Is Everything Available to My Taster?
A patient came in the other day to tell me a story about his experience with his friend, the tomato. After having had a delicious spaghetti with red sauce dinner, he related that all his symptoms he was seeing me for came back within two hours. This is not an uncommon patient scenario in the past years and underscores the energetic imbalances imposed by specific foods if they bring about imbalance in the physiology.
If there was a buffet somewhere in cyberspace where you and I could go where all the foods known to man were represented in all the combinations that humans have concocted to generate taste thrills, all of it would not be available to you and I if we were eating according to our energy mindbody constitutions.
This seems tragic doesn't it? Here we have all these delectable taste thrills and yet they are unavailable to our taster. What a shame. It seems so unfair, doesn't it?
You see, it's not about denial of these foods to our taster as much as it is to notice from an energetic viewpoint what they do to us. That is, how do they make us feel. We obviously don't want to feel bad-you and I- so the energy approach to nutrition, telling us which foods and food combinations are to be avoided is to give us insight that certain foods make us feel bad.
In the end if we went to the great buffet in the sky, when we are eating according to our energy patterns, we would choose those foods which harmonize with our energy physiologies and stay away from those that don't.
So bon appetit!! DrBill
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5 Ways to Cultivate Healthy Strong Digestion
It's of no surprise to anyone who has chronic disease that bowel symptoms are common As a matter of fact if I were a betting person I would say that most people on the planet have poor digestive strength
Bowel symptoms are often overlooked because our tendency is to focus on the organ that causes us the most problem
Step Back
As you have read in some blog posts all disease begins in the GI tract according to the Ayurvedic or energy science model
When you focus too much, you may lose sight of the fact that the bowel symptoms are there but other problems claim the attention At least 50% of people who have forms of chronic diseases have associated acid indigestion(heartburn) and/or reflux of acid into the lower esophagus and they resort to all kinds of different OTC(over the counter) remedies
It's estimated that at least 50% of people with some chronic diseases have IBS and I would say in working with patients that if you counted all their symptoms that it's more like 100% The reason I can go that far is that most people walking on this planet have unhealthy digestion
How the Bowel Gets Sick and Symptoms
The reasons for this unhealthy digestion are 2 fold First the food choices made bring about imbalance of qualities in the GI tract and hence symptoms
But the second reason is probably more important Poor digestion of food leads to unprocessed undigested food that clog the lymphatics of the gut and cover the surface of the internal lining of the gut interfering with proper digestion, absorption, and assimilation of foods ingested
Due to this "poor digestion" symptoms occur Gas, bloating, feeling of heaviness lethargy or fatigue after eating, fever, irritability, alternating diarrhea/constipation, loud noises coming from the stomach, poor appetite, congestion in the sinuses, mucoid vomiting or mucous in the stools, having an underactive thyroid, and overall depression....who wouldn't be with these kinds of symptoms?
Getting Your Digestive Strength Back
Getting your health.....particularly bowel health back....is a challenge but it's at the heart of dealing with IC Puzzling isn't it? Here you have this bladder problem but you're being told that you need to really focus on the bowel Well, it's actually both BUT you must put some attention on the your bowel function
Ginger with slices Since poor digestion is at the heart of the matter here are five things that you can do Remember don't use dry ginger....only fresh
1 Use ginger appetizer to help clear the undigested debris hanging around in your gut Thirty minutes before eating your biggest meal of the day at noon take a slice of ginger with rock salt, lime juice, and a little honey (To peel the ginger use a spoon for taking the skin off..and slice an inch long piece of fresh ginger and place into a small container It’s helpful if the container is small enough to carry in your pocket or purse so that you can take it out to eat with you or to work Small jars can be purchased at health food stores or you can reuse glass supplement jars To save time make enough for 2-3 days
2 Use agni tea Quart of water with 2 handfuls minced ginger root pinch of cayenne (for Pitta disorders, a speck or omit entirely), 2 Tablespoons Sucanat or Maple syrup, and 1-2 teaspoons Rock salt Bring all of the above ingredients to a boil Boil for 20 minutes Take the pot off the burner and cool for a few minutes Add the juice of ½ lime Do not boil the lime juice Pour into a thermos and enjoy throughout the day!
