DIETARY CONCEPTS FOR EVERYONE

DIETARY CONCEPTS FOR EVERYONE
Based on the Article THE HEALING LIFESTYLE
and the book Nutritional Balancing Science and Hair Mineral Analysis

by Lawrence Wilson, MD
© UPDATED APRIL 2, 2011, The Center For Development

A very healthful diet is basic to nutritional balancing science. While health authorities disagree as to what this means, nutritional balancing seeks to balance five main qualities in food intake:

  • How to obtain the most nutrients from an extremely nutrient-depleted food supply,
  • How to avoid toxins in foods, both natural and man-made,
  • How to eat a more yang diet to balance the yin quality of most bodies today,
  • How to obtain more etheric or subtle energy from food, and
  • How to balance the oxidation rate and perhaps major mineral ratios with food.

Based on these criteria, here are general dietary suggestions for everyone:

  • Eat food as fresh as possible, and perhaps also locally grown. Avoid most canned, boxed, refined, prepared and processed foods as most contain many chemical ingredients. Frozen peas, green beans and perhaps other frozen vegetables are fine, however, since they are not as available fresh. Other frozen or canned vegetables are not as good. Eat them only if fresh cannot be found. Read labels if you are not sure.
  • If possible, eat food grown without chemical sprays and pesticides and grown on richly mineralized soils. Organically grown food is a wonderful start, but does not guarantee quality.
  • Healthful cooking methods are steaming, grilling, stir-frying, baking, crock pots, pressure cooking or roasting. Microwave ovens are not as good. Deep frying is not recommended in most instances due to problems caused by heating oils very hot for extended periods of time.

Cookware may be glass (the best), stainless steel or enamel-coated iron or enamel-coated aluminum. Non-stick cookware such as Teflon or Silverstone, uncoated iron and uncoated aluminum pots are not recommended as they could affect the quality of the food cooked in them.

  • Avoid snacking. Avoid skipping meals. Those with weak adrenals or hypoglycemia should have four or even five small meals daily to help maintain a steady blood sugar level. Rest a few minutes before eating. Then sit down in a quiet place to eat. Eat slowly and chew thoroughly. Relax at least 10 minutes after eating before leaving the table or returning to your activities. Avoid eating while driving, when upset, or in noisy places. Do not to drink a lot of liquid with meals. Drink up to 15 minutes before a meal or an hour or more afterwards. This prevents diluting your stomach and digestive juices with too much liquid.
  • Eat a variety of foods. Do not eat the same food two or three days in a row, if possible.
  • Keep meals simple for best digestion. Many people believe meals should be complex. In fact, a single food or two types of vegetables and a protein are plenty. Simpler is better as long as the diet is balanced correctly.
  • Avoid eating out. Instead, make your own simple dishes. Restaurants are a problem, unless you know the food is made freshly and not laced with hundreds of chemicals.
  • If you eat out, ask for exactly what you want if it is not on the menu. Ask for more vegetables if few are served. If portions are too large, consider sharing a dinner or just ordering an appetizer. If bread is served, ask that it be taken away. Ethnic food such as East Indian, Chinese or Thai are the best in many cases as they are often made fresh and offer meats and vegetables. However, avoid MSG used in Chinese food. Italian food is a problem because it usually contains wheat pasta. Mexican food usually includes few fresh vegetables and too much carbohydrate such as beans, rice, corn and others. One could order chicken enchiladas or fajitas with corn, but not flour tortillas.

    Avoid most fast-food restaurants and most chain restaurants, as they are usually the worst. These often use poorer quality ingredients to save money and use more chemical-laden, prepared products.

  • Avoid all irritating foods such as very spicy foods.
  • WHAT TO EAT

    The following is a basic healthful diet, in my view. If you elect to follow a more complete program based on a hair mineral analysis, this diet will be adjusted somewhat. However, the suggestions below are the most important in most cases.

    COOKED VEGETABLES

    Fill two-thirds of your plate or more with cooked vegetables at least twice every day. Seventy to eighty percent of your diet should be cooked vegetables, not raw vegetables.

