Food not only nourishes our body, but it also provides us with a sense of cultural meaning. Throughout history meals have been a natural setting for people to come together, share and have a good time. Food brings vitality in our bodies, where it is transformed into energy that enables us to live meaningful lives.

It touches the deepest levels of who we are as human beings, inviting health and wholeness.

Everyone knows to some extent that certain foods are better for us than others. However, not everyone is aware of the impact it has on our well-being. Eating wholesome foods is a very different experience from eating food that has no nutritional value. Lots of today’s processed and fast food contains ingredients that are very damaging to our health, even more so for our children who are exposed to a whole lot of them.

Basis for Good Health

Living a healthy lifestyle means giving your body the right fuel. Healthy food can prevent much of the illnesses we experience today and has become part in treating ourselves in a more harmless and balanced way. More than two thousand years ago Hippocrates said: “Let medicine be thy food and food be thy medicine.” He believed that illness arises from poor eating habits with no nutrition and that eating a healthy diet would restore our health. Today he has gained many followers throughout the world, being aware of the destruction of our modern eating habits.

In particular, plant foods are very nourishing and healing as they supply us with nutrients and energy on many levels. Especially organic grown foods, which are free from pesticides and other damaging substances that are not supportive to our health. Unlike most people believe, it is available to most budgets. Think locally or farmers markets, with fresh seasonal offers. Also discounts at your health food store, even most supermarkets have introduced organic food these days!

The more you eat what’s ‘good for you’, the healthier you’ll be and the better you will feel. After all, you are what you eat!

“Leave your drugs in the chemist’s pot if you can, heal the patient with food.”  ~ Hippocrates

Nature’s Balance

Another way to make wholesome food accessible to everyone is to grow your own. It is not difficult, and anyone can do it. A sunny space in your garden, pots on your terrace or even plants in front of your window. All you need is some seeds or little plants to get started and of course your loving care and attention to keep it growing! Not only will you harvest fresh, nutritious food, but also newly grown seeds, which you can be used again, as a generous gift from mother nature.

By sharing our own grown foods and exchanging the remaining seeds, we initiate an excellent opportunity to serve our communities as much as ourselves. This new tendency is not a trend, but rather a returning ancient tradition as a challenge to transform our current food shortage and waste, into a healthy and social platform for growth and solidarity.

In essence, we are all part of nature, in a flow of giving and receiving, providing each other with essential necessaries. Not primarily to survive, but to maintain a strong, healthy and well-balanced life with respect for all that lives. Only then are we thoroughly able to use our potential in a meaningful, creative and authentic life!

Time for gusto!!