COVID “quarantined” us with our issues. Many of us fell back into or continued to use food to cope with the personal uncertainty and collective trauma.
As we now adjust to a new normal post-COVID and communities begin to re-open, there is an opportunity: This transition can catalyze incredible growth with our food and health choices—or have us fall deeper into eating as a coping pattern for fear and uncertainty. The Dean of the Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University shared that only 12 percent of Americans are without high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes or pre-diabetes— it’s clear most of us need a major nutrition overhaul.
Join me for a free webinar to learn how to use your quarantine cravings as an invitation to change how you eat and take care of yourself. This is also a sneak peak at my Freedom From Cravings program which I’ll be running live one time only. Registration opens May 18, early birds save $50.
Terrain Theory 101. With the remaining mystery as to how the coronavirus is killing us, it makes sense to explore terrain and germ-terrain duality theory, which looks at our internal and external environments as hosts to determine how germs affect the body. Researchers are finding that wide-ranging variation in disease severity indicates “that’s not the virus; that’s the host.” In other words, our immune response varies on the basis of income, the air we breathe, where we live, housing, jobs, and access to health care. This is why nutrition is becoming the “unexpected medicine” for COVID-19. For those interested in root-cause resolution, eating the right foods for your body to become metabolically healthy (which fewer than one in five American adults are) enables the immune system to better manage the coronavirus and to reduce cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, and pre-diabetes.
Procurement Perils. What do vaccines now have in common with ventilators and protective equipment for healthcare workers? The Trump administration is sourcing them by and from inexperienced parties making big, unproven claims. Moderna, a company that has never brought a vaccine or any product to market, received $483 million from the US government upon a claim that they can bring a vaccine to market the fastest. Moderna will be permitted to take a radical departure from established vaccine development and will “GMO” human genes and be permitted to forgo animal-testing. Animal tests on a related-SARS vaccine proved the vaccine caused more lung and immune problems than they fixed. This delay caused profits to disappear as the SARS virus eventually ran its course. To support being pro-choice in your healthcare decisions and your ability to decline untested coronavirus vaccines hastily brought to market, contact your Congressional representatives through Stand for Health Freedom.
Stillness as Self-Care. With coronavirus stress rampant, routes to stillness need to make it onto our self-care menus. With increasing vivid and wild dreams due to disruption in our routines, daytime stillness is even more important. Yet stillness can be a challenge for those of us worried about our economic livelihoods. The “American Dream” story, while largely disproven by economists and sociologists who say life circumstances (i.e. privilege) are more decisive than how hard you work, is still imprinted into our cultural propaganda. Exercise, for those who have the time and access to clean air, can offer this stillness while increasing endogenous antioxidant enzymes which helps our body mobilize for health and can partially explain why approximately 80% of confirmed COVID-19 patients have mild symptoms with no need of respiratory support. The easiest exercise is walking, which enables our mental and physical worlds open and to stop the walls from closing in creativity to thrive.
Nut Butter Stuffed Dates
In Freedom From Cravings, I provide simple, easy recipes to prevent cravings and help you to gently wean yourself from sugar and salty (carb) cravings. One of my favorite snacks to help with this is nut butter stuffed dates. The nut butter prevents a blood sugar crash, which causes you to crave more sugar.
Slice 2 dates down the center. Remove the pit if there is one (Costco sells dates without the pits). Put ½-1 Tablespoons of peanut or any nut butter and stuff inside. Chill or eat at room temperature. Enjoy!
Check out Healthy Little Foodies for topping inspiration as seen in this photo.
This is a great snack if you have afternoon cravings, which come from not eating the right foods for your body at breakfast and lunch.
Insatiable is Back with Season 11, Sugar Rehab.
Episode 1: Root Causes of Sugar Addiction with Charles Eisenstein
To end our dependence on processed foods (whose main ingredient is sugar), we need to understand the root causes of how we ended up with a highly addictive food supply.
How did the radical or unnormal become so normal?
One of my favorite thinkers and dream podcast guest Charles Eisenstein joined me to turn our understanding right side up, we discuss:
- Why we need to understand our stories and the “psychological immune system” they generate in order to change our food and lifestyle habits
- The separation and reductionist stories that have led us astray about how we view nutrition and our bodies
- How the “trust authority” story makes us believe from the time we are kids that what is on the shelf is safe (and what our “good” medical choices are in the coronavirus age)
- A new story and questions to guide us to make better nutrition choices for our individual and Earth bodies (and how these questions can unite the Vegan and Paleo communities!)
Be well,
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