The Essential Principles of Holistic Diet

By David Heller

The Essential Principles of Holistic Diet thefitbay.com

Even despite its importance, many people do not pay sufficient attention to their food and the way they eat. And even when they do, people often focus on areas that will not improve their health much. That is why we have decided to write up additional information on food and eating, which is the absolute foundations in this field and is definitely worthwhile to get to know.

Proper nutrition is one of the basics of human health. It is influenced mainly by the quality of food being eaten, the way it is consumed, and the functionality of the digestive processes within the human body. The nutritional levels of our body are closely related to:

the feelings we experience every day,
the amounts of energy we have every day,
the diseases that afflict us.

A Holistic Diet is a diet that ensures the proper nutrition is given to the human organism and at the same time has no negative impact on its function. And don’t forget that our diet is one of the most easily changeable factors of our health, since it is only up to us and our decisions what, how much, how, and in what combinations we eat!

Eat Healthy Food

Are you interested in knowing how and what you eat? Congratulations!

Many people don’t see a reason why they should be interested in this topic, or they simply do not want to deal with it. It’s almost impossible to explain the terrible obesity numbers of the American population any other way. (1)

Tastes, relative feelings of healthiness, and intensive advertisement often give people the feeling that all is in relative order. But pay attention here!

By ingesting unsuitable and industrially processed foods, the body is constantly burdened by a flood of harmful substances, which it has to deal with. This way, the natural balance of the human body is constantly disrupted and the human organism can only maintain this balance if it has enough strength. But the strength of the human body is not unlimited, and that is why our bodies give us hints that its natural balance is being disrupted.

Unfortunately, the warning signs connected to the overloading of the body are mostly overlooked. These could be, for example, lack of energy, fatigue, or headaches. And when these symptoms start bothering the person (like stomach hyperacidity), they are easily suppressed by pills that we nowadays call “medication”.

It is enough to take a pill. How simple, right?

It is simple, but that does not mean that it is the correct and responsible approach to one’s health.

Overlooking and suppressing these warning signs will lead to more serious illnesses down the road. It is advisable not to stimulate the development of more serious illnesses and to pay appropriate attention to eating. And if the balance of your body is already disrupted, you should primarily consider removing the cause of your problems, not just the symptoms.

How to Eat Healthy

It is already clear why we should pay attention to our nutrition.

So, how do we eat in the correct way?

Here we encounter a problem. People are literally flooded with misinformation and half-truths, which they receive from their environment with strong media support. If the people even start to think about the way they are eating, they are immediately confronted with (mis)information being spread with respect to the benefits and gains of many companies and institutions.

Those of you who have started their own inspections then encounter thousands of different pieces of information and guides on how to eat properly. The internet and libraries are overflowing with different approaches to proper eating and many of these approaches are contradictory, some of them being arguable at best. When reading about all the information regarding “proper” ways of eating, one can progressively begin to feel a bit desperate. You can begin to feel that eating right is simply too complex. One is then forced, all in good will, to make a certain compromise in eating, which of course may not correspond to a healthy state or condition.

Unfortunately, there is practically no general guide on how to eat properly. Every single one of us is different; our bodies are all in different conditions and under different loads. Different diets will therefore probably suit different people better or worse.

However, there are still certain eating principles that will play a major role when trying to restore the balance of the human organism for the majority of us. Let’s take a look at those principles.

What to Eat

Determining what food a certain person should eat should primarily be based on the health and condition of the given person, not just current mood or taste. The more a person is not feeling well or is sick, the more he should prefer nutritionally rich and easily digestible foods, which have no negative impacts on the human organism.

Through this nutrition, a person will maximize the received nutrients and energy and at the same time will minimize the amounts of energy expended on digestion. Energy gained this way will be used by the body to restore the natural balance of the organism and its regeneration.

With regards to the amount of energy gained, nutrients digested, and influences on the human organism, we can divide food into four basic groups:

Category 1 – Crops from natural environment

These are crops that are grown in natural conditions, without the use of chemical fertilizers. This is why most of the crops available in supermarkets don’t belong in this group. We are therefore talking about real, Bio-quality crops, which you will usually grow by yourself or get from croppers. These crops are healing when consumed appropriately. From this group, mainly fresh fruit and vegetable juices have a beneficial effect.

