So I'm nutrition 101ing my husband.   I only recently realized just because I learned it doesn't mean he did.  My ladies always want to get their hubbies healthier and that's the age old question - how do I get him to join me in getting healthier.  For years I've done the "here - take these" approach.  I'm not very strict at home.  It would have to be a drag to be married to someone who's always raising their eyebrow at everything you do.  I find when people become aware of something they didn't know before, they're more likely to begin to make gradual changes with that awareness.  So saying all that, I had bought a super duper food enzyme for my husband, but really didn't want to add it to the "here - take this" graveyard of supplement bottles.  Honestly, it doesn't work long term that way because

1.  Change is being instigated upon you which makes it subject to refusal for control purposes and/or

2.  The person on the passive receiving end has not engaged the conscious mind to enhance the new habit and 

3.  Although an initial willingness to ingest something you know nothing about just because your wife says it's good for you, from a man's perspective is just another compromise in a long line  of marital compromises eventually leading back to 1.

So, the reason for the 101 class.  First of all, it's taken some commitment to change our schedules and endure some hardship to value time together during waking hours with our kids in school.   I was happy we got to that point.  The sacrifices were worth it.  In any event, the lesson today was dead food and enzymes.   

To sum it up:   Most of the food we consume has been dead a long time.   In Chinese Medicine the concept of dead food is very important - so much so that they don't do left overs.  The idea is to ingest food that is as close to it's alive state as possible.  Recently, you may notice a lot of attention surrounding local, organic food.  The more local it is, the more chance it has of containing what the Chinese call "live essence."   This would be lettuce just out of the ground.  This would be milk just squeezed out of the cow.  This would be a cow that was just slaughtered (as appreciatively and as humanely as possible) etc....  

When we talk about "processed" food in holistic health circles, we mean food that is prepared in a far away factory, prepared and packaged to have long shelf lives and withstand travel from great distances.  Our boxed and bagged food might have been alive at some point, but the LIFE FORCE ENERGY left it a long time ago.

So big deal, right?   Yeah, it's a big deal. 

Your body is looking for life force energy to sustain and rebuild itself.  Your DNA, we are now discovering, contains the intelligence of every ancestor that preceded you.  You are a millionth or so copy of the original mother, who we have now proven came from Africa.  I love it when science proves the wisdom literatures true.  But the relevant part here is that the food while being processed for:

1.  Shelf life

2.  Visual appeal &

3.  Taste sensations hopefully leading to addiction and future sales

(I will post about International House Coffee Creamers in the future- evil         bastards)

the nutrients that your body needs are stripped.   Synthetically produced nutrients, which your DNA doesn't recognize so readily, are added back into the food so that the manufacturer can have some consciousness about calling it a food "product" on the package.   As my 4 year old would say.  Ok. Fine.

On of the major kickers here though is that the life force energy in food, which sounds all hookey dookey is really processes that use natural chemicals such as ENZYMES to help in the natural cycle of birth, growth, decay and death.  The real food, in its original form still had this intrinsic natural process going on inside it.  The processed food squashed, smashed, grated, heated, pasteurized, chemically canceled the vital life force energy out of it so it would fit in the box and keep on a shelf for 5 years.  But without the life force energy, what's really the point of eating it - or so they say in Chinese Medicine.  Personally, I'm thinking of a little Debbie Snack Cake and thinking, well I'd eat it because it tastes good and makes me happy.  (No worries, I haven't had one in over 30 years - but I ate enough of them as a kid to be dead by now!)  

The realization after realizing that we eat processed food because:

1.  It's convenient

2.  we forgot or didn't have time to cook or buy whole food

3.  we don't care.  We eat for pleasure and comfort

can only be that REALLY we eat because our body needs live force energy to grow and stay alive.    When we eat food that is dead, over fakey processed, we fatigue our bodies with a game of Zike.  Here's your dinner.  Good luck finding what you're looking for.  Then comes the bloat.  The hyper acidity.  The fatigue and the strange hunger that comes after eating.  Your body got full after your meal, but it didn't get nourished.  Big difference.

So, you say, I can't change all that at once.  No, you probably cant.  BUT you can, at least:

1.  Add in a food enzyme to help your body break down the processed food.   Whole, just recently alive food has natural enzymes in it.  When you eat dead processed food, the enzymes aren't there.  Your body has to release extra acid to break it down.  Especially when you swallow it whole because you didn't chew it up enough.  

2.  Chew your damn food.  Your saliva has natural enzymes that break your food down.  If you can't afford an enzyme, just chew your food at least 20 times before swallowing.  Never thought of that.  Go ahead.  Count your chews.  You'll be shocked.  So when whole pieces of food go down in haste - hyper acidity.  Now you can be like the moron in the PREVACID commercial and keep on wolfing down the acidic dead food like a zombie OR you can just chew it up with your own saliva for free.   

3.  Make sure you take naturally sourced Vitamins and Minerals which should have been in your food to begin with but aren't.  Naturally sourced is important.  That means your body will recognize and accept the nutrient in it's original natural form.  

4.  Lightly steam your vegetables to activate the natural enzymatic break down process. Help your body.  It's spending a tremendous amount of your life force energy trying to make some energy out of the fake dead food we give it. 

5.  Begin to think about your food as once being a live.  Try to get as close to the live part as possible.  Be willing, one step at a time to change one processed food a week to something whole, natural, unprocessed, local if possible and as close to it being once alive as possible.  Just think about it.  The change will come to you if you hold it in your awareness.

6.  Begin the switch from regular to organic.  One product at a time.  From regular to whole grain.  The store are making it easier thank goodness.  Even Winn Dixie has organic, whole grain options.

Holy moley.  Not only did I do 2 blogs in a row.  This was like a long one.  I'm done.  If you have any questions or comments, call or email.  Night.