Food and the Spiritual Connection

 As a society, we don’t make time in our lives anymore for food.

Let me re-phrase that

We don’t make time in our lives for making good food our priority.

We don’t grow it. We don’t raise it. We don’t kill it. 

We don’t prepare it

We no longer dine

 

As a society, we tend to consume excess amounts of all the junk we can get.

To my mind, food is our spiritual connection to our planet.  Making time for the ceremony of food, and the companionship of our friends and family is one of the most important facets of life.  This is the circle of our most intimate relationships.  Somehow this sense of the circle of relationship has gotten twisted and broken. 

We tend rush, even during social feast meals.  Proper dining requires at least 3 hours.  Dining is a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with friends and family.   

Now Italians know how to eat!  They value good food,selected carefully, prepared lovingly; eaten slowly.  Whether lunching by oneself or with company, food is appreciated and savored. 

I have taught cooking in the past.  To me food and health are intertwined.  My focus is always about keeping preparation simple.  I like food with great taste, and good nutritional value.  I want to reduce animal protein and increase vegetable protein.  I like to keep things simple.  I want to appreciate food in its natural state.  I like to use herbs, spices and oils to enhance my meals with subtle flavours.

I will be co-teaching a cooking workshop in January.  Also Patti Robertson will be sharing her health and cooking wisdom in February.  March and April are an opportunity to study food and heath in a deeper context with Michael Fisher.

Here is an outline of what is coming:

Workshop:  Redefining Fast Food

These are hectic times, and trying to get quick and nutritious meals on the table can often times be a challenge. It is so much easier to make a run through the drive-thru at the end of a long work day. But you don't have to compromise your family's health for convenience!

Beginning in January, we will be present a series of workshops where we will demonstrate how to prepare easy recipes that can be made and put on the table in no time at all! We will redefine fast food and invite you to come and taste for yourself!

When: Saturday, Jan. 22, from 1-3 p.m.
Please pre-register by Jan. 20Cost: $40+HST (includes all materials)    
Instructors: Nelda McEwen and Amy Zoethout

Workshop:  New Choices in Eating and Healing 

Hippocrates once said “Let your food be your medicine and medicine be your food”. This is what this seminar is all about!!

How many of us struggle with allergies, high blood pressure, bowel and digestive issues, candidiasis, cardiovascular issues, celiac, cholesterol, constipation and diarrhea, diabetes, diverticulitis, immune issues or being overweight?

All of these issues can either be helped a great deal or cleared up completely through making different eating choices.

After struggling with health issues, Patti Robertson discovered that she needed to change her eating style.  No dieting – just a shift in her food choices.  And being a woman who loves delicious tasting food, she wasn’t going to live on rice crackers!  So, she began experimenting with the foods that really nourished her and got rid of those that didn’t.  In a surprisingly short time, her health issues were healed and what resulted was a fabulous new way to dine with delicious, nutritious food that truly heals our bodies with every bite!
What you will learn: 

• How to choose food for vitalization for your mind, body, spirit and emotional personality
• Food styling for the one and only “you”
• Targeting emotional eating
• Targeting your allergies
• Cleansing the body
• Weight loss and maintenance
• Eating out, the restaurants, the dinner party and social opportunities
• Being kind to yourself…the care and feeding of you spirit

Plus:  Patti will be bringing some wonderful snacks from her cookbooks.  We will have the chance to taste and sample how great eating well can be!

When: Saturday, Feb. 12, from 2-4 p.m.
Cost: $40+HST (includes all materials)
Instructor: Patti Robertson

Patti Robertson is the author of two cookbooks:  “KID YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN” and “CHOICES”.  She is a guest columnist with the “Rural Voice” on a monthly basis. She, along with her husband Ward, own and operate CLASSIC TOTAL CONCEPT, a tightly integrated Energy and Vitality Clinic. Their business also offers Interior Design and Professional Photographic services. www.classictotalconcept.com

 Course 1: The Way of Eating

Combine the knowledge of food and nutrition with self-awareness to help realize what lies beneath our taste buds and at the heart of who we are. Topics on health, basic nutrients, and emotional connections are woven into this course to initiate a foundation for personal renewal. Led by Registered Nutritionist Michael Fisher, this 8-hour course will be broken up over two Saturdays.
When: Saturday, March 12 & 26, from 10 a.m.-3 p.m.
Cost: $175+HST - please pre-register

Saturday, March 12:
Finding Your Food Dharma

• Entering the Perfect Diet via Exiting the ‘Perfect’ Diet
• Developing Food-awareness
• Exploration of Healthful Traditional Diets
• Redefining Health

Carbohydrates

• The Plant-based Path
• Improving Digestion; “The Art of Chewing”
• The Bowels and The Perfect Poop
• Sugar, Cravings and Irritability
• Whole Grain Cookery

Saturday, March 26:
Oils and Fats

• Refining Healthy Oils
• Weighting and Waiting with the Liver
• Heart Health and Clogged Pipes
• Green Blood and White Milk
• Using Oils and Fats in Food Preparation

Proteins

• Animal-based Foods
• Too Much + Too Little = Unbalance
• Protein Power Strength vs. Vegan Tender Strength
• Lightening Adrenals and Rooting Kidneys
• Legume Cookery

 Course 2: The Way of Health

Introducing pre-revolutionary Ancient Chinese thought in this course, the subtle emotional, physical and spiritual connections are integrated in a system which not only encompass our being, but the ‘way’ of all things – personally, and as part of a greater more connected consciousness.
Led by Registered Nutritionist Michael Fisher, this 12-hour course will be broken up over three Saturdays.

