The Five Foods You Need To Heal
Researching health and the human body through hormone balance and Chinese Medicine proves to me more than Chinese medicine has had it all figured out for millenia, and Western medicine is certifying and continuing to find connections to what already has been established by great ancient Chinese doctors and philosophers.
Many come into my practice looking for a way to sustainably heal every day. There are certain key nutrients to be able to function and perform myriad body processes— i.e. the 2,000 cellular processes that 300 trillion cells in our body do every second. The most direct way to heal is through the food substances we put in our mouths three times a day every day.
So I went into my functional medicine and endocrine research with my nutrition background from acupuncture school, and found the most healing foods - five key food-derived nutrients - we should be including in our diet every day if we want to heal.
If you want to work more in depth with how food can help you heal, come in for a follow-up, or refer a friend so that we can consult over the phone.
These five foods are the following:
1. Iodine, in the form of Potassium Iodide.
We can find iodine in natural food sources such as seaweeds and algae such as wakame, seaweed snacks, chlorella, and spirulina, legumes like beans and peas, prawns, prunes, cod, baked potatoes, cranberries, hard-boiled eggs.
This Lugol's Iodine tincture is also a good way to get your Iodine levels up.
The FDA recommended dose is 150mg. This is the base level needed to not develop goiter. Three physician scientists, Brownstein, Abraham, and Fletchas found 96% of their patients were Iodine deficient, and recommended a dose of 12,500mg.
Iodine will help detoxify heavy metals and chemicals in the brain such as chlorine and fluoride found in our water. When detoxing heavy metals, brain fog lifts and energy improves.
2. Vitamin C
Especially if wound healing is slow and one is lethargic.
FDA recommended dose of Vitamin C is 75mg.
Linus Pauling, a two-time Nobel Prize winner, discovered the proper dosing for Vitamin C to battle chronic illness.
Humans are one of four mammals who don't produce Vitamin C on our own, so we have to get it from natural sources.
Some natural sources of Vitamin C are lemons, berries, grapefruit, orange, mango, pineapple, kiwi, sweet peppers (although watch out for nightshades), papaya, cantaloupe, kohlrabi, kale, cauliflower, broccoli, brussel sprouts, spinach, and other leafy green vegetables. You can add these things to many dishes.
You can find supplements of 1,000mg per serving. Emergen-C brand has 1,000mg each packet, as does Linus Pauling's brand.
Or look for supplements that say Abscorbyl Palmatate, or Sodium Ascorbate on the bottle.
Take 1-2 doses of 1,000mg, but space them out in the day since more than 500mg starts to oversaturate the body and leaves through urination.
3. Fermented Foods
Every body needs unpasteurized, fermented foods for optimal probiotics and gut health.
If you are struggling with multiple infections or mold, candida, or other bacterial toxin, then eating too much could be contraindicated, however on a whole for most everyone it is safe and a good healthy staple food to have.
This can be 1/2c to a cup of saurkraut, kefir, kimchi, homemade yogurt (with grassfed, non-gmo goat or sheep's milk since there are fewer hormones and estrogens in these than in conventional, mass produced cow's milk), any foods which you can ferment or pickle.
4. Sulfuric veggies
Because soils have been depleted of sulfur (as well as other minerals like nitrogen) due to mono-cropping and toxic agricultural practices, it is important to incorporate this family of veggies freshly into your diet every day.
These kinds of foods help counter fungals and molds in the body, mycotoxins from a moldy environment, or the bacteria that flourishes from too many antibiotics and sugar/processed carbohydrate diets. Having too much of this condition/ecosystem in the body taxes our Sulfur and Vitamin C levels. These nutrients battle any low-grade infections from an overgrowth of too many bad microbiota (a.k.a. damp) in our digestion such as candida and yeast.
Foods in this category are cabbage, leeks, onion, garlic, broccoli, brussel sprouts, and cauliflower. Anything from the brassica family.
If you are very depleted and digestive fire is very weak, cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, and brussel sprouts in their more fibrous (raw) form will be very difficult to digest, therefore I recommend boiling or roasting these before eating. Processing them in this way helps so that the fiber is well broken down causing no disruption to digestion.
These sulfuric foods help the Liver detox (methylate) so pathways for toxins can exit the body.
5. Healthy Fatty Acids
Here we are talking about fats and oils, specifically Omega 3s and Omega 6s.
Our brain is 60% fat. If we don't get enough of these oils and fats, we have headaches, or our nervous system is inflamed in the form of orthopedic pain, mood disorders, or hyper-vigilance/hyperactive responses to stress.
These oils and fats are also good for skin and cardiovascular health.
Healthy oils and fats are:
Walnuts
Flaxseed oil
Fish oil
Organic eggs
First-Cold Pressed Organic Coconut Oil
Avocado
First-Cold Pressed Organic Olive Oil
Coconut Cream
Mayonnaise
Grassfed organic butter or ghee
Keep in mind fats have 7 calories per gram whereas carbs have 4 calories per gram. So if you do a high fat meal like a soup or a salad, you will want to lower or eliminate carbs. Fats are not the enemy when it comes to weight loss or weight gain - sugar is. A topic for another time.
Overall, fats should take up about a thumbs length/width per meal if the hand were a plate. Sometimes I go over that when doing ketogenic nutrition, as I've found that is helpful for me.
In treatment we go over nutrient deficiencies that could possibly be contributing to your symptoms and look for foods that can help. Book now for an appointment,