Holistic Nutrition 101: A Mind-Body-Spirit Approach to Food & Healing
There is so much more that goes into maintaining health than minding calories and nutrients, and there is more to who we are than our physical selves. This is what it means to have a holistic lens on wellness.
To take this further: not only do our food choices impact us on emotional, mental, and spiritual levels (in addition to the physical), but we need more than wholesome meals to fully nourish ourselves.
A holistic view of health understands that all of these parts of us are interconnected, inseparable. It also considers the social, environmental, and other, more subtle, factors that influence our inner terrain, that feed or deplete us.
Four Principles of Holistic Nutrition
Holistic Nutrition can be understood as an approach to food and healing that looks at this whole picture, and recognises a number of principles.
Know Yourself: because there is no singular formula for cultivating health, no diet that works for all bodies at all times, understanding your own constitution (the blueprint you’ve inherited from your ancestors) is fundamental. For example, do you run hot or cold, tend to hold or lose weight, have excess or low energy most often?
Context is Everything: in addition to our constitution, we also consider our current moment. We adjust our diets in response to what nature makes available to us each season. This can look like minimising raw foods in the winter and focusing on heat-retaining soups and stews, and waiting to eat most fruits until they are harvestable where we live. Our body’s needs also shift according to where we live, and as we cycle through our own “seasons” in life.
Food Energetics: there is a “constitution” or energetic profile to the foods we eat, and we choose foods whose qualities will restore us to balance at any given moment. Foods exist on a spectrum from cold to neutral to hot (this is their thermal nature); have contracting, cooling and moistening properties (Yin energy) or expanding, heating and drying ones (Yang). Each food also holds the energy of a particular element in nature (fire, earth, metal, water, wood), and the medicine of a flavour (sweet, pungent, salty, sour, bitter). Someone with a weakened constitution, for example, will benefit from the sweet root vegetables and whole grains that build, rather than cleanse, their system.
“Intangible” Nourishment: is just as important for our well being. The quality of our food, our air, water, and relationships, matters. We need access to nature (one form of this can be engagement with the intelligence of plant medicine); mindfulness practices that bring us into deeper connection with ourselves. We also thrive when we locate a sense of purpose, and create ways to express that in our lives.
Ultimately, however, we aim not just to recover wellness, but to cultivate radiant health. In this state, our willpower is developed, our vision clear, our humour available; we experience ourselves as being part of nature, of a larger whole. Most importantly, perhaps, our adaptability is enhanced, our capacity to optimally and accurately respond to changes in our internal and external environments.
This is the true foundation of radiant health, and the goal of the practice of Holistic Nutrition.