A Nutritionally Balanced Diet

We are at a very fortunate point today in that we have more knowledge than ever regarding healthy diets and this knowledge is increasing all the time. What is more, we have access to foods that were unheard of generations ago, it's easy to make delicious healthy meals and, all in all, eating healthily can be a lot of fun.

When considering improving your health you can probably carry on eating many of the foods you enjoy now - just add in some extra nutritious foods that you may have not been eating and cut down on or eliminate some of the most detrimental foods. The journey of health has a momentum of its own and you can take it at a pace that you enjoy.

In order to maintain health long term it is important to include a high percentage of fresh raw foods in particular fruit and vegetables. Fruits provide important vitamins, antioxidants and bioflavanoids and can healthily satisfy our desire for sweet foods. Also of course there are nutritious non-sweet fruits such as cucumbers, tomatoes and avocados. Vegetables are important for their minerals and fibre. Sprouts such as alfalfa are very cleansing invigorating and economical, you can even grow them yourself. Seeds such as hemp seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, chia seeds and pumpkin seeds provide essential fatty acids. They are better for us soaked for a few hours in water. Alternatively we can use cold pressed seed oils. In order to get the omega 3 DHA and EPA fatty acids we recommend including a good quality pharmaceutical grade (molecularly distilled) fish oil.

An important note here, when it comes to cooking in oil, the safest choices are coconut oil and, maybe surprisingly, butter - these saturated fats are the most stable when exposed to high temperatures and form the least problems for the body when heated at high temperature.

Sea vegetables such as kelp - provide iodine and trace minerals which are more abundant in the oceans than the land and are great foods to include.

While pasteurised cows milk and cheeses made from them can cause problems for many people, raw milk and cheeses made from raw milk, especially goats milk provide invaluable nutrition especially in terms of vitamins D, K and A.

Fermented foods provide probiotics and B vitamins and can be revolutionary for our health. They include water and milk kefirs, kombucha, cultured vegetables such as sauerkraut and miso. Kefir is probably the most powerful probiotic known.

Superfoods and Supplements - due to poor quality of soil (including organic because of long term soil erosion), fruit being picked unripe, storage and the fact that the human gut is generally not working at its best, we need all the help we can get. Superfoods such as maca, bee pollen, spirulina, and chlorella can greatly enhance our diets.

Water is the main constituent of our bodies and we need to drink plenty of good quality water, preferably spring water.

When it comes to what foods it's advisable to minimise our intake of, we probably know what they are... fried foods, meat, pasteurised dairy products, refined carbohydrates such as sugar and white flour, processed foods, and additives. As we cleanse and bring in more of the healthy stuff, our tastes will naturally and progressively change. At Colonic Southwest we offer coaching to help you make these changes in an enjoyable and easy way.

For more info on nutrition and high quality food visit:
http://www.foodforconsciousness.co.uk

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