Last week we were excited for the chance to meet Mickey Trescott (photographer, chef, Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and blogger extraordinaire). She is author of the blog Autoimmune Paleo and also of the recently released book of the same title. She has an incredible story of self-healing through diet. I highly recommend checking out her blog for that story as well as some of her delicious recipes.
We had some great conversation, which not surprisingly focused around diet and health. One point that we discussed was the question of whether our film would focus on a particular diet as the path towards good health. This is an interesting question as there are so many particular protocols and diets available with various health claims. What you will notice when you read any person’s health story is that they didn’t just identify some magic diet, follow it to the tee and then suddenly they were cured. Each person who has really truly healed themselves has had to go on a journey. There wasn’t a magical answer. Looking at Mickey, myself and others who have healed through diet it has been a process of elimination and addition that never looks identical. The journey is also full of the frustrations of two steps forward and one step back, it is rarely a linear process.
So, in answer to Mickey’s question, no, we won’t be preaching the power of any particular diet. We will be encouraging people to view diet as a means to heal and to embark on their own journey. The journey with diet is almost as much about empowering yourself as it is about the actual food. I believe that to passively follow a diet without tuning in to your own body or realizing the power you have to heal yourself would be missing the point.
That being said in my research of various healing protocols I do notice many similar themes. All of the diets encourage the elimination of processed foods and refined sugars while emphasizing the importance of eating whole foods dense in nutrients and sourced from quality producers. Many of the protocols also emphasize practices such as fermentation and sprouting for easier digestion and access to nutrients. The word diet often has negative connotations in our society but these diets are about more than simply changing what you feed yourself, it’s about a whole lifestyle. There are many interesting approaches out there, and I encourage you to do some research as a first step on your own food journey. I also encourage you to be skeptical of any diet that bills itself as one size fits all magic bullet solution for all your problems. See my list below for some helpful websites.
The Autoimmune Protocol http://www.thepaleomom.com/autoimmunity/the-autoimmune-protocol
The Specific Carbohydrate Diet http://www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info/
The Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) diet http://www.gapsdiet.com/
The Wahls Protocol http://terrywahls.com/about-the-wahls-protocol/
Raw food diet http://www.thebestofrawfood.com/
Ketogenic Diet http://www.charliefoundation.org/explore-ketogenic-diet/explore-1/introducing-the-diet
Weston A. Price http://www.westonaprice.org/
Vegan and Vegetarian http://www.vrg.org
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