Topic on Healing and Diet
WHAT’S THE NATUROPATHIC WAY WE CAN VIEW HEALING!
What a great question - for it covers my views on healing. This topic is so vast and yet I am being encouraged to be personal and subjective in the sharing of my understanding. My initial response to the task in hand was “wow!”. To be honest though, I didn’t quite know where to start. Should I describe my thoughts or describe my healing experiences? Should I do this or should I do that? So I’ve decided to kick-off by turning to the dictionary as a starting point. I found whilst browsing the Oxford New Edition, it writes in relation to the word ‘heal,’: ‘Becoming sound or healthy again. Put right. Alleviate sorrow. Related to whole’.
I think natural healing (naturopathic), is fundamentally about the body trying to create harmony within itself. I see healing as a natural ability and activity of the body to bring about positive change to enhance a person’s well-being. It is an innate, essential gift of survival, a gift of all living-beings, for healing is done by the body itself rather than as it might appear, by the pills and medicines we take. The body responses to what we do, but it does the actual healing work itself. Healing is an internal process, but its presences manifests as tangible improvements or transformation, in response to certain favourable conditions like rest, sleep, nourishment and compassion towards yourself. Sometimes healing experiences are physical in natural, eg overcoming eczema or colitis, and sometimes more emotional, eg developing the inner determination to get better; one’s renewed fighting-spirit attitude can be itself, the very heart of the healing. In this sense healing is more than just the absence of disease.
I get so inspired, and so stretched in my thinking by the diversity of ideas held by others on the subject of healing. It is almost like looking into a big deep pot with no bottom in it, when you choose to explore the topic. I would have to say here that alot of my views on healing have been shaped by the voices of many many experienced teachers.
Daisaku Ikeda, author of ‘On Being Human’ (p81) says ‘As everyone knows from experience, we only appreciate how wonderful good health is once we lose it’, which I think is so true. For example, a person may regret having criticised themselves for being slightly overweight and a size 14 when they were younger, when later in life that same person has reached a size 20, and is suffering from angina and high blood pressure say, feeling very unwell and out of balance. They look back and remember when things were good and wish they still had it. I bet this is a common experience.
Carolyn Myss, author of the book ‘Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can’, believes healing requires a willingness to make changes. She writes ‘…healing and change are one and the same thing. They are composed of the same energy, and we cannot seek to heal an illness without first looking into what behavioural patterns and attitudes need to be altered in our life. Once these characteristics are identified, we have to do something about these patterns. They require taking action, and action brings about change…Healing requires internal as well as external change. It requires asking ourselves questions such as “Am I fulfilled by the life I am living? Have I given enough attention to my own personal needs? (P47) What Carolyn talks about here implies that healing is purposeful; that it has meaning because it can help bring about new understanding, and self responsibility. Healing then becomes a learning experience whereby you are finding out why you are ill, and also about how to really take care of yourself. Carolyn Myss in her later book ‘The Creation of Health’ looks at it that, disease is unconscious change whereas healing is the process of becoming conscious. Looking at it this way, it is as if illness is a ‘function to get your attention’.
In another vein, Charles Atkins, author of Modern Buddhist Healing writes ‘The human body is more than a machine, and it is more than an energy centre. There is always a fundamental reason why illness appears. It has a physical aspect and a spiritual root. How does one eradicate the cause of illness? Western medicine attributes illness to physical realities. Eastern medicine looks at the life energy, conduct, diet, and the mind. Merging these two diverse approaches seems to be the future of medicine. But no physical medicine (Western or Eastern) can transform the fundamental cause that produced the illness in the first place. For the cure, we must go to realms of faith, prayer, consciousness and karma’. Atkins goes on in his book to describe the need to connect to our fundamental self, our eternal human potential, as dis-ease stems from disconnection with this. More on this later when I describe my own spiritual practice, which is the same.
