Last week, I finished off my post with this mixed message:

“You can get most of your nutrients with a good diet. But, even with the best diet possible ????, it’s ever clearer that we can’t get optimal nutrition unless we include supplements and superfoods. It’s not entirely bad news, though! Because we have solutions for this!” 

So, there it is. Our reality. While a balanced diet providing sufficient nutrients may have been possible while our parents or grandparents were growing up, today the nutrient content in whole foods has diminished dramatically.

In my opinion there are 3 main impediments to getting adequate nutrients from diet: 

1️⃣ The content of nutrients in our food has drastically declined in the last century. We’re just not getting enough on a daily basis. This is due to poor nutrient content in the soils, the fact that foods travel a long distance before they get to our plate, and our digestive systems are compromised, so we don’t absorb as well.

2️⃣ Our western diet regularly includes denaturalised foods (highly cooked and processed) that are stripped of nutrients and food that our digestive system is not designed to process in large quantities (sugars, dairy, grains, legumes, coffee, tea, alcohol.)

3️⃣ So much food contains pesticides, additives, colourants, and are genetically modified.  These are nutrient thieves, because they can bind to minerals and make them unavailable to our cells.

Here is just one astonishing fact (evidence for which I see regularly): malnutrition is climbing up the rankings of the biggest causes for poor health in the 21st century – and this is not exclusive to the poor!

According to The World Health Organisation, 149 million children under the age of 5 are too short for their age. Why? Malnutrition. And, this is mainly in the west!

Here are my top tips for getting the most from the food you eat:

1. Drink vegetable juices at least 3 times per week (even better, every day!)
2. Eat on average 5 veggies and 3 fruits per day.
3. Make sure your food is raw as much as you can in order to get the maximum nutrients. Aim for 50% or more raw food in your daily consumption. (If you have a digestive system that is inflamed or compromised, you may have to cook your food first in order to heal the digestive system, and then gradually increase raw foods).
4. Try to have organic foods, or buy from farmers that you trust.  Include foods that come local, ideally that have been picked that morning. Have a vegetable garden if you can!
5. Include superfoods as much as you can. I gave you tips for that in this newsletter.
6. Vary your food.
7. Eat food in season.

To compensate for the inevitable lack of nutrients, despite your best diet efforts, I recommend that for one month at the beginning of every season, you recharge your body with these supplements:

???? A good overall vitamin and trace mineral supplement 
???? One medicinal mushroom (Reishi, cordyceps, etc) or a mixture of your favourite ones 
???? Vitamin D3
???? Magnesium
???? Omega 3 fatty acids

Good nutrition sets us on the path to live healthy and to thrive. Are you going to make sure you thrive? I hope so! ????????

Love & light, Dejana ✨

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