Your first line of defense against disease and physical deterioration is your diet. At Healing Ways, we encourage all of our clients to make better dietary choices. Rather than browbeating people with a list of "shoulds" like eating according to any one-diet-fits-all plan, we empower our clients to make step-by-step improvements that move them gently and steadily into a mutually supportive relationship with their environment. Viewed in this way, your diet is that part of the world around you that you actually select to take into yourself to make your physical being. It just makes sense to choose the best food and drink you can lay your hands on.

Building and maintaining health and vitality depend heavily on nutrition, yet despite the abundance of food available in our society, many people suffer from nutritional deficiencies and disorders arising from bad dietary choices and poor eating habits. To make matters worse, environmental degradation and considerations of shelf life have undermined the quality of our food supply. So even dietary choices that were once good now may lead to malnutrition. And the proliferation of processed foods along with the pandemic consumption of sweetened, carbonated beverages has wreaked untold damage on the health not only of Americans, but increasingly, the population of the world. In general, you will be better off if you follow a few simple rules in choosing when and what you put into your body.

• Sit down, bless your food, and eat in gratitude to Nature and Spirit for providing it. When I consider the chain of events that brings food to me and mine, it puts me in a frame of mind to enjoy eating and benefit the most from it.

• Prioritize nutrition. Always look for the best choice available. When Bärbel and I were raising our four young children, there wasn't always plenty of money available for buying the most expensive groceries. Eat in and make every dollar count if you're having trouble making ends meet. We found that the best way to limit our health care costs is to invest in preventative health strategies. Always remember that nutrition is the foundation of health and you lay a new cornerstone every day.

• Eat whole foods, freshly prepared. Your digestive processes rely on nutritional, chemical and physical properties of natural food that may be destroyed or extracted in processing. Enzymes, the biochemical "handles" on certain nutrients, may be destroyed by cooking or chemical reactions in food processing. Many vitamins are also sensitive to industrial treatments that extend the shelf life of foods, but reduce their nutritional value along with their price. And processed foods are often fractional foods, in contrast to whole foods. White flour, for example, contains only the starchy residue of wheat from which the bran and precious wheat germ have been removed, so it is not as nutritious as whole-wheat flour. And all flour is really processed food. From the moment a seed is ground into flour, it ceases to be a living thing and begins to decompose. Oxidation sets in and rancidity results within 72 hours of grinding. Most of us can't tell the difference this makes on the conscious level, but on the cellular level it accelerates the aging process. By grinding your own flour as needed and buying sprouted grain breads, you can reduce your exposure to cellular oxidation.

• Eat all the fresh, raw produce you can. Few of us get enough unprocessed produce. We never encounter clients suffering from an excess of this type of food, although eating strictly "fresh and raw" does not guarantee adequate nutrition. Some foods are more digestible cooked than raw. Deficiencies are possible with any diet because eating food is not the same as assimilating and metabolizing it. But a steady intake of a good variety of high quality, well-washed, unprocessed produce is essential to maintaining optimal health.

• Eat intuitively. Many times, you can avoid overeating or digestive trouble just by "listening to your food." This is another reason for eating in a state of calm and relaxation. We find that the more we tune in to the real value of food to our bodies, not just the immediate gratification of the sensation and taste of eating something "yummy," the greater grows our appreciation for foods that make us feel good after the act of swallowing.

• Supplement judiciously. All supplements are not created equal. And the multivitamin "shotgun" approach to supplementation often results in nothing more than vitamin rich compost because the nutrients supplemented pass through the digestive tract unrecognized as food. Supplements recommended by Bärbel Aldridge, ND are of the highest quality in terms of purity, consistent nutritive value, and assimilability, so you can always count on Healing Ways as your source for the highest quality supplements and the right ones for you.

• Remember that every body is different—especially yours. What works for someone else may not work for you. Bärbel Aldridge customizes a nutritional plan for each client on the basis of her energetic and physical assessment. Contact her to learn more about optimizing the good you get from the investment you make in your health by selecting quality foods and nutritional supplements.

We hope you will use these guidelines to govern the kinds and quantity of food you eat. We are aware that cost/benefit considerations frequently affect dietary choices. These considerations go far beyond the sticker price of foods, extending outward to the ways your spending shapes the relation between your and the earth, and inward to the effects of particular foods on your unique body. In our view, there is no one ultimate right way to eat that will work for everybody. There are only relatively appropriate and inappropriate choices that have to do with many factors, some of which are known only to you.