Organism Influence Rating:
+ + +
Category 2 – Modern grown crops, fish, and home-bread animals

This category is about crops which are being grown with the use of modern methods and with the help of industrial fertilizers. Things that belong in this group are commonly sold and include corn, fruit, vegetables, and almost all agriculturally grown crops. Next in this group we can find fish from uncontaminated waters and home-bred animals that have enough movement, proper nutrition, and are not stressed.

This group is therefore the most healthy available food source, which can be applied in modern life conditions. Consummation of this food can be potentially harmful, but only minimally when compared to other categories.

Organism Influence Rating:
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Category 3 – Farm animals

This category belongs to another part of the food chain that eats the crops from the previous category. Farm animals accumulate unhealthy substances in the tissues of their bodies from eating the second category crops. During their development, farm animals are additionally given complementary food and medicaments that also collect inside their tissues. Consumption of this food category is usually damaging.

Organism Influence Rating:
–
Category 4 – Modern manufactured food

The fourth and, medically speaking, the worst category is comprised of the vast majority of the food industry’s products. Yes, we are talking about the majority of groceries, which are the subject of daily consumption and that fill shelves in supermarkets. These products are full of salt, E numbers, preservatives, and sugars. We can simply call this food “dead matter.” From a consumption point of view, food from this category is absolutely unsuitable, not only with regards to health, but also to our psyche.

Organism Influence Rating:
– – –

From this division, it is apparent that we should prefer foods from Category 1 and Category 2, no matter what our current health state and condition is. If we are not feeling well or we are sick, we should not consume any food that has a negative influence on our organism and in this way allow the body to regenerate itself. Organic foods of the first category, grown in natural conditions, are particularly beneficial to our health – they have the highest nutritional content and support the correct functioning of organisms in the best way. So now you know what to eat. And now let’s take a look at how to combine food correctly.

Food Combining

Combining your food significantly influences the quality of the digestion process inside the human body and plays an important role in nourishing you. Proper food combinations ensure maximal usability of the food and at the same time they minimize the load on the human body from digestion. With the correct food combinations, the human organism will have more energy and the likelihood of its proper health and condition is increased.

There are multiple basic rules regarding how to combine individual foods. The absolute basics are:

Do not combine proteins and carbohydrates.
Eat a varied diet in different combinations.

Basic Food Combining Rule: Separate Diet

Please forget everything you have heard or read about different diets and please pay attention to the following text. The described way of eating is the base for understanding the principles of healthy eating. Basically, it is the preparation phase for the gradual move away from all the bad eating habits you have acquired so far.

From a genetic point of view, our body is set up to intake very simple foods. You need different digestive enzymes for digesting proteins and for digesting carbohydrates. (2) This means that during protein digestion and absorption, there are different biochemical processes taking place as compared to carbohydrate digestion and absorption. This means that for the perfect digestion of proteins, our bodies have to create a different environment than for digesting carbohydrates.

Let’s take a short look at what will happen when we have our favorite hamburger.

Meat is protein. A bun consists of carbohydrates. The digestive system now has to produce both kinds of enzymes that will allow it to digest and absorb both proteins and carbohydrates. This leads to a lot of biochemical reactions within the body. These reactions split complicated molecules, which the food consists of, into simple substances that the body can make use of.

So what does this mean?

This means our body is extremely taxed when digesting and absorbing both proteins and carbohydrates and it spends a lot of energy to process the ingested food. This is the basic reason why proteins and carbohydrates should be eaten separately.

Could it be a problem when we eat proteins and carbohydrates at the same time?

It could pose a problem – a serious one. If we subject ourselves to excessive psychological stress, then this can lead to a disturbance of digestive processes when combined with unseparated consumption of proteins and carbohydrates. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t have excessive psychological stress levels these days?

This often leads to the disruption of our digestive and absorption processes without us even knowing it. When passing through the digestive system, inappropriately digested proteins and carbohydrates are a source of fermentive and putrefying processes. Common signs of these processes are:

flatulence,
overacidity,
constipation.

These faulty processes progressively ruin the functions of individual organs and the more we continue with these bad habits of eating, the worse the dysfunction of the individual organs we can expect. An attentive reader has surely noticed that we haven’t even mentioned fries in connection with the burger, ketchup that is full of chemicals, and the soda that we often drink together with the burger. When eating this way, in the end, a part of the organism will give in and disease will settle in. The doctor’s diagnosis will often be cruel and to solve this we can pay and swallow more poison.

