Here is the first step guide from NOURISHING OUR CHILDREN, a non-profit campaign of the Weston A. Price Foundation established to address the dramatic deterioration in the health of our children. This decline is evidenced by the rise in child obesity, dental deformities such as crooked teeth, learning disabilities, behavior problems and chronic diseases such as asthma, allergies and diabetes. Years of research initiated by nutrition pioneer Dr. Price have linked these and other conditions to dietary deficiencies, among other causes. The campaign is dedicated to educating parents on the serious nutritional risks of today’s standard western diet, and to restoring to that diet the nutrient-dense foods that are crucial to the health of our children.
1. Buy a copy of the book NOURISHING TRADITIONS by Sally Fallon to serve as a foundational guide and cookbook.
2. Join your local Weston A. Price Foundation community or of there is not one close by then read the information available on their website.
3. We encourage you to start with a single item from the list below and create changes one step at a time:
- Eliminate all industrially processed soy foods from your household.
- Replace sugar with natural sweeteners in moderation, such as raw local honey, grade B maple syrup, pure maple sugar, molasses, dehydrated coconut nectar, coconut palm sugar, green powder stevia, rapadura and sucanat.
- Replace fruit juices with lacto-fermented beverages, such as kombucha, traditionally made ginger ale and beet kvass. Information on lacto-fermentation is available on the Weston A Price website.
- Replace poly-unsaturated vegetable oils and trans fats with traditional fats such as raw and cultured butter, olive oil, sesame seed oil, coconut oil, lard, chicken fat, tallow, etc.
- Replace industrially produced breakfast cereals with nutrient dense eggs from organic free range hens, non-nitrate bacon, homemade kefir, whole milk yogurt, and soaked oatmeal.
- Replace pasteurized dairy products with raw, organic and cultured dairy.
- Replace processed, convenience foods (boxed, packaged, prepared and canned food items) with fresh, organic, whole foods.
- Take your daily dose of high vitamin cod liver oil – with no synthetics added, along with high vitamin butter oil. See recommended brands for cod liver oil.
A simple question. What is real food? Let’s give you a clue, it’s not often found in supermarkets.
What’s the difference? Food was grown, it’s messy, has variable quality, goes bad fast, requires preparation, has vibrant colors and rich textures, it’s authentically flavourful and has a strong connection to land, seasons and culture. Food does not need labels, packaging or advertising. Food ideally is organic and local and your purchase supports your local economy.
Food products are manufactured, neat and convenient, always the same, keep forever, are instant, dull, bland, artificially flavored, and have no connection to land, seasons or culture. Food products are wrapped up in boxes of foil and plastic and contain labels with ingredients that we can’t even pronounce. Food products require advertising and promotions to sell. Food products are often of unknown source (they are made in a factory somewhere) and too often imported, your money only goes to the shareholders of the huge multinational food processors and supermarket chains.
Reference: Exuberant Animal by Frank Forencich ISBN: 978-1425956639
We both place food right at the top of our monetary and time priorities because the years when we ate poorly we were unhealthy and since showing some respect to ourselves with what we put in our mouths, our health has returned along with a vitality that surprises many people. Eating real food is not a single factor for health but it’s one of the main ones.
When we mention organic food to people, many people immediately mention the cost: “it’s more expensive” or “I can’t afford to eat that way”. Yes it does usually cost more than the imitation food sold at the supermarket. Today we have got used to cheap food. We pay less (based on % of available income) today for our food than at anytime in our history, we have money for life essentials (sarcasm intended) like mobile phones and bills, LCD TVs, fashion clothes, but we don’t want to buy health giving real food.
We try to eat local real organic food whenever possible and we advise everyone to do the same. We all end up paying the same, although with a very different life journey:
- you can pay now for good food, environment friendly practices and take responsibility for your own health, or
- you can pay later with medical bills, environmental clean-up and give responsibility for your health over to someone else (usually a doctor who is happy to write you a drug prescription)
We choose the first option.
Eating the wrong organic foods and food products will also cause problems so beware of the many organic but still junk food products (soy, grain based, sugar loaded, pasteurised dairy) that sadly fill the shelves of many of the organic stores.
