Discovery and Empowerment Dialogue Overview

(4a) Are You a Conscious Eater?

This Dialogue asks the question: “Are you a conscious eater?” It looks at the typical ways that people are conditioned to eat, without thinking about why they are eating and what they are eating that can impact their health adversely.

Many people in America rely on the information in the USDA food models to know what kinds of foods to eat every day even though leading health experts say it is flawed, in a nutritional sense.

The USDA model, you will discover in this dialogue, is heavily influenced by agribusiness concerns and says nothing about the depleted and toxified soils producing food with lowered nutritive value, as compared with organically grown foods that come from healthy soil.

Are you aware that the USDA’s Dietary Guidelines Committee has long emphasized the importance of eating dairy products (even though millions of people are lactose intolerant) and meats (even though they have no fiber)? In this dialogue, you will consider the effect these recommendations have had on your (and your family’s) health.

You are encouraged to look at the USDA food model’s food groups critically, helping you sort out the biased, if not erroneous information about foods (provided by government agencies), that the food pyramid/plate doesn’t offer complete information about.

Factory farm conditions create untold suffering for millions of animals, and it results in serious environmental problems due to the poison chemicals used to grow grain for animal feed and the large amounts of body waste so many animals produce. This dialogue encourages you to respond to this crisis.

Why has sustainability been left out of the USDA Eating Model Guidelines? Use this dialogue to understand the answer to this question and consider the value and necessity of adopting a new eating model that promotes sustainability.

Discovery and Empowerment Dialogue Overview

(4a) Are You a Conscious Eater?

This Dialogue asks the question: “Are you a conscious eater?” It looks at the typical ways that people are conditioned to eat, without thinking about why they are eating and what they are eating that can impact their health adversely.

Many people in America rely on the information in the USDA food models to know what kinds of foods to eat every day even though leading health experts say it is flawed, in a nutritional sense.

The USDA model, you will discover in this dialogue, is heavily influenced by agribusiness concerns and says nothing about the depleted and toxified soils producing food with lowered nutritive value, as compared with organically grown foods that come from healthy soil.

Are you aware that the USDA’s Dietary Guidelines Committee has long emphasized the importance of eating dairy products (even though millions of people are lactose intolerant) and meats (even though they have no fiber)? In this dialogue, you will consider the effect these recommendations have had on your (and your family’s) health.

You are encouraged to look at the USDA food model’s food groups critically, helping you sort out the biased, if not erroneous information about foods (provided by government agencies), that the food pyramid/plate doesn’t offer complete information about.

Factory farm conditions create untold suffering for millions of animals, and it results in serious environmental problems due to the poison chemicals used to grow grain for animal feed and the large amounts of body waste so many animals produce. This dialogue encourages you to respond to this crisis.

Why has sustainability been left out of the USDA Eating Model Guidelines? Use this dialogue to understand the answer to this question and consider the value and necessity of adopting a new eating model that promotes sustainability.



Discovery Mission 4:

Respecting the Gifts that Are Your Body and the Earth

Although organic foods have become more popular than ever before, people still buy conventional, industrially grown food, probably because it is priced more cheaply at the grocery store. However, the price of industrially produced food does not reflect the true costs of food production: sheltering, feeding, and caring for animals in a humane, healthy way; replenishing land and damaged ecosystems; cleaning up our rivers, lakes, and streams as they are polluted by animal and chemical waste; or treating human medical problems that result from toxic food. How and why is it important to stop using food as a drug? How and why is it important to let go of non-essential eating habits (such as overeating) or familial and socially conditioned eating habits? How can we use our awareness that our bodies and the Earth are gifts, to reconnect with them in healthy ways and make a pledge to ourselves that we will eat consciously?

Discovery and Empowerment Dialogue Overview

(4b) Are You a Conscious Eater?

In this dialogue, it may seem (after the critique of the USDA Models introduced in part 4a) that hardly any of the foods we are used to can be part of an “eco-balanced” lifestyle. Not so! This Dialogue focuses on the many and wonderful possibilities for eating a whole and nourishing diet that enhances rather than harming Earth’s life-giving systems.

