of low vibrational food choices regarding your health. From the minute you are born, your God essence is yearning to have you connect to that oneness which builds your self-worth and helps you to support your spiritual self and your human self. You always know as much as you are meant to know at any given moment. Sometimes your self-worth can be attached to things like feeling you have to be perfect or the most popular of all….comparing yourself to others.

Having to be perfect is certainly not in alignment with your Oneness and value of self-worth. Yet, many people have this character or aspiration. When you are in the mindset of perfection, making mistakes and not measuring up are seen as failures. But if you remember life is an experimental journey of learning, then to be imperfect should be a prerequisite. Life becomes much more interesting once you let go of your quest for perfection. Perfection is an impermanent state. Your life changes more than it stays the same and even in this moment your hair is growing, your cells are dividing, and your blood is moving through your veins. Trying to hold on to perfection or forcing it to happen may just cause stress on the body and lay the ground work for dis-ease.

You are unique. There is no one like you in the entire universe. One way to honor your unique oneness is not to compare yourself with other people. It is human nature to want to compare yourself to others….especially if you think that they are better than you or have more of something you want. Your Creator thinks you are incomparable, thus it is not a good use of time to compare yourself to others. You may do this because it is easier to look outside yourself and feel like you’re deficient to others rather than realizing your desire for wholeness and embodying your self-worth. Every one of us is here for very specific reasons. Each of us has a life purpose to fulfill and with this comes the experiences and lessons made just for you in order to evolve as a spiritual being having human experiences. To compare your life to others when you have no idea what they are here to experience or fulfill does not benefit anyone – especially you. Realizing your value brings out the best in yourself, so that you can get on with living a high vibrational life, rather than preoccupying yourself with meaningless comparisons.

Realizing consciousness awakens conscious living which urges conscious eating. Self-love and self-worth are part of realizing your consciousness. As your spiritual well-being begins to elevate, you will strongly resonate and utilize the component of wholeness from Chapter One (recognizing your body as a temple). As you fully embody this component, conscious eating will be one of the gifts you will adamantly give your body in order to experience vibrant health. 

The Two Connections to Conscious Eating & Consciousness: The First is.....Self-Love

Within you are voices that often compete for your attention. It can be difficult to decide which one to listen to, particularly when their messages are all quite different, and sometimes conflicting. The One Voice however, only speaks the language of truth. Among all your inner voices, the voice that IS quintessential LOVE is the one that encourages you, gives you hope, and urges you to trust and believe in yourself. Struggle within oneself is often caused by conflicting voices inside of you. As you move through life, you get an assortment of messages from the various aspects of yourself. Some of your voices, such as the saboteur and the victim can speak so loudly that they drown out the voice of truth. Listening to the voice that IS quintessential LOVE will help you resolve internal conflict, so that your every expression is that of God’s love emanating self-love. The more you listen to and believe in what the One voice is telling you about your value (self-love and self-worth), the stronger that voice will become. Saying NO to the voices that are judgmental and make you feel ashamed will help you stop being afraid of taking the next step to realize your wholeness, raise your consciousness, and thus improve your food relationship, struggles, and bring forth vibrant health.

Many people, in seeking out love, tend to look outward rather than inward. Yet falling in love with yourself can be just as wonderful an experience as falling in love with someone else. While the idea may seem odd at first, even conceited or selfish, choosing to fall in love with who you are is a powerful act of self-love. When you fall in love with yourself, you can’t help but experience God. When you begin to look at yourself with fresh eyes, noticing the magnificence of what makes you unique, you discover how much there is about you to fall in love with and you can’t help but want to treat your body temple as lovingly and respectfully as you would treat anyone else who is special to you. Upon this revelation….being overweight, taking medications for hypertension, high cholesterol, being in-active and the other things that you have created with low vibrational choices – you won’t want to continue any longer. You will not tolerate this expression or ignore it anymore. You will be pro-active in making the necessary changes to elevate your consciousness and it will involve a mostly whole food/plant based conscious eating plan that is your Divine Self expressing.

Choosing to fall in love with yourself is a very personal process that takes time. There is no “genie in the bottle” that will snap its finger to make this happen. But there is the power of intention and the power of your Divine Self expressing that will motivate you to make necessary changes, encourage you to treat yourself with love, help you to take inventory of all your wonderful qualities, and teach you to nurture yourself with nature’s bounty, meditation, and physical activity

Self-love is really important in a world still comprised of low vibrational people who may not like you. Remember like attracts like, so when you run across a person who does not like you – it is most likely because they are not like you. Rather than taking it personally you can let them be who they are accepting we all have different perspectives. But more importantly you are not taking it personally because you love yourself and do not need their approval.

While approval from others is a nice feeling, when you come to depend on it, you weaken your foundation of self-love. As you reap the benefits of loving yourself, one of the most rewarding benefits will be your relationship with God that has a direct connection to all your other relationships in your life including food. The need for you to have everyone like you will be replaced by the joy of discovering that you are attracting like minded people to your life – people who are like you and understand and appreciate the truth of who you are. Living your life in the light and love of God transcends limitations and empowers you to “NOT live to eat”, but rather, “eat consciously to live.”

