Four Basic Principles of Healthy Eating and Living

(NaturalNews) Changing your diet isn`t always easy. The first thing you need to realize is that when you go off the western diet you will undergo a detoxification process that will be both physically and mentally challenging. The urge to go back to toxic foods will be almost impossible to resist and it will take tremendous discipline and will power to withstand. It`s important to keep these four principles in mind: water, raw plant food, full-spectrum salt and full fats.



Water



Coffee dehydrates. All stimulants do. Caffeine is a stimulant. In the morning your adrenals produce natural levels of the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline in order to jolt you awake and get you going for the rest of the day. This should be enough to do the trick. If you wake up not feeling refreshed and rested it means your immune system wasn`t able to finish the natural cleansing process it goes through every night and prefers to keep you asleep to finish the job. In other words, your immune system is compromised and you need more adrenalin and cortisol to kick-start your brain into action.



Coffee will do just that. So will the Sugar and cream you put in it. These are all stimulants which drive up your blood sugar. The result is a response from your adrenals to produce higher levels of cortisol and adrenalin than usual because your body goes into survival mode. These are not the only two hormones which are produced in excess. Your pancreas will excrete higher levels of insulin than usual to try and bring back your blood Sugar to normal levels. Do this for 20, 30, maybe 40 years and you`re setting yourself up for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, even neurological diseases such as MS, Parkinson`s etc.



Along with exhausted adrenals, an exhausted pancreas, and disturbed blood Sugar and hormonal levels, you`re also seriously overtaxing your nerve system. This is why too much coffee causes your hands to shake. Another contributing factor is that these stimulants acidify your blood, which naturally has a pH of between 7.3 and 7.4. Not only that, water is drained from your cells which are forced to give up their fluids as well as glucose and minerals from your blood, muscles and tissue.



Do you understand now how much havoc that one cup of coffee with sugar and creamer wreaks in the morning just to get you through the day? And that`s just coffee! The typical western diet contains nothing but adrenal-depleting, blood-sugar upsetting, mineral-depriving, water-draining and alkaline-lowering stimulants: bread, pizza, cookies, soft drinks - it`s a miracle people are still alive! Most people are seriously dehydrated as a result of this. One of the first things you need to do is drink the amount of good-quality water (unfluorized, filtered water) your cells need on a daily basis. Drink 10 oz of water for every 20 lbs of body weight. Make sure you drink most of that water in the morning.



A good way to start the day is drinking lemon water (water with freshly squeezed lemon juice). This also helps detoxify the liver. Smoothies are a great way to get water in your system. Mike Adams has put together a nice little book with smoothie recipes:



http://www.truthpublishing.com/supe...



Another great way to bring more water to your cells is by eating foods that naturally contain lots of water, e.g. cucumber, water melon, green leafy vegetables. The importance of water is not to be underestimated and it`s the first step toward great health you need to take.



Raw Plant Food



Eat more salads! Organic raw plant foods are incredibly healthy, purifying and nourishing. Besides water they contain omega-3 fatty acids, chlorophyll, minerals, enzymes, proteins, and vitamins. They are nature`s complete foods and humans and animals alike thrive on them, including the meat eaters who get the plant nutrients secondhand through the meat. Make sure you eat at least one salad a day, preferably two, or even three!



Don`t worry about counting calories and don`t feel guilty about overeating because it`s almost impossible to overeat salads. That`s because they contain water and are not dense foods. They will make you lose weight but also mentally they will make you feel lighter. They are truly heart foods. Did you know that the number one heart mineral is magnesium and that chlorophyll is built around magnesium? Did you also know that chlorophyll is 98% identical to red blood cells? We are plants, and they are teachers who can elevate our consciousness.



An easy salad to make is grated carrots with green leafy vegetables, the darker green the better (try spinach!), sprouts and a dressing of olive oil with fresh lemon juice. Make sure you add some of the pulp as well. You can even eat the seeds, which are anti-candida and anti-cancer. If you want you can add a bit of paprika, cayenne pepper and oregano to your salad. Learn to appreciate the taste of bitter and sour, the two most underdeveloped tastes in your mouth, thanks to the conditioning you`ve undergone since childhood to appreciate only sweet and salt.



