Eating disorders animation from experienceinmind on Vimeo.

Journalist Ann Landers was asked, “From the thousands of letters you receive, what problem is most dominant in peoples lives?” She replied “People are afraid of losing their health, their wealth, their loved ones and of being responsible for themselves!” 

The dictionary definition of health is “the state of being vigorous and free from bodily or mental disease”. In 1948, WHO defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” and so over the last 50 years, our interpretation of a balanced health promoting diet and portion sizes have changed. 

The UKs definition is defined by the ‘Balance of Good Health Guide’ 1994 and is concerned with quantity rather than nutrients “there are no good or bad foods“. Designed to minimise confusion about what constitutes a balanced daily intake, the guide depicting a plate of food divided into 5 segments calculated as “bread and cereals 33%, fruit & veg. 33%, meat, fish and alternatives 12%, dairy 15%, fatty & sugar 8%“.   This interpretation is at odds with what the Living Food Programme (LFP) promotes.  If we are serious about health, then we’ve got to become serious about quality control, selection of food and its nutrients.

Health, like time is a gift, both of which we take for granted.  We only have 168 hours a week, fifty-two weeks a year which translates into approx. 81 western years for women and 76 years for men if health is left to chance. Today’s ‘grey’ market may be the last generation that enjoys this kind of longevity if the health of younger generation continues to deteriorate.  It is suggested that for the first time we may witness a percentage of children dying before their parents due to poor diet and habits. If it’s a myth we can control time, then it’s certainly true we can control our health.  However, many people only discover LFP resources after experiencing trials and tribulations on the journey to health.

There are numerous motives why someone chooses the LFP which promotes an environmentally sensitive lifestyle rather than focusing on diet alone.  Two common reasons include suffering and surviving illness or suffering and surviving Eating Disorders (EDs).

Publicly, the circumstances are poles apart.  Illness is perceived as back luck, no-ones fault, receiving sympathy and support.  Whereas Eds are often likened to other addictions and viewed as self-induced, a sign of weakness receiving limited understanding about the progressive illness it really is.

 Survival in the 21^st century demands “extreme self-care”.  Health is BIG business. Subsequently, a plethora of self-disclosing, self-help books and websites filled with “bogus science, anecdotal evidence and useless advise” represented by a glut of ‘experts’ sharing their modus operandi with whoever wants to buy whatever they have to contribute. 

While interviewing others for my research on self-sabotage, I learnt that my journey to health wasn’t unique. Fortunately, I was brought up vegetarian, but many interviewees transitioned to vegetarianism, to vegan, to raw as a means of controlling chaotic eating, food intake, squash cravings and control weight.  ED sufferers may embark on the LFP initially as another substitute diet, however, when applied correctly, produces positive results “a vegan living food diet will never add unwanted pounds to the body”.  Improvements include a balanced metabolism which means classic yo-yo dieting becomes a thing of the past.

WHO says 1 in 10 of the human population will experience therapy for depression-related illness (EDs account for 10%) and that “mind and diet are inextricably linked”.   Britain alone has 11 million suffering depression and “abnormal attitudes, behaviours and relationships with  food“ . Never before have there been so many people on this planet with so much, yet remain so unhappy. 

One of the curses of industrialisation of the food industry is the growth of EDs (soon to over take smoking as Britain’s No. 1 preventable killer).  Sabotage using food as a means of abuse has taken on epidemic proportions.  This is most evident by the growth of the diet and food industries (together with catering outlets as 1/3^rd of all meals are eaten outside the home) who exercise considerable influence on the nutritional quality of our national diet.  The manufacturing of nutritionally unbalanced ready made meals with ambiguous labelling hides an addictive cocktail of additives and is an abuse of power that’s undoubtedly contributed to today’s health crisis.

Additionally, the impact on the environment ethically of breeding animals for consumption is the single most detrimental thing we’ve done to our plant when the production of plant food would have served the population more efficiently.  Added to that the economic burden to the NHS costs and working days lost to industry (3.5 billion per yr) means that addressing this area of health makes it a society issue and warrants higher priority.

Consequently, the last few decades have seen brain chemical and metabolic disorders multiplying worldwide.  There are many theories why ED exists.  Considerations worth noting include the role biochemistry plays in nutritional cravings. Chemical imbalances result in neurotransmitters (lithium, serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine) and electrolyte imbalances of certain ionized salts (bicarbonate, calcium, chloride, magnesium, phosphate, potassium, and sodium) in the blood. 