I have held a realisation in recent years that a healing experience is often about reducing the toxemia in a person’s system, (created by water dehydration and junk food malnutrition). Fred Bisci, an American raw-food clinical nutritionist, health coach, and favourite public speaker of mine, says in one of his health audio tapes, “The average American, I’m sorry to say it and I don’t mean to sound vulgar, is actually a walking pus bag and does not realise it.”. His directness completely shocked me when I first heard it. He is speaking in the context of internal mucus, caused by the social habits of eating refined, process, cooked junk food diets that most people consume every day – diets which creates within us a toxic chemistry. He goes on to say that eating too many sweets fruits, whilst a perfect food, can create intense healing crises for some people because they would be too cleansing for the toxic chemisty. Such a person may not be ready for that kind of diet and would have to detox more slowly, increasing their intake of pure water, green juices, salads, and some nuts. Gradually they can discover that the purer the blood is, the better the brain function, and the more encompassing the physical healing.
Certainly healing is about the body trying to restore robust health, but it can also be about creating more than that – physical and mental vibrancy. I love that word vibrancy! My expectations on what I think is possible regarding human healing has been up-graded quite a lot since I became a raw-fooder two years ago. Soon after I changed my diet I began to experience great, swift health benefits (along with the making of like-minded new friends who are experiencing the same things. Courageous individuals now in their thousands, leading the way in creating a radical, new up and coming raw health community). These benefits include the reversal of chronic candida, chronic constipation, fatigue, cloudy head, body odour, skin problems and excess weight. Now as I aspire to heal (for healing by nature is an on-going process) I am focusing more and more on the fact that great health is about vibrancy, beginning right there in the smallest of our units: – on a cellular level; in the quality and purity of the blood; in the clean fully-functioning perfectly designed colon, which operates as our human sewage system. Body tissue and fluids do need to be working at their best in order to create this level of regeneration. That is what healing is about for me – self regeneration. So, it makes sense that this process involves freeing up the body through cleansing and unclogging, rather than the suppression of the existing symptoms. On the contrary, I see it that a cancer cell is an acid cell, an anerobic cell, not oxygenating or cleansing but mutating. It’s kind of going in the wrong direction. I have got to the point where I can actually enjoy my colds now because I know what is happening. I know that my body is detoxing and clearing, that the cold itself is the cure, the correct response of the immune system to control excess mucus build-up.
My views on healing are many layered because I cannot ignore the physical and spiritual dimensions that make up the interconnectedness of a human life. Someone said to me recently that ‘We are spiritual being trying to be human’. I really like that. I believe that the spirit or intent of illnesses, is to reverse or transform the things that make the body toxic and the spirit toxic in the first place. Getting you to look at the causes and changing the behaviour, to help the body improve its constitution to a state of balance. Enabling it to revitalise sluggish energy and dysfunctional activity for homeostasis. So when then does healing need to take place? I think whenever the body is out of homeostasis, which for many people is most of the time! Although sometimes healing experiences are minor and in parts, i.e. a body part like an organ or a limb; and other times more serious, i.e. a whole body system such as M.E. or M.S for example, healing is at its most mystic when we can’t quite explain the wonder of the body’s ability and intelligence to fight to maintain its integrity whatever the condition. Incredible really.
I believe that lasting healing come from a healthy lifestyle. It’s about the Law of Cause and Effect, working in your life and how you harness that Law, with the personal responsibility you take on. It happens through the choices you make on an ordinary day to day basis. Though I am quite a pragmatic person, and do practice some techniques I often succeed best in doing them on a weekly basis, not everyday – which feels ok for me. When I feel stagnant in energy, tired or stiff, I use either yoga postures, a little bit of self-massage, rebounding on a small trampoline, have 10 year sleep sessions a few days in a row, try to simplify my meals, do Buddhist chanting or Reiki healing treatments. (Reiking Healing by the way is quite amazing, because its very nature proves the fact that all people are naturally healing. Reiki teaches you to effortlessly channel universal life force energy through your hands and into your body, for relaxation, and well-being. Because it is so easily learnt by anyone, an innate gift simply switched on in an attunement initiation, it teaches that EVERYBODY is naturally a healer).