Begin a new conscious routine of attracting the natural bliss of life into your being by starting each morning taking several deep grounding breaths. Reaffirm the love you have for yourself. Say aloud a self-directed loving prayer that enables you to access and awaken your soul into making choices for your spiritual well-being and body temple health. Before you leave the warmth and comfort of your bed, be sure to tell Spirit that you are eager to accept the blessings “It” has set aside for you and that you will be operating during this day in consciousness. As you prepare to meet the day, visualize yourself enveloped in the energy of God with a bright light guiding you to fulfill your spiritual well-being. Gradually widen the circle of light until you are able to send it ahead into your future and then “be” in awe of what awaits you. Each morning as you acknowledge your love of self and love of Spirit, this practice will ensure that your day is suffused with grace and movement in consciousness.

What is Conscious Eating?

Simply….it is eating some form of a mostly whole food/plant based eating plan that works for you.

People who are expressing their Higher Self choose more whole foods and plants, water to hydrate, look within to heal their bodies, minimize nutrient depleted foods like sugar, use natural body care products on their skin, and give their bodies love through meditation, massage, and positive self- talk. Did I mention drinking water, water, water?  A whole food/plant based eating plan will consist of: nuts, unprocessed seeds, lots of fresh vegetables and fruits, and vegetable proteins providing natures nutrients without additional substances you do not need. Juicing is a wonderful adjunct to conscious eating.

Like most Americans….the idea of giving up virtually all animal products seemed ludicrous to me. The whole idea was strange from the perspective of my human self, but my spiritual self was assuring me that it would be easier than I thought. When I decided to make the move to a whole food/plant based eating plan I decided to dive in and forget about testing the waters. Interestingly enough, my spiritual self was right….it wasn’t hard at all! I knew I didn’t want to give up all animal products, so I decided to keep a few of the ones that I knew had the lowest amount of protein per gram as well as the ones lowest in casein (a protein found in milk). I will discuss in later issues why lowering your protein and focusing mostly on plants (fruits and veggies) more healthful for your body and evidenced in scientific research.

I believe I never had any food struggles or an unhealthy food relationship because I value my self love and self-worth, which are crucial to eating from your God-Self.  Add to that, I have always had an innate honor of my body temple. These three principles have kept me in Divine Alignment and subsequently I express high vibrational food consciousness and you can too!

Self love and Self-worth are not just ethereal beliefs or thoughts that enter your mind and then disappear. That information you call thoughts can shape your life and drive you toward success, happiness, and health. How you think and feel can have a profound effect on your ability to perform and achieve the goals that you have set for yourself and manifest your desires. But remember an optimistic mind must also be an honest one. Staying positive does not mean that you ignore unhealthy symptoms or your possible obsession with food. Positive thinking dramatically increases your chance of success in any endeavor including your food struggles.

When you are sure that you are worthy and love yourself; any achievement is within your grasp because you relax and look for solutions such as realizing your wholeness rather dwelling on your problems. You are also more likely to imagine yourself without food struggles then to stay mired in an unhealthy food relationship that produces illness and dis-ease. What the mind expects, it will find. Thinking positively may sound like a simple shift in consciousness, as it is, but it also comes from the mindset and value of self love and self-worth. We will begin a philosophical journey of how self love and self worth are connected to conscious eating and consciousness in the March and April release of this blog.

What is Unconscious Eating?

The simplest way to define unconscious eating is a typical Western diet. You may say to yourself that people who are eating a typical Western “diet” are making that choice consciously. Yes, I could agree with you at some level, but remember that consciousness is connecting to your Divine Nature and asking yourself….would God choose this kind of eating for me knowing it creates obesity and disease? Is it OK to treat my body temple so recklessly through the food choices of a typical Western diet and commercialized diet programs?

I believe we can agree that we all know what unconscious eating looks like because most everyone around us is eating from the tribal mind of the typical Western diet. So I am not going to go into the details of what that looks like from food choices or habits. Rather, I am going to talk about what unconscious eating looks like philosophically.

Just because an ideology or way of doing something is popular or mainstream doesn’t mean it is the best choice to make. Interestingly thou, part of the way something becomes popular is because the individuals within the tribal mind do not take the time to determine what is right for them. Instead, it is simpler to do what the rest of the tribal mind/society is doing. Unfortunately, when you approach your life unconsciously from both your spiritual self and your human self, your decisions are being made by default and NOT consciously. Going along with the tribal mind and eating a typical Western diet may be the result of pressure by family or peers or just plain accepting social conditioning to do things the way they have always been. It’s not easy to go against the grain….you may find people feel threatened when you make decisions and choices that are divergent from the ones everyone else makes. Furthermore, it’s easy to feel frustrated when you feel unsupported and misunderstood simply because you are elevating your mind, body, and soul from the tribal mind. But this is where connecting to Source and experiencing “It’s” strength and love for your body temple that will bring healing and a knowing that this new desire of conscious eating is your wholeness expressing.

When you are unconscious, you are sending your body messages that you are not good enough. Whenever you do this, you are creating energy that damages the body in the form of stress, aliments, and dis-ease by choosing unconscious eating as your choice. Being hard on yourself is a waste of energy and saps your mind, body, and soul of much needed energy to be used in positive ways. Maybe you can understand what I am saying by remembering a time when someone made you feel you weren’t good enough. Take that feeling and magnify it when you do this to yourself. If you tune into this unconscious message….you will intuitively say to yourself – I know this cannot be good for me. This is where self love and self worth create a foundation of consciousness with God that spurs an impulse to activate your desire to eat consciously. If you do not have self love or self worth in the development of your spiritual well-being or your human self…. food struggles may still worm their way into your choices and sabotage you from fulfilling a conscious eating plan.