    Vegetables provide many nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, amino acids and fiber. They also increase the alkalinity of the body more than any other food group. This is important today because the balance of the pH is a factor in healing. Do not try to alkalinize the body with a water machine, however. These are not safe, in my experience, no matter what the sales people contend. They usually use tap water and may contain toxic metals. The best vegetables are:

    1. Root vegetables. These include carrots, onion, garlic, ginger, rutabaga, turnips and celery root, and to a lesser degree beets, yams and sweet potatoes.

    2. The cabbage (or crucifers or brassica species). Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, collard greens, mustard seed, mustard greens, bok choy, Chinese cabbage or napa cabbage. It also includes turnips and rutabaga. The cruciferous vegetables are wonderful foods and some should be eaten daily. They all must be cooked about 30 minutes to completely remove a substance that otherwise can slow the thyroid a little.

    3. Greens such as spinach, carrot greens, kale, mustard greens, beet greens and Swiss chard are also very good.

    4. Peas and green beans, both fresh and frozen, are also very good. A bag of frozen peas cooks in five minutes and makes an excellent, tasty and filling snack or even an entire meal.

    5. Winter squashes and pumpkin. Winter squashes (acorn, spaghetti and butternut squashes) and pumpkin are not quite as good because they are more yin, but okay once or twice a week if you wish.

    Vegetables to avoid. Avoid the nightshade vegetables, which are too yin and slightly toxic for regular consumption. They include tomatoes, white and red potatoes, eggplant and all peppers, such as sweet and hot peppers, and table pepper, which is usually rancid. A little cayenne pepper as a spice is fine, but avoid very hot spicy food.

    Others to minimize or avoid include zucchini, summer squashes, okra, asparagus, artichokes, mushrooms and cucumbers. These are all too yin or a bit toxic. Otherwise, vegetables, always cooked, are superb foods.

    Remember to cook your vegetables always. Many doctors recommend raw salads. We do not, however. The reasons are 1) raw food is often contaminated with bacteria and parasites, 2) our bodies have difficulty extracting all the minerals from raw food, including salads, 3) raw foods are often cold and take more energy to digest, 4) cooking concentrates many foods, allowing one to eat more vegetables, and 5) raw foods are too yin. Especially when dining out, avoid all raw food for reasons of cleanliness. You can have a cooked vegetable salad if you prefer, but not a raw salad. To read more, read Raw Foods And Juices on this website.

    PROTEIN

    Eat protein twice daily or even a little with each meal, if it helps you. Protein foods, especially those of animal quality, offer many nutrients including zinc, selenium, sulfur, many vitamins, essential amino acids, essential fatty acids and much more. Please do not follow a vegetarian diet for this reason. Portion size can be 3-5 ounces or so for adults.

    Meats. Among the best protein foods are lamb, chicken, eggs, and turkey. Some wild game is very good. Beef is not quite as good, though naturally-raised, grass-fed beef is okay once a week or less.

    Dairy Products. Soft-cooked eggs are a wonderful and very inexpensive protein food. Most people can have eggs three times a eweek or more. Two eggs daily are good for most people. Be sure to cook eggs soft, with the yolk runny. This means either soft boil them for 3-4 minutes, or eat them poached or soft in some other way.

    Raw dairy is an excellent food for most people, unless one is allergic to dairy. This can include goat or cows whole milk, plain yogurt, raw kefir or raw cheeses. Most pasteurized dairy products are not nearly as good and should be avoided.
    If you absolutely cannot find raw dairy, look for Horizon organic dairy products, though they are not as good as the raw ones. Goat products tend to be a little better than cow dairy, although not always. Go to www.realmilk.com to help find raw dairy products, or ask around in your town, as many towns have people who are bringing raw dairy in even if it is not yet legal.

    Fish. Sardines are a wonderful food. This is the best fish because it is a very small fish and it contains vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids in abundance. (Read more about the benefits of sardines below.) Salmon once a week is okay.

    Avoid all other fish and definitely avoid all shellfish or seafood. Most are contaminated with mercury. Wild caught fish are no better in most cases, though they are fed better.

    Nuts, seeds and nut butters. Nuts and seeds are hard to digest and more yin, although they are nutritious. So limit them, please. Also, I suggest eating them as nut and seed butters for much better absorption. Nuts, in particular, are very yin in Chinese terminology. Some toasted almond butter, however, is good for most people.

