Eat For Your Health And Spirituality

Physicality and spirituality are one. Quantum physics finally found it. On the sub-atomic quantum level, matter and energy are one. They are interchangeable, and they are both at the same time.

I’m no scientist, but I can see it, as so many others have before the scientific discovery — science is only catching up and still has a long way to fully comprehend this connection.

So we can improve our physical health with spiritual awareness or sharpen our awareness with physical behavior changes. Physical behavior as mundane and everyday as eating. (Photo credit)

My quest for the best way to eat

I’ve been interested in foods all my life. Coming from an old-fashioned family in the old world, I knew foods were not just about numbers such as calorie but also about family and cultural connection, appreciation for nature and others’ labors, and even more importantly, about one’s own sense of love and nurture of their being.

What has confused me is the actual HOW.

Are there better ways to eat? For instance, is vegetarianism better for our health and spirituality than carnivorism? I got strong responses to that post. One commenter insisted on the health benefit of eating meat and how vegetarianism didn’t work for her. I respect her experience and opinion. I’d say, however, if you are eating meat, please choose humanely raised and slaughtered meat (most meat on the market is not). There is even a book called The Compassionate Carnivore. I don’t know much about farming practices, and if this commenter or the author of this book feel good, both emotionally and physically, about eating meat, that’s fine.

I’ve also been reading about and experimenting with raw foods (raw vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds) because I think it may have a lot to do with developing lightbody. The sun grows plants. Animals eat plants. So I wondered if eating closer to the sun may help in the transition.

Now I’m still learning, but I’d like to share some of my experiences in my quest for the ultimate eating habit.

My background

A lot of things have happened since I had the Ascension soul shift in January this year, including changes in my eating preference. Before I discuss my recent adventures and learning, I want to talk where I was before this.

I was eating some meat. A lot less than typical Americans eat, however. I probably ate average of 3 ounces (85 gram) a day, typically in soups, stir fries, omelet, etc. And I chose organic meat whenever I could, and most of the meat was poultry.

I would have been happier to eat fish, but when I was living in Ohio and Tennessee, fresh fish was hard to find even at specialty market, so I learned to steer away from it.

I also ate eggs and dairy (fermented dairy like cheese and yoghurt) regularly.

And I had fair amount of sugary foods. I have sweet tooth, I admit. And having coffee with biscotti or pastry was a way to relax for me.

I never had sodas. And I don’t remember when was the last time I had any alcoholic drinks. Being so small (5’1”), alcohol works really fast on me, and I never really liked it. Of course, no drugs.

I woke up to find myself vegetarian

One day in January, I found that I just couldn’t eat meat any longer. The idea felt bad, and on the few occasions I (my ego) made myself eat meat, I got sick. Pretty soon, eggs and dairies dropped off my shopping list as well.

I was curious what I could safely eat from here on, so I looked around the bookstores and the internet. It wasn’t long before I found the concept of eating raw. I made some attempts to eat this way — at first, it was hard because it triggered my sugar craving. Something was very intriguing about eating raw, however, so I kept trying. . .

I increased my raw rate in the last few months. I also quit caffeine. This started as a simple experiment. I read both positive and negative opinions about caffeine, so I thought I just see it for myself. “Let’s get off caffeine for a while to see how I feel.” I got a horrible headache in the first several days of no coffee, no tea, no chocolate. That made me think. If I have withdrawal symptoms like this, maybe caffeine is no good. So I never went back.

The pitfalls in discussing eating habit

I think we often get caught up in discussing eating habit because we focus so much on the WHAT. Like: is meat okay to eat or not? Is plant-based foods better than animal-based? This is an easy way to be confused with judgment calls.

My feeling is that, the timing we eat, the amount we eat, and the manner and attitude we eat all matters just as much as the kind of foods we eat. Further, there are related issues like how we eliminate waste (elimination is as important as assimilation), how we breathe (we cannot assimilate foods without oxygen. In a sense, breathing is more fundamental than eating — we eat only a few times a day, but we never stop breathing), and how we use our body (exercise and more). Discussing only about what to eat is a big mistake.

Quantum Eating by Tonya Zavasta

I found a book titled Quantum Eating: The Ultimate Elixir of Youth. The author, Tonya Zavasta, is a raw food advocate. What’s interesting about this book, despite her quirky writing style, is she talks a lot more than the WHAT of eating raw.

