Choose foods that give life, health and energy!
6_nara16_raw_food_skola_15238ÅSA seasons with love and gratitude
Åsa Johansson loves food that makes us fit and healthy. For her, it is obvious that there is a connection between spirituality and what we eat!
Here Åsa offers wise thoughts and tips. And she points out how important it is to handle food, animals and plants with love. Keep in mind that the right food brings good karma!
Text: Åsa Johansson Photo: Åsa Holstein, Shutterstock
It is easy to look upon food as something we just need to have when we are hungry. And we cook our childhood dishes and our favorite dishes we learned during adulthood without a second thought. Perhaps no other thought than to serve a good tasting meal for the family and guests at the table.
Some of us choose food according to how it tastes, others put in an aspect as of how healthy the food is. And for some it is a way to experience dishes and spices from other cultures.
But there is also another approach to food, the more spiritual one. I think this is interesting and would like to show how we can approach food and eating from a more spiritual perspective.
People who are spiritual – psychics and healers – use energy. Both for giving and receiving. Energies are all around us. We find them in nature, they come from the earth and the sea, and the sun and moon emit gentle rays. This is what we consist of – energy.
Energies in all forms, we can read about this in Nära magazine as well. Then it might be easy to ignore the diet and find that it is secondary. Because we do get beneficial energies from so many other different sources.
But the diet, the food we choose to buy, cook and eat, is actually very important for many different reasons. Not only that, through metabolism, it is eventually converted to energy for us to use and live off. But also the way we choose food, which affects our environment very much.
We can choose to buy food that supports organic farming and provide chemical-free soils and crops. We can look for locally produced food for shorter transport with fewer emissions while supporting small farms that provide diversity. Or, we may choose to invest in a vegetarian or vegan diet – not being involved in large-scale livestock farming with all that implies of methane emissions, high levels of antibiotics, to fertilization and pesticide spraying of crops for animals.
Karmic Food Ladder
The choices of food create karma. There are positive or negative karma from all of our food choices. Everything from good karma down to less favorable. What is karma then?
Negative karma could come from, for example, animals which have been tortured and killed, who might have lived under miserable conditions and experienced stress before slaughter. This leaves traces in the food which we humans then eat. The same applies to plants that are not handled with love – this gives negative karma which we then ingest.
Karma is energy. One could say that it is the overall effect from an individual’s actions throughout the different phases of existence. So all the things we have done, or not done, in our lives are put together to form our karma. It is all the thoughts and feelings we have sent out – up until now. Quite breathtaking, right!
Highest on the scale of good karma from food is breast milk – it is given with love to the child. Below that are fatty fruits like olives and avocados. Then the sweet fruits like apple, pear and melon. A step down the ladder we find nuts and herbs.
Below these, and with negative karma, the eggs (chicken embryo) and milk (calf’s food). Underneath muscles and meat from slaughtered animals, then organ meat and finally, at the very lowest level, blood.
We are affected by this karma, naturally. And when you are aware of the scale, it is easier to make thoughtful choices and decide where you want to be. Maybe we choose a food from a higher level and decide to drop something that is lower down. The karma scale has been developed by David Wolfe and Viktoras Kulvinskas.
The Love for food
The food on the plate is not just a question of how healthy or sick, we get by eating it. Or the karma aspect or the taste. The food can make us grateful by understanding and appreciating the work of many people, those who in various ways are involved in getting food from the farm to the dinner table. It gives an understanding that we are all linked together.
Someone has sown, grown and harvested. Then people have at various times transported and held in stock and finally sold the goods. After that, foods are bought and prepared with love by someone in the kitchen. Maybe by you!
Or the food could have been industrially produced, like on an assembly line, as processed foods. Here we assume that there is less love involved.
If you eat out, it generally tastes better at a small family restaurant or at a fresh raw food cafe where the staff cares about the environment, the people and the food, right?
It’s amazing to feel gratitude for the work of others. Gratitude – that I can actually eat my fill today. To live in a land of abundance, where I can choose from countless groceries. This gives a completely different dimension and humbleness.
We can also be grateful that the earth/soil, water, sun and air – which are prerequisites for vegetation – are there free for us humans. We can feel grateful that all of this is there just for you and me. Foods that give us health, life and energy.