3 Use CCF tea see prior blog post
4 Chose one day a week to fast This gives the GI tract a well deserved day off.....you get days off from work - why not do that for your ailing gut? This fast can be with juice(don't mix fruit with veggies) or for overweight people, water but some kind of restriction from having to digest Why? Because just like a campfire it gets stronger when you don't put so many logs on the fire Remember though that predominantly Vata people should only do light eating once every four weeks or they will weaken themselves even more
5 Explore digestive aids such as Betaine HCl or pancreatic enzymes but recognize this as a bandaid and not a fix for the gut As you can see, relying on something externally forever to help with your digestion is not a long term solution
Best of luck in your journey DB
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Taste and Health: An Energy Science Perspective
It's not like anything. You need to trust me and just taste it.
Seth Godin
In high school chemistry we learned that acids are neutralized by alkaline chemicals. Perhaps we know that for us biologically the acid taste is the sour taste in Nature and that the alkaline is the bitter taste.
So if I have "heartburn" and a sour taste in my mouth it means I have excessive acidity in the stomach and to feel better I can neutralize my problem with baking soda, a common alkaline material off the shelf in the kitchen. Voila! Carbon dioxide gas is produced in my stomach as the byproduct in my acid base balancing I belch and feel better. Thanks very much, now on with the day
Whoa, what a minute! Why did I get this in the first place? Energetically I consumed too much of the qualities of hot, light, sharp in the form of pizza with pepperoni, tomato sauce, cheese, and coke the night before. Now with that energetic knowledge, maybe I should rethink my choice about pepperoni pizza and carbonated drinks?
My mindbody just told me that it didnt like the choice that I made last night. If I want to respect my mindbody and not hurt it maybe I should think about my next choice.
Well, hmmmm, anybody interested in some pepperoni pizza tonight with extra garlic? DrBill
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Digestive Fire: The Solution to Food Allergy
Food allergies(milk and wheat flour) are commonly blamed for the intolerance to the large molecules that are poorly digested(lactose in the case of milk, gluten in the case of flour) Since these molecules have been around forever, the implication is that the fatigue and/or postdigestive symptoms(gas, bloating primarily) is related to the "allergy" to these products that contain milk and wheat flour
Allergy or Your Own Poor Digestion
But perhaps the question should be. "Is this really an allergy?"
From my own personal experience being confronted with the possibility of declaring myself with food allergies to milk and wheat, I found that simply eating according to my energy makeup and improving my digestion did the trick
The energy science perspective challenges the notion that fatigue and post digestive symptoms are related to allergy It makes the case that poor digestion is the culprit in most of these so called "food allergies" Of course this flies in the face of the common public and physician misinterpretation of symptoms and it's easy to blame foods rather than our own choices and behavior
We Don't Know Any Better
If you're not aware that some foods should not be used because of your energy makeup, if you're not aware of troublesome food combinations, if you're not aware of how to boost your digestive fire, then all bets are off that you will be able to find the solution to your post digestive blahs In short we don't know any better because our nutritional model lets us down
So What To Do?
1 Go to foodsheal.com and take the questionnaire(under Getting Started) to find out what energy makeup you are Then find the format that fits and stick with it Over time this can make a big difference
2 At the same site you'll find a list of food incompatibilities that should be avoided
3 Avoid ice
4 Use a ginger appetizer to enhance your digestion 30 minutes before you eat Use fresh ginger(1 inch diameter disc 1 inch thick with 1 tsp lime juice, pinch of rock or sea salt, and tsp of honey)
5 Sip on agni tea through the day to help improve your digestion (1 qt of water with 2 handfuls of diced fresh ginger, 2T of sucanat, pinch of cayenne, 1-2t of sea salt)
6 Use spices (see churans under Nutritional Tools) liberally with your cooking Spices in general will help the digestion
Many digestive ills that we have are our own doing, believe it or not The current diet model that is molecularly based does not serve us well in this respect
All the best DB
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