“If you experience symptoms, chronic symptoms, frequent illness, and even disease, it’s important to know you can have control over your foundational health. It’s never too late to lay your foundation!”
No budget? No problem! You can increase healthy choices and still make good headway! While I firmly believe supplementation is an important element of wellness, it’s also true that the more healthy choices you make the less you will need to supplement.
Take what you know is bad for you and convert it to something good for you, something that will taste better, you will like better and will be better for you (and your family).
We all know which choices are not healthy, but few of us have direction about what is healthy, so much information, but none of it seems to fit together. Sadly, most of us will take better care of our car than our body, because we think our body should be fine….and it may be if we all lived hundreds of years ago when the air was clean, the food was nutritious, the water was clean, and, oh yes, stress wasn’t a daily component of our lives (stress can be several times more harmful than unhealthy food, as the stomach turns).
It makes sense to us that we usually feel unhealthy symptoms and express colds and flu more in the winter. We can blame it on the cold weather or the inactivity as a result of cold weather, or perhaps that we eat more cooked foods versus the fresh foods of spring and summer. Or that as the weather changes, our levels of healthy hydration and perspiration may lessen.
Let’s look at the core of what keeps us healthy, our immune system, and then at how we can begin to develop strong foundational wellness.
Common symptoms of a compromised immune system, blood environment, and digestion/elimination system, could be called occasional or usual allergies, sleep issues, behavioral issues, digestive and elimination issues, tiredness, pain in joints, ligaments, etc., and the list goes on.
Asthma, as an example (an allergic mechanism to allergies) and/or allergies themselves are common today in children and adults. Both can be foundationally supported through improving your immune system.
Contrary to what we hear, we may not be exactly what we eat, we could be only that which we are able to digest, and then uptake as nutrition. Which is why it’s in our best interest to support not only our immune systems, but our companion blood system via hydration and strong nutritional uptake, and to also heighten/strengthen our body’s ability to eliminate toxins. Do you feel like 5 o’clock traffic hour or are you full of energy, free wheeling through your day? Optimally, our blood should be clean, clear, and moving, my premise is our blood goes everywhere, so the health of our blood determines the health of our body, and our performance.
- The function of our blood is a two way street, one way delivers oxygen, microscopic nutrition (from what we’ve ingested, digested, and broken down) and components of our immune system throughout our body. The other way, sends out the trash or eliminates that which doesn’t serve us or could hurt us.
- The function of our liver, lymphatic system, and kidneys is to eliminate toxins, reduce toxic load, processing through our elimination system, primarily our bowel movements, urine, and perspiration.
So how do we do this with the least amount of effort and the biggest gain? We remember our body is mostly water (about 70% or more), and pure water is a primary element, and we accept that what we ingest is all that we have to support our brain, our behavior, several internal operating systems, bones, muscles, ligaments, tissues, blood, and more.
Our body is designed to drink and eat, and then to process and receive nutrition both from the food we ingest and water we drink. Water is a carrier of minerals, our body holds onto the water in an effort to extract the nutrition, and at the same time will then break it down to a smaller molecular size providing hydration to our various cell sizes. Typically the water molecule is larger than most of our cells. Whole foods naturally co-factor vitamins and minerals, meaning, when natural co factoring doesn’t exist, optimal nutrition is limited.
We should also make it a priority to really chew (break down) our food before we swallow (meaning our teeth and saliva do most of the work to break down nutrition), which takes the pressure off of our digestive system which then can break it down even smaller. The particles then make their way to our intestinal tract, eventually our food becomes microscopic for our blood system. At least two important things happen in our intestinal tract, we uptake nutrition and eliminate the waste.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard we try, synthetics are not physically recognized as nutrition, not synthetic food and certainly not synthetic vitamins, optimally food and supplementation must be from pure water and a whole food source.
There is no doubt that with today’s schedules all families have challenges meeting nutritional requirements. Add that to the degradation of the food, water, and air over the years and what you have is a recipe for winter illness, chronic illness, and disease. Run your body in deficiency for very long and you will feel not only feel tired, but your body will begin to accommodate the deficiencies, eventually knocking down your dominoes of good health. Today purifying your water and seeking out whole foods and whole food based supplementation (concentrated foods) has for most people, become a necessity in order to meet the most basic physical needs.
Okay, so how do we make inroads, small changes that can make a huge difference in our health? Simple common sense approach in our shopping and food preparation, i.e., selecting fresh whole food as well as foods with healthy ingredients (read the labels), and leaving processed foods on the store shelves.
- Increase fluids/hydration through pure water, add fresh lemon or lime which allows the body to hold onto the water longer, meaning it can hydrate more cells and will extract the phyto chemical nutrition of the lemon or lime, receive the health and nutritional properties. (Sweetening can be done with Stevia, available in a no aftertaste powder concentrate at most markets offering healthy choices.) Tastes good, everyone will drink it.
