Tips promoting a high quality eating experience:

  • Allow a period of at least 12 hours between dinner and breakfast – during this time the body assimilates food and goes through its natural cleansing and renewal processes.
  • Eat at the same time every day – give your body some regularity.
  • Make breakfast optional, fruit till lunch, lemon water, herbal teas.
  • Make lunch the largest meal of the day (highest digestive fire), eat as many vegetables as you like, eat flesh foods sparingly, eat plenty of healthy fats - Coconut, Organic EVO, Avocado, raw butter or Ghee from pasture raised cows.
  • If you eat lightly and still get tired after meals, change what you eat.
  • Eat lightly at dinner, if you need dessert, make it a meal earlier in the day away from usual meals.
  • Avoid sugar and artificial sugar substitutes, eat natural sugars sparingly, use Stevia or Luo Han Guo. Also called Monk fruit.
  • Allow 2-4 hours between the last meal of the day and laying down to sleep – especially important for those who tend to gastric distress, acid reflux or bloating.
  • Drinking more than 6 oz of fluids with meals dilutes the essential stomach juices. You need every bit of your stomach acids. Chew slowly and carefully to break down the food.
  • Drink before, and not until one hour after meals.
  • Eating naturally moist foods such as organic or locally grown fresh vegetables, cucumbers, tomatoes, celery, watermelon, before meals or in raw salads supplying organic water to your cells and beneficial nutrients and fiber to your digestive process. Fresh raw foods = digestive enzymes that break down food naturally.
  • When you crave sweets – you are probably dehydrated. Or you may lack healthy proteins and fats, or your digestive integrity is being undermined. Examine your diet. Choose vegetable proteins such as Chlorella or Spirulina. Get Hemp seeds high in proteins and Omega fats. nutiva.com
  • Include all food flavors in your meals: sour, sweet, bitter, hot/spicy/pungent, salty.
  • Use Celtic Sea Salt or Himalayan salt for best flavors and natural minerals. Watch for fake salts and micro plastics found in many salts.
  • Obviously avoid: all carbonated drinks and sodas. Any sugary juices including fruit (dilute even organic ones with 50% water) no fiber, too much fructose. Please read labels.
  • Eat whole oranges with fiber, and the white of the inside peel and wait for 20 minutes before eating other foods.
  • Eat fruits before meals, wait 20 minutes, as they digest in the small intestine. Bananas and other starchy foods take longer.
  • Drink before you eat, don’t wait till your thirsty. The signals for thirst and hunger can be confused in the brain. A study showed that ‘midnight eaters’ would sate their ‘hunger’ by drinking a glass of water and then return to sleep after 15 minutes, their cravings gone.
  • Eat only when you’re hungry, learn to distinguish between an empty stomach feeling and the repeated growling of hunger.  In due course your taste buds revive and your appetite grows.This is true for children who come off junk food and sugar. Important for ADD/ADHD people.
  • Weight loss starts when you allow your body to burn fat while fasting or while intermittent fasting.
  • Stop eating when you’re not hungry anymore – 2/3 full is a good norm.
  • Eat slowly and chew your food well 20 times; set down your fork in between bites. Focus on eating as the main event instead of watching a movie. Dining with others and taking breaks for conversation is a well proven enjoyable way to share meals. Keep it light, no stressful topics.
  • Cleanse and fast regularly: once or twice a month (36 hours dinner to breakfast), liquids only, plenty of fresh lemon water,
  • try this lemonade, which sustains us for many days of liquid fasting.
  • Eat mindfully, give thanks for your food – tests show that any food, blessed on purpose or by forming a dome shape with your hands over your plate, adapts to your own energy field and benefits you, no matter who prepared it.
  • Remember what your mother taught you: Don’t speak when your mouth is full. It can create indigestion and air bubbles in your digestive tract, or heartburn, especially under stress.
  • Take time to de-stress for 20 minutes before or when coming home, take a few deep breaths, appreciate yourself.
  • Meals are not for interrogating the children about schoolwork or each other about business
  • Meals are not occasions to talk about problems
  • Meals are enjoyed in companionable appreciation of the food and those who prepared it, with uplifting conversation
  • Greedy, angry or hasty eating is to be avoided – you could elect not to eat until you have more peace. Drink water or other light liquids instead.
  • The meal is a celebration, a privilege
  • Eat only with people you love, and if that’s not an option, quietly bless the food, and the people at the table. This includes meals prepared by those who appear unhappy, safeguard it with blessings and love

When you prepare food for yourself and to share, infuse the meal with love and gratitude for its enjoyment, for its nourishment. This goes a long way to bring a sparkle of joy to all gatherings.  Consider this for any activity you engage in. And remember, we are 80% water; by blessing the water in each of us we bless all waters everywhere.

Blessings of joy, peace and love.

 

Healthy Eating, Nutrition, Reading PA Naturopathy, Classes on wellness

 

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These blogs are intended for information and education only. At no time are any of the information or suggestions on this website intended to diagnose, treat, prescribe or otherwise take the place of individualized care by your health care professional. Anyone accessing or downloading these handouts and wellness suggestions does so at their own risk and holds the author(s) of this blog harmless and takes full responsible for their own wellbeing.