© UPDATED APRIL 2, 2011, The Center for Development.
This article introduces the major elements of a nutritional balancing program. They form a system that, when done correctly in combination, has a powerful healing effect on most physical, as well as many mental and emotional conditions. Our experience is this will allow most people to achieve a level of health far above what many believe is possible.
The following is a basic healthful diet, in my view. If you elect to follow a more complete program based on a hair mineral analysis, this diet will be adjusted somewhat. However, the suggestions below are the most important in most cases.
Fill two-thirds of your plate or more! with cooked vegetables at least twice every day. Seventy to eighty percent of your diet should be cooked vegetables, not raw ones.
Vegetables provide many nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, amino acids and fiber. They also increase the alkalinity of the body more than any other food group. This is important today because the balance of the pH is a factor in healing. Do not try to alkalinize the body with a water machine, however. These are not safe, in my experience, no matter what the sales people contend. They usually use tap water and may contain toxic metals. The best vegetables are:
These include carrots, onion, garlic, ginger, rutabaga, turnips and celery root, and to a lesser degree beets, yams and sweet potatoes.
Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower are also excellent.
Greens such as kale, spinach, mustard greens, beet greens and Swiss chard are also very good.
Peas and green beans, both fresh and frozen, are also very good. A bag of frozen peas cooks in 6 minutes and makes an excellent, tasty and filling snack or even an entire meal.
Winter squashes (acorn, spaghetti and butternut squashes) or pumpkin are not quite as good, but okay a few times a week if you wish.
Avoid the nightshade vegetables, which are too yin and slightly toxic for regular consumption. They include tomatoes, white and red potatoes, eggplant and all peppers, such as sweet and hot peppers, and table pepper, which is usually rancid.
Others to avoid are most zucchini, summer squashes, okra, asparagus and cucumbers. These are all too yin as well. Otherwise, the vegetables, always cooked, are superb foods.
I know many people recommend raw vegetables. However, I find that people do not absorb enough minerals from raw foods, including salads. You can have a cooked vegetable salad if you prefer, but not a raw salad. Other problems with raw food are that it is too yin, and often unclean.
Eat Protein Twice Daily or even a little with each meal, if it helps you. Protein foods, especially those of animal quality, offer many nutrients including zinc, selenium, sulfur, many vitamins, essential amino acids, essential fatty acids and much more. Please do not follow a vegetarian diet for this reason.
Among the best protein foods are lamb, chicken, eggs, and turkey. Some wild game is very good. Beef is not quite as good, though naturally-raised, grass-fed beef is okay once a week or less.
Soft-cooked eggs are a wonderful and very inexpensive protein food. Most people can have eggs three times a week or more. Two eggs daily are good for most people. Be sure to cook eggs soft, with the yolk runny. This means either soft boil them for 3-4 minutes, or eat them poached or soft in some other way.
Raw dairy is an excellent food for most people, unless one is allergic to dairy. This can include goat or cows whole milk, plain yogurt, raw kefir or raw cheeses. Most pasteurized dairy products are not nearly as good and should be avoided. If you absolutely cannot find raw dairy, look for Mungalli Creek organic dairy products, though they are not as good as the raw ones. Goat products tend to be a little better than cow dairy, although not always. Go to www.realmilk.com to help find raw dairy products, or ask around in your town, as many towns have people who are bringing raw dairy in even if it is not yet legal.
This is the best fish because it is a very small fish and it contains vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids in abundance. Salmon once a week is okay.
Avoid all other fish and definitely avoid all shellfish or seafood. Most are contaminated with mercury. Wild caught fish are no better in most cases, though they are fed better.
Nuts and seeds are hard to digest and more yin, although they are nutritious. So limit them to once or twice weekly. Also, I suggest eating them as nut and seed butters for much better absorption. Nuts, in particular, are very yin in Chinese terminology. Some toasted almond butter, however, is good for most people.
Pork, ham and all pig products may contain parasitic infections, even if well-cooked. Also reduce beef, though some naturally raised beef is okay occasionally. Most beef cattle are very hybridized and less healthful. Avoid all processed meats and American cheese or "cheese food". Also avoid organ meats that are too toxic.
I much prefer whole foods to any type of powders or meal replacement drinks. With the whole egg or whole milk or cheese, you will generally get much more nutrition, at a lower price. Also, smoothie's require sweets in them, which are very bad, even fruit, honey or maple syrup.