- It may be wise to select non dairy or minimize dairy and choose organic dairy over conventional dairy products when possible. Conventional dairy today may contain levels of chemicals and hormones, and because a cow has a double digestive system, could contain high levels of lactic acid. All of which is exacerbated when the cow has had injections of antibiotics and hormones, and perhaps grazing on chemical laden grass, then processed and sold conventionally.
- Oils (cold pressed, first pressed, non heat processed)/ are not fear dreaded fattening, they feed our muscles, ligaments, tissues, and our brain, so please choose your oils wisely, cold pressed or first pressed are indications there is great nutrition – processed oils bear no nutrition. Different oils for different reasons. Cold pressed olive oil can be used for cold, low heat food preparation. Cold pressed avocado or grapeseed oils can go to higher heats and maintain their nutritional integrity. Sunflower seed oil, flax seed oil, and many others provide omegas, vital nutrition, especially for brainpower, muscles, ligaments, and overall body function.
- Wild or game meats are easier to digest for the most part, than conventional grocery store meats because they are grass eating and have not been compromised with chemicals and injections. Our meats and poultry today have been compromised and therefore our ability to digest and process these foods is compromising us. If you choose not to be a vegetarian, select wild game, free range, and at the very least, hormone and chemical free meats and poultry.
- Turkey and wild range, organic poultry would also reduce the intake of chemicals and hormones so common today. Fish is much easier to digest and a great dinner choice. Fish today come from a variety of waters, it’s important to look where it originates. For example, cold water, wild or troll caught is going to have higher bio available oils and nutrition with less, if any chemicals and bad minerals, than say warm water fish. Fresh water fish like trout coming from cold waters will have less bacteria than fish from warm water lakes or ponds.
- If you don’t understand the names of the ingredients, chances are it’s not real food. Choose fresh over frozen and frozen over canned. The process to can foods compromises the nutritional value. Fresh produce can be categorized for any budget to purchase organic over conventional. All produce has labels with a code number: Organic will begin with a #9, conventional a #4.
- NOTE: Hard stock produce like broccoli is less likely to absorb chemicals and pesticides than lettuce, it’s a fine leafy vegetable, and should be organic. Base your buying decisions on logic and common sense, decide by characteristics, how vulnerable a fruit or vegetable is to absorbing chemicals and pesticides. (A footnote here, is before the end of World War II, all farms were organic and we didn’t have commercially canned foods.)
Low heat crock pot soups with tons of vegetables are an amazing way to garner nutrition in the winter, pouring soup over fresh greens, herbs, spices, is even better. Choosing to ingest quality meat (s) when you have time to digest it, and none or less at night, will provide you a healthier healing cycle while you are sleeping. Your healing cycle begins when your body turns off, i.e., sleeping and not digesting. And lemonade made with pure lemons and a concentrated, no after taste powdered Stevia will serve to hydrate and nourish.
Eating and digesting is a process that separates what’s good for you from what’s not good for you, and a strong body will eliminate the harmful and deliver the nutrition. Therefore, clean hydration, whole food based nutrition, and good oils are foundational elements to well being.
Preparation Tips We always try to add raw if we have cooked and these are great examples:
Rice – Basmati (white or brown) We like using a rice cooker, but can be done on the stove just as well.
2 parts liquid, 1 part rice
Suggestions:
- 1/2 coconut cream and 1/2 pure water will give you tasty, healthy rice you will love.
- Add dehydrated veges the last 10 minutes and they will plump perfectly.
- Liquid can also be dry vege broth in water.
- Once rice is cooked add Real Salt, Celtic Salt, Nutmeg, or other spices you like.
Vege/Rice Bowl
- Dice cucumbers, tomatoes, avacadoes, onion (whatever you like)
- Squeeze lemon or lime juice and sprinkle oil on top of your veges
- Then top off with your hot rice
Rice for Breakfast – Tasty & Healthy
2 parts liquid, 1 part rice
1/2 coconut cream, 1/2 soymilk plus nutmeg, cinnamon, Astraya Stevia, 1 T. maple syrup or organic brown sugar for taste, and place any nuts or berries in the bottom of each bowl before adding hot rice cereal – a little coconut cream on top is perfection.
Pasta – Organic, Fresh (Fresh Frozen) or Spelt are my choices
Layering Process:
- Prepare pasta
- Last 2 minutes add fresh broccoli (or other veges)
- Put cherry/grape tomatoes in colander with fresh basil if you have it
- Pour pasta/veges into prepared colander
Prepare Sauce:
- Dry vege broth and hot water mixed
- Add cold pressed olive oil, fresh lime/lemon juice
- Real Salt, pepper, and spices of choice
- This is great this way or you can add coconut cream for creaminess
Once pasta is drained in colander return to pot, toss in cold pressed extra virgin olive oil or avacado oil (my favorite) until everything is coated.
Pour in prepared sauce and toss again.
Set Up Plate – or Plating:
- Toss fresh spinach with lime juice, olive oil, Real or Celtic Salt and Pepper, and dress plate.
- Top spinach with pasta and veges
“Let’s not “substitute” but let us “replace” with better tasting foods and drinks that are better for us, and most importantly, provide better results! Maraline Krey
