Written by: Kasia Dabrow-Kielan, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
When I talk about food, I often refer to a quote by Albert Einstein, as it hits the truth for me! “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” This quote indicates nature got it right; while human intervention sadly has not. Why do I use this quote and what does it have to do with wholefoods? Wholefoods, and by this I mean real food, is the simplest and healthiest way to eat. Wholefoods; which is a high plant diet, provides us with the vitamins and minerals we require daily. By eating real foods, each bite you consume provides you all the available nutrients at their full density level. It’s also crucial to remember that by eating wholefoods, you are not eating any foreign substances that actually harm our bodies.
Not sure if you’re aware of this, but our bodies use more energy for digestion than any other function. Incredible hey! If too much energy is being used for digestion, your body has little or no energy left for other internal functions. So, if you eat breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner/supper, and snacks in between, think about this: when does your body get the chance to do anything else but break down the food you are consuming during the day? Does your body have enough time and energy to for the lack of a better term: “clean house”?
When you eat less, your body has the time to reset, absorb what it needs even self-heal without being overloaded or working additionally hard. When you over consume and feed your body with food too often (and not with wholefoods), your body is in a nonstop state of digestion. Many people do not eat out of hunger either, but eat out of addiction and pleasure. In addition, food is commonly used to distract true feelings that occur throughout our lifespan. We overindulge when we get heartbroken, when we are stressed, thirsty, and anxious, when we are bored, and even when we need the comfort of some sort, but what are we actually doing by over consuming? By eating too much food, for the wrong reasons, we suppress our emotions and ignore the bigger things that may be occurring. When we are depressed, anxious, stressed we are faced with uncomfortable feelings in our bodies. When we suppress these with food, we actually change the biochemistry that comes with these emotions and they get trapped, inside our bodies for too long. Stress levels contribute to undigested foods, so in reality we should not be eating when stressed. The reality is that many of us eat when stressed, which leads to other problems and this guides me to my next point.
Food and Disease
We cannot have a conversation about food, without mentioning disease. To me, the two go hand in hand. If you look up the meaning of disease it typically describes it as “a condition of a person, animal or plant in which its body or structure is harmed because an organ or part is unable to work as it usually does”. In very simple terms, disease often happens when you do not feed your body with wholefoods and respect it with the love it requires. It all comes back to the foods we eat and the lifestyle we choose to live. Our bodies do not fail us, they are designed to protect us and will do everything in their power to thrive, but you need to assist them in this process. This can only happen when you nourish your body with real food i.e. apples, cucumbers, carrots and so on - the foods Mother Nature provided us with, the foods that grow from the ground, the foods that the body can recognise and actually break down.
Processed Foods
Processed foods, on the other hand, are full of artificial colours, flavours; preservatives and sweeteners which in simple terms, our bodies are not designed to digest. Therefore, our bodies do not cope well when we feed them with such “chemicals”. In addition our body finds it hard to find the stop button when eating some of these foods leaving you forever hungry. Hunger can also indicate that you are dehydrated, but instead of hydrating many just over consume on food.
Did you know that with certain processed foods, some ingredients are removed from their original form, bleached, and then, synthetically added back and yet most people continue to buy, eat and feed their families with these types of foods? Absolutely heartbreaking.
Some foods attempt to appear like the real deal: Take the humble maple syrup as an example. Maple syrup is just that, sap extracted from the maple tree, heated to remove the moisture while retaining most of its minerals and antioxidants. Based on this, any labelling on the bottle should have one ingredient listed. Now, at the supermarket you have a glass bottle, which says “Grade A 100% Maple Syrup”. Simple! This is the real thing. However, next to it there is often a plastic bottle called Maple Syrup, but when you look at the label, there is more than one ingredient on it. Have you ever checked the ingredient list on packaged/bottled products? I always do, I check it on all packaged products before I make my purchase. The “maple syrup” I found (sitting next to the 100% pure grade A maple syrup), lists the following ingredients: water, sweeteners, natural flavours, thickener (466), salt, acidity regulator, preservatives (202, 211), and colour (150 d). So what are these numbers? What’s the need for them? Now, this particular maple syrup is made in Australia, but maple syrup usually comes from the maple trees grown in Canada, not something Australia is known for. So what are you eating if maple syrup is not even mentioned on the list? Why are we recreating something which nature provides us, rich in natural colour, natural taste, full of minerals and antioxidants with something created by mixing ingredients and chemicals and selling them for half the price? Now I’m only using maple syrup as an example, simply because we love it at our house and when I make pancakes for my girls they dunk them into maple syrup but, knowing the ingredients and the source, I don’t worry about it. I know the maple syrup on my table is organic, grade A maple syrup with no chemical additives. A few months ago I took the girls away for the weekend and I cringed when I saw the fake maple syrup on the serving table. Is this really what kids eat these days?