Gratitude is an incredibly powerful feeling. It brings humility and a love of life that makes us feel good. Gratitude and love are some of the strongest and most beneficial spices. It’s just to generously sprinkle this over the food!
What can I do to get these ideas about food, gratitude and spirituality into my everyday life? Well, make magic water! Read the recipe below how you can prepare your own elixir of life!
As for the food itself, you can, if you are omnivores, decide to one day a week, or a month, eat only vegetarian food. Then you make an active and informed choice, and bring it with you every time you eat or shop during this special day.
You choose to add something, and you choose to discard something else. By deciding to eat vegetarian all day, you simply go for a cleaner environment and more dietary fiber on your plate, which gives a stronger immune system.
In addition, your self-esteem strengthens when you know that you are contributing to something that is good for all of us, animals included. Meatless Monday was instituted by Paul McCartney. Maybe this will be something new in your home as well now!
Good food makes you happier
The next step may be to add a second day of the week / month, and then only eat vegan. Then you have completely renounced all handling of animals in all forms duing this whole day. You choose then also to remove eggs and dairy products. The next step may be that one day choose only organic food, another choice for a cleaner earth.
And last, but not least, the ultimate choice when it comes to environmental, health and conscience, is to one day only eat organically grown raw food.
Did you know that it is scientifically proven, that it makes you happier to be kind? Every time you do a selfless act the brain produces serotonin, a hormone that relieves tension and lifts your mood. So “kind” food choices affect the mood positively!
Choose to eat a meal with awareness and feel the difference. Eat in silence, and no newspaper or cell phone as company. Practice and create a new, good habit.
More on raw food!
In the next issue, No. 7, you will receive Asa Johansson’s raw food school. And in the Nära Issue No. 8, Asa offers her best raw food recipes!
Create a conscious meal!
Sit down with the food in front of you.
Close your eyes, relax and take a deep breath. Thank the universe, animals and plants, everyone who grew and handled the food.
Open your eyes, look, smell. Start slowly to eat. Be truly conscious and enjoy the taste. Say silently to yourself when you eat: “This food is transformed into life energy for my use. My body uses everything it needs, and easily eliminates everything that it does not need. I will be healthier and more beautiful by eating this food.”
Eat slowly. Enjoy the pleasant warm radiance from your stomach when it is satisfied and happy.
The more often you remember to be aware of your food in this way, the more beauty and good health, you will create for yourself.
From Creative Visualization, Shakti Gawain
Make your own magic water!
The word Gratitude painted on a glass bottle forms the most beautiful pure crystals in the water that is poured into it! Fill the bottle and let the water stand for a few hours or overnight.
Pour into a glass, sit down and relax. Drink slowly. When you drink, you should convince yourself that this water is the elixir of life from the fountain of youth.
Feel how it cleans out all the negativity and impurities, and brings energy, health, beauty, and vitality.
Feel gratitude.
Food with good karma!
Good karma:
Breast milk, given with love.
Fatty fruits, like olives and avocados.
Sweet fruits such as pear, banana, orange, melon and berries.
Non-sweet fruits like cucumber, tomato, eggplant, peppers.
Raw food, prepared with love.
Neutral karma:
Milk from voluntarily milked cow.
Sea weed.
Edible flowers like lavender and calendula.
Herbs where the leaves are picked, but the bush itself is left untouched in the soil, such as basil.
What is raw food?
* Only products from plants, not animals. Fruits – fresh or dried, vegetables, leafy greens, root vegetables, nuts, seeds, sea weed, mushrooms, berries, herbs, spices.
* Food that has been prepared with a temperature below 110 degrees F . So not boiled, fried, baked, grilled, roasted or pasteurized.
* Is the original and most natural food for humans, harvested from nature.
* Contains nutrition and unspoiled energies, apart from the loss at storage and transport, of course.
This is Asa:
Age: 66 years.
Lives: In Mölle, Sweden, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Family: Mother, children and grandchildren.
Does: Raw food lecturer / motivator, energy masseur, a partner in Heartful Energy, an international internet-based energy center that offers courses in yoga, chiness, raw food preparation and personal and spiritual development. Both videos and e-courses, and live courses in Crete.
Contact: asarawfood@gmail.com, (+46) 0708-39 27 53
Website: www.onthelime.com
