***Healthy Eating Ideas: Common sense nobody follows

Modern living, individual circumstances, and tastes that have been formed over a lifetime may not permit us to eat perfectly. That’s okay. If we keep our sight on the goal of matching food to our genetic design, we can slip here and there. The body is forgiving and health does not require that we follow a precise eating formula.

Nevertheless, since the type of diet explained in the previous chapters (undereating with overnutrition) is a dramatic departure from common fare and style (being overfed and undernourished), you may wonder what to do next. This article will provide some specific daily eating ideas on returning to nature.

EARLY MORNING

Drink a quart or two of purified water before eating anything. Squeeze in ½ lemon to help with combating acidemia. (Since lemons are acidic this may seem like a contradiction, but once digested and metabolized the citrate in lemons buffers tissue acid. The malate in apples can do similarly.) Warm the drink if you would like. Everyone today is prone to acidemia (high body acid) due to modern circumstances and diet. It and the free radical pathology it promotes underlie most modern degenerative diseases (1). Drinking a significant amount of water first thing also helps flush out accumulated toxins and staves off appetite. Increasing water intake will help with virtually any health condition and is a great preventive as well. It even helps burn calories since the body must expend them to warm the water up to 98.6 degrees.

BREAKFAST

Unless engaged in demanding exercise, there should be no true hunger until late morning. Don’t eat breakfast out of routine. Again, remember your origins and the fact that we are not designed for limitless food within easy reach. (Children are a different matter in that their needs are greater and must be constantly met to accommodate growth.)

Make it a personal challenge, no matter what you eat, to not get full. This is difficult because the eating switch remains on long after we have had more than we need. We have to consciously make the decision to turn it off. Walk away, brush your teeth, or do some enjoyable activity. After the desire to eat subsides (it will), you will have a great sense of satisfaction once you realize you didn’t need more food after all.

Options:

1. Poach eggs or lightly cook an omelet with whatever natural foods you would like inside. And/or have some plain yogurt mixed with fresh fruit and raw nuts. Any of the ingredients mentioned in option #2 can be mixed in as well.

2. Make a shake in a blender or just stir the ingredients together by hand:

• Whole protein powder, and/or one or two raw, organic, free-range eggs—a perfect protein.

• Two or three prunes that have been soaked until soft (just put some in a capped jar, cover with water, and keep in the fridge). Prunes are nutrient- and antioxidant-dense, have activity against possible
food-borne pathogens, and help keep bowels regular.

• Part of a banana and/or other fruits like dried dates, figs,
blueberries, cherries, raw honey, etc. These are great raw nutrition and the various flavors permit you to make the drink to taste.

• A slice of avocado will help thicken the drink and add
important nutrients.

• Flax, pumpkin and virgin coconut and palm fruit oils—sources of important fatty acids, phytonutrients, and fiber. They are important for the immune system and help the body relearn how to metabolize fats rather than carbohydrates.

• Whole food dried concentrates, such as from wheat and barley grasses, spirulina, algae, and the like are sources of dozens of raw plant-based antioxidants and phytonutrients. Vitamins and minerals in food form like this are the most beneficial to health.

• A cup or so of plain organic yogurt (not the cloyed, fruit on the bottom, or otherwise flavored varieties)—a source of probiotics, protein, minerals, and immune factors.

• One-half cup or so of raw nuts and seeds—excellent protein, minerals, and essential fatty acids. These could include macadamia, cashews, Brazils, almonds (with the brown skin peeled off after soaking them in water long enough for it to easily peel away), walnuts and pecans (soaked overnight and drained of the dark colored, bitter, and anti-digestive tannins, and rinsed), sunflower and pumpkin seeds, and coconut meat. Keep the nuts in the freezer (coconut in refrigerator) to help protect their fragile fatty acids.

Alternatively to the above dry ingredients for the shake, use prepared, raw, grainless, sugarless, ‘un-cereals’ and snack bars. Just mix with fresh fruit and the yogurt and blend into the drink. If you cannot wean from cereal, use a non-sugared (read the ingredient list), whole-grain cereal topped with the nuts as prepared above.

• Blend a little. If a few chunks of nuts are left, that’s good. It will force chewing the shake rather than guzzling it. Chewing slows down eating and increases salivary flow and digestive action.

Rotate the ingredients so the shake/meal is not exactly the same every day. This helps decrease the likelihood of developing food sensitivities. Vary the fruits to create different flavors. Make the shake small enough that it creates comfort but not fullness. Take half of your daily supplements with this meal. Encapsulated supplements that don’t taste awful can be opened and sprinkled into the shake before blending.

This nutritionally dense meal is extremely satisfying and will hold through the entire day until supper.

