The food we eat affects what we think, say and do.
FOOD = ENERGY = BEHAVIORThe authors, a husband and wife team, one a Clinical Psychologist, the other a Social Psychologist, begin by defining foods on the following continuum:
| PLANT DERIVATIVES | PLANT FOODS | ANIMAL FOODS |
| drugs, alcohol, sugar | cheese, eggs, fish | |
| coffee, tea, syrups, honey & fruit juice |
fruits and vegetables grain, seeds & legumes | salt, butter & meat |
| EXPANSIVE | CONTRACTIVE |
| size: larger | smaller |
| location: above | below ground |
| growth rate: fast | slow | texture: soft | hard |
| moisture: liquid, Juuicy | solid, dry |
| taste: sweet, sour | salty,bitter |
| nature: vegetable | animal |
| climate: moderate, warm | extreme cold, desert |
| preparation: less cooking, raw | more cooking |
| movement: outward | inward |
| chemical: potassium | sodium |
| Ph: alkaline forming | acid forming |
| behavior: expansive | contractive |
Mother's milk is 8 - 10% protein, 26 - 29% fat and 65% carbohydrate. Centered, balanced and whole foods have a similar protein to carbohydrate ratio as human milk; that is 1.7. Extreme expansive foods have a 0.01 ratio of protein to carbohydrates; while extreme contractive foods have a 25.0 ratio of protein to carbohydrates. Whole grains are considered the most balanced of foods; the most like mother's milk. The Japanese word for peace and harmony is Wa; it is composed of 2 characters symbolizing grain and mouth.
Biologists have observed that all living things are motivated by a need for homeostasis, the continuous balancing of life systems.
Extreme expansion balances extreme contraction; or sweet balances meat. This is the law of opposites. Meat also attracts alcohol and tobacco. The way most people eat in the U.S. and Europe today, balancing in the extremes, consuming more energy than balancing near the center, is wasteful, stressful and tiring. A balanced diet is part of a balanced lifestyle. An unbalanced diet correlates with disordered behavior. A diet heavy in contractive foods leads to a craving for sweets.
Expansive behavior is defined as open, loose, flexible, spontaneous, giving out, expressive, diffuse, spiritual, light, bright, outward, holistic, verbal and extroverted. Contractive behavior is closed, tight, inflexible, controlling, taking in, possessive, concentrating, material, heavy, dark, inward, analytical, written and introverted.
These 10 Principles of Sane Eating leave one satisfied and attractive:
I recently had a woman working for me go completely bonkers; she tried to burn our house down; she burned our books, our mail and Xmas gifts to our grandchildren. She crashed her truck and left it in a ditch; then went to our neighbors' and broke into their china cabinet. She would not sleep, eat, nor get dressed. She smoked cigarettes constantly and drank all the alcohol in the house. She required 24 hour attention and restraining. The sheriff came and took her away. She was taken to a mental institution from jail. Her blood was found to be full of methamphetamines.
(Stay away from that stuff unless you want a really warped personality!)
The rules of food combining:
Foods that combine well are digestively compatible; meaning they are processed by similar parts of the digestive system at similar rates of speed.
Eating simply means limiting the number of foods eaten at any one time.
Sugar interferes with the digestion of most food.
Eat grain with vegetables, especially greens!
Eat vegetables with grain, fatty foods (nuts, oil, dairy and eggs) and meat or fish!
Always eat fruit by itself! (For example, 20 minutes before a meal.)
Refined food is a cause of mental and physical disorder. If your diet is not centered and is extreme you are more inclined to extreme desires, extreme thoughts and extreme actions. Eating an extreme diet makes self control more difficult and increases tension, frustration, stress and disease.
Less protein leads to greater sensitivity and pleasure.
With a centered diet people are more inclined to be sane, sensitive and self controlled. Eating meat and sugar in the quantities most Americans do leads to marked increases in high blood pressure which correlates with psychological hypertension, feelings of tension and anxiety.
Too much of either extreme affects behavior and limits performance.
Too much tension (over contraction) and not enough tension (over expansion) reduces effectiveness and pleasure.
Extreme expansive food leads to over expansion which is: being too open, spaced out, vague and impractical; thoughts are divorced from action and plans, daydreams unrealized; lack of direction and order; too permissive, too expressive, too impressionable; distorted discriminative sense, anxiety; project thoughts and feelings onto others; disorganized, lazy and confused.
Extreme contractive food leads to over contraction which is: too closed, too tense or uptight; fear of losing control; continuously attempting to control; repressing and denying feelings; too discriminating, too withdrawing and too exclusive; inflexible, reduced ability to empathize; materialistic, possessive and hoarding.
It's possible, of course, to be something of both, especially eating both extremes. The end result of both is the same - a loss of effectiveness, power and pleasure. Anxiety is emotional disease, an irrational fear, underlying neurotic behavior, and an intuitive sense of imbalance. Being over contracted or over expanded results in a feeling that something just isn't right.
Arthritis is joint disease. Joints become over contracted, hardened, tight and inflexible; or over expanded, inflamed, swollen and inflexible. Anxiety and arthritis interact. The same with heart disease and emotional disease! Extreme contracting food makes deep relaxation much more difficult.
Exercise generally has a contractive affect; attracting one to expansive food. Extreme exercise is NOT the ideal remedy to an over acid condition. The richest source of natural mineral salts is seaweed. Prolonged, excessive use of salt leads to over contraction, hypertension and rigidity.