Combined with the fact that EDs sufferers often have faulty satiation response centres means their brain doesn‘t communicate (so can’t cooperate) with the body’s digestive system.  Therefore, normal eating habits are not practiced but can be re-learnt using holistic techniques such as NLP, Coaching, EMT, PMA etc.  These therapies help unblock repressed toxic emotions, reframe behaviours and aid emotional recovery, as a result, habitual grazing and emotional cravings for comfort food lessen.

Combined with established LFP practices our physical recovery becomes balanced metabolically and nutritional cravings diminish. Once properly nourished, the LFP helps the body, mind and spirit rebuild.  Living Fooders talk enthusiastically about ’clarity, intuition, being invigorated, empowerment and vitality’.

Despite having access to the widest range of foods, the majority of the population is overloaded with toxins and starved of micronutrients and macronutrients essential for balanced health but not possible to achieve on a diet of processed, manufactured foods.  As a result, 60% of the western population are malnourished.  Understandably, ED sufferers are malnourished too.  Eating too quickly as they do, they also don’t chew or digest food properly resulting in poor assimilation of essential nutrients.  

In the western world where food is in abundance in terms of variety, colour, texture, availability etc. any of our senses, at any given time (even our emotions and thought processes) have the power to stimulate artificial hunger.  Major supermarkets display around 9,000 core, secondary and peripheral food items with the smell of in-store bakers, deli counters etc. designed to provide a great deal of stimuli.

Consequently, westerners are not accustomed to exercising discipline, regarding what foods, which combinations, when and how much food to eat.   Therefore, the greater availability of foods, the more food is consumed. Conversely, when variety or availability is reduced, our senses are no longer over stimulated and artificial appetite is replaced with natural appetite; satisfied on less, our stomach shrinks.

Regardless of the mono food, there is only so much of it that can be eaten at any one time before taste buds adjust and desire to eat is rapidly satiated.  Over a period of mono meals, the amount consumed decreases with weight loss becoming a natural consequence.

The LFP by definition has a vastly reduced number of foods on offer compared to the supermarket but unlike conventional diets, the LFP is methodically balanced to take into account the need to include adequate variety, quality fresh foods to minimise gaps in nutrient intake (which exacerbates EDs) because every function within the body for the uptake of vitamins, enzymes, amino acids etc. depends on minerals.  This is further supported by increasing quantity and quality of drinking water to keep the body hydrated and helps differentiate between real and artificial hunger. 

Recent agriculture farming methods have done little to meet our need for micro and macro nutrient.  It is no coincidence that in the last 50 years, western issues such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, depression and obesity etc., have rising in line with the decline of 70% soil minerals necessitating the need for quality supplements. 

Farming methods with its poor crop rotation, subsidies, early harvesting, longer storage, transportation, light, heat and food refining processes, have dramatically contributed to vitamin & mineral destruction. During which time, we’ve managed to create thousands of hybrid foods (food grow unnaturally).  Hybrid foods are “missing vital electrics, unnaturally high in sugar and devoid of proper mineral balance.  Not only are hybrid fruits (i.e. seedless) and starchy vegetables unbalanced in minerals, hybrid sugar is not recognized by the liver, is a stimulant and cause bones to leach minerals”.

Consequently, it’s no longer about the saying “you are what you eat“, but “you are what you assimilate” which gets harder the older you get.  

Growing health concerns have seen the raw movement gain popularity around the globe.  Unfortunately, some raw foodies aren’t aware ‘raw’ isn’t the solution.  With hype around being able to eat anything raw (including quantity), they encounter deeper physical and mental issues.  Fructose is responsible for knocking out valuable B vitamins and poor food combining sends foodies deeper into overload (toxins), overdrive (hyperactivity) and over the edge (anxiety) proving all diets are unhealthy in the absence of naturopathic principles, especially when low in essential nutrients “which increases the risk of binging and cravings” .   

Luckily not long after becoming raw, I learnt about the dangers of fructose from Brian Clements, Director of The Hippocrates Centre, Florida which was founded by the late Dr. Ann Wigmore, a pioneering naturopath some 50 years earlier.  It’s thanks to her intuition that millions of people credit their improved health from a huge range of degenerative diseases and survival of illnesses such as diabetes and cancer to her work.   Her legacy is testimony to her teachings and the continued success the LFP still delivers today.

