July 01, 2008
A monthly ezine brought to you by Petro Janse van Vuuren, changing your life with healthier eating choices
In this edition:
- Personal update: Daniel is sleeping through!
- Monthly Maxim: Vary your Grains
- Feature article: How healthy minded are you really?
- Recipes: Cashew kisses
- Business Bite
1. Personal update:
Biggest news this month is that baby Daniel is sleeping through the night without feeding 4 or 5 times a night. Thanks to my friend Kathryn that put me onto the baby whisperer.The rest of us are doing well too. Gerhi’s first novel is about to reach first draft status, I am loving my research and Benjamin is enjoying playschool. Our biggest challenge remains balancing home life and work life without losing ourselves in the middle.
Contact us with your own update. We love to hear from our friends and supporters
2. Monthly Maxim: Vary your Grains
Grains: Vary the grains in your diet: no more than one wheat source daily (less if possible).Health problems related to wheat and gluten have arisen from the alteration of the chromosome structure of wheat for the intensive cultivation methods of modern agriculture.
- Eat potatoes rather than pasta,
- Rice cakes rather than wheat crackers (or use them instead of teething biscuits for babies),
- Rye bread instead of regular,
- Cooked porridges instead of cereals.
Join me on the Raw Food pluck and eat mostly sprouted grains and seeds. Talk about oomph! If this is going too far for you, consider supplementing your diet with grain oil concentrates.
If you eat a lot of bread and pasta and even if you don't but most of your grains are cooked, chances are you lack the oils that feed your cell membranes. This means your cells cannot take up nutrients and get rid of waste. Your cells will feel tired and sluggish and so will you. If this is your condition, CONTACT ME and we can talk about the best way for you to get whole grains.
I do not want to burst your bubble, but buying wholegrain bread or cooking whole grains like brown rice, sorgum or oats is not the answer. Most oils have been destroyed by the heat of baking and cooking. You need them raw and neat. Unless you eat lots of raw nuts and seeds,, CONTACT ME to talk about how we can get the energy back into your life, the bounce back into your step. Look at this month's featured recipe for an absolutely delicious raw nut and seed snack.
Read about all 12 Principles here
3. Feature article: How healthy minded are you really?
How healthy minded are you? Assess your own position on the food-slide.If you are unfamiliar with my metaphor of the food-slide, let me summarise: Staying healthy is like a kid on a playground who fights gravity by running up the slide. It is hard because the slide is designed to take you down, but fighting it and reaching the top is a challenge and an accomplishment. Then sliding down is both the reward for making it and the incentive to go back up.
Similarly, bad eating habits and commercial manipulation is like gravity always pulling us down. To get healthy and stay that way we have to fight it constantly, or we will slip and slide along. Yet the fight does not have to be a bloody battle, it can be a challenge resulting in feelings of accomplishment and success. The slide is there to challenge, but also to enjoy a brief ride and then motivate you to go back up against gravity.
More on how the food-slide works in your life
What I want to do here is help you assess where you are on the food-slide. How far down are you? How far up have you come? What are the pitfalls you need to watch out frpr? In my view there are 5 kinds of people on the food-slide:
- Super sliders
- Turning tinkerers
- Halfway hoverers
- Topside troopers and
- Sliding saints.
Each of these describes a particular attitude and level of awareness, but does not necessarily go with a specific diet. Furthermore, none of these sliding styles are passive. They are not positions on the slide, but rather relates to a group of activities that centre on a section of the slide. You will see what I mean as I begin to explain.
Super Sliders
Super sliders are generally too busy with the rest of the jungle gym and its activities to worry or pay much attention to the slide unless it is time to go down, then whee! They jump on it and enjoy the ride down. These are people who have very busy lives and eating is either just a necessity or a form of down time, entertainment even. They do not spend time thinking about food until it is time to eat then they take the quickest and easiest route: take out, processed prepackaged easy to heat in the micro-wave food or, when it is time to have friends over, indulge in a big braai (BBQ), or do the roast thing with sauces, crispy baked potatoes, sweet pumkin and creamed spinach. Perhaps you like to have an indulgent pasta dish with lots of cream and cheese. What ever the choice it is usually used as a good excuse not to do the healthy thing: you are treating yourself, your family and your friends.For Super Sliders food is all about either an irritating, time consuming necessity, or an excuse to let their hair down and treat themselves. The place on the slide where they spend most of their time is at the bottom sometimes feeling satisfied (letting out a huge burp) but more often than not feeling overindulged, uncomfortable and guilty. The ride down was wonderful and exhilirating, but very very brief. When they get up from the dirt, they rush off to their life full of its activity and busy-ness. Super Sliders respond to health conscious folk with typical disdain. Such people do not know how to enjoy themselves, they are dampers on the spirits of those who love life. So loving life means working your but off to deserve the chocolates, chips and steaks you reward yourself with? Enjoying life means holding out for those moments when you can let go and eat yourself into 'heaven'? The excuses Super Sliders dish up for their behaviour usually sound something like this: I am too busy to worry about what I eat. I would rather live a short life full of the good things (over eating, smoking, drinking) than a long drab life crunching on carrots and denying myself enjoyment. Sounds familiar? Not quite? Read on.