I use these techniques because they are simple, cheap, and positively influence how my body feels, enhancing my well-being. Their actions include stimulating, shifting, oxygenating, unblocking, stretching, relaxing, warming, and moving – the blood circulation, muscles, internal organs, charkas, hormones, sluggish prana etc, thereby recreating flow again. Note however, how these wonderful healing benefits are very temporary. Unless I incorporate them into my life and I practice them regularly, within days their effects quickly wear off. So establishing a disciplined routine is where the real gain lies, and where the responsibility really exists for us.
The recipe for the making of radiant health for the purpose of deep healing can be found in the practice of Natural Hygiene, a life philosophy that came out of American a 100 plus years ago. Its teaching is the science of superior human health, through applying the 33 tenets identified to support well-being. I try to consciously incorporate some of these into my regime as they make a lot of sense. These include good quality rest, sleep, fresh air, pure water, sunshine, raw food eating, fasting (internal rest), exercise, clean environment, emotional poise, positive relationships etc etc, the list goes on. Its teaching is about allowing the body to naturally heal. It throws out the notion of contagious causation from germs; claims that it is toxemia that fouls the body and triggers disease; and encourages people to live instinctively like all animals do in nature. Underpinning its message is that healing comes from being internally clean – hence the word hygiene. Natural hygiene stands for health. The book ‘Fit for Life’ was the 80’s best-seller that was based on these principles.
A friend of mine recently described a telephone consultation she had with a Medical Intuit, which she found really valuable at that time. This person told my friend that it is not enough to have a healthy body we also have to cultivate a healthy ego. Mm, I thought – interesting. What is a healthy ego? Good self-esteem, self-worth, self-respect, strong identity, confidence, motivation, openness, hope perhaps? I must admit some people I know or have worked with, who appear very healthy, intelligence, fit, slim, attractive, good skin etc, etc etc, but who continually slander their greatness; inwardly self-criticising a lot; often rejecting compliments they get, have made me reflect on their well-being in a new way. I’ve sometimes felt that such a person, with such a mindset needs healing, that that person’s attitude is not healthy, and needs transforming. Ego is our sense of ‘I am’ and quite crucial to the healing process, and the discovery of our potential for well-being.
It must be said that healing might be something we are afraid of, which can cause us to delay it really beginning, especially if we have been ill for a long time. Healing might mean that we have to take more responsibility in the world, which can be scary. We may have to re-define ourselves and develop our identity and expand our lives. It doesn’t have to be a source of fear or despair though. My spiritual practice has helped make that possible.
I’ve practice Nichiren Buddhism for 8 years now. Twice a day, morning and evening I spend a few minutes repetitedly chanting the phrase Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, the mantra that identifies the Law of Life permeating everything in the universe. Doing this tangibly helps me to plug into my Buddhahood which I would describe as the highest life-state of a human being, inherent in everybody. This Buddhahood, or Buddha-nature manifests itself as my inner wisdom, compassion, courage and life-force in the depth of me. Tapping into this part of my life each morning I realign my life with the universal life – the microcosm in effect merges with the macrocosm. From this sense of expansion and connectedness, I am able to start my day, positively, hopeful, confident about achieving my goals, creating value with whatever happens and overcoming obstacles. It can be a battle sometimes, but I am less likely to give up on living with a positive attitude when I start off my day this way. Even if I am ill I can sometimes see the value of it with such clarity and know that it is not permanently me, but an experience to overcome and learn from.
