Our Thoughts on Food and Nutrition
By Wilfredo Benitez
Welcome to you all. We are happy that you have found this space, The Healing Life, an online resource library for The Healing Order.
We are bringing to life an online space where content that we care about is explored and shared for our community. Whether you are a patient of ours, or you have found us through an online search, we hope that you will be nurtured by what we are putting together here.
Throughout the ongoing development of The Healing Life, there will be an emphasis on food and nutrition. This is by design, as our patients will greatly benefit from nutritional resources that we trust, and we believe so too will the community at large. In this space, you will not find us taking a reductionist approach to nutritional care. We will not be making promises about diet cures, or touting fads that may or may not help with common ailments and symptoms.
What you will find is a collective voice that speaks to the wisdom and healing power of food. Just as practitioners must look beyond the surface symptoms and identify and address the root cause of disease, our health is served by doing that with nutrition as well. For far too long, food and our conceptualizations around food have degraded. In America, and increasingly on a global scale, the driving principles of food have become convenience and price. This is especially true in a near-post pandemic world where the cost of food is increasing. Motivating concerns, it can be argued, include “How can we eat quickly so as to maintain our work productivity,” and “How can we deliver food in the cheapest way possible, while ensuring our profits continue to rise.” In my experience as a nutritionist and in our collective experience working with patients, we are front-seat witnesses to the sabotage that current societal norms around nutrition and long-established and detrimental habits around food are posing on individuals and on communities. Instead of “price” we implore you to think about “value.” Instead of focusing on work that can be completed faster were it not for having to eat, we ask you to consider that a healthy body and mind will be able to produce a higher volume of high quality work than an unhealthy one. Simply, we implore people to start to adopt practices that slow us down when it comes to food and eating, and to re-appreciate the slowness of food and the wisdom of the natural way.
And while food and nutrition will be thoroughly covered through The Healing Life, we know that supporting the body’s healthy functions involves depth and breadth beyond food. Because of this, we will also share our thoughts, clinical findings, musings, and wisdom on a variety of health-related topics including herbs and plant medicine, movement, meditation, gardening, mindful living, principles and practical applications of Chinese Medicine, and more.
Finally, it is our intention to bring to this space quality, not quantity. Part of the notion of quality is that the content be of value and interest to our readers. In an effort to bring meaningful resources for the community, we invite you to contact us via email with questions and with content requests that you would like us to explore. We will take any and all correspondence under deep consideration. Please send your comments and inquiries to will@thehealingorder.com.