    Proteins to avoid: Pork, ham and all pig products may contain parasitic infections, even if well-cooked. Also reduce beef, though some naturally raised beef is okay occasionally. Most beef cattle are very hybridized and less healthful. Avoid all processed meats and American cheese or “cheese food”. Also avoid organ meats that are too toxic.

    Protein powders, whey powders, and smoothies I much prefer whole foods to any type of powders or meal replacement drinks. With the whole egg or whole milk or cheese, you will generally get much more nutrition, at a lower price. Also, smoothie’s require sweets in them, which are very bad, even fruit, honey or maple syrup.

    Also, powdered drinks are poor food combinations that harm the intestines in some people, and they are much too yin in Chinese medical terms. Try to stick with whole, natural foods.

    WHOLE GRAINS

    About 5 to 6% of the diet may be cooked grains. While these can be excellent foods, many people do not handle them well due to yeasts in the intestines and other intestinal difficulties. The best whole grains for most people are white Basmati rice, quinoa, millet, amaranth and buckwheat.

    Others, provided you don’t have gluten sensitivity, include rye, oats, and barley. However, many people feel better without any gluten in their diet.

    Avoid wheat and spelt in all forms. Wheat is a very hybridized food, like beef and some dairy today. As a result, wheat has become an unbalanced and inflammatory food. An important habit change is to avoid all foods made with wheat such as most breads, pastries, cakes, cookies, flour tortillas, hot and cold cereals, soups thickened with flour, and wheat pasta. Wheat pasta is less processed and a little better, but still best avoided. If you want pasta, use rice, or other non-wheat pasta.

    Always cook grains thoroughly. Also, avoid granola, trail mix and muesli, which may not be well-cooked. Grains are best eaten freshly cooked, if possible.

    FATS AND OILS

    These are extremely important foods, especially for fast oxidizers. Good sources of fats and oils are raw certified dairy products, good quality eggs, meats, some olive and other types of unrefined oils, and a little nut and seed butters. Most people need between one and three tablespoons of fats daily.

    Avoid most French fries and other deep fried foods, as the oil is often overheated and damaged….

    FRUIT, SUGAR AND SWEETS

    Reduce or avoid most sugars. Sugars are all extremely yin. They also often cause yeast infections in the intestines, disrupt calcium metabolism, weaken the adrenals, aggravate blood sugar imbalances, increase infections and cause other problems as well.

    Many health authorities recommend fruit, but I find most fruits are not good foods today. They are almost all hybrids that are too sweet, and they have less nutrition than most other natural foods. Also, while technically alkaline-forming, most people cannot utilize them properly and they acidify the body, at times. Fruit juices and dried fruit are even worse and should be avoided.

    Reduce all fruits to a maximum of one piece of juicy fruit daily or a few berries as an occasional dessert or snack.

    The best sweetener is stevia, which is basically a non-caloric natural sweetener. Among the calorie-containing sweeteners, xylitol, uncooked honey, pure uncooked maple syrup and unrefined cane sugar are best. However, use these only occasionally.

    Avoid candy, cookies, cakes, pastries, ice cream, soda pop, and other sweetened foods. This includes thousands of prepared sauces, dressings, breads, pastries, dips and other products, as well.

    Also avoid all foods in which one of the first two ingredients is barley malt, brown sugar, buttered syrup, cane-juice crystals, cane sugar, caramel, carob syrup, chocolate, corn sweetener, corn syrup, date sugar, dextran, dextrose, diastatic malt, ethyl maltol, fructose, fruit juice, fruit juice concentrate, glucose, glucose solids, golden sugar, golden syrup, grape sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, honey, invert sugar, lactose, malt sweetener, malt syrup, maltodextrin, maltose, mannitol, maple syrup, raw sugar, refiner’s syrup, rice syrup, rice bran syrup, sorbitol, sorghum syrup, sucrose, turbinado sugar, xylitol or yellow sugar. Agave syrup and molasses are a little better, but should also be limited.