Also, powdered drinks are poor food combinations that harm the intestines in some people, and they are much too yin in Chinese medical terms. Try to stick with whole, natural foods.
While these may be good foods, many people do not handle them well due to yeasts in the intestines and other intestinal difficulties. The best whole grains for most people are organic blue corn, as in the blue corn organic tortilla chips or blue corn tortillas. Others are brown rice, white Basmati rice, quinoa, and a little millet, amaranth or buckwheat.
Others, provided you don't have gluten sensitivity, include rye, oats, and barley. However, many people feel better without any gluten in their diet.
Avoid wheat and spelt in all forms. Wheat is a very hybridized food, like beef and some dairy today. As a result, wheat has become an unbalanced and inflammatory food. An important habit change is to avoid all foods made with wheat such as most breads, pastries, cakes, cookies, flour tortillas, hot and cold cereals, soups thickened with flour, and wheat pasta. Wheat pasta is less processed and a little better, but still best avoided. If you want pasta, use rice, or other non-wheat pasta.
Always cook grains thoroughly. Also, avoid granola, trail mix and muesli, which may not be well-cooked. Grains are best eaten freshly cooked, if possible. However, pasta made from corn, rice or quinoa, and organic blue or yellow corn chips are fine, as are blue or yellow corn tortillas.
These are extremely important foods, especially for fast oxidizers. Good sources of fats and oils are raw certified dairy products, good quality eggs, meats, some olive and other types of unrefined oils, and a little nut and seed butters.
Avoid most French fries and other deep fried foods, as the oil is often overheated and damaged.
Fruits, I find, are not good foods today. They are almost all hybrids that are too sweet, and they have less nutrition than most other natural foods. They are also very yin in Chinese medical terms. Fruits often upset the blood sugar level and very often contribute to intestinal diseases such as yeast infections. Also, while technically alkaline-forming, most people cannot utilize them properly and they acidify the body, at times.
Do your best to change your eating habits to avoid all fruit and sweets, perhaps with the exception of a few berries for desert on occasion, or a rare piece of apple or other juicy fruit in the summer during the fruit's season.
Avoid all dried fruit, fruit juices and tropical fruits such as citrus fruit, pineapple, mangos, bananas and others.
Also avoid all sugars, if possible. Do not substitute artificial sweeteners if possible. If you must, use a little stevia or xylitol as a sweetener. Less desirable is raw honey, agave syrup or pure maple syrup in tiny amounts as a sweetener.
Finding healthful water to drink is extremely important, in our experience. Only distilled or spring wate rmeets our standards of health, as these are cleanest and least processed. The next best water is usually carbon-filtered tap water. However, most tap water is contaminated with metals, chemicals and even residues of medical drugs.
Besides pure water, only mild teas hydrate the body perfectly. These include black or green tea, chamomile, hibiscus, mint, strawberry leaf and other mild herbal blends. Please do not add sweeteners to them, if at all possible.
Almost all adults need to drink three (3) quarts or more of water each and every day. An excellent habit is to drink up to 1 quart of healthful spring water upon arising in the morning.
Avoid all reverse osmosis water, such as "purified water", "drinking waters", and others. Avoid water machines such as alkaline water machines.
Also avoid alkaline water, and almost all "designer" or fancy waters sold in health food stores and elsewhere. Too often, these are made with reverse osmosis water or other types of water that do not hydrate the body as well.
Also avoid adding minerals to your water. In all cases, so far, this detracts from the overall quality of the water because water is a type of living food and randomly adding minerals to it damages the totality of the water, which is extremely complex.
Every adult needs to drink about 10-12 ounces of carrot juice daily, preferably away from a meal. If possible, wait 15 minutes after drinking it before eating a meal. One or two ounces of wheat grass juice is also fine as a substitute, but not all the time.
Avoid all fruit juice. Do not add fruit to carrot juice unless a child, perhaps, demands a little to accept the taste of carrot juice. Also avoid drinking more than 12 ounces of juice, as this is not needed in most cases, and can upset digestion.
One cup of coffee daily is fair, but okay if desired. A cup or two of tea daily is fine.
Avoid all soda pop, "energy drinks" and strong sweetened teas. Also avoid alcohol in all forms, as much as possible. An occasional small glass of wine or beer is okay once in a while, if desired, but not very good for one's health. Wine is often the most contaminated alcoholic beverage, as many pesticides are used on grapes.
Herbs and condiments. Use sea salt with your cooking. However, do not drink water with sea salt in it. Strictly avoid table salt, a very poor quality product.
