Integrative nutrition ebook free

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Due to the presence of live enzymes, raw honey is easily digestible for most humans. Another sweetener that has gained recognition and sparked controversy is agave nectar. Agave nectar is made from the juice of the agave cactus, the same plant that gives us tequila, and is a traditional sweetener for Native Mexicans.

The controversy stems from the fact that agave nectar is typically made using a chemical process that converts the starch into a refined, fructose-rich syrup that can be compared to high fructose corn syrup.

While it contains small amounts of calcium, potassium and magnesium and ranks lower on the glycemic index than many other sweeteners, it is still best to limit consumption. As with all sweeteners, I recommend to use them sparingly. When choosing a sweetener, it is always best to understand how it got from the source to you, because often times the marketing of products can be misleading.

Other popular alternatives to sugar are brown rice syrup, barley malt and stevia, an herb native to South America. All of these can be found in your local health food store. Try them and find the ones that work best for you. For a complete list of sugar alternatives, see chapter Quality also makes a big difference. Eat the food consciously, chewing it slowly and thoroughly enjoying it. Take chocolate as an example. Are You Craving Salty Foods? Cravings for salty foods often indicate mineral deficiency.

All salt originates in the sea, and natural sea salt contains 60 different trace minerals, which are the basis for the formation of vitamins, enzymes and proteins. Most of us use common table salt, which has been refined and stripped of many of these minerals. Before you go out and have a bag of pretzels or chips, try eating a wide variety of vegetables, especially leafy green veggies, which are very high in minerals. These foods often satisfy the craving for salty foods, which is really a desire for more nutrition.

You may also want to purchase a highquality sea salt to use in your cooking and incorporate sea vegetables, which have a naturally salty flavor and are high in minerals. Are You Craving Bitter Foods? Most people satisfy bitter cravings by drinking coffee and dark beers. If you find yourself craving bitter tastes, try eating dark leafy greens, such as dandelion, mustard greens, arugula, kale and collards.

These greens will unblock stagnant organs and promote healthy assimilation and elimination. Are You Craving Pungent Flavors? Chinese cooking often incorporates pungently flavored foods that act as digestive aids.

In traditional Chinese medicine, ginger is an herb for the large intestine and lungs. It enhances the function of, and promotes healing in, both organs. So, if you have a craving for heavy, saucy Chinese food it may.

When this happens, try grating fresh ginger on your vegetables or in your soup. Other foods that will quench this craving are cayenne, scallions, onions, leeks, garlic and pepper.

Are You Craving Spicy Foods? Are you looking for an array of flavors, both subtle and strong, or are you looking for hot spices? This kind of food lacks vitality, energy and aliveness and includes added fat and cholesterol.

When people eat this kind of diet for years, the body can become overweight and stagnant. Blood becomes thick, or viscous, and circulation slows. As circulation weakens, organs and extremities become cool. At this point, the body may start craving spices. When people crave spicy foods they often turn to pizza or hot Mexican spices. These extreme foods warm the body but also create a lot of stressful, chaotic energy.

You can use a variety of spices and condiments to add kick to your food. Two popular choices are ground cayenne and hot pepper sesame oil, both of which you can find at any health food store. When eaten in excess, these foods create feelings of dryness and stagnation, and can also make us feel stuck, hard and irritable.

When we reach that state of imbalance, we very often crave creamy, relaxing foods, such as ice cream, milk products or oily foods. Try eating porridge made from whole grains, such as amaranth or brown rice. You can also make cream of broccoli soup, or cream of watercress soup, and use oatmeal rather than cream to get the consistency you desire.

If you are craving chips or pretzels, it may be the crunch that you actually desire. The act of chewing actually enhances digestion. Instead of grabbing the chemicalized, artificial snack products, try satisfying your crunchy cravings with raw carrots and celery, or organic versions of potato chips and hard pretzels without added sugar.

Do you feel dry or tight? Are you thirsty? Many physical problems, including headaches, urology problems and kidney stones, are the result of chronic dehydration. Instead of quenching thirst with sugary and caffeinated beverages, try drinking water at least three times a day.

Put a bottle or a cup of pure spring water on your desk and sip it throughout the day. As you drink, notice how your body responds. If you are craving something crisp and dry, you may be drinking too many liquids. If this is the case, try to keep away from chips because they are rich in fats, especially saturated and trans fats.

Avoid crackers that are highly processed and will elevate both glucose and insulin levels. To fulfill your craving for crisp and dry foods, choose rice cakes, high-quality crackers without oil or sugar-free sesame sticks. You can also bake your own potato chips or sweet potato chips, which are much healthier than the store-bought versions. Are you cold, especially your hands and feet? Salads, fruit and other raw foods make the body feel light.