    Do not use substitutes: Nutrasweet, aspartame, Equal, saccharin or Splenda. Splenda is a bit better in terms of toxicity for most people, but is still a toxic chemical additive.

    To wean off sweets may take some time, but is well worth the effort!

    BEVERAGES

    This is also a very important subject, as most people today are not well-hydrated. Healthful water to drink is extremely important, in our experience. Spring water that is bought in plastic bottles or delivered to your home is fine. An alternative is to go to WWW.FINDASPRING.COM to perhaps find a spring near you where you can fill up your own water jugs. Spring water provides many minerals the body needs and it is untamperred with.

    If you cannot afford spring water, the next best water is usually carbon-filtered tap water. Do not use fancy water filters. Use a carbon filter only. The others may clean up the water, but they appear to damage it as well.

    Besides pure water, only mild teas hydrate the body perfectly. These include black or green tea, chamomile, hibiscus, mint, strawberry leaf and other mild herbal blends. Please do not add sweeteners to them, if at all possible.

    Carrot and/or wheat grass juice. Eight to twelve ounces of carrot juice daily is excellent for most people and one or two ounces of wheat grass juice is also fine, but not all the time. (Read more about the benefits of carrot juice below)

    Almost all adults need to drink three (3) quarts or more of water each and every day. An excellent habit is to drink up to 1 quart of healthful spring water upon arising in the morning.

    Avoid all reverse osmosis water, such as “purified water”, “drinking waters”, and others. Avoid water machines such as alkaline water machines. Read Water For Drinking on this website for much more on water.

    Also avoid alkaline water, and almost all “designer” or fancy waters sold in health food stores and elsewhere. Too often, these are made with reverse osmosis water or other types of water that do not hydrate the body as well.

    Also avoid adding minerals to your water. In all cases, so far, this detracts from the overall quality of the water because water is a type of living food and randomly adding minerals to it damages the totality of the water, which is extremely complex.

    Avoid all fruit juice, soda pop, “energy drinks” and strong sweetened teas. Also avoid alcohol in all forms, as much as possible. An occasional small glass of wine or beer is okay once in a while, if desired, but not very good for one’s health. Wine is often the most contaminated alcoholic beverage, as many pesticides are used on grapes.

    One cup of coffee daily is okay if desired. A cup or two of tea daily is fine.

    SEASONINGS, HERBS AND CONDIMENTS

    The best are mild herbs and spices, especially East Indian spices such as cumin, turmeric, curry powder and others. These tend to be the most yang. A good quality sea salt is excellent. Do not add salt to your drinking water, a dangerous practice some are recommending. It can unbalance your minerals slowly and insidiously. Avoid table salt, as it is highly refined and often has added aluminum. Table pepper is often rancid and not healthful.

    Other good spices are garlic, dill, rosemary, thyme, oregano and many other mild herbs.

    Some nutritional yeast and rice polishings are excellent additions to any diet. Mustard is an excellent spice that can be added to many dishes.

    Avoid or use sparingly all medicinal herbs, especially those imported from Asia or Latin America. Sadly, Ayurvedic and Chinese herbs usually contain toxic metals and other toxic substances. Most herbal programs are not compatible with nutritional balancing science. We will suggest herbs that are safe.

    SPECIAL FOODS FOR EXTRA HEALTH

    Certain foods and nutrients are so needed today that eating them almost automatically can extend your life and dramatically improve your health. That is how excellent they are.
    These special foods today are sardines, carrot juice, raw unpasteurized dairy foods, kelp and Hawaiian Jade sea salt.

    SARDINES

    The humble sardine is one of the best foods to eat on a regular basis. I know many people do not like them, but they are excellent, although they are in cans. Try mixing them with mustard or adding them to other dishes. Sardines are extremely healthful for the following reasons:

    1. Low in mercury. The small size and short lifespan of the sardine means that it has much less opportunity to pick up mercury. Larger fish, even salmon, can concentrate mercury up to a million times more than sardines. Sardines are also usually wild-caught rather than farm-raised. Farmed fish are usually not fed quality feed.

    2. High in Vitamin D, calcium, RNA/DNA, and omega-3 fatty acids. Sardines are a wonderful source of all of these hard-to-find nutrients that everyone needs today.

