Fresh foods have, in past, been main source that provided vitamins and minerals essential to properly functioning, healthy human body. These nutrients, naturally occurring in some fresh fruits and vegetables, can and have, in past given our bodies what was needed for health and vitality. Today, however, because of modern farming, harvesting, storage, and food processing methods, our formally nutrient rich food sources contain lower levels of some vitamins and minerals for supporting and maintaining good health. We still need to eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables in our daily food consumption, but we also need to complement that dietary habit with adequate, high quality, food formed vitamin and mineral supplements in order to insure that our healthy, active lifestyles which include proper diet and exercise are contributing to desired state of optimal health.

Today, nutritionists remind us that we need to eat 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables including a healthy balance of dairy products, lean meats, and whole grains. But with modern methods of processing whereby our foods are boiled, microwaved, canned, frozen, refined, pasteurized, and laced with additives intended to help preserve them, our fresh fruits and vegetables are lower in vitamins and minerals today than they were even 30 years ago. One example from a recent study reported that two peaches would have supplied current RDA of vitamin A for adult women in 1951. Today, a woman would have to eat almost 53 peaches to meet her daily requirements! These losses are due, primarily to fact that food science has focused on issues of mass production, visual appearance, and physical features that motivate people to buy rather than nutrient content. The average fruit or vegetable travels 1,500 to 2,500 miles from farm to your plate. They are grown, harvested, stored, and handled with this in mind as priority of waste and product loss before being sold, trump any concerns for nutrient content and health benefits. There are extensive losses of many important nutrients during all stages of food production as our foods move from farms to our tables to be eaten. Therefore we must supplement our diets with high quality food formed vitamins and minerals in order to achieve health benefits that we desire.

How to meditate

Meditation…to a lot of people sounds difficult but secret is it’s really easy AND IT CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

Don’t worry about any pre conceptions about needing to sit cross legged amid joystick smoke chanting some mysterious mantra; or trying to clear your mind when it’s totally crammed with thoughts and worries we all face day to day.

Most people in my classes start off telling me they can’t meditate because their mind is too busy or they’re too active to relax etc. Yet within 20 minutes they’re there.

EVERYONE can meditate. Your body knows how to meditate; it’s just about knowing some simple steps to access meditative state. And it SO EASY !

What is meditation

To be in meditative state means to be free of outside influences, thoughts fears and worries; to tuned in to ones own energies and energies around. To be perfectly centered, balanced and at peace. Meditation is not a state of mind, it’s a state of mind, body and soul in perfect harmony.

Modern life encourages us to separate thoughts from emotions and instinct from actions. It drives us to believe it’s what we think that makes us who we are and rules our lives. Sometimes we even believe that our emotions are somehow wrong, or that we shouldn’t think or feel a certain way. This is where stress, fear, worry and other negative energies creep in and gradually build up.

It’s a state where three spheres of human existence, mind body and soul work separately, we become ‘scattered’. BUT; those three elements; mind body and soul are meant to work together and if we just give them a chance will come back into balance.

Remember a time when maybe you settled back and daydreamed on a warm beach or in front of a fire and felt at peace and at ease. This is sort of feeling we get from being in meditation.

In order to start meditating;

1.Find a space where there are no distractions. Send kids out, turn TV off, whatever you need to do to create a quiet comfortable atmosphere.

Candles and incense help if you have them but if you haven’t don’t worry. Just make sure lighting is not bright and then sit and get as comfortable as you can.

Always meditate in bare feet with your feet touching ground.

2.Close your eyes and do nothing Thoughts, ideas, worries will come and go. Let them Don’t feel you have to make any effort to clear your mind because you don’t; things will all happen naturally if you let go.

One way of letting go is to imagine sitting in busy traffic and all other cars around each representing daily challenges to be negotiated creating daily pressures, worries and strains in your life.

Visualise pulling out of traffic to side of road and sitting quietly watching traffic go bye without worrying you anymore, as you are now a detached observer and not amidst hustle and bustle.

Slowly traffic will subside.

3.Just continue to sit and do nothing

Slowly your thoughts, feelings and your physical body will align and your energies will come into balance. Don’t worry about it happening it just will.

Enjoy feeling of comfort; lack of distraction. Sense how your heart feels, sense how your tummy feels ( these are two of main energy centers or ‘chakras’ )

If they feel a little tense then visualize any stress just evaporating from them.

4.Allow your senses to wander and go wherever they like. Thoughts, ideas, feelings and sometimes even colors will flash past. Let them come and go and just be detached observer.

5.Remember last time you were sitting in sun and how it felt with sun on your body.

Visualise that white light all around you. Remember visualizations don’t need to be convincing, it doesn’t take a lot of effort, just imagine it.

Soak up that sunlight. Encourage light to surround and fill your body.

6. Just sit and sink deeper into meditation, increasingly relaxing and attuning

Memorize steps and try it. Don’t be a slave to detail just remember basics.