The foods we eat have drastic effects on our bodies. In Australia, and trending in various other countries, statistics indicate that obesity is on the rise in both kids and adults. This is very alarming. Why is this so? Unfortunately, our current world is fast paced, including our food, but it’s not just obesity we should be concerned about.
So what have we been taught about food?
Most of us are familiar with the food pyramid, which for most Australians was a part of the school curriculum. Without going into the long history of the food pyramid, it was created and heavily biased by the sponsors of the research. I’m not writing a conspiracy theory, but the facts are well known and you can read about them in your own time. In my opinion, the food pyramid is incorrect and outdated and requires significant change.
We have also been introduced to calorie counting, first introduced in 1918 and hasn’t really changed over the last 100 years. What is a calorie – in very simple terms, the amount of energy contained in the foods we consume. Which is great, but what calorie counting doesn’t do is distinguish between the quality of foods we consume. Anyone eating “food-like products”, processed or manmade, is unlikely to consume the same amount of raw nutrients, minerals, antioxidants required by our bodies as those whos’ diet is based on wholefoods. In saying “food-like” I’m referring to foods which are processed to give them better colour; better taste and of course, prolong their shelf life. Would 200 calories of canned, processed long shelf-life soup provide the same benefits to your body as a 200-calorie serving of fresh vegetables or fruit salad? Same number of calories!!
If you were lucky enough to discuss food with your grandparents, they would tell you how they ate, what they consumed and what relationship they had with food. Many years ago, when we moved to Australia, my dad’s mum came for a visit from Poland. Now, back in those days Poland didn’t have any food chains, so we decided to treat ourselves and took my grandma to one of the popular ones. My entire family refused to eat it – my grandma’s (translated) words were “this is not food”. That’s right, it’s not. Did you hear the latest by the way? Jamie Oliver won an ongoing battle against one of these fast food venues, the world’s largest food chain mind you, and the famous chef proved that burgers are made from parts of meat washed with ammonia hydrogen. Before this process the “meat” was not fit for human consumption, so do you think after washing it with ammonia, it’s good to go and fit for human consumption? I don’t think so. Some of these places even use carcinogenic toxic chemicals and these chemicals unfortunately create health havoc inside your body. But this is only touching the surface and touching one chain out of many. It’s food for thought.
So what does such food create?
Please note it is not just fast food chain meals, but processed food such as ham, sausages, purchased muesli bars, chips, soft drinks, white bread, spreads, sauces and ready-made meals; these are all processed and if you look at the ingredients you may be in for a shock. What’s more, it doesn’t always come down to the ingredient list itself, but what has been done to them, how they were grown, harvested and made before they reached the supermarket shelf.
First of all, if you eat processed foods, you may end up eating something with little or no beneficial nutrients required by your body to thrive, as these foods are manmade, not grown in the soil. In addition, such products can bring toxins into our bodies and when there is a build up of toxins inside your body, this causes huge health issues. This may cause you to not eliminate waste as well as you should be, therefore you can become clogged up. Even though you may feel that you have regular bowel movements and you think you’re eliminating waste on a daily basis, reality is that you may have released some, but not all the waste. Such food may linger and ferment in your body and lead to all kinds of diseases. So if you eat processed food and meat on a daily basis, and meat is one of the hardest foods to digest mind you, and if you recall what I mentioned earlier, that your body uses most of its energy in digesting food; imagine how overworked your body is just digesting that food.
Stress, toxins and healthy choices
For those who carry a huge amount of stress on their shoulders – be it work related or lifestyle, you are carrying toxins in your body which cannot be released – this is due to stress. You may not know this, but stress, anger, guilt; all such emotions get trapped in your liver which is one of your major organs. Your liver and your digestive system are now holding onto unresolved emotions and stresses, therefore your liver is working extra hard and you are almost guaranteed that you are also carrying toxicity in your body, otherwise known as waste! Good bowel movements are crucial to maintain good health and I cannot stress this enough. We have mentioned disease in this article, and this is exactly how disease starts – in your colon and your liver!
