Don't eat or drink what you know, believe, or think may not be good for you and others.
I was asked by a friend what I eat whilst we were having a chat about health, exercise or something similar.
I mentioned a few meals but didn't complete the answer as our attention was also on television, and mine was on my daughter playing with cats.
I also remember stuttering a bit and a part of me felts as if I did not have an answer especially whilst remembering that I cycle through a few types of meals and perhaps my meal plans would have been considered limited.
When I got home, I started to think a bit further about the question of what I eat.
Yes, my meal plans are limited because I have created a habit in life of having meals mainly in the evening.
Larger amounts of food during can make me sleepy and reduce my focus with tasks.
So there is that part of me that has got used to having one meal a day, or at best two.
There is also a part of me whose hunger, energy, food desires and available time sort of dictate what I eat and drink.
I, therefore, have regular meals and in between, I consider consciously and subconsciously what I have not eaten or drunk recently that may be a good dietary mix for my body.
I will then make or have a snack of varying food types that I have not had for a while.
This may require consciously having something different to eat, or seeing and buying something different in the supermarket to have soon/next, or when eating out again, having something not had recently.
So, in simple terms, I have a regular cycle of meals, and then eat or drink everything else that I feel my body may need when I can.
And I make the effort to eat a variety of snacks and drinks in between the regular meals.
I used to just like having 'nice' meals, but my joy for meals is now more about being with the right people and not about just the food and eating anymore.
My intake of food and drink is now more created from a necessity of the body to have a variety of foods that should be good for it, and which hopefully keeps it in a better state.
This is where my dilemma started about answering the question of what I eat.
I didn't have a short answer but then one came to me and that was...
Don't eat or drink what you know, believe, or think may not be good for you and others.
You may well be thinking that's an obvious answer, but is it, and do you live by it?
Drinking petrol or tar is not good for you, and that is why you don't drink it.
You have that knowing perhaps from experience, believe it from the literal smell of those substances, or you think it from the metaphorical smell of them from a story.
So you know, believe and think petrol or tar is not good for you, and so you don't drink/consume them.
Why do you then eat things like sweets with refined sugar, and foods containing not-good-for-you chemicals?
Why do you drink alcohol which is known to be a depressant and often later creates bad feelings in the body and can play with emotions?
Why do you eat processed foods which often contain more padding with not-good-for-the-body things?
Some process foods can contain more padding than having actual nutrients which are good for the body.
The answer seemed quite simple when the thought came to me.
It is because you mostly don't see an immediate and adverse effect of these food/drink types especially when you have them in moderation.
You don't think or believe they will have a bad effect on you, and perhaps they never will.
However, it's the same as having a tiny drop of petrol put into your drink which may create a similar feeling as having alcohol and thinking it's OK because you are only having a glass every now and again.
Or at worst you get sick, have hangovers, feel unwell for days, yet do it all over again, and again.
And it is advised you don't drink 100% alcohol because it is not good for you, like petrol.
With foods such as sweets, you are eating substances that contain other substances that are not good for you.
You eat them perhaps because you may not experience them having an immediate adverse affect on you.
Sugar is known to feed and grow cancer cells in the body.
It is also known that we cannot measure cancer in everyone so there are some people who have low-level cancer which cannot be detected.
These people believe or think they are healthy, or at least they don't have cancer.
So that little bit of sugar in sweets (which is often quite a lot) which you treat yourself or others to could be increasing the cancer that cannot be detected, and the cancer which you don't know, believe or think you or others have.
Think about what are you actually treating yourself and others to when having sugar?
Yes, our bodies require sugar and other substances that we can have in moderation or even better from natural sources such as some fruits.
But it's more about the type of sugar and other substances that we consume, and how we often have convenience foods and drinks, which can be become quite inconvenient later for the body.
I probably don't have the best and varied diet that I should or could have.
But the reason I have written all this, is that my body got to a point where it was simply not feeling right and it seemed as if it was failing.
I was however fortunate to have started a spiritual/scientific/meditative practice which had a great symptom of first removing or helping to remove the highest risk habits.
That symptom of the practice also started to remove other food, drink and consumption habits, and it affected other aspects of my experience of life and perhaps for the better.
It seems that a space was created to only allow and find, eat and drink apparently healthier foods and drinks.
As great as all that sounds, it was not a comfortable experience at all at first.
There was a part of me used to the 'bad' stuff, and there was a continuous wanting or craving, but the practice helped with all that.
Now to end this desire to write about all this here, I really would never want anyone to go through what I did, or even close to experiencing your body failing.
So, please don't eat or drink what you know, believe or think may not be good for you and others.
And if you have any interest in a spiritual/scientific/meditative practice, then you can click here for some introductory information and exercises, or contact me for more information.
I believe the practice in itself, but also more learned dietary improvements, can prevent or recover you from the experience of traumatic health related life situations.