It is a vicious circle and the one possibility to escape it is to change our diet. The basic principle is already known to you – separate consumption of proteins and carbohydrates. Now let’s focus on how to apply this principle in everyday life. For those of you who are willing to study the separated diet and to find out concrete food examples, we can recommend these books:

Get Well with the Hay Diet: Food Combining & Good Health Paperback by Jackie Habgood
The Hay Diet Made Easy: A Practical Guide to Food Combining by Jackie Habgood

We will come to the Hay Diet in a different article, where we will be talking about the pH balance within our body, and we will also explain acid-forming and base-forming foods. Anyway, study of the provided literature is the right first step. However, don’t postpone the reading too much! In the meantime, you can at least start separating the meat from its side dish, not yet taking into account the harmfulness of the individual foods themselves. Eat the side dishes separately, together with lots of vegetables. Rice can alternatively be eaten with fruit. This simple way is far from perfect, but is at least feasible in everyday life.

But make sure you remember that food division is only a part of the holistic approach to eating and overall health. Although the food division will adjust your BMI in most cases and also positively influence the effects of fermentive processes within the body, it may not cure you of serious illnesses. Read on and you will find out about other basics of healthy eating.

Variety and Different Food Combinations

Variety means consuming all food categories, with their differences also being important. We can divide food into these basic categories according to their source:

Plant source	Animal source
Grains	Farm animal meat
Legume	Poultry
Fruit	Venison
Vegetables	Fish and seafood
Nuts	Eggs
Seeds	Milk and milk products
Mushrooms	Animal fats
Algae
Spices and herbs
Plant fats and oils

By including the correct food components of all categories regularly into your diet you will provide all the necessary nutrients to your body. So it is important that you eat high-quality, varied food and its different combinations, since every combination functions differently within the body and the outcome of nutritional value is different. But do not forget about the basic food combining rule!

An example of different combinations is seeds. Instead of the regular consumption of poppy, flax, hemp, sunflower, and pumpkin seeds altogether, it is more suitable to regularly eat 2-3 seeds in different combinations. So one day you could eat flax, poppy, and hemp seeds, and the other, sunflower, pumpkin, and poppy seeds, etc. The body is thereby regularly supplied with many minerals and vitamins. The body usually has no problem getting rid of these in excessive amounts, given the organic origin of seeds.

How Much to Eat

Another important rule of healthy eating is that we should not only pay attention to what we eat, but also how much of it we eat. The answer to the question of whether something is poisonous to us or not is often dependent on dosage. This applies to food as well. Unlimited and unregulated approaches to eating naturally lead to overconsumption. We can often find that this overconsumption is connected to:

overweightness and obesity,
lack of movement,
laziness and sedentary contentedness,
weakening of the body by inadequately digested food,
over-acidity of the organism and inflammation,
diseases and degeneration.

On the other hand, adequate portions of suitable food, good hydration, and natural movement support health, condition, and longevity.

A suitable amount of food per one meal should be somewhere around 500g. With this meal volume it should be sufficient to eat 3x a day. However, it is of course necessary to take the body’s constitution, physical activity, and the state of the body into account.

The Golden Rule of Holistic Diet

We have kept one more rule for you, perhaps the most important rule of all. Many may know this rule already, but not everybody realizes its importance and power. And what is this rule?

The golden rule of healthy eating is to eat at rest and to chew the food properly inside the mouth.

This golden rule is the basic requirement of effective digestion. It is advisable to abide by it as much as possible, because without doing so, the final effects of a holistic diet can be limited significantly.

Recap

Let’s summarize the basic information for proper eating. The way we eat is important. The healthiest way of eating can be completely different from the current habits that you and your environment are used to. We should not only follow the taste of the food, but mainly its:

quality,
combinations,
variety.

It is optimal to have the highest share of high-quality food, to which we add Category 1 and Category 2 food. Examples of correct combinations can be found in the recommended reading, but you can already start now with the easy basics of food division. Try to eat a varied diet and alternate between suitable combinations – this will provide your body with all the necessary nutrients.

It is important to:

eat adequately,
eat at rest,
and to chew the food properly.

The correct adherence to the mentioned principles is an important step toward the restoration of the natural balance of the human organism. We will talk about food again in the next article about the pH of the human organism.

Don’t forget that it is mainly important to find out what is suitable specifically for you and your body. Try to take a look at your body and to stay on top of things. Not even a holistic diet can heal everything and it is just one of the basic principles of holistic health.