Many of us want to make healthy choices and please note I am not judging here, however, the problem that we and the next generation are facing is that most are not even eating real food; instead we are eating food-like products and we are over consuming in abundance. Again, going back 100 years or so, most of the food you see today in your local supermarket did not exist back then. We need to return to nature and its laws. Eat food without any labels on it. Foods with labels mean they have been processed (man-made). Not sure about you, but I can’t even pronounce most of these names, yet alone read them and then actually understand them. These ingredients are not there to support you, they shouldn’t be there in the first place and we should not be consuming them. For our own benefit, we need to start making healthy conscious choices. Home grown is best, but if this is not achievable please buy and eat as close as to nature as possible. My grandparents and parents were born in a small country town, where people grew their food, looked after the land and did not have their food sprayed with any pesticides. The land was nourished using natural fertilisers with new crops planted back into freshly re-nourished soil. I remember picking cherries and apples straight from the tree as a child, unwashed, simply because they were free from pesticides, insecticides and herbicides. My only concern was making sure I didn’t swallow a worm that made its way to the fruit! If food is not sprayed heavily with toxins mentioned above, worms will likely get to them, but they won’t touch sprayed food. (No wonder they look so perfect on the shelf). I grew up with my weekends on these farms where wholefoods were a part of everyday life, freshly grown on their massive lands. Chickens were fed with real food, such as corn and grains, and I know this because I fed them myself when at the farm. All animals were fed real foods, not fed medicines such as antibiotics and definitely not hormones! So once again, if you like eating meat ‒ be mindful where it comes from, the same applies to dairy products.
Cow’s milk is high in acid but I often hear adults’ still drinking milk in their coffee and to their defence say “it’s only a little bit, surely it won’t hurt” or “I only drink it with coffee”. Mix in a table or two with sugar/ sweetener and BOOM you are consuming a chemical latte first thing, which does not serve your body. Not only are you not eliminating waste, now you add to the destruction in your body as soon as you get up by having that “only one coffee”. Not only have you not started your day properly, but have now added more acid and toxins into your body. So instead of the coffee, why don’t you opt for a smoothie, eat a fruit or a fruit salad, have a vegetable broth during winter which is nourishing and will warm you from the inside. Only then have your coffee, just please stay away from dried instant coffee or coffee that comes from a coffee pod which has been sitting in a plastic or aluminium tub absorbing toxins and preferably stay away from the cow’s milk which is not just acidic, but also mucus forming.
Disease, Eating and Fasting
Hippocrates once said: “Illness does not come upon us out of the blue. They are developed from small daily sins against Nature. When enough sins have accumulated, illnesses will suddenly appear”. Disease is caused by the food we consume or over consume, which interrupts our natural elimination process, not helped by the fact that we as a society have moved away from real foods which nature created and still provides for us. Our current world is fast paced, and so is our food – it is available to us on a plastic fork; on demand, quick, easy ready meals, take aways in all shapes and sizes delivered using online apps from the comfort of our couch; food gets delivered to our doorsteps for our convenience. Now I like convenience, don’t get me wrong, but for many, the food they consume is far from the wholefoods I am describing and causes us to overeat. For those who eat “clean”, but suffer from bloating, weight gain or illness – please look into the emotions stored inside you. You won’t heal without looking into this deeper; it’s just one factor out of few.
I often use the phrase “less is more” as I truly believe that when we as humans eat less we then become healthier. Have you noticed that when wild animals in their natural habitats are sick, they fast? They recover, they don’t eat and their bodies heal faster. Now what do humans do? Unfortunately, eat. Fasting doesn’t just exist in the animal kingdom, many centuries ago fasting was part of life for us humans too.
As mentioned in my Brainz Podcast while talking with the host, Mark Sephon, fasting is not for everyone. It is not for pregnant women, not for those who are breastfeeding, not for children younger than 21 years old and not for those with a history of eating disorders. However, if you suffer from any pain, inflammation, back pain and any other disease ‒ fasting is for you. In saying this, please do not just decide and start a fast (regardless if its juice fast, 3 day fast, water fast etc) you need to plan ahead and prepare your body for it. This is a must if you want to see benefits, as done incorrectly may cause more harm than good. There are many different types of fasts to consider as well and I recommend speaking with someone who can help guide you in the process.
Just recently I had a conversation about fasting with someone who went and purchased ready-made juices and hit them hard the next day. While telling her story, her comment was that it wasn’t for her for a lot of reasons. I asked her if she prepared her body for the fast or for breaking the fast, her answer was no. Well, no surprises that the fast wasn’t finished as planned and her body reacted in way that made her stop the fast. Your body needs preparation beforehand and when you break your fast there is also a safe way in doing so. When fasting is done in the correct manner and for the right reasons, it also makes you aware of your own eating habits.
