Something that I have become particularly interested in over the past year is nutrition related to mental illness and immune illness. Whether it is from a disease of the mind or body, or a mix of both, there are numerous ways and eating styles or factors that can help make life more memorable. The idea is not to use food as a way to become or feel 'normal' because I think this is a huge reason why food is viewed so negatively, and an idea I am strongly against.
Nutrition is related to all different areas of life, not just the obvious ones such as in a hospital or a gym. All different factors are involved in a healthy lifestyle and nutrition can be incorporated in the healing effects of numerous areas in life. I have been granted many opportunities to be involved in a myriad of different areas of nutrition, although i know there are still many areas which i have not covered. This is why nutrition is so vital and useful in our lives, not just for our bodies or mental awareness and health, it is useful for helping others, meeting others and areas you would never think that are related to nutrition like chemistry (believe it or not, nutrition has a lot to do with chemistry and the chemical actions in our bodies). Although i have had many different opportunities i know there are still many out there i have not gotten the chance to evaluate so i would love to hear from anyone who does have opportunities to share! The extend of the knowledge we can learn never ends.
Food has healing powers, in order to love one and other we need to begin with loving ourselves.
I have recently been involved (over the past year) in two organizations which are very beneficial to both myself and society as a whole. One being an addiction recovery center and the other being an HIV clinic both of which I will describe my experience below.
The HIV CLINIC
I have had the honor to volunteer at the HIV clinic in Vancouver, and what a pleasant experience it has been to say the least. I have been a part of the team for just over a year now, and i make recipes based on the food orders the clinic receives from a grocery program. The grocery program at the HIV center, allows many clients to obtain a certain amount of food a few times a month and a big Christmas grocery delivery and feast as well!
Many of the recipes on my site are the ones i have made for the HIV center, and often i am informed of recipes that were a success, which kind of got me thinking i need a blog in order to organize all my recipes in one place, allowing society, my community and everyone around to have access to my recipes, hopefully getting them in the kitchen and eating whole foods.
Something i have always loved about cooking is how creative you can get with it. I have had the chance to work with the Vancouver School Board as well, cooking with children in after school programs and again have always been complimented on my recipes and unique food pairings.
Food is about more than looking good or tasting good though. We can make delicious foods that are also helping to fuel our body and support our immune system and mind in very powerful ways.
Try some of my recipes out, and mix in a few of your own ingredients to make it your own! Being in the kitchen is about experimenting, sometimes it will turn out great and sometimes it won't. Have fun with it! Who knows what will happen?
Recovery Programs and Food Relationships - Loving Ourselves.
Narcotics Anonymous is a program I have been recently introduced to over the past year due to meeting someone who has inspired me beyond belief. This program helps people recover from narcotics and live a happy life. Although I have never been actually a member of the program, it has opened many doors for me and sparked my interests. It has introduced me to a way of living which is inspiring and delightful and has allowed me opportunity in the mental health industry related to nutrition. This program is not only about getting better off drugs, it is about getting better as a person, inside and out. It is about appreciating life and everything in it. It is about cleaning up your whole system. Our bodies work so hard on a daily basis to provide us with nutrients from food, and movement and biological functions like excreting waste. The least we can do, whether recovering from unhealthy eating or drugs is to feed our bodies what they are asking for, good old fashion real, farm fresh whole food.
Coming off any substance, whether it be narcotics, alcohol, pills of any kind, there is typically a required increase of nutrients for the body, meaning that eating nutrient dense foods is more important than it has ever been. Relying on supplements, vitamins and pills to replenish these depleted nutrients is not always the best idea. Taking multivitamins, only if extremely necessary would be the only way I suggest to use supplements to replenish nutrients, but the best way is from whole foods.
Supplements have the ability in our body to adapt the body to metabolizing high doses of a certain nutrient, and can often lead to undesirable side effects such as toxicity, which is very disappointing considering we were trying to take the vitamins in order to get better, but instead we are doing the opposite. The body is natural made in a way to adapt to whole foods, not pills or supplements, and although I love chemistry, our body is not made in a way that it is used to metabolizing synthetics products made in a lab. Taking in supplements in high doses can lead to a variety of undesirable factors such as nutrients acting as free radicals, attacking systems in our bodies or hair loss, low energy and depression to say the least. In comparison to whole foods, the body can typically excrete excess nutrients from whole foods but cannot excrete excess nutrients from supplements so they sit in our body and effect us in many ways detrimental to our health. When in doubt, reach for real whole food or of course go see your local Nutritionist or Dietitian!
Directions -Family Services
Directions Family Services is a non profit organization that took over my heart, and for a good reason. It is a facility, open to youth who are homeless and struggling. Keeping in mind it is a youth only facility, they have a lot of really awesome programs including a media room (which is beautiful, and includes a recording studio, guitars and many other instruments), computers (to search for jobs, or just play some game) showering facilities, and finally last but definitely not least an awesome food security program. I am involved with the food, and it has opened me up to not only learning about a lot of interesting foods, but how to cook with them, how to interact with the youth and how helpful local grocery stores and food suppliers are.
Basically what happens on an average day that I am at Directions is I help sort groceries, now most of the time Directions gets in their groceries from 'Food Runners' which deliver food from different grocery stores (such as whole foods) with products that are almost about to expire or are past the selling date, which we use to cook with for the youth! It is both an exciting and a very useful experience, working with
different youth and different foods. You really never know what you are going to get
or have to cook with, and its awesome- experimenting in the kitchen is one of my favorite
things to do!
Now the food that comes in and is made is pretty delicious, with vegetarian and non
vegetarian options and dinner served at 8 every night.
Because it is a non profit organization help with funding is of course always needed and it is for a really great cause- allowing the youth without homes in our community access to a clean, safe environment with friendly staff and delicious food always available!
Some other great things about Directions, is that they also have a Youth Detox and Safe houses available for youth to live!
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