The Eco-Intelligent Eating Model ™, you will discover, isa model whose time has come, because it emphasizes the importance of “farming green” and “eating clean.” It reflects up-to-date knowledge about how to eat a good and balanced diet without the negative impacts (on the health of humans and the Earth) of many industrially produced foods.

You will have the chance when you meet the Eco-Intelligent Eating Model™ to discover/ rediscover the legend and lore of Earth’s traditional whole foods. These are foods that people in a variety of cultures have eaten for thousands of years, and that helped them—and our great-grandparents—live long and healthy lives.

In looking at what the alternative food model advises on the most important nutrients people need every day—protein, fruits and vegetables, carbohydrates, and fats—the discussion highlights some of the food nutrients that are ignored in conventional nutritional analysis but that studies have shown to be important in the human diet, such as phytochemicals.

This dialogue contains in-depth information about familiar grains such as wheat, rice, barley, and oats, as well as some ancient and traditional ones such as spelt, quinoa, millet, and amaranth.

This part also details the dietary role and nutritional benefits of nuts and seeds, as well as the oils they contain, and proper storage of oils to maintain their maximum freshness. Nut milk offers an excellent way to enjoy the benefits of many nuts and fruits and to replace some or all the dairy milk in your diet with something that doesn’t have any of the problems of dairy production or consumption.

Dairy products and eggs can be part of a healthful whole-foods diet if they are produced by animals that are grass-fed or given organic feed, not given antibiotics or genetically engineered growth hormones, allowed to roam and fulfill their own instinctive behaviors, and treated in a humane manner.

A whole-food diet doesn’t exclude sweeteners but rejects refined sugar and high-fructose corn syrup in favor of maple syrup, barley malt syrup, organic cane sugar, and other organic and non-refined sweeteners.

Discovery and Empowerment Dialogue Overview

(4Xa) Are You a Conscious Eater?

In this dialogue, you are asked to answer the question: What does it mean to thrive in today’s world? and to ascertain whether you feel you’re thriving.

The ways you thrive, you’ll discover, are largely dependent upon both your ability to assimilate nourishment from your food choices and your willingness to nurture a healthy relationship with food preparation.

How you eat says a lot about how much self-regard you have for yourself and is a key component of your health.

You will consider how you feel about self-care that involves food preparation and consider the idea that “why” you cook is more important than “how” you cook.

Do you understand why our fast-food culture doesn’t support you in thriving? Do you realize that when you rush through the day and stuff food into your mouth while doing two or three other things, you’re not eating consciously? What is your relationship with food? Do you eat slowly to enjoy the taste of food and the act of self-nurturance, giving time for the digestion process in a relaxing way?

This dialogue offers examples of how a fast-food mentality is hurting your health and why it’s calling you to explore the value of slow-food dining experiences such as the kind that Europeans indulge in when they spend two hours eating several courses and allocate time afterward to stroll or nap.

What’s the secret to rekindling your interest in creating meals from scratch in your own kitchen? Changing your attitudes toward the kitchen and challenging the notion that preparing food is a chore can help significantly in reordering your approaches to nourishing yourself.

This dialogue explores the value and necessity of creating a sacred kitchen, a place that is inviting and that supports you in feeling nurtured, comforted, and nourished.

You are offered five practical tips for creating a sacred kitchen space, which centers around decluttering and organizing your kitchen workspace as well as weeding out pots, pans, and appliances that are old and worn out or not eco-friendly.

Have you ever identified with an archetype? This dialogue introduces you to several culinary archetypes that offer to turn meal-making into a more fun and purposeful experience.

Why do we eat? Is it just to fuel our bodily functions, and give us a burst of energy for some activity? To have the pleasure of tasting something we like. Because the clock says it is mealtime? Or does feeding the body necessarily involve feeding the soul? Beliefs about food have a significant impact on what we choose to eat and how our food nourishes us. But beliefs of this kind are often hidden beneath layers of assumptions that we learn to accept without question from childhood. Some such assumptions come from our families, and others come from a culture that values speed and technology while denigrating the basic work of survival. In this mission, you are invited to consider your own beliefs about food, starting with why you eat and what state of mind you bring to the dinner table, to food preparation and the experience of eating. This mission is a fun way to explore and examine beliefs that are almost certainly affecting your health and well-being in one way or another. Once such beliefs are brought into conscious awareness, where they can be questioned and evaluated, it is much easier to change them and make choices we know are positive for ourselves and Earth.



