Dear Radiant Readers, :)

Many people come to me and say that they have a “healthy diet” or they ask me whether I think they “have a healthy diet”…I would like to examine this a little closer and thus, allow you to see the multitude of options in the world of what can be considered a well being-enhancement through diet. I also hope it will give you some ideas on how to find what is right for you in the informational avalanche of ideas on nutritional health today.

So, let’s start by defining “healthy nutrition”. There are so many schools of thought and so many directions in nutrition, and many of them – sadly – use a uni-directional approach of only focusing on ONE aspect of nutrition, i.e. protein, fiber, oils, no-sugar, etc. There are several diets that I would consider suitable for radiant health, however, there are also many different types of people with different psychological and physiological needs, hence as long as the diet is as natural to the way it grows in nature and has sufficient variety of multi-nutrients, any such diet could be called a “healthful diet for certain types of people”. :) There are, however, substances which we are consuming today, that are most definitely “not-healthy” no matter how one “dresses them up” (pun intended;). I cannot even call these foods – foods. These are rancid fats, synthetic toxic colourants and flavour-enhancers, taste-enhancers, heavy-metals in absorbable forms added to foods as additives, sulphites, glutamates (see Dr. Blaylock lectures in google on glutamates in many foods, which are a major cause of many diseases), and simply old, overcooked concoctions in pretty packaging that have little left of the original natural multi-nutritional energetic value and are instead filled with synthetic vitamins to make up for the removal of the same vitamins during severe processing (breakfast cereals are a fine example of this). Such “foods” cannot even be called foods, they are too far removed from what they used to be! The main reasons we are eating them is tricky flavour-enhancers and because many people’s palates have been numbed with too many artificial flavours, sugars and salt.

So, let’s now look at some examples of  “diets” and how we can see what would be considered a “very good diet” from a certain point of view and a simply “not good enough” from another. So, imagine somebody who has been eating meat and two vegetables for dinner, processed corn flakes for breakfast, a white roll for lunch and biscuits in between meals, and, maybe they were also eating crisps and drinking some coke or fizzy sugar-free drinks. Now…it doesn’t take a genius to realise that if we were (1) to remove coke and artificial sweeteners (in diet drinks) and the crisps, we are already making the nutritional situation much better for this person. Let’s go a little further and imagine that this person is now (2)eating more vegetables in beautiful casseroles, mixed vegetable “steam-fried” dishes, italian vegetable mixes in zesty sauces, etc. and perhaps they also added fresh fruit throughout their day to bring vital antioxidants, vitamins and fiber for detoxification. Plus this same person is having water between meals as well. This is now an entirely DIFFERENT level from the one where we simply removed the most obviously toxic substances from the diet… They are providing much more plentiful vitamins from fresh vegetables, they are providing water to dilute and remove toxins from cells…So would you call this a “healthy diet”? Yes, from the point of view of the previous diet, absolutely! However, not really, if we now imagine that (3) this person also swaps processed grains such as morning cereals for unprocessed grains: so, in place of white/brown bread with GM soya flour and artificial raising agents, this person is now eating wholemeal bread only, plus brown rice in place of white, buckwheat, quinoa or millet in place of potatoes or white pasta (white rice and white pasta are 90+%  deficient in vitamins and minerals but still have the “empty” calories). This same person may now also bring Omega 3 into their diet as milled linseeds or chia! See how many positive changes have occurred now:

• no rancid fats from crisps that damage liver and gall bladder,
• no coke that has a lot of sugar (or Diet Coke with carcinogenic-toxic aspartame), plus it also lowers our PH making us acidic, which is a cause of cell oxygen deprivation and is a serious factor in most disease;
• no white refined grains that also make us acidic and up our toxic load;
• many fresh vegetables that are bringing easily absorbed nutrients and providing insoluble gentle (not isolated harsh bran!!) into our body to absorb and safely bring out toxins;
• Omega 3 is needed by every cell in the body; it helps with any inflammatory processes that may be present in the body, it helps with immunity and hormones and it balances the nervous system;
• Whole grains will add additionalcomplex and whole vitamins and minerals and, most importantly, replace processed white flour, plus some of the grains can assist in detoxification: i.e. brown rice helps cleanse small intestine. Millet is a source of amygdalin (a precious anti-cancer nutraceutical) and has bitter components that help cleanse the liver also.

(4) Let’s make yet another nutritional adjustment: let’s imagine that this person is bringing even more nutrients into their diet by having more raw vegetables and fruit: Big salad or two daily, lots of fresh organic fruit before each meal (all of which provide fiber, antioxidants and other nutraceuticals – in their natural, complex way, that naturally destroy cancer cells, boost immunity, balance hormones, keep us alkaline, etc.). This person is now increasing the amount of vegetables and fruit above all other foods they are eating: cooked grains, meats, fish and beans. Perhaps they are going off acidifying meats and eating fish on occasion instead. Perhaps they are making green cocktails (shakes) that incorporate green leaves, so they no longer need to cling to their acidifying cheese, milk and yoghurt to “think” that they need calcium this way…This freedome from dairy allows for more detoxification in the cells, allows higher and healthier level of nutrition from raw greens and fresh fruit, there is higher levels of clarity for not just tissues and cells – for the person’s consciousness overall. And, of course, this is – again – a different level of nutrition, and from this point the previous diets do seem limiting and not “healthy enough”. But you know, we could continue with this and add more nutrient-rich and even easier absorbed foods and remove fish or bring in spirulina, avoid grains, include fresh vegetable and fruit juices daily and wheat-grass juice. We could go on like this for probably several more pages here… :)

