Everything You Need to Know About Holistic Nutrition
Nowadays, there’s an infinite number of diets. But, we’re going to dive deep into a trend that’s not only about nourishing your body, but your mind and emotions too. Let’s take a look at holistic nutrition.
Holistic nutrition
Holistic nutrition is a lifestyle that understands diets as a whole. It involves physical, emotional and spiritual aspects in a complete package. But even considering each part separately, it looks at the system as a synergy between them, and not as individual parts.
That nutrition system brings ends the current lifestyle that’s causing so many health problems, by opting for a natural diet. This is more appropriate for our body.
Essential principles
Holistic nutrition recommends eating healthy, organic, fresh and seasonal foods. It advises the consumption of different colored fruits and vegetables, as well as a higher amount of protein that comes from vegetable sources. Like the ones you can find in grains, cereals and seeds, especially if they’re sprouting.
It also includes dried fruits and nuts, teas and medicinal herb infusions. Seaweeds and spices such as, turmeric, ginger, pepper, cinnamon and cloves, are also on the list.
And, it also pays attention to healthy culinary techniques that allow us to keep the maximum amount of nutrients and properties of each food.
This type of nutrition is all about listening to our bodies and learning from it. In other words, learning to eat in a way that’s beneficial for your body; providing everything that it needs.
This way, we may be able to prevent cravings and bad eating habits, since our body adapts and avoids nutritional imbalances.
In addition to all of this, we must emphasize three points:
1. Eating each and every one of the food groups we mentioned. Prioritizing vegetables, cereals, fruits and animal proteins.
2. Don’t starve. The amount of food that we eat, must be in accordance with our body.
3. Do physical exercise. It helps us to both lose weight, and maintain a healthy weight, in addition to improving our integral health.
What is holistic nutrition about?
As we mentioned before, holistic nutrition understands diets as a whole, considering the emotional, spiritual and physical aspects.
Even if the foundation is the same for every person and the diet contains the same foods, the truth is that the nutritional and energetic needs of each person will be different.
Therefore, before starting to eat uncontrollably, we must establish what our needs are. A holistic diet should definitely have:
- A majority of vegetable proteins.
- Carbohydrates that we can find in cereals and legumes, as the main source of energy.
- Fats from virgin oils and nuts
- Fruits and vegetables for a good contribution of vitamins, minerals and fiber. All three of which are very important for our digestive system.
Other considerations
The dishes that we cook, as we’ve already said, must be simple. The least number of processed products they contain and the least elaborate they are, the better they’ll be for our body. And that goes for both physical and emotional aspects.
It’s also very important to remember that it will be the key to get to know our body, so that we know what it needs at every moment. In other words, we’ll be aware of what each food brings to the table, and our choices will always be beneficial.
In the same way that we talk about physical exercise, our body also needs to rest- if we want to be healthy. Which is why that will be an indispensable principle for this lifestyle.
Last but not least, since this system understands the individual as a whole, we must associate our body and mind with nature.
Our current lifestyle takes away from the time we spend outside, and on many occasions, this can be a determinant factor associated with a higher risk of different diseases.
Conclusion
The ultimate goal of holistic nutrition is to educate people. Help them learn how to eat in a personalized and correct way. This will result in us being able to take care of ourselves long-term.
It will also help to identify and fight against the factors that are causing so many health problems, regarding our diets.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
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- Delgado, Freddy & Stephan Rist. (2016). Ciencias, diálogo de saberes y transdisciplinariedad. Aportes teórico metodológicos para la sustentabilidad alimentaria y del desarrollo. Universidad Mayor de San Simón. https://boris.unibe.ch/91487/1/Rist_2016_Ciencias%20dialogo%20de%20saberes.pdf