The most common way of treating ALL mental problems today is to remove symptoms with drugs (NOT FOOD) which have an extreme expansive effect on behavior.
Fast when feeling disoriented, confused or dissatisfied for a greater sense of clarity, lightness and awareness! Fasting can be an effective short-term remedy for behavioral, emotional and physical imbalances. See my article on cellular detoxification for what is meant by fasting!
A diet of refined carbohydrates does not support life. A diet of refined carbohydrates and animal foods is a diet of affluence and is associated with physical and mental disorder. (Anyone thinking of who I'm thinking of?) A variety of human disorders are reported to improve drastically when refined foods are eliminated from the diet, including: ulcers, tumors, cancers (especially colon), gallstones, appendicitis, hemorrhoids, heart and vascular disease, diabetes, hypoglycemia, obesity, tooth and gum disease; as well as psychotic behavior, anxiety, apathy, depression, AND uncontrollable, violent and anti-social behaviors.
FIBER AND BEHAVIOR!
Because of the intimate connection between the gastrointestinal system and the coordinating and integrating mechanisms of the nervous system!
Now, I've had the image of the colon being connected to every other part of the body through the nervous system but did not understand this important detail as thoroughly before. Non-specific nerve fibers ("C" fibers) are dispersed throughout the intestine and conduct impulses to the "arousal" center of the brain (the reticular activating system.) This energy input primes the CNS (Central Nervous System) and facilitates effective conduction of all incoming and outgoing messages. Eating whole high fiber foods leads to rapid, continuous smooth transit of food through the intestines; which leads to regular continuous firing of non-specific nerve fibers into your arousal system and more effective neural conduction; which results in more integrated and coordinated behavior.
AND even more basic, refined foods promote incomplete, inefficient DIGESTION with slow transit times and the accumulation of TOXINS.
Anxiety, aggression and depression are all nurtured by eating a diet of meat, eggs, cheese and refined carbohydrates; with the slow transit times the animal foods putrefy in the intestines producing toxic by-products; and if not quickly eliminated, cause biochemical and behavioral disorders.
BRAN is not a whole food; nor is it a substitute for whole food.
Vitamin deficiencies are caused by massive refinement of food; processing food destroys the dynamic vitality in food. Vitamin deficiency is linked with mental disorders including anxiety, hyperactivity, delusions, psychotic episodes, depression and mental retardation.
Supplements?
The Millers believe vitamin supplements are unnecessary when eating centered, balanced, natural and whole foods. Refined foods such as alcohol and sugar are unbalancing and disintegrating; as their metabolism depletes the body's reserves of vitamins and minerals. The absence of simple, whole food on our supermarket shelves is evidence of social and economic disintegration. We have to learn to eat adequate sources of nourishment.
Chewing
Whole meal bread requires more chews per bite and reinforces this behavior by becoming tastier with increased chewing. The way people chew their food, an important part of digestion and one over which we have the greatest conscious control, indicates how they live their lives; the response tendency carries over into daily life. Hence, the phrase, biting off more than one can chew! Gestalt therapy notes: adults who swallow their food in gulps without chewing are impotent; they demand immediate gratification, are unable to achieve satisfaction and indiscriminately accept what they are told.
Chewing is a multi-functional process which:
SUGAR
These adverse effects of sugar have been documented for over 100 years:
"HOW CAN I REDUCE MY NEED FOR SWEETS"?
Eat a centered diet and avoid the extremes of meat and sugar!
Eat more fresh fruit, vegetables, and salads!
Eat less meat, candy, pop and pastry!
Why is there no focus on diet in the hospital psych wards or with the criminally insane? Low blood sugar correlates with assault, arson, murder, robbery, vandalism, domestic violence, self destructive acts, suicide, car and hunting accidents.
WHAT IS ALIEN FOOD? Food that is not part of our natural environment! What kind of alienation does alien food lead to? The disintegration between man and his environment! Unnatural rhythms with increasing reliance on technology to keep ordered determines his feelings and state of health. The most alienating foods are the ones that are NOT part of our natural environment AT ALL, meaning the 6 - 12 pounds of chemicals the average person ingests per year. (And that is a 30 year old figure.) Refined and processed foods with lost minerals and vitamins are linked to allergic reactions and behavioral disturbance.
IS IT MAN MADE? Don't eat it without disordered and unnatural behavior resulting! The absence of some vitamins and minerals have a marked effect on behavior. Psychological disorders which accompany deficiencies in Vitamin B: (Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, found in whole grain and beans, and Cobalomin, found in naturally fermented foods) memory loss, appetite loss, nervousness, apprehension, hallucinations, insomnia, agitation and paranoid behavior. Mineral deficiencies of calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, potassium, sodium and zinc have all been associated with abnormal physical and emotional states including apathy, lethargy, all of the above and emotional outbursts. The data is clear; nutrition influences behavior directly. Normal psychological function depends upon the presence of all nutrients (found in a centered diet of natural food) IN CORRECT PROPORTION.
Eating seasonally and regionally keeps harmony and reduces disease. People in cold regions who eat tropical fruit become dependent on over heating, excessive fuel and reduced health and vitality. In tropical regions with a centered diet eaten, less artificial cooling is required.
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