Diet and nutrition

Pamela Egan Practical Practitioner

 

By: Pamela Egan, FNP-C CDE

 


 

Diet and nutrition

 

 

Food… We relish it, discuss it, avoid it, touch it, fear it, diet by it and socialize with it. It is an extremely important part of our daily lives.

Some want it well-done, others insist their food be raw.

Each person can give you reasons why they are eating in a specific way: to eat according to your blood type, to avoid fats or eat non-saturated fats, to decrease carbohydrates or to increase complex carbohydrates, to eat lots of protein or to limit protein.

Some say it is healthful to fast periodically.

We hear it is important to eat three full meals a day, but others will tell us six small meals a day is beneficial.

Whatever your preferences or beliefs about food, the act of eating is routine, a habit.

There are many books utilizing nutrition in the fight against cancer.

Dr. Patrick Quillin’s book, “Beating Cancer With Nutrition” presents a regimen of good nutrition as being an essential ingredient to improving quality and quantity of life.

He describes cancer as an abnormal growth, not unlike a fungus growing on the bark of a tree.

Conditions that encourage the abnormal growth of cancer include lack of oxygen, sugar feeding, immune suppression, toxin overload, abnormal pH of the body, maldigestion, parasites and allergies.

Only by changing the underlying conditions that encourage this abnormal growth can the cancer victim become a cancer defeater.

So how about starting the new year of 2004 with a holistic approach to eating? In his book “Power Eating Program,” Lino Stanchich tells us, “Our choice of how we eat can merely fill us up and comfort us, or it can heal and transform us.”

The next time you approach a meal you might do it in this holistic way.

Wash your hand with a 15 second vigorous friction rub under the running water while releasing all your worries, at least for awhile.

When you sit down, straighten up in your chair, deeply breathe in the universal energy and set your goal for the act of eating.

Give thanks for the food before you.

Focus on the food before you. Visualize how it will benefit you as it is absorbed into your body. Become aware of its color, texture and aroma.

As you place the first bite into your mouth, let it briefly settle there, noticing the taste.

Is it bitter, sweet, crunchy, smooth?

Next is the process of chewing. Chew, chew, chew 100 times before you swallow.

Make the act of chewing a meditation and slowly give the salivary juices time to do their job.

When you eat, don’t talk. Silence is golden.

Eat without distraction to enjoy the benefits of the food before you.

Remember, eating is the act of creating your body.

We are what we eat. Benefit the process and enjoy.


This article was originally published January 12, 2004 in The St. Tammany News.

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