Some nutritional yeast and rice polishings are excellent additions to any diet. Mustard is an excellent spice that can be added to many dishes.
Other good spices are cumin, turmeric, garlic, dill, rosemary, thyme, oregano, curry powder and many other mild herbs.
Avoid or use sparingly all medicinal herbs, especially those imported from Asia or Latin America. Sadly, Ayurvedic and Chinese herbs usually contain toxic metals and other toxic substances. Most herbal programs are not compatible with nutritional balancing science. We will suggest herbs that are safe.
Other foods and restaurants to avoid. Avoid most canned, boxed, refined, prepared and processed foods. Instead, make your own simple dishes. Restaurants are a problem, unless you know the food is made freshly and not laced with hundreds of chemicals. Chain restaurants are often the worst. Also avoid most frozen prepared meals, as most contain many chemical ingredients. Read labels if you are not sure.
Cooking. Preferably steam your food to cook it. Other good methods are stir-frying, crock pots, roasting, as in a barbeque, or baking vegetables or meats providing you do not overcook meats, in particular. Cook eggs lightly so the yolks are still runny. For example, soft boil eggs only 3-4 minutes, poach, loosely scramble, or fry them, but not so much that the yolks are hard. Only dairy products should be eaten raw.
Many doctors recommend raw salads. We do not, however. The reasons are 1) raw food is often contaminated with bacteria and parasites, 2) our bodies have difficulty extracting all the minerals from raw food, 3) raw foods are often cold and take more energy to digest, and 4) cooking concentrates many foods, allowing one to eat more vegetables. The exception is dairy products, which are best eaten raw, when you can find it. This is generally safe. Especially when dining out, avoid all raw food for reasons of cleanliness.
Eating Habits. Do not skip meals. Preferably, eat a meal every few hours if you have hypoglycemia. However, do not eat or snack all the time. Rest a few minutes before eating. Then sit down in a quiet place to eat. Eat slowly and chew thoroughly. Relax at least 10 minutes after eating before leaving the table or returning to your activities. Rotate your diet, eating the same food no more than every other day, if possible.
Avoid eating while driving, when upset, or in noisy places. Do not to drink a lot of liquid with meals. Drink up to 15 minutes before a meal or an hour or more afterwards. This prevents diluting your stomach and digestive juices with too much liquid.
Simplicity. The simplest food combinations are easiest on your digestion. If you can, be satisfied with a single food or two at a meal, as this is best. It also simplifies food preparation and cleanup.
Also, if possible, refrain from putting a lot of dressings, sauces, relishes, sweeteners and spices on your food. These, too, can upset a stressed digestive system. Human beings used to eat much simpler meals in earlier times, and their digestion was far better.
Certain foods and nutrients are so needed today that eating them almost automatically can extend your life and dramatically improve your health. That is how excellent they are.
These special foods today are sardines, raw unpasteurized dairy foods, and organic blue corn tortillas or organic blue corn chips. Others are most mustard, kelp and Hawaiian Jade sea salt.
The humble sardine is one of the best foods to eat on a regular basis. Sardines are extremely healthful for the following reasons:
The small size and short lifespan of the sardine means that it has much less opportunity to pick up mercury. Larger fish, even salmon, can concentrate mercury up to a million times more than sardines. Sardines are also usually wild-caught rather than farm-raised. Farmed fish are usually not fed quality feed.
Sardines are a wonderful source of all of these hard-to-find nutrients that everyone needs today.
The whole fish, and especially the skin, contains a lot of a very bioavailable form of selenium. This is an important mineral today for everyone that is very hard to find in our food supply.
The particular nutrient content of sardines, but not other fish or seafood, assists in the development of some higher brain centers. These brain ganglia greatly enhance the activity of the nervous system and brain. This is why I call it a developmental food. Sardines are generally far better than using drugs or herbs to enhance your brain power.
Fresh sardines are ideal, but the canned ones, any brand, are fine, as well. Check the expiration date for freshness. Adults may have three cans of sardines per week.
Organically grown blue corn is one of the finest foods for several reasons:
The most important is a highly available form of selenium, a critical mineral that is in short supply today. Most selenium in foods and supplements is not well utilized, such as that found in most meats, Brazil nuts, yeast and several other foods. Selenium in blue corn is far more available for most people.
These nutrients are also found in some bluish fruits, but the fruits are too yin. Cooked organic corn is much less yin.