Turning Tinkerers
Perhaps you find that you often end up at the bottom of the slide after a meal contemplating how you could get healthier. You turn around a little and think about what you have just eaten and wonder how you can do it differently next time. Perhaps you wil try brown bread or even seed loaf next for your sandwich. Perhaps you will have the baked potato or side salad next instead of the fries. Maybe you should switch to decaf, or sugar free or reduced fat?Chances are you have tried some alternatives already. Some of you may may even have been more ambitious like trying out some weight loss diet for a short period of time. Perhaps you have had to cut out dairy for health reasons, or wheat, or sugar. What ever the thing you tried, your attitude remained that of someone who is trying it out, who is experimenting for a time. You are tinkering with the idea. If you made a big change, perhaps it did not last very long. Perhaps you have made a few small changes that did stick. Typically, though, Turning Tinkerers keep turning. They tinker with healthier ideas and choices and then turn back to their lives and begin to slide again. Then they stop and turn to look up the slide, take a step or two and turn again to go down and on with life as usual. The reason for this is that the change is too hard to perpetuate, or they do not feel up to the challenge.
The attitude here is one of desire to do better, but not knowing how. It is too hard, or perhaps you do not feel you know enough to make good decisions. Perhaps the habits are too strong or your lifestyle not flexible enough. Make no mistake, the forces of gravity that work on pulling us down are very powerful and takes time and effort to overcome. Turning Tinkerers often spend time at the bottom of the slide feeling overwhelmed and defeated. If you see yourself here, I want to commend you on being honest enough with yourself to know that you should do something about it.
Your next step will be to find help either in the form of information, or in the form of a plan, or a support system that can help you make the life style changes. You need to get to a point where you stop turning round and round. You are just getting dizzy. Look up the slide for a while and start plotting your course up it. Imagine how wonderful it would be to conquer it! Read on if you feel you have already come a long way, or if you want to see where to go from here.
Halfway Hoverer
This term describes those of you who have come a long way already. Most typical of this group, is that these are people who have had an experience that have changed their outlook on health. Perhaps they got children and realized their responsibility. Perhaps they had to overcome an allergy or an illness for themselves or a family member – like diabetes, eczema, or even cancer. Maybe they just went to a good health talk and became convinced by the new information they received. For some Halfway Hoverers the change was not a drastic one, but over time they have worked themselves up the slide and have settled into a more or less healthy eating pattern. Many of them come out of homes where they were taught good habits and they are simply perpetuating these in their adulthood. Another typical characteristic of this group is that they allow themselves to be led by media messages about their food. They will choose 'reduced fat' over 'original' or notice when something says 'preservative free' or 'no added sugar'. They are more conscious of their choices, but do not really take time to research or find out more after the original change. This means that Halfway Hoverers are easy pray for media messages and may find themselves sliding down unknowingly and one day find themselves very low down on the slide and needing new inspiration to work themselves back up. The Halfway Hoverer will look at people with more zest for health with understanding yet with a twinge of pity: "Shame, they don’t know when to stop". They generally feel pleased with their own progress and comfortable with their level of understanding. The biggest challenge for this group is to have to look at their eating habits again and make more changes. They have already done enough, why should they do more? Answer: if you do not keep fighting, you are sliding down. If you see yourself here, you are right to commend yourself for your progress. I too want to congratulate you. Whatever your reasons, I know it was not easy, so good on you. Still, don’t let your guard down. Want to know what the next step should be?Topside Trooper
When you think of a trooper, something military comes to mind. There is a sense of order, of regiment and of rule. This is the same with Topside Troopers. They usually work according to a plan and a specific set of principles that guide their choices (guilty as charged). Troopers know what is good and bad and will share it with anyone who cares to listen. They will research and learn and read more. They will spend time thinking about food, planning and making their own. They make lists, read labels, plan meals and mostly cook their own food from scratch. They know that media messages are confusing and they often get angry and rebellious about the junk on our shop shelves. They are passionate to teach their kids and their society and they often come across as being a little judgmental. In truth they really just have their focus on the top of the slide. That is why I call them 'Topside' Troopers. It is not that they are always at the top, but their attention is. While they are passionate and opinionated, they feel the sting of those who think they are going too far, who feel they are withholding treats from their children and ruling their house holds with iron fists. They fight against the evil forces of the media and bad habits with zeal and fervour, but know how hard it is when you are tired from work and have to cook a meal from scratch. Luckily topside troopers are also resourceful and very creative full of alternative ideas and ways to make health easier and cheaper. Without Topside Troopers no-one could get to sainthood. They are the ones who lead the way and find new routes for hoverers and tinkerers to follow and try out. If you are a trooper, keep it up! "Hou koers en voorwaarts mars!" (Stick to the course and keep marching) Sainthood is not far off.Sliding Saint
