September 2024

Mindful Eating

• An Herbalist’s Perspective on What Makes a Good Diet
• Slowing Down
• What Are You Craving?
• Alchemy In The Kitchen

Mindful Eating – An Herbalist’s Perspective On What Makes A Good Diet

What comes to your mind when you hear the word diet?

When thinking about diets for weight loss or medical or ethical reasons, most people think of restrictions or avoiding certain foods. Restricting your diet means enforcing rules upon yourself that arise from the logical frontal cortex part of the brain but ignoring the craving of the whole body. However, healthy eating is much more than using the knowledge of the rational mind to overrule the craving of the body.

Information overload

If you visit the diet shelves in your preferred bookstore or watch a wellness channel on TV, you will find many different and sometimes contradictory advice on what makes a healthy diet; all sound very convincing.

Some will try to convince you that Keto or Paleo are the best choices; others will advocate a vegetarian or even a vegan diet. One book might recommend the superpower of soy, while the other warns you of its effect on hormones. One book might praise raw foods to increase vitality; another will promote soups and stews to support easy digestion.

Plenty of philosophies try to convince you of the health benefits of the diet they are advocating for, from an ayurvedic diet to a diet based on your blood type, an alkaline diet, or a food combination; they try to lead you to believe their diet is the heal all.

With all these experts giving us diet advice, you would expect us all to be healthy. As it turned out, chronic diseases are on the rise in the Western side of the hemisphere, with insulin resistance, diabetes, and heart disease as the most common chronic conditions.

If you are standing confused in front of the bookstore’s diet shelves, it is because no one diet fits all.

A good diet is not about “should” and “shouldn’t.”

Well, it’s mostly not about what you should and shouldn’t eat. There is one topic all diets agree on: processed food and excess sugar are bad for you. But other than that, to each their own.

What is a good diet? 

• A good diet needs to reflect:
• Your lifestyle
• Your state of health
• Where you live
• Your budget

Your lifestyle

A person who exerts his body daily, such as a farmer or a carpenter, will benefit from a diet high in protein. I was a vegetarian for a good chunk of my life until about ten years ago when I noticed I had a hard time breathing while working on my farm. A blood test revealed anemia. When you work jobs that lead to building more muscle strength, you will require more protein to build these muscles.

On the other hand, if you are in a meditation retreat trying to detach from your body, a vegan diet or juicing might be exactly what you need in your spiritual quest. 

Your health

If you are healthy, any diet that excludes processed food and excess sugar is best for you. Anything else is just fanfare. 

Most people with acute disease lose their appetite. The body expends much energy on digestion; being sick means the immune system’s energy needs increase. Contrary to most people’s belief, fasting during acute disease benefits the ill person. Drinking, on the other hand, is crucial for healing; herbal teas and bone broth are highly recommended during acute illness. 

People with chronic diseases, too, have a hard time digesting foods because of the toll their bodies pay for their compromised health. At the same time, people with chronic diseases are usually nutritionally depleted and need a diet that is incredibly nutrient-dense and rich in protein and polyphenols from plants. They will benefit from cooked veggies, meat, and fish, with small amounts of grains soaked overnight before they are cooked. Many people with chronic disease will benefit from avoiding the five foods that increase inflammation: gluten, dairy, soy, eggs, and corn.

Where you live

I come from a country where fresh fruits and veggies are available year-round. Salad was a staple food for me three times a day for as long as I can remember. Now that I live in New England, where the winter is long and cold, salad doesn’t make sense year-round. Roots are my main go-to in the winter, but they will not be appropriate in the warm weather in Israel. 

The climate where you live is a huge factor to consider when deciding what diet to adopt. A raw food diet in a cold environment will require a robust digestive system to “cook” the food in the digestive tract. A heavy meal like soup and stews in a warm, humid place will sit heavy in your stomach. 

Your budget

In the end, it all comes down to money. You need to be able to afford the diet you choose. If you set your eyes on a diet of juicing organic fruit and veggies and then feel resentful because your food expenses are too high, then your diet is toxic. 

If you are on a budget, I suggest paying attention to the “Dirty Dozen” and “Fifteen Clean” lists and working around them. 

Part of eating is developing a healthy relationship with the food on your plate. This means trusting nature to nurture your body. People who adhere to strict diets sometimes develop mistrust, disgust, or fear of certain foods. 

Trusting nature to provide for you and trusting your body to sense what is right for you can help you develop a way of eating and a way of being. When you trust your body, you treat it as an ally, not a source of appetite and craving.