Corn is much better tolerated than wheat, for example, which is a harmful food today as it is so hybridized and high in gluten and glutamine.
Some people do not like corn chips because they are made with refined vegetable oils. However, this can easily be balanced consuming extra omega-3 fatty acids in the form of sardines, or taking a supplement of fish oil, flax oil or hempseed oil. Other omega-3 fatty acids sources don't seem to work as well, or are toxic such as krill oil.
Some people react to corn, perhaps due to its rather high gylcemic index. It turns to sugar quickly in the body, upsetting the body a little and feeding yeast in some people. This sensitivity usually goes away quickly with a nutritional balancing program. If possible, have about 2-3 bags of organic blue corn chips or a package of organic blue corn tortillas weekly.
Ten to twelve ounces of either fresh or store-bought carrot juice daily, and less for children, is another excellent food item for most everyone. Don't go over 12 ounces daily in most cases, as carrot juice is extremely sugary and yin.
Carrot juice is extremely rich in a very bioavailable form of calcium. It is also high in many other nutrients. If you make it yourself, you may add a few spinach leaves, Swiss chard, beet greens, fresh ginger root, or other greens to the carrot juice. However, avoid adding any fruit at all to it. This unbalances the juice.
An alternative to carrot juice is one or two ounces of fresh or frozen wheat grass juice. However, it is not quite as good as the carrot juice.
Raw dairy products are incredibly nutrient-rich foods. They are very rich in calcium, magnesium, zinc, sodium, selenium, dozens of other trace minerals, and other nutrients our bodies require.
Some doctors believe that raw dairy products are unsafe. In my medical experience of about 30 years, this is absolutely not true. Pasteurized milk is far more filthy. Pasteurization allows the farmers to be sloppier with cleanliness, and to sell milk from diseased cows. Then they pasteurize the milk to try to kill the germs.
Pasteurization was needed several hundred years ago, but today it is mainly an excuse to sell bad milk supported by a large lobbying effort. Milk is a living food. Pasteurization damages the availability of its calcium and protein. It also destroys most of the omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin E, and some other nutrients, rendering the milk a horrible concoction that often causes allergic reactions.
Many people who are allergic to regular milk products can tolerate raw dairy products. If they cannot, most soon develop tolerance to it when they follow a nutritional balancing program.
Limit your raw milk intake to about 8 ounces daily. More is too yin in Chinese medical terms. You may also have some raw yogurt and raw cheese, especially full-fat goat cheese. If raw dairy products are not available, the next best is often Horizon or Cadia brands of organic dairy products (Mungalli Creek in Australia).
Kelp, a sea vegetable, is another wonderful food. It can be a life-saving food supplement that I recommend for everyone. It is a rich source of hundreds of trace and ultra-trace minerals. It is also better than most "mineral supplements", including earth-based products like fulvic and humic acid, zeolite, sea-based minerals, and others.
One of its most important roles is to provide bioavailable iodine, a mineral that few are getting enough of from their food. Kelp is far more physiological than most other iodine products, and more balanced so it does not cause toxicity, as do the others. It also contains a very bioavailable form of calcium not found in most foods.
Kelp is also a source of many phytonutrients that are hard to find in other foods. So it provides a host of nutrients at a very reasonable cost.
Kelp is the best green superfood. I prefer kelp to others because:
Kelp is a powerful food supplement and herb. Occasionally, a person has a reaction to kelp. In most cases it is mild and temporary. The cause is often the removal of an iodine antagonist, either a bromine, fluorine or chlorine compound. Iodine is stimulating in a few instances. Most of the time, just reduce the dose for a while, and then work up very slowly. Most everyone has been able to take kelp eventually.
Adults can work up to about 1500 mg of kelp daily, taken in divided doses with meals. Children also need kelp, and should take less depending on their weight and size. Children less than three years old usually do not need to take kelp.
Natural sea salt is practically essential today as a source of trace minerals. All of our food is low in minerals, thanks to the use of industrial farming methods that emphasize a high crop yield, rather than how to produce the most nutritious food.
The truth about the low mineral content of our food is known in some circles. However, people are told by their doctors and health officials that their food is good, when this is really a joke. Inadequate mineral nutrition is a major problem on earth today.
Unrefined sea salt is an excellent source of trace minerals, along with kelp and sardines. Salt, in particular, helps maintain the body's electrolyte and osmotic balance. It also has an alkalinizing effect on the body. It is also an extremely yang food in Chinese medical terminology, and these are very much needed today due to radiation poisoning of the entire world's population.
