and actions. Lives can be revolutionized completely by altering our view of food! And the beauty of this miracle is that it can start as soon as your next bite. . . .
Fortunately, our quick-fix eating habits have started to unravel. For example, the “slow food” movement, which encourages the longer, savory experience of eating a gradually cooked meal at a restaurant, has emerged as the antithesis to fast food. Local, organically grown foods and free-range, animal-sourced foods are a prevalent new trend, perhaps even the “hip” way to eat by younger generations. We are gradually returning to a very simple yet profound interaction with food.
FOOD BEYOND THE CALORIE
Although there is much recent news about food being capable of affecting us on many levels (physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual), this realization was brought to light thousands of years ago by ancient traditions like East Indian Ayurvedic medicine and traditional Chinese medicine. In both these traditions, balancing the energetic properties of different foods in the diet is strongly emphasized. For example, in Chinese medicine, foods are selected according to their warming, cooling, drying, or moistening effects on the body. To the novice, it would be relatively easy to intuitively select foods that embody certain properties, as the principles parallel the concepts found in nature. For instance, in general, “warming” foods are those that rev metabolism and create heat in the body. Curried chicken is a good example of a warming food, as it is an animal product and includes seasoning. Both features make the chicken a “hot” food, and it is usually recommended that individuals with a “warm nature” or who are prone to overheating moderate their consumption of these foods. On the other hand, cooling foods would be those that are more neutral in taste and tend not to be cooked, like sliced cucumber or tofu. In contrast to warming foods, they dampen the metabolism, slowing it down. Current Western medicine does not promote the use of foods to prevent disease as much as these other cultures do; however, this trend is changing with new “functional medicine” or “integrative (holistic) medicine,” which honors the inner communication between body systems and focuses on the individual as a whole.
Overall, the field of nutrition as a science has been very physically grounded in the basic elements of physiology—such as ingestion, digestion, absorption, transportation, utilization, and excretion of food substances—and the effect of these processes on health. Although physical aspects of food are emphasized in the nutritional paradigm, there is increasing research in the area of the emotional effects of eating. The remaining missing piece is the integration of our body needs with those of our soul and using the needs of one to heal the other. Some may suggest that many people in Western society are not in touch with their soul. It has been said that “illness is the Western form of meditation”— that we do not engage deeper, soulful parts of ourselves unless we are catastrophically provoked. Since chakras span the body and nonbody (soul) parts of our being, they are an excellent way to access the body-soul connection. By tapping into what our chakras are telling us, we are able to better make choices that support integration of our layers of being.
Understanding our health through our chakras enables us to move beyond ensuring that the body has physical food for energy to live by taking us into the realm of food as “spiritual sustenance” or “food for the soul.” The synergy of chakras and food provides a superhighway to accessing spirituality, or our interconnectedness with all of life. Together, the chakras and food help us to recognize that life is greater than the sum of its parts. When we shed the idea of food being functional and replace it with choosing to eat to feel the gentle weblike connection with all of life, food takes on a note of Divinity and sacredness. Many cultures and religions have created spiritual practices—such as giving thanks (“grace”) for the meal— around eating as a way of acknowledging this sacred act.
Understanding our health through our chakras enables us to move beyond ensuring that the body has physical food for energy to live by taking us into the realm of food as “spiritual sustenance” or “food for the soul.”
UNLOCKING THE SECRET MESSAGES OF FOODS
Emerging science is shedding light on perhaps another dimension to the already existing nutrition foundation. In addition to providing energy, or calories, for the body to function, constituents within food act as messengers that communicate with our body's DNA and influence, to a large extent, the types of proteins and other compounds that cells manufacture. Taking this a step deeper, into the atomic level, the vibrating energetic charged particles of food interact to a significant degree electrically within the fluid matrix inside the body. These vibrations ripple through the system, creating a surge of electrical currents to enhance or deplete the energy state of the cells. The takeaway is that food carries information that will signal our bodies to create proteins to support a vital, creative, optimal structure or to lead to dysfunctional states such as inflammation and pain.
Nutritionists are taught in school that proteins and carbohydrates both create the same energy currency within the body. For every gram of protein or carbohydrate eaten, 4 kilocalories of energy are available to use. It is now known that these basic nutrients, despite the fact that they are similar in calories, have a different vibration or electrical potential. People can consume the same number of calories, but the metabolic effects within the cells can be different. Protein from vegetables like soybeans and protein from animals like milk-derived casein create different responses in the body even though both are protein. Therefore, the new message is that the quality of food, and the dietary signature it carries for the cells, is perhaps most essential.
“Rainbowed eating” is one of the keys to enhancing the whole of our selves.
Unfortunately, it appears that the American profile of eating, referred to by some as the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.), has a deficit of good food signals. We are eating what I like to call the “Brown, Yellow, and White Foods Diet” because it is limited in supplying us with abundant, healthy compounds from plants (“phytochemicals”) that equip our cells to work optimally. The food industry has stripped away the colors of foods to give us processed cereals, breads, meats, flours, and baked goods. We are left with lackluster eating, devoid of the rich, flavorful phytochemicals that send high-quality information to our cells, allowing us to flourish. Each compound of color, whether the purple anthocyanidins found in grapes or the red lycopene in tomatoes, has a specific function in the body. If we omit a color from the rainbow spectrum, we are not providing ourselves with the physiological and spiritual functions of that vibration. Hence, as you will uncover in subsequent chapters, “rainbowed eating” is one of the keys to enhancing the whole of our selves.
Not only is the quality of food important, but also how the food is eaten. Think of all the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet. Do you think this region of Europe experiences less cardiovascular complications because they eat whole foods rich in precious plant compounds that are heart-protective and antiaging? Most likely, but perhaps not entirely. One point that is often overlooked is the manner in which Mediterranean natives eat: a meal is an event potentially lasting for hours in the company of friends and family. Eating in these countries is an important social event, and working hours are adjusted to accommodate longer lunches, enabling the individual to go home to eat and relax before returning to work again. Imagine how little stress is felt when you have 2 hours to eat lunch versus 30 minutes, and how that can impact your physiological and spiritual responses to food! Eating under pressure may result in absorbing fewer nutrients and feeling ungrounded.
Without a sense of pleasure and being present in the moment of eating, we may want to eat more to satisfy our need to connect with the experience.
Eating begins before and lasts after the first bite is taken. It starts in the grocery store when we are engaged in food selection or as far back as the field when we planted seeds in the soil. In the grocery store, what colors call out to us? What shapes,