In a nutshell, Buddhism defines sickness as one of the basic universal sufferings of living being, an inescapable fact of life like birth, ageing and death. It is part of what it is to be human. It looks quite deeply, not so much at illnesses but at their causes. Buddhism teaches that illness is inextricable connected to what is in our heart, and that transforming oneself on a fundamental level is the basis of true healing. We heal ourselves as we heal the negative impulses we express, and are able to undo the karma that has damaged our health. Simply put, illnesses have two fundamental causes: 1) physical cause, that can be cured with medicines, good doctors and techniques (like the imbalances of the elements in Chinese philosophy); or 2) Illnesses of the mind (not to be confused with mental illness. I am referring to fundamental causes here), causes at the very depth of life itself – mainly anger, greed, and ignorance. These impulses are inherent in life but when not manifesting their positive aspects, they function to pollute our thinking, create distorted views, and behaviours, like three poisons, resulting in dis-ease. These poisons manifest in a spectrum of ways: 1) Anger becomes resentment, fear, aggresseion, arrogance, and ultimately war. 2) Greed become hunger, addictions, debt, economic instability, environmental disasters reflecting how we squander our natural resources, 3) Ignorance is seen in lack of wisdom or the failure to live wisely, leading to the modern sicknesses we experience, such as stress, obesity, anorexic, depression, cancers, so-called incurable conditions etc.
These kind of poisons of the mind, our attitudes and outlook, can’t be cured by an ordinary doctor but by a Buddha. ‘Buddha’ meaning – by manifesting the Buddha-nature life-state inside ourselves so we gradually switch the negative aspects in us to the positive aspects. Anger becomes Courage, Greed become Compassion, and Ignorance becomes Wisdom. It is a person who has this awareness, who is actively transforming these natural impulses and their circumstances, through revealing their inherent buddhahood who is called a Buddha. He is creating an inner revolution. It is really nothing extraordinary. Buddhism teaches that true healing is actually human revolution. When you transform on this profound level, gradually you can see that everything changes, and changes towards your happiness and well-being – attitudes, outlook, personal goals, health-status, relationships, life direction even.
I used to suffer from Bulima Nervosa, for a total of ten years, nine years before I began chanting. When I started chanting to reveal my buddhahood – my potential, I found that the cravings for refined carbohydrates, and binges lessened. It look me a year, but by then the habit of binging and purging stopped because I felt within that I no longer needed it. The regular daily chant was diluting ingrained, unspoken fears I had in my life, in my heart. Sometimes I pondered on them whilst chanting, but most of the time I didn’t, I just chanted. I just tried it as an act of faith because I liked the way I felt afterwards, I got this quiet inner feeling of confidence and expansion. What I love so much about this Buddhist practice in terms of healing is that when you change something (change your karma) you can really revolutionise the situation. One year on in my chanting, I stopped being bulimic, and seven years on from that, now, I have developed a passion. I am passionate about developing my understanding of radiant health to further improve myself and others. Out of my illness has come a commitment to health, not just eating sensibly. I don’t know where I am going with it all but I like what it is making me become. Stronger, larger, clearer in my goals to seek out my mission in life.
I can see now that our illnesses can be a great benefit to us. They can enlighten us. Lead us on our own path to enlightenment. To the understanding that healing is not sticking a plaster on a wound without curing the wound itself, (that would be superficial), but a call to grow. Also if the cause of all sickness lies within our own lives (through our thoughts, words, actions), it means not only that we created the illness we experience, and that the power to overcome it resides in us as well. External medicines and treatment will always be a suppliment support to healing but it is the body that does it essentially; and it is our life choices, and our life condition that decides how, and to what degree we become well. Chanting has been for me by far, the quickest route to many of my realisations on this amazing subject of health: the main ones being that health is our birthright; healing is instinctive, and certain in the right conditions; and that true healing requires the revolution of the individual. This is my view and experience on healing. Thank you for this opportunity to share
Possible Advantages and Disadvantages of Including Meat From the Conventional View of Diet
Advantages
A conventional view would say meat is high in protein, and is considered to be a good source because it is a complete protein – containing the necessary range of amino acids, including the 8 essential ones that must come from the diet, as the body can’t make those. They are vital to help the body function efficiently, and allow us to manufacture the proteins our body needs to produce. The body has to ability to deconstruct the protein we eat down to its amino acids building blocks and rearrange them is the way that suits human biology through digestion. Protein is important for the translation of DNA into amino acids, for growth, repair, overall health, and is in fact 20% of our total body weight. The RDA in the diet for a 70kg man is 24g, (0.8g per kg of body weight) but babies and children, and pregnant women would need 2 to 3 times as much. Meat can be an important established source for people, particularly those who after a vegetarian try, need to keep their weight on.