When: Saturday, April 9, 16, and 23, from 10 a.m.-3 p.m.
Cost: $275+HST - please pre-register
Saturday, April 9:

How Food Moves You

• Learning How to Know What to Eat
• Joy as Nourishment
• Five Flavours, Influences and Directions of Food
• Opening the Mouth and the Heart

Eating at Another’s Table

• Eating Rich, Sweet and Abundantly
• Nurturing Intentions and Deliberation
• Candida, Mucus and Resolving Congestion
• Reclaiming the Spirit and Purging ʻDemonsʼ

Saturday, April 16:
Savouring the Pits of our Fruits

• Routine, Order and Spontaneity
• Saying Good-bye: Breath, Bowels, Skin and Sinus
• Grieving and Sadness in Food; Detaching
• Creating Defense; Building Immunity and Probiotics

Enzymatic Deconstruction of Self

• Purification and Transformation of the Liver
• Resolving Resentment and Anger Compassionately
• Inflammation, Stagnation, Rigidity and Raw Food
• Renewal and Rebirth with Sprouting and Springtime

Saturday, April 23:
Entering the Dark and Exiting Fears

• Building the Adrenal Glands for Endurance
• Stress, ‘Quiet Foods’ and the Acid/Alkaline Balance
• Meditation; Sitting in the Dark and Not Knowing What to Do
• Traces of Minerals; Soil and Sea

Returning to the Earth

• Sex, Bling, Jing and Bone Health
• Radiation, Technology and Fluoridation
• Animal Foods Revisited
• Aging, Integrating and Passing On 

I hope to see you there.

Keep Well_
          Nelda 

New Beginnings

This is a time when most people are reviewing their past experiences and are making resolutions about what they are going to change about their future.   

I have one friend who’s whole family: children, siblings, in-laws and cousins are planning to run a marathon this coming summer at Disney World.  She has already started by researching a new (for her) stress-free running style called ‘bare foot running’. Tomorrow is her first scheduled training session.

On the cusp of the New Year, many people are making commitments to improving their food habits or are making promises to increase the amount of activity they experience.  Weight loss or more energy may be a hoped for goal.  In some way, a fresh start in improving ones health seems to be part of the intention. 

Very interesting stuff; sort of a New Years Revolution!

What we eat changes us

My first thought is that it is important to eat consciously. To me, health and food are profoundly inter-connected.  I like the taste of food.  It feels good.  But I also want to feel energy tingle down into my arms and fingers when I eat the right meal at the right time.   

I embrace the philosophy of moderation when it comes to what I ingest.  I never want to have to say to my body  ‘’I’m sorry’’.  I really want to tune into my body to discern what it needs to feel better, stronger, more peaceful and vital.

I do supplement my daily food intake with concentrated herbs vitamins and minerals.  The operative word is ‘supplement’.  Concentrated food supplements are designed to buffer temporary shortfalls in our daily diet. Taking pills will never make up for a poor lifestyle. Health products never make up for bad food or careless living.

Manage Your Health on a Daily Basis

When we look at our finances on a daily basis we can see how the cash comes in and how the accumulated supply gets spent and depleted.  Day by day we create our financial future. 

In the same way, how our body receives energy and how we invest that energy really shows over time by living it out day by day by the choices we make.  Good health isn’t magic.  It is usually just wise investments.

Hold more peaceful thoughts

I have a special category called ‘auto-generated’ stress.  This is the ‘fake’ stress we generate with our own thoughts and imagination. 

This is what prompted the famous author and humorist Mark Twain to state, ‘of all the awful things I have experienced, some of them really happened”.   This type of manufactured stress can really take a toll on our bodies resources.

My personal New Years resolution is to ‘laugh boisterously’.  I have been diligently practicing. 

Commit to small changes that yield big results over time

Our bodies work in 12 week cycles.  It takes a full 12 weeks to balance cholesterol in the blood vessels.  It takes 12 weeks to fully clear an infection.  It takes 12 weeks for the body to fully utilize nutrition.  It takes 12 weeks to fully heal a bone break. 

This time line is only true if the body has all the building blocks at its disposal that it needs.

The Human Body is a Self-Cleaning Mechanism

The human body does much better in its self care when it has a chance to clean house once every 7 days. In practical terms, this may mean that we plan to fast or eat lightly and carefully one day a week.  Our liver and kidneys function as the avenues of detoxification.  This break gives them a chance to catch up.

Food Complexes improve our health day by day

Factors such as environmental toxins, stress and excessive free radical exposure challenge us each and every day. Food complexes, such as green food concentrates as well as antioxidant complexes, used on a daily basis can dramatically decrease toxins and boost immunity over time.

Greens foods are highly alkaline, full of wonderful phytonutrients and should be considered one of the cornerstones of any supplement program.

Berries contain many of nature’s most potent antioxidants and phytochemicals, yet many of us fail to consume the optimal amounts necessary to maintain vibrant health. Free radicals are reactive compounds that can damage the cells that they come into contact with. Although impossible to avoid, we need to minimize our exposure to free radicals while simultaneously supporting our body’s ability to neutralize them. 

The human body likes nutrition delivered through infusions

Using these cleansing and nourishing teas can really help our bodies’ clean house.  Bija teas (marketed by Flora in Canada) are excellent an excellent choices. Variations on a Native Indian recipe for nourishing and cleansing the body systems and tissues are Essiac, Essigen or Florescence tea.  Some people like to research herbal handbooks and then build their own formulas from bulk natural herbs.

Our bodies are an amazing self-healing and self-cleaning mechanism.  However, how well this design works, depends on how we manage the equipment.

When we choose to live wisely and consciously, we can 'help our body help itself'.

Keep Well_
Nelda