Part 1 (1/2)

Conscious Eating.

Gabriel Cousens, M.D.

Foreword.

I BELIEVE THE GREAT AMERICAN PAINTER, Frederick Remington, would have appreciated Dr. Gabriel Cousens and this book, Conscious Eating. Remington was a gifted and courageous frontier artist who went to the American West in the mid-1800s to see and survey the new territory. He then reported to us by painting vivid and insightful pictures. Gabriel Cousens is also surveying a most important and exciting frontier-optimal care and feeding of the total human being Gabriel Cousens, M.D., is a physician, teacher, nutritionist, artist, scientist, visionary, and spiritually awakened man, with something very important to tell us. Daily in his medical practice and research he sees what our food choices do to us to create glowing health or to promote dread disease. In Conscious Eating Dr. Cousens has not so much written a valuable nutritional guide as painted a most remarkable picture.

He uses his many insights into the effects of food on the human body as ”colors” on his palette-rich textures of nutritional science, brilliant flashes of spiritual insight, and deep shades of intuitive logic and common sense-to outline and ill.u.s.trate the rich landscapes of applied nutrition. His years of clinical experience and research, as well as his personal depth and awareness, combine in his snapshots, portraits, and ultimately, murals, that ill.u.s.trate how what we eat, think, and do determines who we become- and how we can optimize the process.

Yet, Dr. Cousens is wise enough to know that each person must find their own way to their optimal health program. He clearly describes and maps the nutritional territory, from the wellsprings of the religious origins of conscious food choices, through the thickets of myths surrounding vegetarian nutrition, to the vantage points of wise shopping and food preparation-all along encouraging us to determine our own course according to the truths of our own body.

Dr. Gabriel Cousens is a nutritional pioneer who sees the larger picture of food and health and who cares enough to report back to us so we may make the wisest choices. As a student of nutrition, as well as a teacher, I know I learned a great deal from Conscious Eating. The nutritional frontier makes more sense to me now, and I'm sure this book will enlarge your world too -not to mention making you a much healthier ”explorer” in the process.

Conscious Eating will vastly expand your understanding of the role of optimal nutrition in creating true health. This book will be seen as a pillar in the growing body of foundation work on vegetarianism. You are in the hands of a most capable nutritional guide-Dr. Gabriel Cousens-enjoy the journey!

-Michael Klaper, M.D.

Author's Update.

SINCE THIS BOOK WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1992, there has been an increasing demand by Conscious Eating readers for a center to transition into a ”conscious eating” lifestyle. In response to this growing need, we have developed a retreat where we have expanded the vision from ”conscious eating” to conscious living. The Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center is located on 166 acres on a beautiful southern Arizona mesa, surrounded by a magnificent 360-degree view and nestled in the Patagonia Mountains. The Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center is an innovative, rejuvenative, spiritual, eco-retreat center committed to the integration of all healing life forces for complete body-mind-spirit energization and renewal.

At the Tree of Life we have created a menu of awakened living. Every aspect of our lifestyle-organic gardens, life force-preserving food preparation methods, ecologically sound strawbale architecture, hybrid solar energy systems, the heartfelt quality of our human interactions, and the spiritual energy generated by our committed staff-all contribute to creating, supporting, and sustaining the living of life in balance.

Partic.i.p.ants learn on an experiential level how to draw healing energies from the Divine and the elements of Earth, air, sun, water and the living planet as a whole.

I continue to expand our highly effective rejuvenation programs, which incorporate the best elements of nutrition, Ayurveda, homeopathy, acupuncture, naturopathy, Tachyon technology, and other healing modalities. Here on this blessed land, surrounded by its mountain views, we connect with the natural rhythms of nature through sunrise and sunset ceremonies, yoga, meditation, breathing exercises, nature hikes, sweat lodges, and the profound awakening of spiritual energies nurtured by an uplifting lifestyle and environment.

One reason that people are drawn to the Tree of Life is the integrated, comprehensive, in-depth nature of our unique programs. We offer medically supervised juice fasting programs and group spiritual fasting retreats which accelerate conscious physical, emotional, and spiritual evolution and often eliminate or greatly improve chronic diseases. Our Ayurvedic Panchakarma Process (”Five Purifications”) heals inner imbalances caused to a large degree by the hectic pace of modern living. Panchakarma is a time-honored and extraordinarily effective method of restoring inner calm and increasing high-level wellness. The Tree of Life also offers cla.s.ses in live-food preparation and organic gardening. Intensive individual, couple, and family therapy sessions are facilitated by me, available only with advance reservations. Feel free to call us and let us know how we may serve you.

At the Tree of Life we a.s.sist you in overcoming what we lovingly call ”the dark chocolate side of healing,” which is the hidden resistance to healing. We skillfully and compa.s.sionately help you let go of your addictions to the unhealthy habits that bring on chronic disease and much misery. These addictions include negative lifestyle habits, poor food choices, the tendency to form unhealthy relations.h.i.+ps, and addictions to such health-depleting substances as coffee, tobacco, sugar, et cetera, all which keep us from reaching our full potential. In many people, we help release psycho-spiritual blocks that kept them stuck in self-defeating cycles of destructive habits.

Equally important, but often overlooked, is undiagnosed biochemically based depression, as well as other biochemical imbalances of the brain and body. These imbalances may be caused by hypoglycemia, neurotransmitter deficiencies in brain chemistry, food allergies, previous alcohol and other substance abuse, or candida, among other causes. Helping people rebuild their neurotransmitter pathways as part of their healing from drug addictions and depression has become a particular area of interest to me. With this approach I have seen people able to come off antidepressant drugs and be freed of a variety of alcohol, drug, and other life addictions that I have directly addressed in this new edition of Conscious Eating.