-Meat doesn’t have the worry or reputation of being an incomplete protein that plant foods do to warrant the need to look for complementary combinations of grains and pulses to try and balance the proteins, e.g. rice and black beans.
-Also proteins don’t challenge insulin like carbohydrates do, whether in their complex form or the simple form. Therefore those people who are already acidic, dry, and over-challenged in blood sugar disturbances, can eat meat i.e. tuna without much glycaemic instability in comparison.
-Meat provides ferrous iron, the iron from haemoglobin, well absorbed and available to the body, like offal which is an exceptional source. This iron is less likely to leak out during cooking so the iron in cooked meat has enhanced absorption.
- Vitamin B12 is present and readily available in meat, essential for the health of the nervous system, blood formation, and appetite and growth in young children. Apart from Spirulina, not many foods deliver what is available in offal and pig liver meat for example.
- Although relatively high fat, white meat has its fat stored just under the skin, which can be removed to be a relatively lower fat meat of choice (especially turkey and game). They have more mineral rich and easier to digest too.
-There is a choice of meat types too: muscle meat, organ meat and processed (meat scraps for hot dogs, sausages, MacDonalds etc if it takes your fancy), with the different tastes and textures.
Disadvantages
-Meat is a very concentrated protein, hardest to digest of all the human foods for many people, taking a lot of energy to process,; this causes an unnecessary drain of energy reserves on the system. There are many people who believe we don’t have sufficient hydrochloric acid, carnivorous teeth structure, and GI tract for meat to be a natural food to be eating in terms of our design and physiology.
-The transition of meat through the colon is much slower than grains and vegetables. Undigested slow moving proteins can easily putrefy causing toxins, gut problems, inflammation, even cancers and the proliferation of unfriendly bacteria in the bowel and all manor of symptoms from the poor bowel flora.
-Meat is also very acid-forming (from the sulphur and phosphorus it contains), yet our body’s naturally strive to be slightly alkaline for its survival through homeostasis.
-Unlike fruits and vegetables meat possesses no fibre and very little water, challenging our bodily fluids, and readily building a sticky-plaque colon wall that can constipate the bowel over a period of time. Organ meat (like the liver and kidneys) is high in waste products being the main organs of elimination, so eating these would mean consuming quite toxic parts of the body.
-Meat is high in saturated fats, some being as much as 35-60% fat (like domestic pork); raising cholesterol levels and having very little EFAs. Wild organic meat is leaner of course and better choice, as they are generally 5% fat or less, and had been less manipulated during growth and development, in nutrients and in processing).
-Farm animals endure high pesticide feeds, antibiotics, vaccines, growth hormones, sex hormones, and intensive farming fertilizers; many of them serving to reduce cattle contamination, infection and pathogen risk and infection, exacerbated by cramped in unnaturally living conditions. Surely we will absorb these into our systems eating these meats, how can we not? Stressful slaughter means animal dies in the state of stress and fear, and some people feel we absorb that fear vibration when we consume them and it becomes our own.
-High meat diet increase risks of disease creating bacteria like E. coli & antibiotic-resistant salmonella, therefore food poisoning; also BSE and coronary heart disease.
-Too much protein can put stress on kidney function due to the nitrogen that it contains, which can cause toxic ammonia build-up when excessive. The kidney has to process and excreted this via urine formation to protect the body for homeostasis.
-Another disadvantage of eating meat is that you inadvertently participate in a system which exploits other creatures; and support the expensive waste of resources in raising and slaughtering beef cattle, say. This includes soil degradation, water waste, pollution through the organic waste of animal, green house gases (carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane), and plant species extinction. Today’s meat production industry is a vast consumer of the world’s natural resources. Cattle farming industries produces less food and at a much higher cost than vegetables and grains. It’s estimated that one acre of land can produce 584lbs of edible protein with soya protein, but devoted to beef stock, that same land would produce 58lbs of animal protein (just 10%). Though heavily subsidised by governments, meat is high cost to produce and high cost to buy in the shops. Many vegetarians/vegans through personal choice would say that this is unethical and therefore a disadvantage and a disservice.