They also cool the body and may give rise to cravings for heavier, warming foods, such as fish, beef or hard cheese. The snack food shelves at supermarkets and even health food stores are full of tantalizing items chock full of sugar.

Are You Craving a Nutritious Food? When I check in with my body to see what I am actually craving, I often realize that what I really want is something nutritious, something of substance, especially when I am working hard and utilizing the nutrition my body is getting from my diet.

This craving also happens when I travel and my routine of eating home-cooked food becomes unavailable. At these times, I long for plain vegetables and simple foods. Non-Food Cravings Sometimes we also crave food for emotional reasons. Maybe we are looking for excitement in our lives or looking for comfort after a stressful situation.

This nourishment is a kind of emotional feeding. Are You Craving Entertainment? We often use food to distract us from boredom. If you are bored, try to deal with the issue directly rather than distracting yourself by snacking and munching to fill time.

Boredom is a challenge to be more creative with your life. The prime example of this craving is at work. Many people snack or eat just to take a break from staring at the computer. The next time this happens, try taking a walk around the block with a coworker. Or close your office door and stretch for five minutes. Are You Craving a Hug? One of the biggest problems with diets today is that people attribute their cravings to appetite and hunger, when these cries are usually from another part of their being that is starving.

These cravings have nothing to do with physical nutrition. They are for love, affection and fulfillment. Food can fill you, but not fulfill you. Touch is an important part of the human experience. Try it with your friends, your kids, your sisters or brothers or whomever you are close with in your life.

Are You Craving Movement? Stress, hard work and lots of thinking create tension in the body, which can lead to chronic aches, tightness and constipation. Many people try to alleviate these symptoms with alcohol and sugar, which only serve to dampen their unease and anesthetize the body. Exercise is an ideal way of releasing a buildup of physical tension. Developing a regular exercise program to suit your particular body type and lifestyle will have numerous rewards.

Start small. Go out for a walk or check out a gentle yoga or karate class. Listen to your body about what kind of movement it desires. Once we free ourselves from extreme foods, the healing mechanisms of the body can be harnessed to overcome our deeper physical and emotional issues.

When people learn how to deconstruct their cravings, they can reclaim the sense of balance and bodily harmony that they were haphazardly seeking through indulgence or willpower. Our bodies are like crying babies. Did it hurt itself, not get enough sleep or wet its diaper? Is it teething or does it have allergies? The mother goes through a process of elimination until she finds the real problem.

If we acknowledge and accept our cravings, they will point us toward the foods and lifestyles we need. For example, if you have a headache, try to figure out what caused it before taking an aspirin. Did you work too much in front of the computer yesterday?

Did you not drink enough water? Did you drink too much wine at a party? Did you sleep with the window closed and deprive yourself of oxygen? We can, and must, develop dialogue with our bodies. And please remember, your body loves you.

It does everything it can to keep you alive and functioning. You can feed it garbage, and it will digest it for you and turn it into energy to fuel your life. You can deprive it of sleep, but still it will get you up and running the next morning. You can drink too much alcohol, and it will process it through your system. It loves you unconditionally and does its best to allow you to live the life you came here to live. The real issue in this relationship is not whether your body loves you, but whether you love your body.

Working to understand your cravings is one of the best places to begin to build a mutually loving relationship with your own body. Exercises 1. Craving Inventory For one week, keep a journal of every food you crave each day. Rate the craving on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the strongest level of desire. Write down your thoughts next to each entry on how that craving is a response to an imbalance somewhere in your diet or life. Craving rating: Time of craving: Type of craving: Thoughts:.

Dearest Body of Mine Write a letter to your body, announcing your intention to listen more carefully to its messages and to act in a more loving way toward it. The following list of suggestions may be helpful to include, but be sure to make your letter personal to your own body.

Set a specific period of time aside when you can sit quietly by yourself, undisturbed and in pleasant surroundings, and then begin to write. It is sometimes helpful to come back to your letter after a day or two, review the contents and make additions or subtractions. Write from your heart, as well as from your mind. The food we take into our mouth goes into our stomach, where it gets digested and eventually assimilated into the bloodstream. Our blood is what creates our cells, our tissues, our organs, our skin, our hair, our brains and even our thoughts and feelings.

We are, at our most basic level, walking food. Learning to cook high-quality foods for yourself and those you love changes everything. The three most important aspects of cooking are that the food be homemade, freshly made and lovingly made. I get up, make some quinoa and vegetables and a cup of tea.

The food itself is often very flamboyant with lots of salt and flavoring. I love eating out on occasion, but the environment can be very hectic. If I was at home and 30 people were moving around and talking in my kitchen, I would freak out. I long for my simple routine and making food on my own time. Homemade Cooking nourishes our bodies on a variety of levels. When we put our own energy into the food, we ultimately put that energy back into ourselves.

