Looking for a place to start when switching over from a SAD lifestyle to a real one? Here is an easy guide to kick start your healing journey. Simple concepts to keep in mind when shopping for organic, whole foods:

• Keep it simplistic – read food labels, look for single ingredients, foods you recognize.
• If you can’t recreate this product in your own kitchen with those ingredients, not worth buying.
• Avoid corn, soy, wheat, white salt/sugar and non organic foods.
• Look for traditional foods, in their whole form, as unprocessed as possible.
• Always organic, or know your farmer.
• Cook with stainless steel, glass, ceramic, stone, or cast iron.
• Drink purely filtered water – be sure the fluoride is out.

Oils/Fats: No seed oils, go for grass-fed butter, avocado oil in glass, organic olive oil, tallow, unrefined sesame oil

Grains: Go for 100% organic sprouted for bread or ancient grain sourdough, or use soaking, sprouting, or fermenting for other grains as possible. Use brown rice or quinoa for pasta; gluten free for baking or tortillas (like almond flour, coconut, cassava), and rolled oats for granola or oatmeal.

Dairy: While doing a recovery or yeast cleanse, avoid animal dairy and use coconut or almond milk products. Otherwise, find a raw milk farmer for real milk, buy organic cheese or other dairy products should always be organic to avoid the major toxicity in the dairy industry.

Eggs: Look for a local farmer that raises poultry with non-GMO feed, on grass with clean water. Check out your local farmer’s market, or natural health grocery.

Meats: Find your local farmers at the market, through natural health stores, or ask around. Use organic, grass-fed meats only. Pork is not great while on a recovery diet.

Fish: Get wild caught, fresh or frozen without any preservatives or coloring.

Produce: Local, in season, find a farmer or get organic from the store – fresh, frozen or in glass. Avoid canned foods.

Sweeteners: On recovery diet, use only raw honey sparingly, coconut sugar, stevia, or monk fruit. For others, keep it real – maple syrup the darkest kind, sucanat (or turbinado – the most unrefined sugar can possible), dates, or date syrup.

For more recommendations, check out Weston A Price – a wealth of information on the traditional, whole foods front.