Tonya Zavasta supports caloric restriction diet (CR). Caloric restriction diet is not a new idea — there are many lab studies which show how eating less contributes to the longevity and wellness of the animals. She also insists on eating in the morning and dry fasting from 2 pm to the next day’s breakfast.

Whoa! Now that’s a challenge big enough to embrace. ^_^

I’m glad I read this book because, even though I read a few articles on calorie restriction diet, I never read about someone who has been practicing it for many years. She says her caloric intake is less than her caloric output. And from the tone of her writing, I guess her weight is stable. So she is getting energy from somewhere other than foods — light / prana.

(What I don’t understand is why she doesn’t move forward to become a breatharian. She knows digestion is taxing to our body. She can already assimilate energy from non-food source. It would be a logical next step to reduce the food intake further to ultimately go 100% on light.)

She also maintains the body that has been on raw foods for a long time is significantly different. For instance, she says her white blood count is low. Not because she has leukemia but because her body is so cleansed that there is little reason her immune system need to build so many white bloods.

Is there an ultimate way to boost your health and spirituality?

So. Do I have a recommendation on how to eat your way to health and spirituality? No for two reasons. One, because each of us is unique. What works for me or for some authority may not work for you. Two, because I think the search and the learning in it is just as important for your growth as the practice of your ultimate eating.

Having said this, I can share my current eating plan. Remember, this is something in progress — I might change my plan, and I may deviate from my plan. So this is strictly for your reference and amusement only. And again, I’m not saying this is the ultimate way to eat.

How I eat now

Breakfast
Green smoothie (say, one banana, some blueberries, one cup of kale and cilantro mix)

Mid morning snack
Quarter cup of sprouted pumpkin seeds
Maybe some more fruits, like an apple.

Lunch
Green soup (say, a small avocado, a small zucchini, one cup spinach, some dried sea vegetable, salt, cayenne)
Raw crackers or Manna bread (sprouted grain bread)

Mid afternoon snack
I might have a Larabar or another smoothie (maybe fruit smothie)

Dinner (Yes, I’m still eating dinner at this time)
Salad (a big handful of salad mix, a small tomato, lemon tahini dressing)
A glass of hemp protein mix

Lunch is the largest meal. Even when I was eating the old way, I found that, if I eat substantial lunch, I don’t eat much later and felt better.

Thoughts on nutrition

I’m taking hemp protein mix to supplement my protein intake. When hemp? Because I’m not interested in whey (milk protein) and I don’t hear good things about soy. I admit I cringed and resisted the idea at first — hemp? Are you telling me to drink drug? But no, the hemp sold as food or supplement has no chemical that alters your mood and perception.

Some say hemp is a complete protein. I checked it here, and it turns out hemp lacks the essential amino acid lysine, just like most grains and nuts protein. So this is where pumpkin seeds come into. (Other good plant sources of lysine are beans, buckwheat, quinoa, and amaranth. The last three are treated like grains, but they are really grass seeds, like pumpkin seeds. Eating amaranth raw is supposed to be no good.)

The above menu provides 40 gram of protein, which is just what I need. Nutritional Data has a tool to find out your personal nutrition requirement. My plan also fills most of the bill of my other nutritional requirements (including calorie, so this is not CR), but I’m taking supplements of multi, calcium, and iron / vitamin B12 to be sure. I choose supplements that is made of foods. For instance, most calcium supplements are ground limestone. I don’t like the idea of eating rocks, so I choose supplement that utilizes a certain kind of algae.

Let your body make the final decision on food and nutrition

However, I don’t believe in the idea of absolute nutritional requirements we must follow. I think all these requirements are guidelines, and we are best to check with our own body to decide what and how much we eat. Because nobody knows exactly what happens when foods enter YOUR body. Each of us has different metabolism.

For me, I was suffering from cranker-sore like dry lips before I started taking lysine rich foods. So this tells me something was lacking in my diet, and Nutritional Data website was a great resource to find the right foods for this essential amino acid.

I steer away from sugar for the same reason, because my body doesn’t seem to respond well. When I eat sweets, I feel dried up later. And it’s a weird thirst that water doesn’t seem to quell. (My last blood test said I have nothing to worry about diabetes.) When I don’t eat sugar, I feel fine.

Change of my taste

I might also add that my taste is changing. Cooked foods just don’t taste so good when I do eat them occasionally. Even dehydrated “raw” bars don’t taste so good — an apple tastes a lot better. So I’m into simple, primitive style raw foods, not gourmet raw foods. (What an irony — I used to be an accomplished cook.)

