Everyone tries, or should be trying, to eat more fruits and vegetables in their diets, but eating plant-based consists of so much more!
In order to achieve optimal results in all areas of our lives, we must begin with a solid foundation. This is where whole foods presented in their natural state come in. The power of positive thinking can only take us so far if the vehicle we use loses its fluidity and mobility over time. It has been my experience that thinking myself into good health on a sub-par diet is worse than wishful thinking; it’s plain delusional. It is extremely difficult to assume an attitude of gratitude when we are in chronic pain.
Vegan & Vegetarian
When we introduce a wide spectrum of organic, colorful vegetation into our lives,we automatically experience more joy, bliss, and enthusiasm for life. When we construct our body out of plant-based fats, oils, and proteins, we begin to displace and erase the acidic residue of unhealthy processed food products that have crippled an entire nation of consumers.
The popularity of vegetarian diets has risen exponentially in the last few decades, not to mention the last few years with the power of the internet. A plant-based lifestyle serves as a basic foundation for building a strong body, a clear mind, centered emotions, digestive ease, regularity, and an impenetrable immune system.
A plant focused lifestyle comprised of a high to lower ratio of raw uncooked foods to cooked will be ideal for most people based on metabolism, constitution, climatic environment, and temperament. The raw food category should look like a wide spectrum of vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, sprouts, roots, fermented foods, cold pressed oils, bee products, seaweeds, and herbs. The ideal cooked food spectrum will look like sweet potato, yams, grass seeds (organic grains), legumes, steamed brassica vegetables, and soups.
Where Does Protein Come From?
The most common psychological obstacles most encounter when considering a high raw vegetarian lifestyle is where to find the best quality protein. Many prominent vegan activists have pronounced that protein is not very important and is overrated. This is not the truth. Protein is extremely important for the anabolic growth of the human frame, for blood sugar balance, energy production, and cognitive function.
The distinction that needs to be made is where we source protein from and that animal protein is inferior by definition. The word protein translates in Greek into proteios, meaning primary. Animals grazing wild grasses obtain their protein from the primary source of nature, whereas humans in cities consume their protein from a secondary source in the form of meat. The best sources of protein based on bio-availability, digestibility, and wide ranging benefits are spirulina, chlorella, blue green algae, hemp seeds, chia seeds, goji berries, bee pollen, maca, sprouted grains, sprouted nuts, broccoli, collards, avocados, olives, and durian fruit.
Balancing Out the Nutrition
Raw plant fats are highly important for nerve insulation, brain development, hormones, intestinal lining protection, and displacing rancid oils accumulated in the liver. These healthy plant fats include avocados, olives, cacao, durian fruit, coconut meat/oil, hemp oil, chia oil, and algae oils.
The most important food category for balance and sustainability is green leafy vegetables. Most people will focus their diet on high fat or high carbohydrates in the form of fruit, starchy vegetables, and grains. If we swing too far in one direction or the other we will fall out of balance. Leafy vegetables help us anchor our bodies through the process of mineralization, and create an alkalization in our blood chemistry.
The cellulose fiber contained in vegetables and fruits is what binds the structure of these healing foods together and is one of the main factors that heals us. Insoluble fiber in vegetables, chia seeds, and flax seeds binds onto toxic materials in the body and escorts them out through our elimination canal. This is one of the most important functions of a high raw food diet in the twentieth century. We are overrun with toxic saturation from our environment and must use fiber rich vegetables, fruits, and seeds to help extract these toxins from the body and at the same time provide the required alkaline nutrients our bodies need for optimal proficiency.
No matter how you choose to organize your diet, make sure to include one organic leafy salad with green superfood powders, antioxidant-containing plant fats and oils, seaweeds, nuts and seeds, and an abundance of gratitude. When we include more living foods into our lives, we are inviting more life into our days. The principle to understand here is we want to move closer and closer to the culture of life and move further and further from the culture of death. When we eat new and exciting foods, we tend to think new and exciting thoughts. This causes us to experience more energy, more enthusiasm, and more passion to create the life of our dreams.
