At my retreats I hold a lecture that I call “The Philosophy of Food as Medicine” – which sounds pretty intense – but what it actually is about, is a celebration of all that wholefood has to offer.
One of the key concepts that I love to teach, is about abundance, about embracing the abundance available in life and filling ourselves up so that we are overflowing and able to share our abundance with others. Whether that be an abundance of food, health, love, happiness, success, finances, fun or all of the above – we cannot give what we do not have, so creating an abundance in all of those areas and more, is a beautiful gift we can give ourselves and others.
An area that I love to talk about is the area of our relationship towards food. How in our society we have an abundance of good quality, healthful, organic foods at our fingertips, yet so often we choose dieting and restriction, or choose to eat junk food or fake food. I believe that our relationship with food can be a metaphor for our relationship with life, and that if we see food as an abundant life-sustaining source from nature, then we will create an attitude of abundance and of feeling supported by life, that flows into other areas.
At the retreats, the guests participate in a five day juice fast, and quite often their friends and family have said something to them about their choice to “starve themselves” or “deprive” themselves of food. So in my first lecture on detoxification, I make a comparison that shows how false some of our concepts around food can be. During the retreat we consume the most incredible vegetable juices, which are freshly prepared at the retreat, four times a day. They are dense in nutrition, organic and prepared with love. Thought goes into each and every ingredient , not just for the medicinal or healthful properties it brings, but also for the balance of flavours and tastes, which our chef Cat from WildRaw does so beautifully. Along with these juices, we have highly nutritious superfood supplements that give massive nutrition such as chlorella and a fermented probiotic powder. So although we are not “eating” we are saturating ourselves with incredible nutrition.
Compare that to someone who had for breakfast this morning – white bread, toasted, and spread with margarine, and a cup of tea with skim milk and two sugars. Many people may eat that sort of diet and call that “normal” – however I would argue that these people are “starving themselves” and are “deprived”. There is no nutritional content in that breakfast, and there is no way that they can function optimally, feel energetic or heal their body on that breakfast.
There is no comparision! We may not be “eating”, but we are satisfying our nutritional needs, and then some. Of course a juice fast is not a permanent dietary lifestyle, but opening our minds to the abundance of nutrition we are saturating ourselves with in our juices, takes away the thought that we are being starved or deprived. The body recognises that it is getting massive nutrition, and switches off our hunger, using the abundance of nutrients to clean house and initiate a healing process. It is incredible to witness and to be a part of.
Have you participated in a juice fast or detox? How did you feel whilst juicing? Do you hold limiting beliefs about food? Or have a restricted or poor relationship with food? Can you see how an attitude of abundance can flow through your whole life, including the way you view whole food and nutrition?
Leisa
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Gosh your comparison breakfast above Leisa took me back to my previous eating habits. I used to consume 2 pieces of white ‘wonder’ bread with marg & vegemite accompanied with a cup of earl grey tea and conventional milk. I completely forgot that used to be my world for about 34 years, it brought back memories!
For me, I feel I was and still am to a degree so emotionally connected to food as it was conditioned to me from very young. The conventional breakfasts of today are loaded with chemicals and artificial colours, flavourings etc… Yet I was fed foods from a baby with all those ingredients in them. I was fed baby food from a can/jar, bottle fed with formula etc… so was very indoctrinated very early in life to accept the accepted and conventional foods of today as normal.
Now my life is very different, we as a family embrace whole foods & raw living foods for which we truly value and benefit from. We have done several fasts and detox protocols to assist with the removal of accumulated toxins in our body, for us it is an ongoing process that we embrace. The wonderful side effect of fasting is that it allows those suppressed feelings/emotions to surface so we can actually feel them and let them go, what a wonderful opportunity.
Like you Leisa, we have experienced both sides of eating – ‘conscious’ and the ‘unconscious world’. We will never go back to our previous way of eating, it is a ‘not negotiable’ for us as this world feels amazing.
Warmly Shaz x
Juice fasting is an excellent way to clean and purify your body. I usually fast several times a year to clean the toxins out of my system. I’m getting ready to begin a 3 day toxic relief juice fast in a few days.
I’ve never don a 5 day fast. How does it compare to a 3 day fast?
Hi James,
Good on you for getting into juicing! It is a great way to cleanse the system! Three days for me, would be the absolute minimum of time to juice fast – five days is very easy to do – quite likely you already find yourself after three days, thinking that you could go longer with no trouble. One of the things I got taught, was to continue juicing until you received a very strong hunger signal. And then you gently break the fast. For me, this quite often occurs on Day 14 of a juice fast, and the urge to eat is unmistakeable, so that could be something to consider. Of course, I have to put a disclaimer here that you check with your medical practitioner before embarking on a longer juice fast 🙂 🙂
Leisa
You pretty much summed up the main thing in this post. Herbs and foods and fruits are a powerful healer , one needs to study. Nice post.