The sodium it contains is critical for osmotic balance and to solubilize other minerals in the blood. Deficiency of sodium causes other minerals to become biounavailable and precipitate into the soft tissues and elsewhere. All the above are very important reasons to eat salt on your food, and to avoid table salt, a thoroughly ruined junk food that has been stripped of most of its vital minerals.
Avoiding sea salt, as some doctors suggest, is totally foolish, in my view. Reasonable and moderate use of a high quality, unrefined or 'sea salt' has little or no effect on blood pressure. In fact, its high magnesium content can help lower blood pressure and prevent toxic metal buildup that causes high blood pressure.
If one has high blood pressure, you may need to use less. It is still better than "potassium salts" and most other store-bought products. You should get plenty of potassium from the 70% of your diet that should be cooked vegetables.
The best sea salt I have encountered so far is called Hawaiian Bamboo Jade sea salt, or just Hawaiian Jade sea salt. It is an old formula that is extremely balanced. You may use it instead of all other salts, for both cooking and salting your food, as well.
I find the Hawaiian Jade sea salt is superior to other popular sea salts, which are okay but not as good. These include Celtic salt, Himalayan salt, Redmonds Real Salt, Pacific Salt and others. You can purchase Hawaiian Jade sea salt from WWW.THE SPICELAB.COM or 1-954-275-4478 in Florida, or from other distributors of fine sea salts.
Reduce stress wherever you can by living simply and cheaply.
Also, do your best to live and work in a place with clean air, peace and quiet.
More rest is critical for most people. Do your best to get 9-10 or more hours of sleep every night. Also, getting to sleep early, between 8 and 9 PM, will give you the most restful night's sleep. Naps are excellent during the day and may also be needed, as you may feel tired at times as healing occurs.
Gentle exercise only is the best with a nutritional balancing program because it will help conserve most of your energy for healing. Limit your exercise to gentle walking, hiking, bicycling or perhaps swimming in lakes, oceans or rivers but not pools, preferably, due to toxic chemicals and infections.
Deep breathing every day for at least 15-30 minutes is also excellent.
Sun exposure for up to 30 minutes daily is very good. Do not stay in the sun for hours, as this is toxic, even if you wear sunscreen. Most suncreens are toxic as well.
Reduce toxic exposures. Reduce all chemicals on your skin such as perfumes, cologne, lotions, etc. Use only natural products with as few chemicals in them as possible.
Silver amalgam dental fillings. If you have silver amalgam dental fillings, begin now to have them replaced with either composite fillings or gold alloy. The silver amalgams contain mercury that is extremely toxic.
Electromagnetic pollution. Try to use a wired land telephone, rather than a cell phone. If you must use a cell or portable phone, hold it away from your head or use a headset or speakerphone. Turn off all electrical devices when you sleep, and keep them as far away as possible from you at all times.
Several food supplements that most people need, that you may start right away, are:
These are the most important. Other excellent products for everyone are:
Near infrared light sauna therapy was added to nutritional balancing several years ago because it is a fabulous, inexpensive and quite safe healing and detoxification procedure. It is not required for everyone, but often greatly speeds up healing. With regular use, it allows the body to eliminate hundreds of toxic chemicals and two dozen toxic metals in a few years that would otherwise take much longer.
It also helps tremendously to safely eliminate chronic infections. It also dramatically improves circulation, hydration and oxygenation of the body. Near infrared saunas are dry, clean and use very little electricity.
This is another excellent, safe and powerful detoxification procedure that I always recommend with a nutritional balancing program. Although they are not always needed, they greatly speed up the healing process for most people.
I recommend only one meditation exercise at this time. While not absolutely necessary, the Roy Masters meditation, with my modifications, is an amazing key for calming the mind and emotions, and developing self-awareness and grounding. It also brings an energy into the body that assists healing.
The above is the beginning of a healthful lifestyle that will actually heal over 50% of people's symptoms, with nothing else added. It is the place to begin for everyone.
If you choose to begin a personalized nutritional balancing program based on a properly performed and correctly interpreted hair mineral analysis, the program will combine most of the above with more specific instructions regarding your diet and drinking water.
In addition, an individualized program will include several more food supplements based on your hair analysis patterns, and more precise instructions on the use of the detoxification procedures. In addition, the hair mineral test may offer other clues and information that may help us design a more personalized program for you.