05 October 2010

Alkalising


We recently attended a wonderful evening presented by Khannah and Raimunda from ‘Footprint of a Windhorse’. Footprint of a Windhorse is a health village centre in Wamberal offering Holistic Pulsing, Colon Hydrotherapy and Health Awareness gatherings. The topic for their Health Awareness gathering was ‘Acid/Alkaline balance’. Khannah and Raimunda are both extremely knowledgeable, inspiring and nurturing folk. The evening offered all those in attendance a wonderful understanding of how to be mindful of alkalising our bodies and also opened our eyes to the effects that an over acidic state in our body can cause on other areas of the body. When the body is acidic, it automatically tries to restore balance and alkalise itself. When we have an acidic environment in the body, our body will draw the minerals needed to alkalise from other areas of the body, hence depleting those areas. This is when we see unexpected chronic illness in our population effecting a vast array of folk, of all ages. Obviously, this illustrates the importance of keeping an ideal acid/alkaline balance in our bodies so that our body is in harmony.

The gathering commenced with the serving of miso soup. A very alkalising soup, ideal to start a meal with, especially after a day of what could well have been acid forming activity and food/drink. We each introduced ourselves around the circle and then our inspiring leaders shared with us some general information about alkalising; how we eat, what we eat and even our state of being - these all have an effect on the acid/alkaline balance in the body. It was briefly revised about the importance of chewing and how with this very simple, but highly effective action, we can actually change an acidic food into having an alkalising effect on the body - if we mindfully and skilfully chew our food. Yes - chewing is a real art, that in our modern day, busy lives - we are fast loosing the ability to undertake this very important action in a skilful and effective way. Digestion begins in the mouth and this very subject was the entire topic of the previous Health Awareness gathering - that’s just how important CHEWING is!

We were all invited to share a loving prepared, nourishing vegan meal which demonstrated to us the balance of a meal that offers an alkalising effect on the body. Whilst Khannah and Raimunda are both themselves vegan, they do not insist that everyone must be vegan or vegetarian to create alkalinity. However, the reality is that meat and animal products are highly acidic on the body and therefore if one does choose to eat these food products, it is necessary, if one is mindful of the acid/alkaline balance - to create balance with the other portions of the meal. Out of this, stemmed some interesting discussions around the group on how one finds all the minerals and vitamins necessary to provide the body with all it needs when eating a diet excluding meat and animal products. Amongst many other suggestions, one main recommendation was the inclusion of sea vegetables daily in the diet - not only for their alkalising effect, but because of the minerals contained in these amazing foods.

Briefly, the evening touched on the importance of salt in our diets - and not just any type of salt, but one very particularly nourishing type of pure, unrefined salt. Not only is it important that we use this salt in our diets, but also HOW we use it is extremely important. With such an interesting and somewhat controversial subject being presented, I am sure this next Health Awareness gathering will fill up quickly once the date is announced. If you would like to join this gathering, then be sure to email Khannah on inana(@)activ8(.)net(.)au (with the brackets removed in the email address) and ask to have your name added to the Health Awareness Gathering email alert, so that you may be notified of the next thought provoking and inspiring evening these talented ladies will be presenting. You may notice from Khannah’s email address, that Khannah is also one of the very passionate folk at the nourishing bush retreat community Inana, which is located on 300 remote acres in the Watagan Mountain Range just at the top of our Central Coast Mountain Region, in Bucketty.

The evening closed with us all enjoying an alkalising dessert and sipping mugs of freshly brewed Bancha tea. (Bancha tea is also known as Kukicha tea). This tea has quite an alkalinising effect on the body and was a lovely way to close a very inspiring and uplifting evening.

* The two books referenced in the evening were; “This works, crutches don’t” and “Alkalise or Die”


Edited to add: A list of alkalising foods can be found here or here...

1 comment:

Food Integrity Group said...

An interesting article on the alkaline/acid balance can be found here: http://www.naturalnews.com/Report_acid_alkaline_pH_0.html