Get Well and Stay Well One Meal at a Time

How do we get well and stay well?    Start by setting a realistic goal and using mindfulness one meal at a time as your own inner guide.

Thinking about your nourishment one meal a time means having a few parameters planted in your head.

When it comes to planning and preparing for a whole foods, plant based diet, the internet can be friend or foe.  Look for blogs and web sites written by RDN’s(Registered Dietitian Nutritionist) for expert advice with NO sensational claims.   In the search bar use these words:  RDN, plant based recipes, few ingredients, easy, etc.

Filling our ‘tank’ with fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains and good sources of fat is SAFER and will provide us the lasting energy needed for healing, work, play and rest.  Remember this acronym SAFER for meal to meal reminders; limit Sugar and Alcohol, Food is medicine, Exercise and Relax daily.

Plants are high in fiber and this type of REAL carbohydrate is slowly assimilated, absorbed, and metabolized along with a multitude of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants necessary to get well and stay well.   All of these powerful ingredients in plants cannot possibly be recreated in pill, potion or powder form.    Sensational claims call to us on the internet, especially when we have a ‘diagnosis’.  Recently a juice marketed from Hawaii claiming to cure cancer got pulled by the FDA…this won’t be the last time something gets pulled for fraudulent claims…buyer beware; if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Small dietary changes will create better health from one end to the other…BTW, entrance to exit is approximately 23 feet.   The human body does NOT do well with processed foods as the main dietary source.  Refined breads, pastries, cereals, snacks and sweets taste good but can change the pace at which food travels through the GI tract; often resulting in either diarrhea and/or constipation.  Elimination is really important for getting well and staying well.  Protect your gut biome by feeding it with whole foods.

Inexpensive sugars and fats that are frequently used in bakery products for longer shelf life have been linked to chronic illnesses like cancer and heart disease.  Reading a label can be tricky so the easiest strategy for eating a whole foods diet is to only choose WHOLE foods!  Congratulations if you have made a conscious decision to use food as medicine.

At breakfast, add fresh fruit and/or vegetables to your whole grain toast or cereal.  At lunch, have homemade soup or salad with mashed avocado on whole grain bread.  http://ohsheglows.com/2016/04/03/glowing-spiced-lentil-soup/

Occasionally, dinner could include 4 ounces of lean meat, fish or chicken(farm fresh is best) and equal amounts or more of plants in the form of cooked or raw green leafy and/or starchy vegetables.  Start by choosing one new plant based recipe per week or experiment with converting a recipe you use regularly to include more vegetable protein and less or NO animal protein.

Of course, food has to taste good to keep you coming back.  RDN blogs and websites have recipes that taste good!    Get crazy with herbs and spices for variety.   Set a goal for yourself that gets you in the kitchen!

A ‘diagnosis’ will stop us in our tracks but may end up being the motivator that steers us to a whole foods plant based diet thus complimenting any conventional medicine prescribed.   Diet quality can and will improve health outcomes.  Stay SAFER by limiting added sugars, alcohol, and animal protein, especially processed and cured meats.

Exercise and relax daily.

“Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” 

Albert Einstein