It’s difficult to talk about nutrition without raising a myriad of questions. We’ve made the subject so complicated, and we’re so far removed from what our bodies really need, that it’s difficult not to go into (at least some) detail.
However, I will try to be brief and give you an overview of our vision of healthy, and above all physiological, nutrition, i.e., nutrition that is adapted to the real needs of our bodies… and not to our emotional compensations, habits, or social conventions.
NB: if you are interested in this topic, I offer an online program to help you eat healthily:
Se Nourrir Sainement (Eating Healthily, so far only available in French).
Living in harmony with nature
At Flores de Vida, we offer a way of living and eating that is in harmony with nature and attuned to the real needs of our bodies.
The simpler, the better
Digestion requires a lot of energy, and the more we eat, the more tired we become. Just look at how we feel after what our society considers a good meal. In fact, it is simply a cataclysmic meal.
In short, we eat too much, too richly, too complicatedly…
We don’t move enough, breathe little, are too sedentary…
Our bodies are not adapted to meat, fish, dairy products, or industrial food, which is full of additives and pesticides.
We are not carnivores
- We don’t have carnivorous teeth.
If you don’t believe me, try tearing a piece of raw meat.
- We don’t have carnivorous intestines.
In order to digest meat, our intestines would need to be much shorter to prevent putrefaction… corpses decompose very quickly.
- We do not have the liver of a carnivore.
Our livers would need to be much larger to handle the enormous amount of toxins generated by meat.
Dairy products and eggs… not much better
Fish, dairy products, and eggs acidify the body, creating conditions conducive to disease.
Acidity… a major problem in our society.
Unfortunately, it’s not just animal products that acidify the body, but also:
* cooked grains (bread, rice, pasta, cookies, etc.)
* sugar extracted from its natural context (fruit)
* chemical additives (coloring, pesticides, herbicides, preservatives, etc.)
* stress
* a sedentary lifestyle and lack of oxygenation
* constant exposure to all kinds of waves (Wi-Fi, 4G, 5G, Bluetooth, microwave ovens, etc.
But then… nothing left?
Yes, there’s still plenty left, and certainly lots of foods you don’t know about: all fruits, most vegetables, sprouted seeds, nuts, olives, and various oilseeds… that’s a lot of happiness every day.
All grains and legumes can be eaten sprouted: wheat, lentils, beans, oats, buckwheat, barley, etc.
Some plants are not very interesting if they are not cooked (potatoes), or are even completely inedible (chard stems) or toxic (yams), but there are so many others that this is not a problem.
All cabbages are excellent raw, as are zucchini, squash, pumpkin, spinach, turnips, parsnips, beets, all types of lettuce, etc.
And there are certainly many fruits that you don’t know about…
Rediscovering the meaning of life
Our bodies need simple, easily digestible food; they need movement, fresh air, pure water, sunshine… quite simply, they need to live.
We need to communicate, laugh, dance… and then quietly savor fresh, organic fruits and vegetables.
Eating… an encounter with oneself
A meal is a special time to refocus, disconnect… it is a time to reconnect with oneself.
It is a time of awareness.
“Performing alchemy with your teeth,” as Rabelais said.
But why have we turned a simple, personal act into a social event? Why do we feel the need to gather around food?
We can easily get together to talk, sing, dance… without it being around food.
Ah, the myth of conviviality…
Chew well
A moment of awareness, then… and chewing.
If we don’t chew properly, food becomes difficult to digest (or even indigestible) because the stomach has more difficulty breaking down the pieces.
It’s good to remember here that the stomach has no teeth and that it’s our job to do the chewing for it (hihi).
Sugar and salt
A little note about salt, which is not generally considered a drug, but which is in fact a stimulant made indispensable by the use of sugar. This is the famous yin/yang balance at work here. An excess of yin (sugar) requires an excess of yang (salt), and vice versa. I’m not talking here about the sugar found naturally in fruit, but artificially concentrated sugar, whether white, brown, and whether it comes from beet, sugar cane, cereals, or even fruit. It is the concentration that is harmful.
As for salt, it hardens tissues and blood vessels and distorts the taste of food. When we eliminate it, we gradually rediscover the true flavor of food.
We do need minerals, which we find in fruits and vegetables, and not just sodium chloride…
And a final word
And finally, let’s not forget that our bodies know when it’s the right time to eat.
Our bodies know how to tell us… but unfortunately, most of us don’t know how to listen.
That signal is hunger… let’s learn to listen to it.
Let’s learn to eat when we’re hungry and to stop eating when we’re no longer hungry.
Yes, it’s a learning process, a way of life.
True health and joy await us.
Nat’
Flores de Vida team, hola@floresdevida.org