Going forward, I might try fasting, maybe next spring. Spring is the most natural season to detox. I want to bring changes gradually although my body seems to be doing its own thing at its pace.

Effects on my health and spirituality

In a sense, my body is guiding my awareness in what to eat and how much. Now the question is “Is this way of eating helping me in my health and spirituality?”

Health, yes. I didn’t have any serious diagnosis before, but I had minor annoyances. For instance, I use to wake up every night to go to bathroom. This seldom happens these days — I sleep through until morning. (I guess you may be wondering about my age. I’m 48. The picture on the sidebar is from four years ago. I’m sorry it’s dated — I will see if I can get new photos taken soon.)

I also had dry eye. My eye doctor told me to use moisturizing eye drops several times a day. I don’t need it these days. I also feel well rested and relaxed, but this may be not just about my eating but also my quieter environment after I moved a month ago.

The effect on my spirituality is harder to measure. I do feel more peaceful and loving in a stable way.

Resources

If you are interested in learning more about vegetarian / vegan / raw foods, here are some great websites:

Meatless Monday How about going vegetarian just one day a week? It’s a gentle start.
Crazy Sexy Life By the author of Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips
Evolving Wellness Evita has a solid science background and often discusses vegetarian benefits.
In The Raw Fun and informative blog on eating raw.
Choosing Raw Another great blog on eating raw.

What do you think about eating – physicality and spirituality? Please share your thoughts in the comment. Thank you.

Online Gratitude Journal June 2009 Edition #30

I just had a mini revelation. Perhaps I’ll develop this into full article in the future, but here is the heads-up: (Photo by Mr. Greenjeans)

Occasionally I receive emails from people who want “free” readings, and I’ve wondered why. Is psychic reading typically offered free and I’m violating the rule? Hmm, no, there are plenty of psychics who ask for far more than I do. Is it because they don’t think I’m worth their money? But if so, why do they ask me for reading ever?

Is it because they don’t have money? This may seem right, but then, it hit me: It’s because they don’t pay the due that they are poor. They don’t pay what is due, so what is rightfully theirs don’t come their way in their life. They believe they don’t have the money so that is how they are. Look at the energetic exchange (or the lack thereof, in this case), and it’s quite plain and simple.

I’m not advocating to spend lots of money. When I receive bills that I don’t agree, I go after the merchant and straighten things up. I do advocate paying properly. Sometimes I pay more than the bill my, say web designer, charges me. With gratitude. Because I think the work was worth it.

If you want to be treated well for who you are, treat others well. (Plus there are plenty of articles in this blog’s archive about how to start a business and make money )

June in Review

As promised in last month’s Gratitude Journal, I wrote about love and sex — and was discouraged with the low level of comments. Okay . . . if my readers don’t like this topic, maybe I’ll write about something else. But are you sure? I was ready to write more juicy stuffs . . .

I started writing about various starseeds groups. This is going to be a long series. I don’t think there are sufficient information about this, so I take it to my responsibility to write about it.

Fun

In 12 Steps To Raw Foods, Victoria Boutenko, the leading raw foods advocate, writes about a few other healthy habits beside eating raw. One of them is sleeping naked. She cites several studies and maintains sleeping naked promotes surface circulation. (I guess, then, being naked anytime is good, but we need to balance healthy habits with social life requirements. Plus it can be too cold outside the bed.)

Well, the weather is warm, this is the best time to try this. I do think I sleep better this way. Plus it feels good. (My sheets are 100% organic cotton.)

Victoria Boutenko also recommends jumping into cold water, sleeping on hard surface, keeping windows open for fresh air, etc. I started taking cold shower occasionally and try to keep the windows open. Not sure if I can keep doing this in winter, but for now, it works.

Challenges

Blog marketing, I guess. I simply don’t have time to go around promoting my blog. I love writing, and many articles here will be included in the book I hope to publish about Ascension and Akashic Records, so with or without large audience, this blog is very meaningful to me. At the same time, I wish I had more readers. Writing gets lonely sometimes, and there is nothing like reading comments at such time.

Lucky Synchronicities

For this, I’d like to record the great synchronicities I experience in my life. It confirms the benevolent mystery of life

Saturday evening, June 13th. I went out walking to my local supermarket. It’s 15 minutes walk and I find it to be a good way to exercise. There is sidewalk all along lined with lots of trees and flowers.  When I was leaving home, the sky was mildly overcast but it didn’t seem like it would rain any time soon.

