Raw Vegan Lifestyle: Gratitude and Intention for the Food We Eat

A healthy mind begins with a healthy body and a healthy body begins with a healthy mind. As a raw vegan chef and nutrition enthusiast, I believe both physical and mental health and wellbeing have a lot to do with what you put into your body; but I’m not only talking about the food. The gratitude and intention that goes into your body with your food is just as if not more important. Negative emotions are just as harmful to your body as junk food. If you are eating a 100% organic raw vegan diet but have anger in your heart, you might as well be eating a greasy fast food burger.

Don’t just take my word for it. Robert Emmons, a psychology professor at the University of Califo
ia, Davis, actually studied it. He conducted a clinical research study which demonstrated that feeling genuine gratitudepromotes health, happiness, and a strong connection to others. It just makes sense to me! It’s hard to be spiteful, angry, depressed, or anything other than gracious when you are feeling pure unadulterated love and gratitude.

My favorite example of pure gratitude in action is the miraculous experiments of Dr. Masaru Emoto and his magical experiments with water. Dr. Emoto conducted various experiments in which he taped words such as love, gratitude, peace, thank you, war, and hate on bottles of plastic water. He also had Buddhist monks pray over some of the water as well as conducted experiments where participants where to honor and thank water. He then froze the water and looked at the crystal formations under a microscope. As one might expect, the water exposed to kind words formed beautiful crystal structures while negative words created ugly chaotic patterns. The human body is made up of 60 – 80% water depending on body size. I defer back to my opening statement: A healthy mind begins with a healthy body and a healthy body begins with a healthy mind.

References

Emoto, Masaru. The Hidden Messages In Water. Hillsboro, OR: Beyond Word Publishing, Inc. 2004

http://www.latimes.com/sns-ap-us-science-of-gratitude,0,5914472.story

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/news_events/event/building_gratitude/