When we cook, we have control over the quality and quantity of ingredients we are eating. When we are in a restaurant, we relinquish that control. We do not know where the food came from, how much salt or spices were added, what kind of oil was used, or the health and cleanliness of the various people who touched our food along the way.

By cooking our own food, we ultimately create more love for ourselves, more love for our lives, and therefore, more health. As we have evolved from living together in tribal societies to living together in our extended families and living in nuclear families, meals have mostly been eaten together in groups.

Not long ago, dinner was at 6 p. Mom made the meal, and the rest of the family members would all come home from work or school, and sit around the table together. The food would be served and everyone would eat while talking about the various events of the day.

This ritual bonded people, and the family that ate together stayed together. Today everything has changed. People increasingly eat most of their meals out, in restaurants, delis, fast-food chains or snacking along the way. Home is often like a hotel, serving only as a place for people to sleep at night. Parents, teenagers and children wake up at different times, go in different directions, eat separately and have little communication throughout the day.

This schedule creates distance in family relationships, and the lack of quality, home-cooked food leads to a deficiency of primary nourishment. It is important to recognize how traditional, motherly nourishment supports the whole family.

It keeps everyone healthy and happy in many ways. I am not suggesting that women go back to the typical role of homemaker, but I am a big believer in people eating homemade food as often as possible.

When families are dealing with two careers, longer working hours and children with multiple extracurricular activities, it is unrealistic and unfair for the woman to be responsible for feeding the entire family. Men and children can also participate in shopping, preparing, cooking and cleaning. Just as sitting and eating together strengthens family bonds, so too can preparing a delicious meal together.

Children can wash and peel vegetables, set and clear the table, and when they get older even help chop and cook. A good policy in the kitchen is that whoever cooks is free from doing the dishes. Each household will be different, so please find a routine and system that works for yours.

The platter has so much energy that the whole restaurant turns around to see what is happening. Getting produce from farm to table is a complicated business. In chapter 3, I talked about food miles, or the distance food travels to get to your plate. Many restaurants have moved to work closer with local farms to create farm-to-table or farm-to-fork restaurants.

These restaurants locally source produce, meats and seafood and put a bigger emphasis on fresh, slowly cooked foods, prepared simply. Some even grow herbs and produce in the backyard or on the roof of their restaurants.

Because of practical convenience, we often eat food that has been canned, frozen, sitting in a freezer or made hours earlier. These foods are also a great transition for people looking to add more vegetables into their diets. In countries where fresh food has traditionally been valued, many people go shopping and cook vegetables on the same day.

Most modern consumers. Wherever you live, I would like to point you in the direction of your local farmers. In the U. Another way to have regular access to fresh, local food is to join a Community Supported Agriculture group.

A CSA is when a group of people pledges to support a nearby farm in an economic partnership. The farm share model began in the s in Europe and Japan in response to the rise of imported foods and urbanization of farmland. Members also share in the risks of farming, including poor harvests from unfavorable weather or pests.

Through this partnership, farmers receive better prices for their crops and gain some financial security. More than 12, CSA farms are in America today. Invisible forces are at work, and they have an alchemical effect on the food itself. It tastes differently. It feels differently in the body.

It affects us differently. Foods made by someone you love contain a vital nutrient, something I call vitamin L, for love.

Food that is cooked by someone who loves you, who is happy to be cooking and nourishing you, can be some of the best tasting. The energy of love is passed into the food and nourishes you in ways that go beyond micronutrients. Have you ever been in a restaurant kitchen? It has a lot of crazy energy.

Having been in the restaurant business, I know there are huge discrepancies between what goes on in the front and the back. In the front, everyone is nicey, nicey. In the back, people are throwing knives. The people preparing most restaurant food are underpaid kitchen workers, living on minimum wage without basic health- care.

This fact alone is bound to make the quality of the food we eat at restaurants very different from that of home-cooked food. In addition to the hectic energy, restaurant managers and cooks are pressured into reducing costs, maximizing profits and getting food out on a very tight timeline. Their priority is to sell food, not to promote your health. Just remember that eating out every night of the week can have an impact on your health.

I feel privileged that I can make food at home that is so much better than restaurant food. You might simply wash your hands, put on an apron or take a moment to close your eyes, take a breath in and set an intention for the meal you are about to create.

You may also want to light a candle or put on some gentle music—anything that helps you be more present. The last few minutes of cooking are usually the most stressful. Everything has to be done at the same time: final flavoring, transferring from cooking pot to serving dish, getting the dining area ready. Here are a couple of suggestions:.

