Embracing a New Food Paradigm

On the back of my book, The Goddess of Raw Foods, I quote, The Revolution starts at the Dinner Table. And it does. When we transform our food paradigm, we transform not only our health and the health of our families and our communities, but we transform the health of the planet and its environment and we as well transform a global economy.

Food is our Medicine, not our poison and it should not be used as a weapon. It is the building block of all of human life. We eat food for nutritional reasons, but we also eat food for comfort, nourishment, and for social reasons. We gather around the dinner table and eat and socialize and its a way that human beings love and serve each other.

Food is an essential culture component of the human experience, but it has become a weapon of choice for many of us.

A revolutionary way of transforming your health and your health habits is to embrace a new food paradigm. What does that mean?

Well it means giving up the old food paradigm that dictates to us what is sufficient amounts of protein, what is a refined grain (as if Mother Nature herself didn't make our grains refined), what is the sufficient amount of caloric intake for our bodies, the fact that consuming milk from an animal and feeding it to our children is both insane and counter intuitive of the nutritional supremacy of a mother's breast milk and also of the fact that there are other ways to get milk like from nuts, seeds, and grains.

Embracing a New Food Paradigm also means perhaps eating seasonally, so eat the fruits and vegetables that are in season as this not only benefits your health and delights your palette as the fruits and vegetables that come up in that season are juicier, taste so much better, and contain the nutrients that the body craves for that season, but it also transforms an economy that offers its devalues the health and well-being of the consumer over dollars.

Embracing a New Food Paradigm calls for collective action on the part of conscious individuals who firmly believe and commit themselves to valuing their health and their natural environments over everything else. It also means creating meals differently. Eating watermelon for dinner and just having a bowl of papaya for breakfast is not only filling, but highly nutritious. There is not need to eat eggs from a chicken and sausage from a pig to feel full or to get your daily nutritional value.

Learning how to read labels and read between the lines is extremely important in embracing a new food paradigm as there is nobody better to be an authority on what you should be eating other than yourself. Of course, there are people like myself and others who have studied, researched, and experienced how food either heals or depletes the body, but you are the ultimate authority on that choice. So that means, your doctor who is only required to take one nutritional course the entire time he or she is in medical school even with a half a million dollar education is also not an authority on what you should be eating.

What you can do now as an individual is support small and local businesses like co-ops around the world who support small organic farmers and other food vendors who do not sacrifice the health of their consumers for the sake of a dollar.

Other ways you can embrace a new food paradigm is to eat only food that you recognize and can pronounce, buy only organic and/or local, learn how to grow food outdoors or in indoors, and
quit giving in to pleasure over your health and quit making excuses about how you can't give up chicken. You're grown.

The Yoni Diet: A Womb Wellness Class

Join myself and others in a powerful, health and life-transforming class about The Yoni Diet. Learn how to eat for your womb so that it is strong, supple, and soft.

Our Wombs are the most powerful force inside of our bodies. Our state of health stems from how healthy it is. All women need to eat life-giving foods that nourish and sustain the Yoni Body.

Learn how in this Womb Wellness Workshop!

The class is online.

Tuesday, February 15th – 6 pm PST, 9 pm EST
Lecture – 45 minutes followed by a 30 minute Q&A

Learn what foods are best to keep a strong, supple, and soft womb

Learn what 7 herbs are a woman’s best friend

Learn how disease is created in our womb-man bodies

Learn how to release fibroids, eliminate menstrual cramps, and shorten long cycles

Learn the proper way to detox and cleanse The Yoni Body

Investment – $35

Register for the class at www.nwennakai.com/workshops/

7 Myths of a Raw Foods Diet

The more I travel, talk to people, answer their questions about raw foods, I find that there is a block or a challenge when it comes to eating more raw foods. Most of the time, people have bought into the myths of a raw foods diet and therefore they avoid it all together. Once when I was in Chicago, one woman told me that fresh food costs too much money and she could only afford to eat canned fruits and vegetables. So here are the 7 Myths of a Raw Foods Diet and the Real Truth of a Raw Foods diet.

• Myth #1 - A raw foods diet is too expensive.