I bought some mangos and grapefruits and came out of the store to find rain pouring down. Haven’t I learned the lesson of living in Oregon yet? It can rain any time. The sky changes in 10 minutes.

So . . . I was standing outside the store. Do I want to walk back in rain and just pretend I went swimming? Shall I wait until it clears up?

It was dark with the severe rain, but I noticed the car in the parking lot. Hey, that gray Scion is just like my friend’s. Is she here shopping, too?

I stood there looking around for several minutes. She did come out from the store, looking surprised to see the rain and me.

I got the ride home. I’m lucky. My spirit guides work hard for me. Thank you.

Where in the blogosphere Akemi has been

I’ve always been interested in eating healthy and mindfully.  Here are two videos that inspire you.

First one — by the end of this short video, foods start to look different to you, I hope.

And here is a movie trailer about the miracle of eating raw. It reversed diabetes in 30 days. (HT: Evita)

A year ago at Yes to Me

I started this Gratitude Journal series a year ago. Over the course of the year, I’ve changed the format and posting frequency, but all in all, I think this is a great way to share a bit of my personal side. Namaste.

I personally like “Embrace The Big Questions Worth Spending Your Life For”. It’s about how “quick and easy” answers deprive the joy of living.

Word of month

“Cultivate a sense of gratitude for your food. Each time we remember to eat with awareness, we return to that place of inner peace.”

By earthmother. I learn a lot from her blog about eating raw, which I think has a lot to do with spiritual development. Thank you!

Thank you for your readership and comments, as always ^_^ I hope you are enjoying the warm weather.

Online Gratitude Journal Raw Food Adventure Edition #28

Aaaaagh, I forgot to post my Gratitude Journal entry last week! Not that I don’t have gratitude but just too busy living my life. (In my case, “busy” includes meditation, relaxing at Starbucks, and napping, too.) I guess I will make this series to monthly review now.

Eating foods of light and life

Part of the busy-ness comes from my recent adventure in modifying my eating habits as I wrote in my last Gratitude Journal. If you missed that post — it’s about feeding directly on Light rather than on foods. I believe this is the path we are heading as we go through Ascension, and I want to make sure with my own body.

First I tried to just reduce my food intake. This didn’t work very well. Evidently, my physical body was not quite ready. So I changed my plan and decided to increase the ratio of my raw food intake to see if this has a positive impact in the transition. Raw vegetables and fruits are the most light filled foods, and I think eating more of them helps our body to learn how to eat less.

I checked books on this topic at the bookstore and the library. While there are many raw cookbooks (or “un-cook books), I find 12 Steps to Raw Foods: How to End Your Dependency on Cooked Food to be most helpful. This book explains the benefits of raw foods and practical steps to eat more raw. The author, Victoria Boutenko, and her family has been eating raw over 10 years.

One of the things she strongly recommends in this book is green smoothie, which is just a blended drink made of dark greens like kale or spinach and fruits like banana or berries. She advises to drink it every morning until your body gets enough nutrition and enzymes that it’s been missing. You don’t need to change any other part of your eating — just drink green smoothie every day and after awhile, you will naturally want more raw foods because your body gets healthy and can wisely choose what and how much foods it needs. I’ve been doing this, and really, it tastes better than it sounds!

I also read blogs on raw foods. My favorite is In The Raw. (The link takes you to her post on green smoothie) She has obviously been studying the raw food diet well and I love her warmth and lightheartedness.

Sprouting and life

I also started sprouting. My first batch was a handful of adzuki beans because I have lots of adzuki in the pantry. I bought them to cook, but I’ve been putting it off… so they are over a year old.

I was pleased to see all but one bean sprout despite the age! Sprouts are so cute. It feels special to see these small beans coming to life. It’s like magic — you just water them twice a day and boom, they grow tiny roots and buds. These beans are alive.

It was interesting to check this one bean that didn’t sprout. It had white spot that I think is mould. So all the beans were in the same environment, but only the dead bean got mould, all the live beans look completely fine.

This can apply to human health, I think. If you have infection, whether it’s sinus infection or yeast infection, it may be about the overall liveliness issue rather than the local issue. The cause of the infection is there all the time but healthy body has a way to fend it off. When your body is weak, the external pathogens take advantage of you.

Today I’m grateful for the natural healing power within me. And for the farmers and produce sellers. I look forward to going to the farmers market soon. (Photo by Mr. Greenjeans)

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