However, I think that there is no such thing as a Universal “healthy diet” that would suit everybody instantly in the current state that the humanity is in… There are too many psychological addictions to non-foods and also foods that are doing us more harm than good! Check the RESULTS: i.e. give your diet some time and then see what happens. The two magical things that would indicate “it’s working” shoudl appear after a month or sooner: much improved health and overall well-being! WHAT MAY STOP YOU TO IMPROVE YOUR DIETARY HABITS: It is so important to have some understanding as to why you would crave something that you already know isn’t good for you. So, for instance, you may crave coffee or sugar or meat or fish for a while but after a certain time you will notice that the craving are gone and you may get much larger mental clarity, emotional harmony and better energy levels. Knowing that candida or fungi crave sugar or interstinal parasites crave animal proteins amay empower you to go with your new healthier options! :)

More points to consider here are that there are most definitely some diets or elements thereof that are detrimental to health for any person, as some of us Can and Do ingest things that are literally poisonous to us (just consider something “simple” like deep-fried chips which contain rancid, toxic and proven to be carcinogenic oil), and we can exclude many naturally life-giving foods which can keep us in a much better state of health (exclude ALL vegetables and fruits from your diet and you will have health consequences after a while)… We can be eating foods that are primarily disease-nurturing, such as highly processed sugary and savoury snacks with artificial flavour-enhancers, red meats, excessive dairy, white sugar and refined grains. There are unhealthy elements in diets, and there are diets that provide better nutrition, than others, and it is all about comparisons and consideration of the state of overall well being that the person eating this way is wishing to be on. Somebody who has been an omnivour for 90 years may not want to change to a vegetarian diet, even though it may prolong their life, however, that person may be actually in a much better health than a 50-year old vegetarian that eats very little raw vegetables and mostly eats “fake” vegetarian burgers and processed vegetarian meals with chips, crisps and coke.

The main three points I would like to make here are: as long as the diet provides you with what you need right now holistically, i.e. it provides nutrients which you would expect to have, not just one aspect of them, i.e. only protein, only fats, only carbohydrates, only no sugar (but what you eat instead of sugar is of no importance). And it has to do this in the nutritionally optimal way for you.  You researched it or got information from a holistic professional or thriving (!)  life-long followers of such diets and learned for yourself point-by-point what it gives you and how it addresses what you used to think was necessary for you in a diet – then, if all three points are to your satisfaction, this may indeed be the best diet for you at this time. For, once you start to approach what you are eating consciously, then many MORE levels of what can be called “healthy nutrition” open up before you. For instance: there are diets that stress eating balanced foods from the local region, i.e. it makes sense that people with mostly european DNA might have issues digesting bananas or rare exotic fruits or that foods travelling from far away would have to be gassed or coated in preservatives, and so the focus here is more on local antioxidant berries, fruits and produce instead. There is, for instance, the intelligent and scientifically solid way of food combining (so the foods don’t ferment or rot in the stomach, but digest more effectively as ). There are many solid and nourishing vegetarian diets. And even many types of raw diets: mixed, juices + vegetables and no raw grains, 80-10-10, mono-raw, etc. All of which, if done intelligently and at the right time, are very healthy for particular people with particular physical and emotional-spiritual parameters. So, if you were, for instance, to get somebody to go raw with severe stomach problems without more knowledge about how to repair and heal their stomach lining or get rid of their ulcers (check the amazing Dr. Walker’s Juice Therapy books: http://amazingdiscoveries.org/AH-healing-fruits-vegetables-Dr_Walker) and instead, simply ask this person to eat everything raw without any rhyme or reason behind the foods they are choosing, these people may run into severe difficulties on the physiology front alone.. If we try to do the same with somebody who has ideas that everybody needs meat daily or that raw means = loss of weight, the person is going to run into both physiological and psychological difficulties. Another example is to try to increase fruit intake is a person has high levels of heavy metals in their body and a non-working colon OR they had unresolved pathogens and conditions that are particularly reactive to fruit – this, again, would be a mistake. All should be done in its own good time, as we need to consider not only the type of foods that a particular physical body needs, but also the types of foods that their emotional-mental-spiritual constituents require. If somebody has an emotional addiction to potatoes, as it has been their “Drug of comfort” for years, no matter how much the potatoes bloat and cramp this person’s stomach, and what kind of will power this person has, they will be tormenting themselves if all they do is remove potatoes from their diet, add nothing else or do nothing to address what they were trying to comfort with these potatoes for so long…

So, in conclusion, any new “healthier” diet should be an enriching, not a limiting experience! When you are “removing something” you should be bringing much more into your life that definitely increases your vibrancy! Do your own research for free, do not automatically believe nay-sayers unless these people gave a particular dietary approach their full attention and tried it for more than just a week or a month – it is easy to criticize something you have never done yourself and simply quote “some” research, which probably was not done on a particular diet and simply questions a particular element, plus that research may have been done by corporations that would lose huge money if everybody knew how to simply and naturally prevent and cure many diseases. Unfortunately, there is financial gain at stake when it comes to diet – otherwise we would always get quite straight forward information about it, as common sense and science have both discovered almost a century ago some of the most wonderful combinations of natural eating that make sense and work. If everybody held keys to their own source of nutrition, we would have much more Freedom socially and the world, not just our health. So keep an open mind and keep educating yourself through external information and personal experience! :)