Pour yourself a glass of water and drink it slowly, to help you calm down and rehydrate. Cooks tend to become very tight—contracted and single-focused—and this simple act of drinking water helps ease you into a mellow, relaxed state of mind. Serve yourself a small portion first and take a moment to smell the food and appreciate your gift of love through food. Someone actually took the time to prepare a meal for me. By following the natural harvest of fruits and vegetables, we can strengthen our connection to our surroundings.

Cooking with locally grown produce is a great way to honor the natural environment in which you live. It helps you feel more at home where you are, and supports your body in adapting to changes in season. Of course, seasons are different throughout the world, but start to notice how you feel during each season and what kind of foods make you feel the best.

When the weather starts to cool, I look for more hardy vegetables and whole grains. In the coldest months, I eat protein and fat to help my body stay warm, and as the weather warms again, I eat more greens to help lighten my body. This new position allowed me to have a direct relationship with my customers and proved to be invaluable. My life was incredibly out of balance in a number of ways.

I was overweight, lacking proper exercise, inconsistent with my diet, and missing deep connections with friends and family. I was in a funk and looking for a way out of it. A great friend approached me and offered a free health consultation. She was enrolled at Integrative Nutrition and was very motivated to help me out. Instantly, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel and enrolled.

My life began to click, and I was finally figuring out how to love myself and take my health to new heights. By the time I actually began the program, I was nearly 25 pounds lighter and began living the life I was truly meant to live. I had taken up running, and within 6 months, I completed my first marathon. Just a few years later, I would go on to complete a mile race in Vermont. The ability to share with others allowed me to open up and express my true self.

IIN helped me to find my passion in leading classes and workshops. Through my teachings, I have stressed the idea that we are all unique, and we require different foods for different times in our lives. Learning so many dietary theories has allowed me to improve my work with clients and support them in achieving their goals.

Since graduating, I have led several workshops around the country, and most recently conducted demonstrations at events hosting over people. The idea of finding balance is what has resonated with me the most from my training at Integrative Nutrition.

True health is measured from happiness in all areas of life. I appreciate Joshua and all the staff at Integrative Nutrition for stressing that. Eating foods out of season can make you more susceptible to colds, flu and other illnesses. You can also adjust your cooking methods for the time of year. During the colder months, put more heat into your food and cook your food longer. Try roasting, baking, using a Crock-Pot and making stews to keep warm. When springtime comes, allow your food preparation to become a little simpler.

Or notice how your body naturally craves more fruit, salad and lighter foods during warmer months. You may also want to consider how your lifestyle reflects seasonal changes. In the spring months, people feel refreshed, get their gardens going, start new projects or pursue new romantic interests.

With fall, children return to school and people get into a kind of organizing mode. People tend to become very busy in September and October, running around, getting ready for winter.

I notice during the fall that many animals also scurry around in preparation for winter. Until recently, humans did the same thing, scurrying to see if we had enough food or wood to keep us warm. No one has alerted our DNA that we now have heating in our homes or that we can drive to the store anytime we need food; we are preprogrammed to act this way. We still tap into our ancestral, cellular memories of the harvest season.

All that preparation comes to a head with an extended holiday season that lasts from the end of October through the beginning of January. Come Halloween, children scour the neighborhood and gather as much candy as they possibly can. Next come the holidays, and our actions fall out of pace, as we engage in the extreme sports of holiday shopping, partying and eating. At Thanksgiving, Americans nationwide congregate and overeat.

The next day everyone complains about how stuffed they are and goes shopping. Other countries have your version of this cycle at this time of the year and others. In North America, all this partying is happening when the normal, natural rhythms of life—colder weather, darker evenings, the end of the growing season—indicate this is the right time to turn inward. Humans are mammals, and mammals have a tendency to hibernate during the winter.

They are not really sleeping; they are in a kind of battery saving mode, a state not unlike meditation. But, oddly, Americans do the opposite. Instead of going inward, slowing down and replenishing our energy for springtime, society is set up to keep us burning the candle at both ends.

Then, in January and February, people feel exhausted and depressed, and the country has a widespread outbreak of colds and flu. Doctors have given a special name to the exhaustion and depression experienced during colder, darker months. If you have been diagnosed with SAD, I encourage you to go more slowly, respecting the seasons and eating and drinking more moderately. I also recommend finding ways to get more sunlight into your life at this time.

If you want to go to holiday parties, enjoy yourself, but be moderate with food and alcohol, and strive to get enough down time. If you are ready to enroll at the school today, please contact me and I will make a personal introduction for you! Contact me or email me privately sarahkay at agutsygirl. Thank you for the idea. Unfortunately, at this time, I cannot offer that for free as I simply do not have the bandwidth. My site is stocked with free information on unprocessed living, though! Your email address will not be published.

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