Food is Information. And Poison!

We are living in a time of abundance. Here, in the West, of course. We are also really getting to know how tricky abundance is. We have too much of so many things. Too much information, too much work, too much coffee, too many consumer options, too many plastics in the ocean, too many guns, it’s mindboggling if we try to list it all.

Our bellies are too full, our minds are overactive.

I was listening to a great podcast with Andrew Huberman, who I follow enthusiastically and his guest, Dr. David Sinclair was talking about the importance of fasting, and more so, the importance of feeling hungry. (Here is the talk – highly recommended!)

How often do you let yourself feel hungry? I don’t mean where you’re overworked and you have no time for food, I mean where you deliberately sit with your hunger. And if you’ve ever done that, what do you experience?

I’ve been playing around with fasting the past few years. For a while I tried the 5:2 fast, where you only eat 500 calories two days a week and the rest of the week a balanced diet. I’ve done 3-day fasts, and now I’m on intermittent fasting of 12 to 16 hours a day. There is so much information out there about all these protocols.

The best thing – for me – about fasting is the way the body-mind feels. There is no real separation between the two, although we have confused ourselves silly with this. Playing around with eating habits (and of course I’m not talking about eating disorders here, that is a serious and different situation), is a great opportunity to experience firsthand the mind-body continuum.

It takes some days to adjust to a new eating style, whether it is a healthy one or not, but if you are observant of what happens, it’s immediate and crystal clear that we really are what we eat.

Recently I had the joy and honor of participating in Alberto Villoldo’s ‘Grow a New Body’ program. If you’re not familiar with Alberto, please do look him up, he is an inspiration, a scientist and a shaman all in one amazing human. Here is a short video about his program.

The program consists of a 3 week phase of getting rid of the usual fare: sugar, gluten, dairy, processed food. It also includes a lot of supplements, which, as Alberto explains, we no longer get from our food since we have depleted the soil and have manipulated the entire food chain. You can read the details in the book, which I absolutely recommend (below links in English, I hope it will be translated to Greek soon). After three weeks, you do the actual protocol, which is a week of very specific foods and supplements, and, ideally, some reflection on your life and your path.

I have never felt as I did once it was over.

The magnificent Buddhist Scholar and close friend of the Dalai Lama, Bob Thurman, has come up with a word to describe what I was experiencing (!):

This is how I felt when I was eating right, fasting for 16 hours a day, and taking the supplements. There was a clarity of mind that was constant, my body felt strong, flexible and light. Life was… effortless! Colors were more vibrant, smells were clearer. It was simply amazing to be alive, no matter what was going on.

I didn’t crave a thing. All was calm and clear.

I am a lover of coffee, and I had cut that out too. Over time my energy was the same as before, but there was a softness to my movements, my thoughts, my speech. I was more gentle. This was also interesting to experience.

So then, as a true scientist, what did I do? I decided to play (experiment) and see what would happen if I started to eat pizza, or dairy, or sugar.

The first week or so there was little change. I did feel my brain getting a little foggy at times, but no big deal. But as the end of the second week rolled in, I began to need coffee. I have a full schedule, early morning wake-up for yoga and meditation, then work, then a break for lunch, then work again until about 9pm daily. This became an impossible feat without coffee. By 3pm my eyes felt like a ton of bricks, my limbs were saggy and my mind was on slow motion.

I continued eating more freely, still what we would consider ‘healthy’, for sure, but including the forbidden (ok, with only a little sugar and gluten). What happened over the next few weeks was really a surprise for me.

The coffee addiction came right back. Granted, I tried hard to keep it to one coffee a day, but most of the time I needed my afternoon cup too. I began to feel bloated and s_l_o_w. My yoga practice became stiff and my muscles were sore. Where before I felt I was flying, now I was trying to lift Iron Woman off the ground. My mind was foggy. Worst of all, I became moody. I felt I was trying to drag my existence and body along. And this was when I was eating ‘healthy’! The few times I went down the rabbit hole of desserts and dirty food it would take me days to recover, and the shrapnel hit the really close people around me.

This is how eating healthy, compared to eating optimally. That’s how I see it now. Eating healthy is what I’m used to. I hadn’t had a pizza in about 5 years before this experiment. But growing a new body was my first exposure to the possibilities of the mind-body when giving it optimal fuel. Fuel which is simple and fresh, but with time restrictions.

The body has its own wisdom, way beyond what we are aware of.

I guess this isn’t news to anyone, but it is astounding to experience first-hand, in such a direct and immediate way.

Now, I understand this kind of eating – the buddhasm kind – isn’t easy. But WOW, the benefits!

Food is the most important information we put into our bodies. Because food is information: it tells the cells what to do and it effects our second brain, the gut.

And most of all, it’s something we can play with, learn about, experiment with. I am so grateful for this opportunity of clearly feeling what is possible. I may not be able to follow it all days, all months, but it is an experience I trust and can cultivate, when I am willing. Our bodies are a reflection of our potential, we are missing so much of the grand picture, of the true potential we have.

Here is Alberto’s book in Πολιτεία (unfortunately only in English):

https://www.politeianet.gr/books/9781788172059-villoldo-alberto-hay-house-pb-grow-a-new-body-313874

If you don’t live in Greece, please support your local book store (if those still exist near you) and order it there:

You can read more of Anetta’s reflections in her blog, Freedom in Awareness