By Dr Melissa Gilbert

This is the first of hopefully many posts by Dr Melissa Gilbert. It was first published on her blog, The Integrative Doctor.

I’ve read all the modern whole food books on the trendy bookstore shelves at the moment and I LOVE what’s happening. I love that our attitudes towards food are changing and that we are beginning to understand the true meaning of nourishment. We know now that how we source food is the first and arguably the most important step in the process. Food should be nutrient dense but it should also have a pristine conscience and be laden with good karma.

This all happens well before the food is gathered but contributes monumentally to how that food nourishes and heals our bodies. It’s time for all of us to wake up now, ignorance is no longer an excuse for the pillaging of our planet and quite honestly neither is cost anymore.

Sourcing and preparing healthful food is not about expensive ingredients from the local hipster grocery store. It’s about so much more than that and it starts in our own homes with an attitude analysis followed closely by figuring out what we can do right here, right now.

The first question to ask is, how did the food I have in my house get here? If it came from the other side of the world, is engineered or processed, has additives, added sugar or came from a place where chemicals and it’s carbon footprint are of no mind then change is needed….drastically!

SLOW food isn’t a new concept but it is a way of life that once adopted becomes a source of wellbeing that far surpasses anything experienced so far. Seasonal/Sustainable, Local/Logical, Organic (although karmicly sound is more important than an ‘organic” label) and Whole is the food that will make us better. It is medicine to ensure that our bodies are no longer a hindrance to our learning.

The absence of illness or mediocre wellness is not enough, we must be humming at exactly the right frequency so that we can connect with our whole minds to the truth of our existence. To be distracted by disease, inflammation, fatigue or pain takes us away from the core business of life – to learn and contribute.

A health crisis is not necessary to come to this knowledge, wellness at a higher level can be accessed now. I guess the good and fair questions at this point are around accessibility and equity. The right to be able to live a supremely healthful life is the right of all humans regardless of income, education and location. Awareness and willingness are truly all that is needed for this.

I’m going to mention the obvious in this post but only in passing because the truth is that the knowledge is already intuitive, we just need to tap into it. Foraging and growing food and community gardens and food swaps and trading and sharing and teaching and conserving and preserving and, and, and are already available, already being done, so do it.

If you can’t get online or you can’t get to your local library then go to your nearest neighbour and swap some seeds…the rest will follow.