Pillar One: Diet & Nutrition

Diet and Nutrition

If you were to ask me what has been the biggest change in my life since entering naturopathic school I would have to say it has been what I eat.  Over the course of the last few years I have gone from eating fast foods, frozen/processed dinners to eating real foods.   Prior to school, I did at some point stop buying frozen and processed food from chain grocery stores and started buying the frozen and processed foods from local/organic stores; but I was still buying processed foods. Prior to entering school, I counted calories.  In my mind all calories were created equally and as long as I stayed within a certain number each day my weight would not fluctuate and I considered myself living a healthy lifestyle.  Eating frozen-packaged-processed food made it easy to count calories. The calories are written right there on the package.  Easy!!!  I quickly learned in school that not all calories are the same.  Not all food is the same.  AND, with some of the stuff I was eating-could it even be considered food?  I switched from worrying about calories to concentrating on nutrient dense foods and cutting out artificial chemicals from my diet. Making these changes was not easy.  It meant I had to really learn to cook.  I had to plan ahead to determine what I had time to cook depending on my schedule for the day.  I learned to love my crock pot.  I learned to love shopping on the outer ring of the grocery store, buying organic fruits and vegetables and grass-fed meats, going to the grocery store more often, visiting the local farmers' market and embracing that I was now truly nourishing my family and myself.  By changing my diet, my energy level increased, my joints were less achy, I felt stronger and more vital. What I learned most about food in school is that food is medicine... Good quality real food can heal the body!! 

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” 

― Hippocrates

Interested in learning more about the benefits of eating real

 foods, I highly recommend the following books:

&  Real Food:  Nina Planck

&  Deep Nutrition:  Catherine Shanahan, M.D.

&  Food Rules:  Catherine Shanahan, M.D.

&  Primal Body, Primal Mind:  Nora T. Gedgaudas, CNS

Many people have asked me if I recommend a certain diet.

My answer is "no."  I believe that each individual is unique. 

Depending on his/her healing and wellness goals determines 

the food necessities.  What I will say is regardless of what

diet someone chooses or needs it always starts with 

REAL FOODS!!