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Food would seem to be something our body requires on a physical
level to build new cells, to give us energy, to ease hunger, our foods are
most important to feed our brain and our heart so we can maintain life.
The choices we make of which foods we put in our bodies sets the basis for
physical, mental and spiritual health.
Every single moment of every single day from the moment of our birth, our
bodies strive for life - long, energetic, healthy, happy life. We are beautifully
designed to live and to live fully! (Thank your God!) We are for sure the
most sophisticated "vehicle" on this planet. Every single moment
we are building bone cells, muscle cells, liver cells, pancreas cells, brain
cells, skin cells and so on. In a one year time frame we rebuild and replace
every single cell in our bodies. The catch here is, what quality of raw
materials are we putting in while we are building all these cells?
Imagine this, for breakfast you had - nothing! - at school a friend shared
some Halloween candy with you, and then for lunch you had - a microwave
fast food and a pop - and then after school for a snack you had - a bag
of potato chips and a pop, and even worse a diet pop - and then for dinner
you had a packaged mac and cheese, wieners, ketchup and a glass of chocolate
milk.
This same day when you woke up, your body was all charged up to make brand
new heart cells, and the raw materials you gave your body to do this were
- nothing! - so without you even knowing it, your body had to go ahead anyway
and make these cells with what it had to work with so they were made smaller,
weaker and damaged. Then as the day goes on, your body had to make bone
cells, and again these were made with what you fed yourself. So the quality
of your cells is directly related to the quality of your food. When this
goes on and on for days, and months, and years you can understand how we
can slowly, very slowly, lose ground in our life.
Now lets imagine this, for breakfast you have - a large glass of pure water
while you are preparing a blender protein drink, Vanilla with frozen strawberries
(takes 5 minutes). You drink this while you are getting dressed and organized
for your day. For a quick mid morning snack you have a small container in
your back pack or locker of mixed dried nuts and fruit (your favorites).
For lunch you have a multi whole grain sandwich or tortilla filled with
your favorite cheese, lettuce, sprouts, green pepper, cucumber or even a
container of chopped carrots, celery, cauliflower, snow peas which you eat
along with a handful of raw almonds and pumpkin seeds and mid afternoon
have a protein bar and an apple or a fruit bar. For dinner you have a mixture
of 6 steamed veggies along with a small salmon steak and a tossed salad.
And, of course, throughout the whole day you have been drinking pure water
from a go bottle that you keep with you. Probably does not seem like enough
food to get you through the day but it is 1000 times more actual useful
food than the other day listed.
When we eat food that is not recognizable by the human body, our bodies
have to do their work anyway so have to use up our reserves. From the moment
of birth we have reserves set aside in a "bank" which our body
is meant to use when we are in a crisis such as when we get a cold or have
the flu, in an accident when extra healing is needed, when we diet or refuse
to eat, or when we choose poor quality foods. When we eat poorly continuously,
we overdraw our "bank" dangerously. These reserves are also meant
for when we need to do major bone building, teeth building, brain building,
etc. When we do not have enough minerals for building our bones or teeth,
our body sends us a powerful message which we call "pain." When
our legs burn, or our back aches, or our teeth are highly sensitive and
hurt us, these are all messages from our body that it does not have enough
raw materials to work with. We are so incredibly designed that we are given
"pain" as a message to alert us that something is out of balance
and needs to be corrected.
There are several essential raw materials and building blocks for life:
1. Water - pure and clean (not chlorinated)
2. Minerals and vitamins from whole foods
3. Essential fatty acids from Omega 3 and 6 oils
4. Enzymes from living plants
5. Friendly bacteria (probiotics)
6. Plant based proteins
These building blocks are needed every single day of our lives. When any,
or worse yet, all of these are missing, we get off balance and our brain
will give us a strong message by slowing the entire body down and we will
experience tiredness - the very first sign of imbalance or in other words,
disease.
Often when we experience tiredness, we put something into our bodies to
give us energy - this is the correct thing to do - but we often make the
wrong choice here. A good choice would be several of the above listed essential
foods; however, we often choose caffeine from pop, coffee, chocolate or
sugar. Although it perks us up quickly and temporarily, it definitely will
not be used by the body for rebuilding or health. In fact, it only makes
us think we have more energy, when in reality it is doing major harm to
our cells and our brain. This is when depression creeps in, another sign
from our bodies that we need better choices and nutrition.