Discovery and Empowerment Dialogue Overview

(4Xb) Are You a Conscious Eater?

This dialogue begins with a review of what you learned in your Discovery Mission. It continues with an exploration of the three steps that are involved in bringing meals to your dining table each day.

The first step you will discover relates to choosing the foods you will prepare. Choosing what you will prepare is an act that invites self-sufficiency and self-empowerment, especially when you are conscious and mindful about where the food has come from, and how it can nourish your body’s changing seasonal needs.

Have you ever thought about how certain types of foods impact your metabolism after they are digested, producing conditions inside of your body that are either hot or cold? In this dialogue, you will learn about how foods produce these conditions, not because of their temperature, but because of the yin or yang energetic qualities they possess.

Do you know if your body type is yin or yang? A yin body type, this dialogue points out, can benefit from eating a certain amount of yang foods, and a yang body type can benefit from eating a certain amount of yin foods.

Chinese Food Therapy, utilized by Chinese Medicine doctors, offers but one example of how a hot condition in the body calls for cooling foods, while a cool condition in the body calls for eating warming foods. Certain food preparations are particularly effective in correcting hot and cold imbalances in the body and have been proven in clinical practice to help cure a vast assortment of illnesses.

The second step in bringing meals to the dining table involves preparing the food you will eat. The ability to prepare a meal, you will discover in this dialogue, is an ability that will serve you for the rest of your life, by giving you control over what you eat and contributing to your health and the functionality of your home life and family life.

Do you have experience preparing meals in your kitchen, or not? If you’re lacking cooking abilities, there’s no shame in this, because it’s never too late to begin the learning process. Preparing meals offers to be a more creative and joyful experience when we use our imaginations in the process.

In this dialogue, you are given the chance to consider the ways in which the colors, shapes, textures, and aromas of foods feed not only your physical senses, but your mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

The third step in bringing meals to the dining table involves eating the food and cultivating gratitude for it. Eating what you have prepared offers to be a great source of pleasure, and it’s an activity that you can share with your loved ones at a table, without the distractions that television and cell phones create.

Discovery and Empowerment Dialogue Overview

(4Xb) Are You a Conscious Eater?

This dialogue begins with a review of what you learned in your Discovery Mission. It continues with an exploration of the three steps that are involved in bringing meals to your dining table each day.

The first step you will discover relates to choosing the foods you will prepare. Choosing what you will prepare is an act that invites self-sufficiency and self-empowerment, especially when you are conscious and mindful about where the food has come from, and how it can nourish your body’s changing seasonal needs.

Have you ever thought about how certain types of foods impact your metabolism after they are digested, producing conditions inside of your body that are either hot or cold? In this dialogue, you will learn about how foods produce these conditions, not because of their temperature, but because of the yin or yang energetic qualities they possess.

Do you know if your body type is yin or yang? A yin body type, this dialogue points out, can benefit from eating a certain amount of yang foods, and a yang body type can benefit from eating a certain amount of yin foods.

Chinese Food Therapy, utilized by Chinese Medicine doctors, offers but one example of how a hot condition in the body calls for cooling foods, while a cool condition in the body calls for eating warming foods. Certain food preparations are particularly effective in correcting hot and cold imbalances in the body and have been proven in clinical practice to help cure a vast assortment of illnesses.

The second step in bringing meals to the dining table involves preparing the food you will eat. The ability to prepare a meal, you will discover in this dialogue, is an ability that will serve you for the rest of your life, by giving you control over what you eat and contributing to your health and the functionality of your home life and family life.

Do you have experience preparing meals in your kitchen, or not? If you’re lacking cooking abilities, there’s no shame in this, because it’s never too late to begin the learning process. Preparing meals offers to be a more creative and joyful experience when we use our imaginations in the process.

In this dialogue, you are given the chance to consider the ways in which the colors, shapes, textures, and aromas of foods feed not only your physical senses, but your mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

The third step in bringing meals to the dining table involves eating the food and cultivating gratitude for it. Eating what you have prepared offers to be a great source of pleasure, and it’s an activity that you can share with your loved ones at a table, without the distractions that television and cell phones create.