Full-Spectrum Salt



Just like there`s such a thing as full-spectrum light (natural sunlight which contains the full electro-magnetic spectrum) there`s also full-spectrum salt. Salt, too, is electro-magnetic energy. Your cells need these electrolytes in order to improve the electro-magnetic and even light communication between the cells. Take only these three types of salt: Celtic Sea Salt (aka sel gris, from Guerande, France), Dead Sea Salt , or Himalaya salt.



The best way to consume the salt is in liquid form by making a concentrated salt solution called a Sole. This article explains how to do it:



http://www.naturalnews.com/023600.html



A safe dose is taking one or two teaspoons of Sole in a glass of water per day. You can up the dose gradually if you want, but be careful and listen to what your body is telling you. You don`t have to worry about your blood pressure or your heart as your body actually needs salt, lots of it. Your blood should naturally contain 0.9% of salt and your body needs about 7 dry oz of it. When you were in your mother`s womb you were in a salt bath which should have been very similar to diluted ocean water. Healthy human blood is 98% identical to ocean water. We are not only plants, we are also a diluted ocean. Thus it makes perfect sense to drink salt dilutions to regenerate our cells and give them back the original information and energy.



Full Fats



By full fats are meant full fats. Forget about calories and the fat-is-bad propaganda. Have you ever seen skimmed or low-fat milk coming out of a cow? That`s like saying nature has made a mistake and we`re correcting it by taking the fat out. Fat does not make you fat. Let`s repeat that: FAT DOES NOT MAKE YOU FAT.



Make sure you eat the right kind, though. They are easy to remember: only extra vergine organic coconut oil and olive oil, as well as real butter made from real milk. The most bioavailable forms of fat are saturated fats, as they have a short or medium chain. These are mostly animal fats, such as raw milk from organic, grass-fed cows with horns, butter and grass-fed, organic meat. Of course coconut oil is a great vegetarian saturated fat alternative. In second place are mono-unsaturated fats such as olive oil. These are more difficult to digest because of their longer chain but nevertheless really healthy.



As you may have noticed, in these four principles of healthy eating you don`t see grains anywhere. Mankind has been on this planet for some 200,000 years. We started farming only about 10,000 years ago. This means this `staple food` didn`t enter our diet until recently from an evolutionary perspective. The human digestive system was not meant to deal with grains. Ask yourself why there are so many people with gluten intolerances and allergies. Only birds are meant to eat grains. For us, it goes against, well, the grain.



The easiest way to integrate the four principles of healthy eating into your life is to live mostly on smoothies and salads. They allow you to combine the four principles. Smoothies and salads are also easy to take with you. Make sure each ingredient is organic, though. It literally pays for itself as you will feel more nourished while eating less. It`s food that feeds and not just fills.



If you stick to this food pattern you are giving your cells the energy and information they need to regenerate themselves. You will lose weight if you are overweight and gain weight if you are underweight. Your blood sugar and hormone levels will stabilize and so will your blood pressure and cholesterol. Your bowel, liver and heart function will improve and so will your immune and digestive system as a result. You will experience a noticeable increase in energy, vitality and health.



These are transformational foods which can help speed up our evolution because they are based on nature`s life-giving and life-promoting principles. All it takes is the mental strength, discipline and will power to go with your own flow rather than that of society. We are society, though. Allow these foods to open up your minds, hearts and souls and heal you at every level, and we can change society. As Ghandi said, be the change you want to see. All it takes is a few brave souls to set off this change. You could be one of them.



Sources:



Moritz, Andreas Timeless Secrets of Health and Rejuvenation, Ener-Chi Wellness Press, 2007

Wolfe, David The Sunfood Diet Success System, Maul Bros Publishing, 2006

Price, Weston A. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Keats Publishing, 2003





About the author



Mike Donkers is an English teacher from the Netherlands who started taking care of his own health in October 2006 because doctors couldn't help him. His interest in the connection between food and health has led to more in-depth research, particularly in the role sea minerals can have in the regeneration of cells. He is also a self-taught guitarist and singer. He is the songwriter and frontman of his own band, The Mellotones (www.nubluz.com).





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Four Basic Principles of Healthy Eating and Living