The long and short of the attitude of Sliding Saints is that they know how wretched they are themselves while at the same time never giving up the yearning and striving for holiness. While all the other styles of being on the food-slide have their active word in the second part of the phrase e.g. Hoverers hover, Tinkerers tinker, but this last style has the activity in the first part: Saints slide. They do not stay at the top of the slide looking down on the poor wretches at the lower end or the hopeful troopers who are making their way upward. They often slide down themselves and have to call in all their reinforcements to get back up. Often the slide is planned and done with full awareness of its consequences and can therefore be thoroughly enjoyed, other times the ride is more like a backslide, an unfortunate giving in to an old habit, but always it is with awareness.Sliding Saints are therefore humble about their own accomplishments, compassionate with their fellow sliders and aware of the difficulties. Yet, they are saints because they have mastered the food-slide by getting to know it, learning about its temptations and alluring promises and being mindful of its disappointments. They also know how to get back in control after a backslide and can guide others up it with them. Most notably, they can make the choice to slide with an informed opinion and calculated risk. Sliding Saints also understand the link between food and love. They know that Grandmother’s deep fried sugar dumplings are more wholesome than fresh organic fruit salad made without love. When Sliding Saints cook, they do it with love and if they break some of the 'nutrition rules' that Troopers enforce, they do it because applying the rule in a certain context could hurt someone in some way. If you are a Trooper and have to compromise on your principles because you take someone else’s journey into account, relax, you are doing a Saintly thing. Saints know that there is an entire jungle gym out there and that there are other ways to rise to conciousness than the slide such as gum pole steps and rope ladders. But Saints, just when you congratulate yourself for making it, you slip down the slide and find yourself hovering, thinking you have done enough. This is another aspect in which the Saintly style keeps sliding. It is illusive and awaits only those who keep increasing their level of awareness concerning the lures and challenges of the food-slide. And if you keep increasing your love and compassion with yourself and others on the slide, holiness is round the corner. In closing, few of us always just operate in one of the styles. All of us have aspects of the whole range in us. Most of us, however, wil gravitate more towards one than towards the others. You may even find yourself caught between two styles. We are dynamic beings always changing and growing. Also, the slide is but one of the thrills of the jungle gym. There are many others and sometimes one of them holds our attention captive for a while and the slide takes second or third place. Still we all have to eat and so we all have some relationship with the slide. Below is a short summary of the activities, attitudes, levels of awareness and pitfalls of each style. Make sure you know where you are and what to look out for.
4. Recipes:
I attended a lunchbox ideas demonstration last Tuesday by Bev Wium. She is a Natural Way nutritional consultant and mom of two grown kids. I plan to do a full length article on 'The Natural Way' soon. It is one of the most influential lifestyle plans on my own eating habbits. Bev had great lunchbox treat ideas and I chose this one for you. It is absolutely heavenly. This one will make the friends envious.Cashew Kisses
- 2 cups raw cashew nuts
- 2 Tbs Raw tahini
- 200g carob chunks (availible at most health shops or health sections of supermarkets. Look out for the tell tale red packaging of the Mary-Ann Shearer range.
Do you have your own favourite and healthy family recipe? The one recipe you cannot do without? I would like to hear about your recipe. Share your recipe with me and if I like it I will add it to my site. I wil try your recipe out of course and add my own comments on what I like. Share your recipe with the form here
5. Business Bite:
We find the 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing very interesting. Here's a link if you want to take a look yourself:Free ebook - the 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing
It exposes all the myths and bad practices that cause the majority of mlmers to fail in their business. But we think it would be insightful reading for anybody in any businesss. Greetings,
Petro Janse van Vuuren
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