The Stress Reduction and Healing program program uses Paul Chek’s 1-2-3-4 coaching method that introduces you to The Last 4 Doctors You Will Ever Need – a synthesis and expansion of an ancient Greek philosophy, popularized by Hippocrates. Hippocrates essentially approached each patient with the notion that there were three main physicians already within each person:
- Dr Quiet
- Dr Diet
- Dr Happiness
He rationalized that whatever ailed his patients had its roots in one or more of these three chief aspects of human life. Dr Movement is Paul Chek’s addition to the original 3 doctors to address the fact that over the course of evolution humans have become more and more sedentary. Evolution has taken the human species from being hunter-gatherers, to a current lifestyle that allows and sometimes requires individuals to be seated most of the day in front of computer screens. This combined with the daily demands of modern day life can prevent any kind of beneficial physical movement. The need for daily movement for survival has disappeared but it is still very much required to sustain optimal health and wellbeing.
Within each of us are 4 Doctors (two yin and two yang). These 4 Doctors are our inner-guides to achieving and maintaining health and well-being.
Dr Quiet: The chief physician. Dr Quiet’s domain is sleep, rest and introspection. The health of Dr Quiet determines the health of our neuro-hormonal system – our ability to sense, and therefore, to know.
Dr Diet: The physician in charge of our nutrition. Dr Diet guides each of us to healthy, whole-food eating practices and the support of organic farming. Organic farming is critical to the health and well-being of the planet, which is mother to our physical bodies. What we do to Her, we do to our “selves”! Through Dr Diet, we metabolise – liberate energy from our food.
Dr Happiness: Dr Happiness is the physician in charge of our core values and our legacy. Dr Happiness is present whenever we live according to our core values and serves to create and maintain alignment of interests at the body-mind-soul levels of human reality. Through Dr Happiness, we optimally assimilate life.
Dr Movement: Dr Movement is the domain of spirit. How we use our energy to create expresses our true spirituality. Dr Movement is the physician in charge of action, and works best under the direct guidance of Dr Quiet, Dr Diet and Dr Happiness. Dr Movement seeks to maintain optimal rhythms in our lives.
Although each individual doctor can provide valuable lessons, it is important to remember that optimal health is only likely to occur once all doctors are consulted.
The CHEK Institute recommends the following nutritional principles for optimal health and fitness:
1. If it’s white don’t eat it. The 4 white devils are
- white flour
- white processed table salt
- white sugar
- pasteurized+homogenized milk.
Avoid any food made from any of the white devils!
2. If you can’t pronounce a word on the label, don’t eat it – your liver will not like it.
3. If it wasn’t here 10,000 years ago, don’t eat it.
4. If it’s sweet, but it’s not freshly squeezed juice (in the last 15 minutes), it’s sugar water. Don’t drink it.
5. The longer the shelf life, the more harmful it is likely to be to your body, if it’s irradiated (US process) – don’t eat it, if it’s pasteurized, it’s not good for you. Ultra-pasteurized is very bad for you. Unless packaged in glass, the longer it’s been in the package, the more toxic it will be.
6. Aside from good water, if you are eating a food that is clear – disease grows near. For example, clear apple juice, clear honey and clear hydrogenated fats are all garbage foods to be avoided.
7. Choose foods in this order:
- organic and free range
- organic
- locally farmed and free range
- commercial and hormone free
- commercial
8. Always season food and water with 100% unprocessed sea salt. The best is Celtic, followed by sea salt from New Zealand because they have the lowest metal toxicity. Avoid processed table salt, it’s a industrial waste product that is not salt.
9. Drink enough water daily. A guide is body weight (in kg) x 0.033 = in litres. Example 70 kg person should drink at least 2.3 litres. Nothing substitutes for water, not tea, not juice, not beer…. nothing. Choose fast moving brands of bottled water because they have the least exposure to the toxins that leak from the plastic bottle. If possible buy water in glass bottles. Adding a pinch of quality sea salt to your water is recommended to replace electrolytes.
10. Follow the 80/20 Rule: live right 80% of the time allows you to absorb the other 20%.
11. Always eat right for your metabolic type (which means listen to your body’s needs)
