sherry strong! vancouver!

today at organic lives, sherry strong of australia gave an intro talk to everyone at the restaurant about her food philosophy and what her upcoming classes at the restaurant will be about.

i really enjoyed and related to what she had to say. she is so awesome! i wish i was going to be in town while she is teaching.

here are her 3 nutrition tips, at least how i understood them:

1. love - eat with love in mind. love for your body (ie don't treat it like some toxic waste dump) and love for the food and where it came from! i find a lot of raw/vegan food packages mention "love" as an ingredient and however cheesy it can be, it seems to mean something! preparing food for someone with love is definitely felt by the person eating it! and why not put all your love into what you eat? LOVE IT. this reminds me of how a teacher at my school commented to me at lunch time, "your body is your temple, isn't it?". well, shouldn't it be? i love feeling amazing so i can't help but want to keep eating and drinking things that taste and feel amazing!

2. follow nature - think of what you are eating and how you would prepare it and eat it as if you actually did find it in nature. the easiest foods to eat, you can eat the most of! the ones that take some preparation or digging into or whatever, are meant perhaps to be eaten at a lesser volume. think of how food is produced. if you can't think of a way that the food came to your plate or how you would do it yourself, don't eat it! what i loved about this too, is she explained why we need to soak nuts to be able to reap the enzyme benefits of them: generally, we are buying nuts that have already been de-shelled. if we were gathering nuts from nature, we'd be cracking these shells open and the nut would be in that perfect, raw state that is of benefit to us. so soaking the raw nuts we buy from the store brings them back to that state. does that make sense?

3. move your body! don't be a lug. enjoy the sun. bike and walk and run and dance and jump. make sure your limbs are used while you can use them!