    3. Bioavailable selenium. The whole fish, and especially the skin, contains a lot of a very bioavailable form of selenium. This is an important mineral today for everyone that is very hard to find in our food supply.

    4. A developmental food. The particular nutrient content of sardines, but not other fish or seafood, assists in the development of some higher brain centers. These brain ganglia greatly enhance the activity of the nervous system and brain. This is why I call it a developmental food. Sardines are generally far better than using drugs or herbs to enhance your brain power.

    Fresh sardines are ideal, but the canned ones, any brand, are fine, as well. Check the expiration date for freshness. Adults may have three cans of sardines per week.

    ORGANIC CARROT AND/OR GREEN JUICE

    Eight to twelve ounces, less for children, of fresh or store-bought carrot juice daily is another excellent food item for most everyone. If possible, wait 15 minutes after drinking it before eating a meal.

    Do not add fruit to carrot juice unless a child, perhaps, demands a little to accept the taste of carrot juice. Also avoid drinking more than 12 ounces of juice, as this is not needed in most cases, and is extremely sugary and yin so it can upset digestion.

    Carrot juice is extremely rich in a very bioavailable form of calcium. It is also high in many other nutrients. If you make it yourself, you may add a few spinach leaves, Swiss chard, beet greens, fresh ginger root, or other greens to the carrot juice. However, avoid adding any fruit at all to it. This unbalances the juice.

    An alternative to carrot juice is one or two ounces of fresh or frozen wheat grass juice. However, it is not quite as good as the carrot juice.

    Suggestions for juicing carrots:

  • Use a juicer, and not a blender such as the Vitamix or others. Blenders do not break up the carrots enough to extract all the nutrients. They also mix the juice with too much water and air, which is not desirable. Also, they leave the pulp intact, which is not desirable in this case.
  • Try to have your carrot juice alone, rather than with any other food or beverage. Wait at least 15 minutes before eating or drinking other items to give the juice time to be absorbed.
  • Those with yeast problems or sugar sensitivity may not tolerate carrot juice well. In this case, drink one half or one-third of your juice, put the rest in the refrigerator and drink more of it every few hours. This avoids putting a lot of sugar into your blood stream at one time. Be sure your juice is fairly fresh. If store-bought juice does not taste good, it may be moldy or have pesticides in it.
  • RAW, UNPASTEURIZED, NON-HOMOGENIZED DAIRY PRODUCTS
    Raw dairy products are incredibly nutrient-rich foods. They are very rich in calcium, magnesium, zinc, sodium, selenium, dozens of other trace minerals, and other nutrients our bodies require.

    Some doctors believe that raw dairy products are unsafe. In my medical experience of about 30 years, this is absolutely not true. Pasteurized milk is far more filthy. Pasteurization allows the farmers to be sloppier with cleanliness, and to sell milk from diseased cows. Then they pasteurize the milk to try to kill the germs.

    Pasteurization was needed several hundred years ago, but today it is mainly an excuse to sell bad milk supported by a large lobbying effort. Milk is a living food. Pasteurization damages the availability of its calcium and protein. It also destroys most of the omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin E, and some other nutrients, rendering the milk a horrible concoction that often causes allergic reactions.

    Many people who are allergic to regular milk products can tolerate raw dairy products. If they cannot, most soon develop tolerance to it when they follow a nutritional balancing program.

    Limit your raw milk intake to about 8 ounces daily. More is too yin in Chinese medical terms. You may also have some raw yogurt and raw cheese, especially full-fat goat cheese. If raw dairy products are not available, the next best is often Horizon or Cadia brands of organic dairy products.

    KELP

    Kelp, a sea vegetable, is another wonderful food. It can be a life-saving food supplement that I recommend for everyone. It is a rich source of hundreds of trace and ultra-trace minerals. It is also better than most “mineral supplements”, including earth-based products like fulvic and humic acid, zeolite, sea-based minerals, and others.

    One of its most important roles is to provide bioavailable iodine, a mineral that few are getting enough of from their food. Kelp is far more physiological than most other iodine products, and more balanced so it does not cause toxicity, as do the others. It also contains a very bioavailable form of calcium not found in most foods.