How a Wholefood Diet Can Help Establish Good Bowel Flora
What do we mean exactly by whole-foods? I understand them to be ‘real’ foods in their natural state, as nature grew it, normally kept in their natural fibrous packaging, the opposite to what is de-natured. So therefore – unprocessed or at least processing kept to a minimum, preferably homemade, gently cooked or fresh & raw. These would be fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, pulses, wholegrains, sea vegetables, and wild oily fish, as main staples. Oils and pates are not truly whole foods specifically as they have been ‘changed’ in preparation, but they can be derived from wholefoods (and if also free from added sugars, sodium, damaged fats, fillers, E numbers) they’re a helpful addition to diet.
Bulky, high fibre foods in the colon produce lactic acid, which creates the perfect acidic environment for the friendly bacteria, both in the small intestines, and mainly in the large intestine. The acid environment from the lactic acid is the perfect conditions for their needs. This acidity also drives out the unfriendly bacteria that when left unchecked – can cause Candida, constipation, bloating, IBS, digestive problems, malabsorption, allergies, food intolerance sensitivities etc. Processed foods like refined flours and the over-abuse of hybrid wheat products contain prolamins proteins (glutenin and gliadins) which coats the large intestine like glue, hindering intestinal transition and upsetting the bacteria there, stopping them working. Yeast foods turn to sugar in the digestive tract, and sugars tend to feed the bad bacteria further. Healthy wholefoods however help create healthy intestinal mucosa and friendly bacteria in the body, keeping control over what can & can’t pass through the blood stream, hence, they help with oversensitivity problems. Organic wholefoods (especially fruits and vegetables) are a pesticide-free, invaluable food source; alkalising and oxygenating due to being chlorophyll-rich; rich in organic minerals therefore having a high nutrient value; have vital fibre bulk that accelerates bowel passage time through peristalsis; are low in fat, generous in unrefined sugars through still in their natural matrix; they have an eliminating effect on the body also – helping expel toxicity and old bile from out of cells, organs and tissue, producing a good elimination route that supports the healthy bowel flora living there.
The first 4 layers of top soil in the earth where wholefood grow out from, actually house the natural microzyma, that help in the plant’s ability to take up the minerals that are present in the ground, and become our nutrients when we eat it in the food chain. In a sense what happens in nature mirrors what happens inside us too – our own bowel flora is the soil that we have, helping us make our own nutrients in the intestines. In health, bowel flora enables us to produce about two thirds of our vitamin B, essential for supporting the adrenals and stress management. It also synthesises ample vitamin K necessary for normal blood clotting, plus short chain fatty acids; and natural antibiotics. If these are in abundance in us, we can rely less on supplementation and make them ourselves as nature intended. Fortunately the excellent supplement shop Cytoplan (aptly meaning the ‘plan of the cell’) sell various high quality probiotic products that we can introduce alongside our wholefood treatment programme to gently kick start us in cultivating good bowel flora. Some have probiotics that contain 4, or 6, even more species of bacteria. The most active pre & probiotic brand they’ve found is Cyto-Biotic Active, which contains an optimum 9 strains bacterium to supplement all the fundamental bacterial populations in the gut. It provides a 3 billion colony of bifidocbacterium Infantis, Lacti and Longum; enterococuss Faecium; Lactobacillus Acidophilis, Casei, Plantarum, Salivarius, and Lactis; easily taken in a 3gm teaspoon dose mixed in water once a day, on an empty stomach.
