Hi Phillip,

First off, congratulations on your new found way of life. 

20+ years ago when I became a veg-head, the social climate for a plant based diet was not entirely favorable; especialy for a young, working-class, black man living in the Bible Belt.  There was no Whole Foods and you couldn't just stoll into the local supermarket and pick up a pack of veggie dogs. 

Thank God, things have changed...somewhat.

Today I'm 43, with a immeadiate family riddled with obesity, diabetes, heart disease and the lot.  But I have none of those conditions.  Why?  Well there's a few reasons for that.

The first thing is that I have done a tremendous amount of work in releasing negative belief patterns and old emotional blocks.  This helps to release anger and resentment (a source of cancer) and opens up the heart to receive more love.

Emotional and psychological healing is at the heart of total wellness. 

People tend to eat when their frustrated or angry.  But don't confuse anger with passion.  Passion you need, anger you don't.

Next, I walk (long walks) every day.  I walk a few miles in the morning and I walk a few miles in the evening.  This was suggested to me many years ago.  I took it to heart and it's really payed off.  I've found walking to be an excellent way to relieve stress, it's good for the cardiovascular system.  You sweat out toxins and it's good for digestion and muscle tone.  In short, the benifits of walking are essentially endless.

Third, I eat a significant amount of raw food. 

Cooking food, though sometimes necessary, tends to destroy the cellular structure of edibles; rendering them less nutritious.  I do eat cooked foods, like rice, potatoes, cabbage and broccoli.  But I also eat raw cabbage and broccoli, and other green vegetables, as well as several servings of raw fruit each day.

I would say 30% to 50% should be raw.

A good colon cleanse is important as is a good liver cleanse.  Most health stores (real health food stores, not Whole Food, which should be called celebrity food) can help you with that.

Fiber, fiber, fiber...eat lots of fiber.

Watermelon is great for electrolyte balance and garlic is good for the immune and digestive systems.  It's a natural antibiotic.

Now one of the biggest misconceptions about healthy eating is that you need to eat a lot of soy.  This is neither necessary or true.  But should you decide to consume soy products, be sure to eat fermented soy consummables like tempe (not tofu) soy sauce and miso.  Unfermented soy (like tofu) is very rough on the digestive system and can actually cause more harm than good.  So away from soy milk, but do drink rice milk, almond milk, etc.

I would encourage you to read the works of Deepak Chopra, Joseph Cambell, Van Jones, Louise Hay, Gary Null, The Dalai Lama, Carolyn Myss, Dr. Mercola and others.  I would also encourage you to read two books in particular.  "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" by Michael T. Murray and "The Hero Within" by Carol Pearson.

These days there's so much free information available on the subject of wellness, so just do your homework and you'll be fine ;-)

Eternity

Good day Eternity, thanks for such a great comment.  It is nice to get new information and your statements about tofu are news to me.  I had always thought tofu was excellent and soy in general (containing 8 of the 9 protiens) was about the most perfect plant out there! 

I was supprized to read about soy milk not being good ether.

This, like so many things, is a learning process.  The marketing machines and the corporations behind processed and poisned foods have trained our minds so well since the 40's on the benifits of prepacked foods.  We have been socialy engineered to buy into the products that are poising our bodies.

I would really love to run an informal study here on RealNeo on the effects of fast food.

If anyone is interested let me know, I would like to see if my results are typical or not.

Be Well,

Phillip Williams

Hi Phillip,

I've been a vegetarian (lacto/ovo) for about 35 years now. I flexed a bit for Mom and Dad in the early years and during pregnancy when I had a beef craving (my obstetrician says because I was anemic). Aside from some bouts of bronchitis that have disappeared for the past decade and an occasional common cold, I have been healthy. I don't eat tofu, but that's because I don't like it. Everyone talks about proteins and how I might not be eating them in every meal, but I don't see the effects of not consuming a "complete protein" in every meal - I usually only eat two (meals) a day at most. I don't really miss meat nowadays.

If you saw Supersize Me, you might want to check out Fast Food Nation. People thought Food, Inc. turned them off meat - well Fast Food Nation serves up some doozies about that hamburger you bought at the store. It is a book written by Eric Schlosser and was made into a film. The library surely has it. You might also gobble down The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan to learn about our largely corn and soy diet - not a treatise on vegetarianism.

The good news is that you're living in Ohio where there are lots of local producers and you can eat healthy produce almost year round. Here's an article about eating locally year round for when you get there: A winter's tale of good food | GreenCityBlueLake

Happy eating and thanks also for keepin' it local. Just in case you might not have known - that fish in your grocer though it may have been caught in Washington State or Oregon or farm raised on corn, is fileted in China before it reaches your plate.

Best to you (and welcome back),

Susan

Susan, the days of complimetary proteins consumed in one meal are moot! Apparently it is the entires days worth of proteins that count so if you have the one at lunch and the complient at dinner, you are good to go (as you already know by what you do). Diet for a small planet was a huge step forward, but thankfully the science is there so people don't have to make themselves crazy. So have that rice at lunch, or bread, and the beans or wahtever later in the day will help form the completer protein.

I only eat tofu is someone else puts it in my food. I have never been able to cook well with it and gave up.