We specialize in creating personalized programs to help you heal into health and happiness. All the healing modalities and programs that we offer at the Tree of Life systematically help you overcome these life-force-depleting blocks to higher levels of rejuvenation and awakening. Becoming free of addictions is just the first step in the rejuvenation process. We want you to become free on all levels, free of all limitations-for only then can you fully experience the natural joy of being Divinely alive.

Although the center is fully operational with a certified Kosher, organic, live-food restaurant called The Tree of Life Cafe, and eight tasteful, casita-style residential units, meditation sanctuary, gardens and hot tubs, we are still in the process of flowering to our full physical potential.

For those of you who are lovers of nature and pioneers at heart, there is much we can presently offer that can create a powerful healing transformation in your life. In fact, in the short time we have been open, guests from 28 countries have come to share the ”raw life” with us. They return to their homes around the globe rejuvenated, inspired, and empowered.

The Tree of Life is a unique concept of an ecological, spiritual, health vacation. We want to empower you to succeed in your efforts to create a more healthy lifestyle and have a good time while doing it. The key to changing to a more healthy lifestyle is inspiration for the commitment to change, rather than simply more intellectual education. This is where the real secret to healing happens. This inspiration we call the Tree of Life Experience.

We have designed a rejuvenation environment to empower people with skills to change their lifestyles. We also provide on-site and home support to help individuals, couples, and whole families make the transition into joyous health. It is a pleasure to see people begin to drink deeply again from the fountain of joy within. It is your birthright that awaits reclaiming!

You are welcome to contact us at the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center for additional information or reservations.

P.O. Box 1080 Patagonia, AZ 85624 Tel: 520-394-2520 Fax: 520-394-2099 E-mail: [email protected] Website: plete new chapters, a lot of new information on enzymes, over 100 new recipes, our 14-day menu, and a variety of other features have been added. These chapters more fully empower the reader to understand the vital importance of a healthy diet and how to achieve it. Chapter 3 has breakthrough research on fast and slow oxidizers, parasympathetic/sympathetic metabolism, and the whole concept of physiological dominance in relation to individualizing your diet. Chapter 8, Deficient Diet: A Cause of Physical and Mental Degeneration, and Chapter 9, The Addictive Brain, highlight the serious effects deficient diet is creating in our society. Chapter 30 is the most comprehensive chapter (as far as I know) ever written on optimal nutrition for vegetarian and live-food pregnancy. A healthy pregnancy is the key for rebuilding the physical and mental health of our society.

Our food choices and the way we lead our lives are both the cause and effect of our diet and lifestyle. Our choices reflect the state of harmony with oneself, the world, all of creation, and the Divine. This synergistic view of nutrition is part of a core understanding of what it means to live an integrated, harmonious, and peaceful life on this planet. In this book, the reader will begin to understand the following: 1. How the spirit, mind, emotions, body, and even our hereditary expression are significantly affected by the food we eat.

2. How to develop an individualized diet.

3. A new paradigm of nutrition and a.s.similation.

4. How to determine your own psychophysiological const.i.tution and how to eat to enhance this specific const.i.tution.

5. How to balance one's individual acid-base relations.h.i.+p or pH. Some of my original, clinical, acid-base research and the concept of dominance will be presented for the first time.

6. An in-depth approach to the psychological and spiritual aspects of developing an optimal individualized diet.

7. Four transition phases to conscious eating and the transition to a vegetarian way of life from biological, emotional, psychological, and spiritual perspectives. This includes practical ways of making and sustaining this metamorphosis, even when traveling.

8. A wholeness approach to diet that explores the larger planetary implications of what we eat, including effects on the ecology, conserving natural resources, world hunger, and world peace, as well as ethical and moral issues regarding cruelty to animals. You will see how a vegetarian diet, and particularly a nondairy vegetarian diet, creates the preconditions for making the s.h.i.+ft from h.o.a.rding of natural resources to sharing of these resources. This is because a nondairy vegetarian diet consumes from one-tenth to one-twentieth of the energy and natural resources of a flesh-food diet and therefore can potentially create an abundance for the needy millions of G.o.d's children.

9. Vegetarianism as the dietary part of the blueprint for enhancing our communion with the Divine and ushering in the age of peace.

10. The role of vegetarianism in different spiritual and religious traditions. You will be introduced to how vegetarianism has been recognized as an important part of most world religions and spiritual practices when they are carefully examined at their core level.

11. A new concept in the art of live-food cuisine that shows how to prepare food to enhance your awareness of conscious a.s.similation and to match your psychophysiological const.i.tution. Recipes are designed to help us eat our food in a way that brings out the food's full energy on the most subtle levels.

12. Consideration of many of the issues, concerns, and questions raised about the adequacies and advantages of a vegetarian and live-food diet.

One cannot eat one's way to G.o.d, but a vegetarian diet-and particularly a high-percentage live-food diet-is a powerful aid in the process of spiritual evolution. However, without the context of right livelihood, right a.s.sociation, love, and connection with G.o.d through meditation and/or prayer, the practice of vegetarianism may result in an unbalanced ego state. A vegetarian diet is a true blueprint and a precondition for the golden age that is about to dawn. How else could the lamb lie with the wolf/lion?