When most of the foods that are going into our mouths are "acidic"
in nature, they have to be continually neutralized with minerals from our
bones and muscles. All packaged, processed, fast, microwave, deep fried
foods are acidic. All animal products including meats, fish, dairy (milk,
cheese, yogurt) are acidic. Only fruits and vegetables are alkaline and
only alkaline foods neutralize acidity. External sources of acidity are
smoking, drugs, medications, heavy exercise, environmental toxins from shampoos,
skin care products, etc. and stress which is the biggest cause of acidity
and "dis-ease" in our bodies. A balance of 70% alkaline and 30%
acidic in our bodies and in our meals is ideal.
When we become deficient in minerals because of too much acidity developing
in our bodies, we become agitated, nervous, "stressed out," tired,
can't deal with life, or in other words, depressed. Minerals, along with
enzymes, are the essence of life in our bodies and in every single cell
of our bodies. Minerals and enzymes come from plants and that is how we
are meant to get them.
What happens is a very vicious cycle: Our bodies strive for life and health,
we choose not to feed true whole foods to ourselves, our bodies weaken and
do the best they can, we continue to choose poor nutrition, our bodies weaken
further. Eventually, our bodies get the message we do not value ourselves
enough so they decide we must not want to live. This is when depression
really gets hold of us.
There are two main types of depression: 1) External which is caused by life
circumstances such as a relationship break up, an injury, a loved pet dies,
a good friend moves away, a divorce in the family. This type of depression,
although devastating at the time, generally passes, we mourn and we heal
and we become stronger people. 2) Internal which is caused by what we choose
to put in our mouths AND by chemical imbalances in the body which could
be caused from injuries OR from what we choose to put in our mouths.
External depression can become internal if our bodies do not have the resources
available to help us recover and bounce back to life. Life is challenging
and we all are faced with huge challenges from family, friends, school,
work, and so on and how we deal with these challenges and recover from them
is dependent entirely on how healthy we are internally.
So, what is the answer to avoid or reverse depression?
It is critical to get the basics of nutrition into our bodies. Often we
can do this through "baby steps" of making small better choices
each day.
One of the most important things to do is to drink water - not chlorinated
tap water which will cause further damage in the body - pure clean water,
preferably filtered or distilled. We need at least half our body weight
in ounces in pure water each day. If you weight 100 pounds you should drink
50 ounces of water per day. Then we need more for every acidic food or body
stress situation (exercise) we add. I cannot ever stress enough how important
good water is for us.
Next, we have to have very essential, Omega 3 and 6 good fats. These can
be obtained from many sources - the simplest is to take a supplement from
a health food store either in the form of a capsule or in the actual oil,
adding it to your morning shake, drizzling it over steamed veggies, a salad
or rice/pasta, or taking it by the spoon. Remember grandma taking her cod
liver oil, well this is sort of the same thing but far far better tasting.
And, a real bonus here, good oils and fats feed our skin and make our skin
beautiful and healthy. You can also obtain these good fats from avocados,
ground flax seeds, raw nuts and seeds, almond or peanut butter, soy nuts,
dark green veggies, deep water fish, extra virgin olive oil, flax seed oil,
and other pure properly processed oils.
Let me just say something here about fats and oils. In today's society we
have become "fat free" in our search for losing weight. Interestingly
enough, the quickest way to gain weight is to eat these "fat free"
foods as they are all high in sugar. Because of the amount of "bad
fats" we get from fast foods, processed foods, packaged foods, we have
to give our bodies some ammunition in the form of "good fats"
to deal with all these bad fats. Omega 3 and 6 good fats are the answer.
You want to lose weight, improve your skin, be smarter? Take your Omegas
every day!!! They also reduce cravings as your brain is fed very essential
fats.
Next, is vitamins and minerals. I believe strongly that whole foods are
what we are meant to eat and what we are designed to have for healing and
growing. Vitamins are important, but minerals are the catalyst for everything
in our bodies. What this means is that minerals ignite every action in our
cells and bodies. No vitamin can work without the proper minerals. Research
has now proven without any doubt that there are at least 10,000 vitamins
and minerals in each of our vegetables. Scientists have discovered a handful
of these 10,000 to date so when we take isolated vitamins and minerals from
a supplement we are missing thousands of essential elements. This is why
you are so much better off eating the whole food, rather than eating isolated
parts of food in a vitamin/mineral tablet.