    Kelp is also a source of many phytonutrients that are hard to find in other foods. So it provides a host of nutrients at a very reasonable cost.

    Kelp versus “green superfoods”. Kelp is the best green superfood. I prefer kelp to others because:
    1. Others often contain dangerous chelators such as chlorella, cilantro, and zeolite,
    2. Others contain algae that is less compatible with human physiology such as spirulina, chlorella and blue-green algae that we always find become toxic in the body,
    3. Kelp does not go rancid as fast as others. The salt in kelp apparently preserves it far better
    4. Kelp is far more yang in Chinese terminology than the others, which makes it a more balanced and healthful product, and
    5. Kelp contains far more alginates than the others. This compound protects the body against mercury and other toxic metals present in most sea vegetables and other foods. All the other green foods contain either none of this chemical, or much less of it. This is why I never recommend other sea vegetables, although they are nutritious foods.

    Reactions to kelp. Kelp is a powerful food supplement and herb. Occasionally, a person has a reaction to kelp. In most cases it is mild and temporary. The cause is often the removal of an iodine antagonist, either a bromine, fluorine or chlorine compound. Iodine is stimulating in a few instances. Most of the time, just reduce the dose for a while, and then work up very slowly. Most everyone has been able to take kelp eventually.
    Adults can work up to about 1500 mg of kelp daily, taken in divided doses with meals. Children also need kelp, and should take less depending on their weight and size. Children less than three years old usually do not need to take kelp.

    HAWAIIAN JADE SEA SALT

    Using this particular type of sea salt is less critical, but it is a very good one, though more costly than some others. If it is too expensive, just use an inexpensive sea salt from the health food store.

    Natural sea salt is practically essential today as a source of trace minerals. All of our food is low in minerals, thanks to the use of industrial farming methods that emphasize a high crop yield, rather than how to produce the most nutritious food.

    The truth about the low mineral content of our food is known in some circles. However, people are told by their doctors and health officials that their food is good, when this is really a joke. Inadequate mineral nutrition is a major problem on earth today.

    Unrefined sea salt is an excellent source of trace minerals, along with kelp and sardines. Salt, in particular, helps maintain the body’s electrolyte and osmotic balance. It also has an alkalinizing effect on the body. It is also an extremely yang food in Chinese medical terminology, and these are very much needed today due to radiation poisoning of the entire world’s population.

    The sodium it contains is critical for osmotic balance and to solubilize other minerals in the blood. Deficiency of sodium causes other minerals to become biounavailable and precipitate into the soft tissues and elsewhere. All the above are very important reasons to eat salt on your food, and to avoid table salt, a thoroughly ruined junk food that has been stripped of most of its vital minerals.

    Avoiding sea salt, as some doctors suggest, is totally foolish, in my view. Reasonable and moderate use of a high quality, unrefined or ‘sea salt’ has little or no effect on blood pressure. In fact, its high magnesium content can help lower blood pressure and prevent toxic metal buildup that causes high blood pressure.

    If one has high blood pressure, you may need to use less. It is still better than “potassium salts” and most other store-bought products. You should get plenty of potassium from the 70% of your diet that should be cooked vegetables.

    A wonderful sea salt. The best sea salt I have encountered so far is called Hawaiian Bamboo Jade sea salt, or just Hawaiian Jade sea salt. It is an old formula that is extremely balanced. You may use it instead of all other salts, for both cooking and salting your food, as well.

    I find the Hawaiian Jade sea salt is superior to other popular sea salts, which are fine but not as good. These include Celtic salt, Himalayan salt, Redmonds Real Salt, Pacific Salt and others. You can purchase Hawaiian Jade sea salt from WWW.THE SPICELAB.COM or 1-954-275-4478 in Florida, or from other distributors of fine sea salts.

    NOTE: Nutritional Balancing Science and Hair Mineral Analysis do not diagnose, treat or cure any diseases, and are not substitutes for standard medical care. Nikki Moses is not a medical doctor. She operates as an unlicensed nutritional consultant only. None of the statements on this site have been evaluated by the FDA. Nothing on this site is intended to discourage anyone from seeking or following the advice of a medical doctor.

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