It’s also a wonderful meal substitute anytime. When I travel I make this shake at home and put it in a capped jar packed with a gel cooler bag. No hunting for a restaurant, no getting desperate and eating junk, and no hunger for the rest of the day.

Alternatives to the above would be anything you can think of that mimics natural foods and could be eaten raw. Just don’t cave in to starches and sugars by filling up on bagels, pancakes, cereals, breads, and the like.

THROUGH THE DAY

If truly hungry, snack on fresh fruit and/or fresh coconut, or other tree nuts and seeds. Always ask the question as to whether you have done sufficient activity to justify what you are eating. If not, do some exercise and there is a good chance the desire to eat will subside. There is no crime in being hungry once in a while. It is not a disease needing an ER raid on the refrigerator. As the body adjusts to the new diet, you will also find that food has much more staying power.

If possible, take a little nap around noon. Even fifteen minutes of shut-eye can make a tremendous difference in the rest of the day. Otherwise, you may see your tiredness as a result of not eating, ‘hypoglycemia,’ or some other food-related cause remedied only by, of course, eating.

SUPPER

Skip it if not hungry. Remember, there is no law that says you must eat at every mealtime. Who decided there should be meal times anyway?

Here are some options, with a hunt and gather flair: (These are all just suggestions to give a feel for what you are naturally designed for. Do what you can.)

1. ‘Pick and gather’ a fresh raw salad of your liking. Dress it with extra virgin olive oil. Add some seasoning and shredded raw organic cheese for variety. Try different veggies and rotate ingredients. Four to eight ounces of meat with this meal will be sufficient. Lightly broil or grill. If you can do steak tartare, fine; if you can’t, high temperature/short time is the best way to cook to preserve nutrition and decrease toxins. Remember, in the wild there is no cooking at all.

2. Next day’s dinner could be just a salad with some nuts, vegan style (because you found no prey that day).

3. The next dinner could be just eggs, perhaps as a veggie-filled omelet (because you found a nest to rob). An alternate dinner could be yogurt and cheese (from the tamed goat, buffalo, or camel), plus a salad perhaps.

4. Another dinner is nothing except water. (It was a day off from food hunting and there wasn’t that much hunger anyway.)

Supplements are important because we never eat perfectly, many modern foods are nutritionally weak, and modern living creates extraordinary stresses. Supplements are not a very wild thing, but then neither are we being totally wild. Take supplements during meals with chewed bites of food. Do not take the same supplements without letup. Vary them as you do your meals (2).

For an example of how to do this see the Optimal Health Program I have designed (2).

Do not drink with meals since that shortens chewing time, allows gulping, and dilutes digestive juices. Coffee, booze, and pop do not come along with wild meals.

Have some chocolate or other small dessert. Make ice cream with eggs, cream, vanilla, fruit, honey, nuts, etc. Experiment making non-cooked pies with a nut crust, fruit, whipped cream, honey, etc. (3).

EVENING SNACK

Only if really hungry. Some choices:

• Air popped popcorn topped with extra virgin olive oil and seasonings

• Natural peanut butter as a dip for carrots and celery sticks

• Raw nuts and dried fruits as in a trail mix

• Fresh coconut

• Fresh fruit

• Raw organic cheese

• Dips made with blended organic cream cheese, fresh peppers, garlic, whole sea salt, lemon and lime juice, cashews, tomatoes, avocados, or whatever—have fun. Yes, you can cheat with some whole grain, organic corn, or potato chips to deliver this wondrous concoction. No hydrogenated oils, though.

Again, don’t get full and don’t eat out of bottomless bags. Set out a reasonable amount before beginning and let that be it regardless of how good it all tastes and how on the eating switch is.

SKIP A DAY

Don’t eat for a day every now and then. Just drink the water. Not eating is one of the healthiest things to do! Decreasing food intake is the only consistent variable scientists have found that can extend life.

If you do less physical activity on any particular day, eat less. Think in terms of ‘deserve.’ Do more, eat more. Do less, eat less. It means getting the mind engaged and using discipline.

If there is a problem with parts of this regimen, or a problem digesting certain components, or you can’t bring yourself to do the raw egg thing, that’s okay. Just use this as a model along with the principles explained in previous chapters to tailor things to your liking.

There is no hard and fast rule other than to break from convention and eat as if thinking matters.

(1) Carter, G. Endocardial damage induced by lactate, lowered pH and lactic acid in non-ischemic beating hearts. Pathology, 21 (1989), 125-130.
(2) Wysong, R. L. Optimal Health Program. Retrieved from the World Wide Web: http://www.wysong.net/PDFs/ohp.pdf
(3) Wolfe, D., et al. Naked Chocolate. San Diego: Maul Brothers Publishing, 2005.