It was during his teleclasses on sugar that I experienced my own ’ah-ha’ moment.  At last, I understood why neither a vegetarian, or vegan or raw diet, while all superior to a SWD (high in artificial food), could not meet all our nutritional needs, proving that one size doesn‘t fit all.  I misguidedly thought I was healthy by eating lots of fruit & veg. but in truth, 60%+ of my diet contained fructose; tomatoes, beetroot, carrot, cucumber, fruit and dried fruit. Equally important, I learnt about the confusion around the disparity between raw diets and the LF principles.

To attain the benefits of the LFP we need to re-awaken our taste buds. 

A pre-requisite in doing so has to be to decrease fruit (ripe only) to a maximum of 10% and increase green vegetables high in calcium and alkalizing protein.  If EDs are to be corrected, it’s essential to replace sources of sugar with digestible protein; sprouts, algae’s, pollen, greens, nuts & seeds.

LF isn’t about deprivation, it’s about substitution. Whilst there are no forbidden foods, once the connection between what occurs before food reaches the plate is understood, the desire to eat artificial food that we instinctively know to be detrimental to our health diminishes.

Committing to the LFP enables us to achieve this through rational thinking (why we eat) while accepting nutritional responsibility (what we eat).  Combined with simplicity in terms of the number of ingredients consumed at any one time and adopting the scientifically proven method of food combing, we learn to cooperation with the environment enjoying foods only when in season.  Also, by putting into practice standards such as mono meals, detoxing, juicing, exercise, rest, consuming wheatgrass (fundamental to the LFP), growing your own baby greens and sprouting foods such as alfalfa etc. we re-establish control of our own food chain which also has a positive impact on self esteem.  Then, over a period of 60 – 90 days of re-learning, becoming aware of, and practicing positive healthy habits, new sustaining practices are created. 

The body uses amino acids in the production of neurotransmitters in the brain, including several hormones, a variety of enzyme and metabolic processes.  The LFP offers a diet nutritionally high in chlorophyll and enzyme rich foods providing those valuable amino acids while ensuring optimal health of our endocrine system (pituitary, thyroid, adrenals etc.).   Together with the daily consumption of wheatgrass juice; sprouts; greens; energy soup, juices, bioflavonoid plant foods and EFAs (flax), we benefit from clean, alkalised blood, better digestion and improved elimination.  Therefore, the LFP completely, effectively and therapeutically meets the body’s needs.

Epidemiological evidence supports the view that diets largely based on plant foods are most associated with health and longevity.  So increasing our intake of plant based foods helps to reduce not just appetite, allowing the body to reach it‘s natural body weight, but risk of chronic disease.

Therefore, to bring the benefits of LPF to the wider population, Governments around the globe need to take greater responsibility in helping its nations achieve better nutritional status.  Health promotion is inexpensive compared to the increased medical costs of dealing with sub clinical deficiencies that have implications for longer term health.

Everyone, including farmers need re-educating about nutrition and this initiative needs to commence at school until such times as it can be conducted in the home by better informed parents.  We need to influence eating habit’s at an earlier age because 20% of children are already obese.

By incentivising farmers to adopt earlier methods that produce macro and trace mineral rich soil and colloidal and ionic plant based foods (that aid better absorption), everyone would benefit, especially people sensitive to chemical imbalances. Also something needs to be done to enable farmers to respond to the increasing demand for more fruit and veg. without being penalised for the low profit margin these foods attract.

The Chinese say only by balancing the mind, body, emotions and soul will we enjoy health.  If we are our own best advocate “no one knows your health needs better than the health guide within you“ and if one of our basic human rights is to be healthy, then conversely, choosing the LFP means choosing to die of natural causes instead of degenerative diseases.  It’s about choosing to inherently remember that health is our responsibility.  Science has already proved that 3 key factors extremely important for a humans well-being are:

1. Environment
2. Exercise
3. Diet.

The LFP is the link with our past meeting all 3 of the above needs.

Final words from J Paul Getty’s brother who sent him a haunting letter headed: “From the wealthiest man, to the richest.” His point was to remind his brother that health is your wealth.

If you’re not persuaded and find yourself tempted then my advise would be  “don’t add a guilt trip to a binge trip, have an enema instead“.

Dawn