Journey To The Land of Health
by Marci Zaroff
Although the majority of the population would enjoy the physical, mental and spiritual benefits of eating a healthier diet, many people wouldn’t know how or when to start. The result is that they take the easy yet unhealthy road, and keep eating a “standard American diet” (S.A.D.) consisting of an overemphasis on meat, dairy, sugar, fried fatty foods and chemical-laden and refined products.
It is truly a shame that a deterioration in the quality of life is readily accepted in our society as the norm. We have witnessed a dramatic increase in everything from chronic fatigue and arthritis to cancer and heart disease. If people would seek the proper guidance necessary to make the transition to a healthier diet and lifestyle, not only would individuals be more balanced and harmonious within themselves, have more energy and less illness, but the environmental and ecological benefits to our planet would be innumerable.
Most people wouldn’t dare feed their car diesel fuel if it takes unleaded, but would readily fuel their bodies with foods comprised 90% of unpronounceable chemicals. The first rule of thumb to buying healthier foods: If you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it. If people would learn to take more responsibility for their health, not only would they experience a freedom far surpassing the freedom of choice, but they would see life from a different level.
Understanding the freedom to live without the fear of illness or being at the mercy of a doctor of medicine is a privilege that one could only experience while eating healthy, nutritionally valuable foods.
It is important that the transition to eating healthier and more naturally takes place gradually and carefully, allowing the body and mind some time to adjust to these new choices. The primary goal in eating healthier, whole foods is to bring the body to a state of balance, or equilibrium, and to provide the body with basic nutrients in their natural proportions. Eating extreme foods such as meat and cheeses or sugar and alcohol will cause our bodies to swing like a pendulum seeking the opposite extreme in order to find balance. Refined products such as white breads, pastas, white rice and sugar have been separated from the bran, germ, water and pulp, leaving them void of essential nutrients. As our blood sugar levels rise and drop, as our acid-alkaline levels are thrown out of balance, we create feelings and conditions of fatigue, un-centeredness and illness.
By eating a diet consistently of more natural foods which are already in a balanced state, we can avoid these strong cravings, strengthen our immune systems, and discharge toxins efficiently, enabling us to ward off illness and disease.
Think of the road to health as a journey up a mountain. It may or may not be a struggle for you to “give up” certain foods, but as you climb higher up the “mountain”, you will feel freer and stronger with each step. Once you get over the top, you will probably never want to go back to the bottom. The benefits which you achieve are so life-changing and so profound that you will be amazed at the differences in your body, your mind, your spirit, your energy levels, your ability to focus, to think, to be.