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Welcome to the wild west of the modern world: nutrition! In this land, there are no rules, no laws, and no consensus. You can find any claim you want, backed by some expert or another, and contradicted by another one. Example! Are eggs good or bad for you? Well, that depends on who you ask. Some health gurus will tell you eggs are the devil’s food, while others will praise them as nature’s perfect protein. And that’s just one food item. Imagine the chaos when you try to figure out the whole picture. Why is nutrition so confusing? Because it’s not a settled science. It’s a young and evolving field that hasn’t made much headway in the last few decades.

So why bother with nutritional healing at all? Why not just eat whatever we like and rely on other methods of healing? The answer is simple: nutrition matters. A lot. Some health problems can only be solved by changing your diet, and good nutrition is a vital part of any healing journey.

Let’s hop on a time machine and explore the history of nutritional healing. Two hundred years ago, people had no clue about vitamins. They only knew about three kinds of nutrients: carbs, proteins, and fats. They didn’t even know about minerals. The first big breakthrough in nutrition science came with the discovery of vitamin C.
There are whole books written about vitamin C and its link to scurvy, a nasty disease that used to kill a lot of people in the 19th century, especially sailors who spent months at sea. Scurvy made people weak, bleeding, and falling apart. It was like their bodies were disintegrating because their tissues were wasting away. Nobody suspected that a missing ingredient in their food could cause such a horror. Until one day, someone experimented with giving lime juice to the scurvy-stricken sailors and found out that it cured them. Any food with enough vitamin C would have done the trick, but vitamin C is tricky because it doesn’t last long in old food – only fresh fruits and veggies (which sailors couldn’t get) had enough of it. The cool thing about this discovery was that the guy who made it was British, so Britain had the secret to keeping its sailors alive and healthy. That gave them an edge over other countries in their naval adventures.
After vitamin C, people found out about vitamins A and B. Of course, they didn’t call them that at first. They called vitamin C anti-scorbutic, because it prevented scurvy. Ever wondered why vitamin C is also called ascorbic acid? It’s because of its connection to scurvy. Later, they called it vitamin C because it fit the definition of a vitamin – something that’s essential for life.
A lot of people died in the past because they didn’t get enough vitamins in their diets, and those deaths helped scientists figure out what vitamins were and what they did. After vitamins, they also found out about other essential nutrients like minerals, fatty acids, and proteins. Interestingly, they never found any essential carbs.
With all this knowledge, you’d think that most people (except the very poor) would get enough of the essential nutrients. But nope. Recently, some kids went blind because they didn’t get enough vitamin B12. Many young people are so hooked on junk food that they eat tons of bread and fries but very little meat and other foods that have vitamin B12. It’s very rare these days that someone dies from a lack of essential nutrients like vitamins and minerals. But it’s very common that people feel sick or tired or cranky because they don’t get enough of them in their diets.

The only way to find out what works for you is to experiment and see what happens. You may discover some surprising combinations that make your diet unique and beautiful.

That’s how I see nutrition. It’s not a science, it’s an art. A science of nutrition tries to tell you what is good or bad for everyone, based on large studies and statistics. But you are not everyone, you are you. You have your own body, your own metabolism, your own preferences, your own needs. What works for someone else may not work for you, and vice versa. What works for you today may not work for you tomorrow, or next year, or in ten years. Nutrition is not static, it’s dynamic. It changes with time, with seasons, with circumstances, with emotions.

So how do you find out what is good for you? By experimenting, by listening to your body, by paying attention to how different foods make you feel. I’m not saying you should ignore the science of nutrition completely, it can give you some useful information and guidance. But don’t take it as gospel, don’t let it limit your choices or dictate your decisions. Don’t fall for the hype or the fads that promise miracle cures or instant results. Don’t let others tell you what is best for you without trying it yourself.

I have learned this lesson the hard way. I have tried many diets and followed many rules, hoping to find the perfect one that would make me healthy and happy. But none of them did. Some of them made me feel worse, some of them made me feel better for a while but then stopped working, some of them had no effect at all. I was frustrated and confused, until I realized that I was looking in the wrong place. I was looking outside of myself, instead of inside.

I decided to stop following rules and start following my intuition. I decided to experiment with different foods and see how they affected me. I decided to be curious and open-minded, instead of rigid and dogmatic. And guess what? I discovered some amazing things about myself and my nutrition. I discovered that seafood gives me more energy and vitality than any other food. I discovered that dairy products make me bloated and sluggish. I discovered that fruits and vegetables make me feel light and refreshed. I discovered that grains and legumes make me sleepy and irritable.

Are these scientific facts? No. Are they true for me? Yes. And that’s what matters. That’s what makes me feel good and healthy and happy.

You can do the same thing. You can discover your own nutritional art by experimenting with different foods and observing how they make you feel. You can find out what nourishes you, what heals you, what satisfies you, what delights you. You can create your own masterpiece of health and happiness.

Now we come to the practice of nutritional healing, and unfortunately, it is harder than we wish. Most people have their meals in a group, and this makes experimenting with your diet hard and inconvenient. It requires some special effort and willpower to be able to stick to a certain diet for a specific period. You can already see the spiritual lesson in this – building your soul quality of discipline. You might find it hard at first, and most people give up because of the social pressure and inconvenience, but try as much as you can, and soon being disciplined in your diet gets easier. When life gives you the ability to live on your own, take it as an opportunity to experiment with different diets for limited amounts of time and see how this is affecting your vitality, mood, well-being, and health conditions. There is nothing more healing than an approach of open-mindedness and self-reliance.

The story of how Jordan Peterson discovered a diet to heal his arthritis is a very inspirational one. No one told him to try this diet or that diet, but he experimented and figured out that a carnivore diet healed him better than anything else he had tried before. This is not proof that a carnivore diet is an ideal diet for everybody. I know a lot of people who will get unwell if they eat nothing but meat. Some people have a stomach that is not adapted to digesting meat. You cannot put all people in one basket. The ideal diet is unique to each person.

Conclusion

There is a lot of inaccurate knowledge about nutrition out there. People have different opinions and experiences, and the information is often contradictory. Your job as a true seeker of holistic healing is not to be biased or fanatic about any specific diet, supplement, herb, or nutritional advice. The best way to go about it is to learn what is good for you through personal experimentation. Your body is unique, and so is your experience. It is more valuable than most scientific experiments and experts’ opinions. Learn as much as possible from the experts, but take only what works for you.