Fasting doesn’t mean you starve yourself. So many clients “freak out” when we start discussing fasting, as they are scared they will be hungry for days and become “hangry” (angry due to hunger). Please note you don’t need to do this on a daily basis if it’s too hard. You can take it slowly to get to a stage where it is comfortable for you. Remember this is about listening and honouring your body and your body’s needs. But there is no need for panic either, people can and should eat less but instead there is an idea that we won’t survive without food even if it is a day or two.
Health benefits of fasting:
So what are the benefits of fasting? Fasting can and should be part of your self-care regime. You can gain more energy, better manage your weight, build a stronger immunity system, have better digestion and even better mental performance. Experts in this area speak about why this works and this works because fasting (which ever fasting method you chose) activates your metabolic process. It is all related to the levels of glucose in your blood stream, or your insulin. The metabolic process kicks in when the body is in a fasted state. This allows the body to clean up damaged cells and it starts to look for alternative fuel sources, usually the stored excess fat. This isn’t just about weight management; fasting can help regulate your blood sugar balance, gut health balance and mental focus, when the mind is clear and not in a fog state. Some studies even indicate that it enhances cognitive function and assists prevention of some neurodegenerative diseases.
Food selection
I encourage you all to make better choices when it comes to food. Pick fruit and vegetables by choosing what is in season at the current time of the year, learn about the ways fruit and vegetables are grown, how they are planted, where the produce comes from, eat organic where possible from your local grocery or farmers market.
I recommend you to look through the labels on each product for your own awareness. I also encourage you to ask questions at your local butcher, your local veggie and fruit shop as to how and where do they come from? Just the same as I touched briefly in my previous article re water, and that it’s best to avoid plastic bottles, same goes for your products. Where possible avoid plastic wrapping around your food. Why do humans have this need to wrap food in plastic? Corn for example, comes in a natural form of, it is wrapped around a leaf, which grew with the corn, but humans decided to trim the corn, lay it on a foam tray and cover it in cling wrap! It really boggles my mind when I see this at the shops. I vote with my wallet. I don’t purchase anything that is removed from nature. I have returned to purchasing my fresh produce at a market where plastic has been removed. By removing and wrapping food in plastic, it removes natures intended way of eating. In addition, the relationship between foods is completely different when you grow your own food (where possible) or even go to a fresh market to purchase, look, smell and touch the food compared to when you purchase a ready meal and open up the plastic packaging it comes from. When we moved into our family home, here in Australia, my parents planted fruit trees including lemons, oranges, plums and apples of different varieties, figs, we had a hazelnut tree; we had a vegetable garden so the food we ate was mostly from our garden. We made jams and other foods from our own little crop. This is what I grew up with and what has been passed onto me, which I value and am passing down to my kids. Be watchful what you are teaching the next generation. The population is continuing to grow so it is vital for kids to be educated about food and build a healthy habit and a healthy relationship with food.
Be mindful of your choices. Remember, nature has your back and so do I. You can reach out and ask for help. I have recently been asked to do a presentation as people are seeking truth. I feel honoured to be doing so and therefore have extended my services by doing public presentations to those who are interested and those who wish to be educated. In iridology, which I specialise in, there is something called a “ring of purpose”, my eyes indicate this ring and I truly believe that after so long, after doing the work I loved (but restricted with red tape at each turn), after losing my mum, after battling eczema with my youngest one and healing her from it naturally, I can honestly say I found my purpose in life and I am here to help as many people to be the best version of them.
Here is to you, your family and, your own health.
Follow me on my website for more info!
Kasia Dabrow-Kielan, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Kasia Dabrow-Kielan worked as a Social Worker for almost 15 years and completed her Bachelor of Psychology and Social Work. Kasia's passion is to work with others and she is equipped with skills to enhance the well-being of her clients. She worked in various fields of Social Work in Australia and the United Kingdom. Kasia's personal experiences and life challenges made Kasia change her lifestyle and now has dedicated her life to helping others do the same, outside of Social Work. Kasia has passionately created her own brand Consciously Healthy, which the name speaks for itself. Kasia has become a Health Coach and studied Iridology in Bali. She offers Iridology, Sclerology, health consulting, 1 on 1 Health Coaching, and detox online programs. Kasia's hunger for knowledge does not rest and is keen to pursue further studies.
