Cleaning Up Shop

Think about the foods you eat on a daily basis.  Are they fresh and alive like yourself, or are they empty and dead with a questionably long shelf life?  This is no new topic of discussion; I’ve mentioned numerous times in previous articles that you are what you eat, and what you choose to fuel your body with is also how you fuel your mental and emotional self.  Living, nutrient-rich food is energizing, nourishing, and vitalizing, whereas lifeless, flaccid food is suppressive and weakening.  Wisely stated by Adelle Davis, “As I see it, every day you do one of two things: build health or produce disease in yourself.”

When I refer to clean eating, I am referring to eating food in its natural form, unprocessed and unrefined.  Did the food come from the earth this way, or has it been mutated prior to consumption?  The further removed from its natural state, the less nutrient value it contains.  If it has an indefinite shelf life, you can be certain that it lacks any nutritional value.  Even cooking food kills off nutrient content, and varies in degrees of severity based on how long food is cooked, at what temperature, and by what method.  Baron Baptiste breaks this down from most alive to dead: raw, poached, steamed, boiled, baked, sautéed, stir fried, deep fried.

Like yoga, cleaning up your diet allows you to peel away layers of yourself (both literally and metaphorically) that ultimately prevent your inner truth and power from shining out.  By removing the internal burden of heavy, fake foods and flooding your body with essential, vitalizing nutrients, you will feel lighter, stronger, and gain a large amount of clarity.  Think of it as filtering out the excess, so that you may serve your higher purpose and truly feel your best self.  Our bodies do not recognize and are unable to process chemical and artificial substances that are added to processed and refined foods (i.e. fake food), and therefore they manifest themselves in the form of disease.  Sadly (and ironically), our highly evolved and technologically advanced culture has been conned into believing that diet and disease are unrelated, but it won’t be long until we are forced to acknowledge this simple and undeniable truth.  When used correctly, food can be incredibly healing, and when abused, food can be incredibly destructive.

What then, are you supposed to eat as part of a clean diet?  Mostly vegetables, in addition to fruit, whole grains (do not be fooled by false advertising claims on cereal boxes reading ‘whole grain’…remember that it didn’t grow that way; think brown rice, quinoa, oats, etc.), lean meats, nuts, seeds, legumes, and healthy oils (in their raw, uncooked form).  I’m a firm believer in moderation, so if you can engage in clean eating 80% of the time, don’t sweat the other 20%.  Food is your most powerful source of preventative medicine; NOW is the time to commit to a life of health and longevity.

XO,

E