Preamble

I do believe that truth can be explained simply and exploring the limit of that simplicity may lead to discovery. So I will list some of the principles I have found helpful in my life. Whatever explanations, interpretations that follow are simply that, my interpretations. Some of those based on my personal experience and some that I am exploring the limit of. There may be better ways/principles to build a strong foundation of living healthfully and I am curious to hear those.
Below the principles I write what I think and maybe questions that have helped me search for answers to problems I have dealt with. I like questions a lot, I feel like they are like a map and I can decide if I want to follow that question to whatever I may discover. :)

Eat between sunrise and sundown

I feel like this can vary between where people live in the world but for me right now I feel like when I can break my night fast between 10-12 and finish eating between 18-19 I am eating in a natural eating window.

Let digestion finish before going to sleep

Sleep is a time for healing, regeneration and cleaning. Having finished the digestion process makes that healing window even more powerful. If I feel like I have to eat something I aim to eat something light, water rich and easily digestable.

Identify the craving vs the need

I still get cravings, I still get confused as to if I’m craving something because I need it or because of some attachment. There is a question I try to ask myself when this occurs:
What exactly in this do I need?
Can I get this specific thing from something else?
Is that other thing more in line with my values, goals etc?

Eating cleaner cleans the system

If I begin to eat extremely clean, hygenic food that contain a lot of water to help flush out waste, fiber that cleans the colon, I may experience increase in mucousal discharge such as through my nose. I may experience watery stool or hard stool, some things that could not move or need to move fast could be leaving the system. I could go on but really it centers around trusting the body’s ability to heal, to trust that it knows what it needs/wants and when it can/should expell waste and in what manner.

Food is medicine, medicine is food

During the day I write this I wonder how well the body reacts to highly processed items. Oil for example is in a lot of things but oil isn’t found in nature in the concentrated form that is on many kitchen tables. If there are new diseases appearing in people, could it be because of people ingesting new things?

Food becomes your body

I heard someone say: “Eat what you want to become”, I think that is beautiful.
Is there a symphony of nutrition on my plate?
To make a cell that I call a part of me takes many different kinds of nutriments. How and what can I eat so that the body gets all the nutriments in adequate amounts to create a healthy cell?

We are made from dirt and we shall return to dirt

If I were to make dirt at home, dirt I would feel good working with and eating what grows from it, what would I put in that compost bin?
How well does processed food decompose into nutritious soil and that process food affect the decomposition of other food, does it coat other food?

We need pain as it is one of the body’s way of communicating

As I’m writing this I feel I have numbed my body in so many ways for so many years that I am gradually reconnecting with my body, reconnecting with my pain and learning to listen to it and take care of it.

The digestive system is the human cell factory

There are many enzymes, bacteria etc that live in the digestive system. How many of them can thrive harmoniously in our body with products such as pesticides, preservatives, processed foods etc?
An ailment such as dysbiosis, could that be cause by eating processed foods where only one or a few bacteria get fed and the others starve?
How well can the body process an item that is made to be preserved, how will the bacteria break it down and if they do, what will the quality of those biproducts be?

Fiber slows down absorption

Highly refined items such as oil and table sugars contain no fiber, they are rapidly absorped into the bloodstream, so fast that the human body has never experienced it in it’s evolutionary process. The body then needs to filter and store all of that from the blood which takes a toll on various systems in the body.

Foods will cause acidity or alkalinity in the body

One of the most helpful foods in my life have been cucumbers, cucumber juice and celery juice with cucumbers coming on top for me personally.
What causes acidity and alkalinity? Can I notice it in my body?

Stool is around 75% water

We can look at food and see roughly if it will need to take away water from our body or if it gives water to our body. If a food is above 75% water it will hydrate our body which will help our bowel movements. Cucumbers have helped me more than I can say.

Microbiome/Microbiota

Eat for the gut microbiome

If you eat for your gut, you eat for yourself. We are made of soil and we shall return to it.
How can I make soil that is most nourishing?

Fiber feeds gut bacteria

Keeping the bacteria in our stomach healthy means feeding them good, diverse fiber.

Gut bacteria break down fiber

In the process of breaking down fiber, these gut bacteria form amino acids among other things that are essential and/or beneficial for our body.

Compared to other animals

We are the only animal on the planet that eats cooked food

We are the only animal on the planet that drinks milk past infancy

What other animals have lactose intollerance? When in the history of mankind did that become a disease?

When animals are sick, they rest in every sense of the word

Currently I am not able to abstain from everything for the prolonged period of time a wounded animal may rest for. What I wonder today is why the spiritual masters I look towards all seem to encourage fasting.

Fat

Fat protects cells

Our skin is coated with a thin layer of oil/fat. Our body insolates the body from cold with fat. Fat protects the body from being damaged, breaking down, decomposing. Fat moves through the body in the form of mucus when it is liquid and is stored somewhere when it is solid.

The body is skillful and one skill is the ability to store fat

All species have a species specific diets

What is the optimal diet for the human species?

Waste

There are 5 main pathways of waste removal of the body

Excretion from the front and back, skin, breathing and mucousal exits.
I want to trust my body that when it is excreting waste that it is a sign of cleaning and healing, I also pray that I do not ingest what the body wants to get rid of.

Water moves waste

If there is no water in a system, there can be no flowing of waste.

Fiber moves waste in the digestive tract

What contains fiber? What doesn’t contain fiber? What different kind of fiber are there and what effect do they have?

The body encapsulates threats with mucus

Muscles move mucus

The heart pumps blood, but the only pump for the lymphatic system are the muscles which massage the lymph nodes. I find it fascinating the connection between fat, mucus and the lymphatic system.