There are a number of yoga lifestyle practices that can lead to increased sense purity and vitality as it relates to a yoga lifestyle. Since the modern American diet, with supersizes, happy meal, super gulps and combo meals is centered around convenience, speed and mass production often does not correlate to food that is vitalizing and full of nutrients. Since we are usually unprotected by our government to regulate sanitary food production and health for the food industry, one is left to their own devices to find food that gives vigor and strength.
A vegetarian diet is often more ideal since all the chemicals and hormones that are in meat and dairy products can make us sick. Even in eating a vegetarian or vegan diet it is best to abstain from “the whites” or white flour, white pasta, white rice and white sugar, as well since these products have been severely denourished with plenty of dangerous chemicals, such as bleach added in the production process.
The most basic advice is when reading a package of ingredients and nutrients and you don’t recognize what is inside them, then it most likely means that they are damaging chemicals that can only cause disease and illness to the body. The more unrecognizable ingredients, the worse it must is for you.
As far as food choices go, eating raw (uncooked and dehydrated) is more revitilizing and I try to have a few meals a week this way. When I prepare meals for myself with real food ingredients, instead of buying pre-made and prepackaged items, I tend to feel the most vitality. I endeavor to patronize organic food stores that have their supplies from local sources in order to respect our earth. In order to not deplete more resources than necessary, why not aim to buy local, or what some call the “slow foods” movement which means not patronizing companies that fly and ship food from large distances which only adds more traffic and pollution.
The more I learn about the harmful (and often inhumane to animals) methods that the food industry practices, the more disciplined I become about what I buy in the grocery store. I have read a good amount of books about food production, animal husbandry, eating for optimal health etc. Each book or article I read, I endeavor to incorporate a few key principles into my diet.
I recently read a book where I learned the difference between different production methods of olive oil which make a tremendous difference in how one assimilates this very popular and often used ingredient in the body. I was fairly surprised to learn that the way that olive oil is pressed makes a huge difference in the benefits we will receive (or not receive). These days, I buy cold-pressed or expeller pressed, first press extra virgin olive oil. Self-reliance, education and a determination to find out the healthiest ways to feed ourselves are paramount in a time where we depend on others to grow, prepare and regulate what we put in our bodies.
We attach so much emotion to mealtimes since that is often how we first interpreted love and a central aspect of social and family gatherings. When our Mother stopped what she was doing and fed us from her own body, we felt love. Some scientists attribute the huge popularity of the flavor, vanilla, to its milky scent and (artificial) color to milk. We are often rewarded with yummy, sweet things, most often, in the unhealthy form of candy and dessert as a child. We are often made to eat healthier items on our plates such as green vegetables which does not create a later motivation to eat them as adults. We are also often made to eat the full portion on our plates, not matter how big they are which can lead to a later habit of overeating.
Obesity could be handled better if people understood how toxic and fattening common foods like white bread, white sugar, processed foods and junk sodas can be. The FDA does not protect us from ingredients that cause diabetes, heart disease and other health impediments. We need to monitor our own food consumption and demand an objective government agency that can produce independent food research so we can make educated choices. If you don’t understand what an ingredient is in a food, then it’s probably not nourishing for you. If you don’t know what disodium sulfate is, then it’s best to limit or avoid.
Eating foods with unprocessed, clean and whole ingredients is a smart start. After you eat something, do you feel full of vitality or do you feel slow and yucky? One you start to notice the effects food has, you begin on the path to making more nourishing food choices. Try eating only soda, cookies, ice cream and soda for two days straight and you will realize how devitilizing these mainstays of the American snackfood diet are. Yoga leads us to become aware of how we respond to and process materials in our environment and our bodies and helps us on the path to vitality and calm, in our bones and in our brains.
Jasmine Kaloudis teaches yoga at Synergy By Jasmine in Philadelphia. For free images of partner yoga poses with tips on how to do them, email info at jasminepartneryoga dot com with "Request Partner Yoga Poses and Tips" in headline. Twitter - synergyjasmine - For inspiring quotes, vitality, meditation and yoga.
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