Everything is perception and at first when you eat more raw foods, it may seem expensive because you are shopping more for fresh, organic, local produce or because you are buying different equipment and tools for your kitchen and different pantry items to concoct your recipes, but you can actually save money on a raw foods diet. What I've found to be true is that the more raw foods I eat, the less portion size I consume and also I've found great produce markets and farmer's markets where the local organic produce is very inexpensive. Shopping at high-end gourmet health food stores and supermarkets will break your bank. I also instead of buying my nut butters which I use to provide bulk and substance to my diet as well as protein, I make at home in my food processor by adding the nuts, olive oil, and some salt and then I store them in containers and snack on them during the week. I'm not sure if I spend more money on food than the average person or not, but I do know that I don't take any medications which cuts down on costs and I haven't had the need to see a doctor in over 7 years which also cuts down on costs and because I eat so simply, other areas in my life have called for that same simplicity and moderation which also cuts down on costs.

• Myth #2 - A raw foods diet is too cumbersome and hard to maintain.

The more I embraced raw foods, the less cumbersome and easy I found it to maintain. Also because I eat more simply than I have ever eaten before, I have found that having a really organized kitchen by having ample storage containers, a compost container, and a place to store everything makes it not only easier to maintain the diet, but it makes a very pleasant experience. Eating more living and fresh foods brings joy to my life. I now look forward to taking trips to the produce market and seeing what new fruits and vegetables are available and I also enjoy experimenting with recipes. It only becomes cumbersome and hard to maintain if you are not embracing the food and surrounding yourself with people who eat like you as the influence of others can hinder your joy in embracing this diet.

• Myth #3 - Raw foods is dangerous because of the bacteria on food.

All food should be handled carefully, with clean hands only, and prepared on clean surfaces. Its also important to consume fruits and vegetables as soon as possible when they are really fresh as this can cut down on the possibility of the growth of harmful bacteria on them. There is the case of fermented vegetables which is when vegetables are kept at room temperature in a sanitary container for a number of days to ferment so that it activates the lactobacilli which is naturally present in raw cultured vegetables as well as in our digestive tract but this bacteria is beneficial for your body. There are friendly bacteria necessary to break down foods in our digestive tract. It is also not necessarily true that when food is cooked that it kills the bacteria.

• Myth #4 - A raw foods diet does not supply enough nutrition.

This is exactly the opposite. A raw foods diet supplies the body with all of its necessary vitamins, nutrients, and minerals it needs to thrive. It as well naturally hydrates the body with its high water content which means that you don't have to drink as much water and it is also a natural detox diet which means that it it constantly detoxing the body of toxins. As far as protein is concerned dark leafy greens are known to have the most digestible protein on the planet.

• Myth #5 - Raw foods does not taste good.

This all depends on the creator of the dish. Raw foods can taste just as good, if not better than cooked food and with just as much or as little or no seasoning at all. What is great about raw and living foods is that because the natural juices in the food are so scrumptious for the body, you don't always have to season the food. It all depends on one's palette.

• Myth #6 - You have to eat a 100% raw foods diet to enjoy the benefits.

Absolutely not true. I've experimented with a 100% raw foods diet and I've enjoyed many of the benefits such as flawless skin, a high energy level, and a higher immunity to disease. But I've also gone 80/20, 50/50, etc with raw and cooked food and I've noticed that I still maintained the benefits. Getting more live and raw foods is important for the overall health of the body because it naturally detoxifies our bodies and supplies the body with enzymes but its not necessary to eat 100% raw. Everyone's body is completely different and some people just can't eat a 100% raw foods diet.

• Myth #7 - There is not much diversity in a raw foods diet.

There are more fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and grains on the planet to eat than there are animals to eat. There is so much diversity in a raw foods diet. The reason why people believe this myth is because as humans we tend to eat the same food over and over again and we tend not to experiment with different foods. We also tend to shop in the same place and therefore we are only going to be exposed to what the market is asking for. Its important to read about different food, venture into other neighborhoods to shop for food, try different ethnic and exotic fruits and vegetables, and experiment with different herbs and spices to season your food. I've been playing around a lot with caraway seeds which is a spice that I probably would have never heard of if I didn't eat a raw foods diet.