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Living with Spinal Injury and Eating Healthfully

Do you believe in the power of positive thinking, the power of prayer, and the power of nature's miracles as part of the healing and rejuvinating processes of life?

Why should the food you eat be any different? Food should be grown with care, and prepared with the health and well being of the person eating it in mind.

Positive, healthy energy starts in the soil and the manner in which food is grown, and comes through in the way that the food is prepared and served. Food choices should be made deliberately, and food should be something that nourishes and heals.

The food that you use to fuel your body is also the medicine that your body needs to heal itself, utilize energy, stay healthy, and become stronger. Embrace food as more than something that fills your belly- use it to your advantage by letting food heal and mend, and helping you live your best. The food that we eat is the single most defining component of our health, and should be taken seriously by everyone, but more importantly, by those in states of compromised health or in   of healing and re-growth. Victims of disease, accidents, and other injuries, have more reason than any one else to eat nutritious, balanced, organic foods, made with natural, whole ingredients as eating deliberately these healing foods will promote the most optimum health and healing for challenged individuals. Eating deliberately means eating the most nutrient rich foods with the least amount of calories. Foods that are processed are "dead foods," and have little to no nutritional value. Foods that do not actively "do something" to promote health and offer nutrients are worthless to the system, and empty calories. Every calorie, especially for someone healing and rebuilding, should be a calorie that is power packed with nutrition.

A few tips I have developed on eating healthfully for spinal injury victims:

1. Avoid processed foods. Processed foods contain a cornucopia of additives and ingredients that degenerate health and undermine healing.
2. Avoid these ingredients: MSG, Hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils, shortening, corn syrup, preservatives, modified ANYTHING, colors, flavors, and hydrolized ingredients.
3. Make fresh produce (cooked or raw) about 75 percent of your daily calories. Use meat and animal proteins sparingly, and choose lean, organic seafood and poultry for most meals.
4. Eat organic. Organic produce is not only better because it is free of harmful chemicals and pesticides, but it grown in more nutrient rich soil. Produce grown organically offers higher levels of nutrients and antioxidants.
5. Increase your antioxidant intake. Toxins in the air, water, food, and environment circulate in our bodies, waiting to become cancers, cause disease, or produce inflammation. Drinking antioxidant drinks, like goji juice and acai juice, and eating leafy greens and berries, can help combat these toxins and free radicals roaming the body and doing harm.
6. Eat fish. Seafood is high in Omega 3 Fatty Acids, which are crucial for optimal health. Omegas protect us from inflammation- including in the heart, the brain, and the joints. Omega 3's are one of the most important nutrients for the injured patient to incorporate into their healing diet, and can be also derived from nutritional supplements and capsules.
7. Eat foods that are naturally low in fat. That doesn't mean eating foods that have had the fat removed, such as "non-fat" milk or other such products, but eating foods naturally low in fat, and  foods with higher fat in small amounts.
8. Limit sugar, especially refined sugars. Use honey, molasses, and agave where possible in cooking.
9. Avoid foods with nutritional claims. If a package has nutritional claims like "enriched," "reduced fat" or "sugar free," it is likely processed, and the nutrients have been stripped and replaced with non-nutrients or harmful additives.
10. Eat a wide variety of foods; the science of nutrition, and how foods and nutrients combine, is beyond the scope of our actual knowledge. By eating a lot of different types of fruits and vegetables and grains, the patient is diversifying their diet and making sure to get all of their critical nutrients as the foods combine inside the body.
11. Eat deliberately. Food is precious, and the best medicine ever created in the healing and rebuilding process of the body.

- Julie

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