What do I mean by whole food? This means eat the apple not the apple juice,
eat the fresh broccoli not the frozen, eat the real oatmeal rather than
the packaged. Having a meal of slightly steamed fresh veggies, a tossed
raw salad and baked deep water fish is very whole food. A breakfast of a
fresh fruit salad and/or a soy protein shake is also whole food. As close
to nature as possible is what needs to be put in our mouths. The fastest
way to turn around any "dis-ease", including depression, is to
eat raw, fresh, organic fruits and vegetables, along with raw nuts and seeds,
and your good oils.
Also critical for overall health are enzymes and friendly bacteria. Lets
discuss enzymes first. We are mainly concerned about two kinds of enzymes
- digestive and metabolic. Digestive enzymes help break things down in our
body and metabolic are the building blocks of every cell in our bodies.
When we have low digestive enzymes, our miraculous body can change our metabolic
enzymes into digestive enzymes so that the big dinner we ate can be digested.
However, that means we are depleting our very essential metabolic enzymes
which give us life. The more we do this the more we age and get far out
of balance and this allows depression and disease. Also, when we do not
have enough digestive enzymes, our body because it is so intelligent, will
produce something called candida yeast to break down excess undigested foods,
toxins, non-foods etc. This overabundance of candida can give us all kinds
of unpleasant symptoms which also can lead to depression.
Friendly bacteria is the bacteria that we are supposed to have in our bodies
to help with digestion and keeping bad bacteria under control. Medication,
antibiotics, drugs, sugar, chlorine, pop, etc. will all kill friendly bacteria
so if we are consuming too many harmful foods, our body never has a chance
to rebuild its friendly bacteria. A product called acidophilus is friendly
bacteria and is available from health food stores. It is also called a probiotic
which is the opposite of antibiotic. It does the same work as an antibiotic
but it is supportive of the body rather than killing all bacteria in the
body.
Keeping all of the following items to a minimum or avoiding entirely will
encourage and promote rapid healing and bringing the body back to balance:
1) White sugar and flour, including all wheat (gluten is linked to depression)
2) All soda pops and carbonated beverages
(deplete us rapidly of nutrients and strength)
3) Caffeine, alcohol, nicotine
4) Foods additives such as MSG, dyes, artificial sweeteners
(well disguised on labels)
5) Processed dairy products (unless you can obtain free range organic)
6) Animal products (unless you can obtain free range organic)
7) Chemicals such as chlorine, drugs, medications, nicotine
8) Bad fats such as margarine, lard, anything deep fried
9) Anything microwaved
Highly beneficial nutrients for bringing the body back to balance, giving
the body the power to reverse depression, disease, acidity and aging include:
1. Complex carbohydrates in the form of fruits and vegetables which include
the most powerful fruits and vegetables: carrot, parsley, beet, broccoli,
kale, cabbage, spinach, tomato, apple, orange, pineapple, cranberry, acerola
cherries and papaya.
2. Soybeans and soy products
3. Beans, nuts, seeds, dried fruits
4. Whole grains such as brown rice, wild rice, kamut, rye, millet, barley,
spelt, quinoa
5. Salmon, white fish, range fed turkey, eggs
6. For sugar, use honey, molasses, cane sugar, stevia
7. Minerals/vitamins - selenium, folic acid, calcium, magnesium, chromium,
niacin, Vitamin D, B vitamins - all of which are best derived from food
rather than specific supplements. (It is important to understand that supplements
may be needed for short term treatment of a depletion, but how do we know
when that depletion is filled?)
There are many non medicinal ways to alleviate depression to go along with
good nutrition, some of them are:
1. Homeopathy (many books and practitioners available)
2. Aromatherapy is easy to apply and is enjoyable
3. Exercise - probably the most important thing to do
4. Sunlight - activates Vitamin D (the happy vitamin) in our bodies
5. Acupressure, massage and reflexology are all very supportive
6. Reading motivational, supportive books (library and excellent source)
7. Reading spiritual healing books and working with prayer, meditation and
caring for yourself
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