Diet

There is not a perfect diet for everyone. Humans, while similar in many ways, are each unique. A diet that one person may thrive on may not work at all for someone else. Never forget this! Also, the optimal diet for you at certain points in your life may differ.

However, here are some guidelines I think are universally true.

1. Whole foods are more wholesome. God knows best. Man-made, or refined, foods are almost always unhealthy.

2. Use the test of time as a guideline. Unfortunately, there are many conflicting ideas, even "scientific" studies about what makes for a healthy diet. Often, these are motivated by financial considerations. Studies can be rigged, especially when billions of dollars are at stake. People are fallible. What cannot be rigged is what has nourished millions of people for thousands of years. So, if people thrived on certain foods for all that time, they must be good. If they are foods recently (say the last 100 years) adopted, then they may not be that good. (This would include the use of refined vegetable oils, for example.)

Helping me begin to understand this was the Weston A. Price Foundation and the book by Sally Fallon called Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats. I also highly recommend Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, a book by Weston A. Price that offers vital and timeless information gleaned from examining healthy groups of people.

3. Fresh foods are best. All forms of preserving food cause nutrient loss.

4. Live foods promote life, possibly because of the enzymes they contain. Many people have found that unheated foods have brought them improved health. (This is not to say that everyone should always eat all raw food. Only that for health improvement, it should be considered as at least part of your diet.)

There are many who advocate a vegan, raw food diet for health, such as Dr. Lorraine Day and Dr. Richard Schulze. (I have great respect for both of these people, and believe they have much to offer people -- especially those deemed "incurable" by the medical profession.) Many have been healed of major diseases on a raw vegan diet, but for long term health that does not seem to be a good option for the vast majority of people. (I think it is best used, by most people, only as a short-term approach to cleanse and heal the body.)

Some have had phenomenal results using raw animal food in curing diseases. This includes un-pasteurized dairy products, unheated and unfiltered honey, as well as eggs, fish, and meat. To find out more, there are three discussion groups on this subject at YAHOO! Groups: live-food primaldiet native-nutrition There is also a book called We Want to Live by Aajonus Vonderplanitz, which gives more details. (He also recommends using green vegetable juices, as do many others.)

5. Eating a variety of different foods is usually best. God put different nutrients in different foods, so including a variety of food is more likely to insure you get all the nutrients that you need.

Many people give their guidelines on what makes for a healthy diet. Here is one I currently mostly agree with.