Antibiotic treatments, the antithesis of a wholefood diet to support the micro-ecology of the body, can directly wipe out 70% of a person’s flora in one ‘5 day course’, taking as long as 6 months to re-establish itself again. It’s not something that can just ‘right itself’ simply by putting back in the gut over night. Bowel flora supplimenting is like the grass lawn in a new garden that has to take hold and take up root, begin to both grow and flourish again (and certainly before the unfriendly bacteria get it and take over of course). A wholefood diet is THE foods we really need to put in place, a reliable foundation to help to correct the flora status and restore balance again, in addition to good quality supportive probiotics in the short term.
How a Wholefood Diet Can Help to Reduce the Acidity -Toxicity of the Body.
A healthy body wants to achieve a constant pH environment of 7.36 (within the 1-14 scale of acid/alkaline). It is programmed that way, and will work via homeostasis to maintain this level always. High acidity is the beginning of disease and is influenced by a range of things, including unprocessed toxic emotions, environmental pollutions, CNS, oxidative status, metabolism, electrolytes, hydration, and especially poor diets etc. ‘Acid foods’ include lemons that taste acidic in the mouth, due to its citric acid, but interestingly you find it gets metabolised away leaving only a alkali ash residue in the body when consumed, so this acid food is actually alkaline in its effect and highly cleansing for us. What we need to focus on and avoid is the ‘acid-forming’ foods that contain high proteins, sulphur amino acids, phospholipids, high sodium and calcium levels. These include meats, other flesh foods like fish and fowl, eggs, dairy, wheat/rye grains, pulses to varying degrees, plus all the modern processed foods, refined sugar, teas, coffees and alcohol. Removing table salt and salty foods, and adding instead potassium rich vegetables (not so much the higher sodium root vegetables mind), will help displace excess sodium from inside the cell to its rightful position outside the cell; and pulling inside with itself the magnesium co-partner electrolyte. This mechanism alkalises the cell, controls the intercellular water balance of the body, the nerve activity and much more.
Ideally we should be eating 4 times as much alkali-forming food as acid forming every day, to maintain the right acid to alkali ratio for our survival – for naturopaths that ideal is 80/20 alkalinity. This is relatively easily to achieve with a natural diet. How the body does this is with a diet rich in fruits and vegetables as this tend to bring a message of hydration and alkalinity; give the right electrolyte balance of foods to the body; and therefore de-acidify the cell – hence the whole body. Importantly they are also low in protein, sulphur and sulphuric/phosphoric acids. Wholefoods of most fruit and vegetables tend to have lots of potassium, and magnesium (the cleansing chlorophyll core centre and blood of the green plant), which displace the potentially calcifying calcium that always follows sodium inside the cell into the extracelluar spaces, some returning into the blood and very naturally creating detoxification opportunities for the cells to start to let go. Regular sea vegetables in the diet, though high in sodium (therefore needing very good rinsing) contain substance that is believed to bind heavy metal toxins to them – reduce heavy metal poisons in the body, whilst raising our mineral status too – live sprouts also add to our mineral status. This is so important because doing this you give the body the raw materials it needs to fulfil its tasks. The enhanced mineralization the two can bring will support bowel flora. Nuts like almonds, brazil nuts, fresh juices, herbal teas, water etc sit at the alkaline end of the food chart, while cream, avocados, soya beans, grains, seeds, dried fruits natural coconut is more neutral in their position, therefore not overly challenging to the pH at all, therefore useful foods. Bile (of which 70% of our faeces is made up of plus) is able to attach itself to vegetable fibre which will enable it to exit the body and be fully eliminated, along with some of the
micro-bacteria. Soft bulky stools 2 to 3 times a day in line with 2 to 3 meals a day will assist in the removal of waste and internalise mucus (acidity). Remember it is constipation of the bowel, and fundamentally constipation of the cell (with its high sodium) that create an acid environment. Fewer acid forming foods would help reduce the risk of demineralisation, and degeneration, bone and joint problems, blood sugar issues, insomnia, irritation etc. Wholefoods build the immune system and boost the immune system, giving the body a chance to rest from unnatural foods and the internal acid environment they create.
Louisa Eyo (2007)
