Food Energetics: The Spiritual, Emotional, and Nutritional Power of What We Eat

544 Pages·2008·2.32 MB·English

by  Steve Gagné

I dedicate this book to my children: Taran, Shayla, Annette, Annika,
Madeleine, Brendan, Sofia, and Soren.
FOOD
Energetics
“Nobody understands the power, magic, and impact of food better than
Steve Gagné. Prepare to read, eat, and be transformed!”
JOHN DAVID MANN, COAUTHOR OF THE GO-GIVER: A
LITTLE STORY ABOUT A POWERFUL BUSINESS IDEA
“This book is exceptional in the field of diet today. Steve Gagné’s
deep, informed perspective helps elucidate the thoughts of Michael
Pollan and gives us access to a simple, user-friendly way of
understanding food.”
JOSHUA ROSENTHAL, AUTHOR OF INTEGRATIVE
NUTRITION
“One of the most important insights for anyone who has personally
experienced the diet/disease, diet/symptom connection is the
awareness of inevitable food diet dogma—meaning, the initial
tendency for any student of natural health to create fairly hard-edged
principles around what is Right Food and Wrong Food and believe
them as incontrovertibly true for the rest of their life and for all of
humanity. Generally at that moment, a student of natural health will
join one of the groups that best fit those beliefs, be it the All Raw
group, or Vegetarianism, or Macrobiotic/Vegan/ Natural
Hygiene/Paleolithic or any other of the well-known food philosophies.
Gagné gently helps dislodge this dogma and gets us to see a wider
view of what food is, what it isn’t, and how it has been used by healthy
cultures throughout the world to heal and stay healthy. Whether you
are just waking up to the realization that most of your symptoms are
diet related or are an old salt in the study of the food and health
connection, Food Energetics is simply a must-have book.”
SCOTT OHLGREN, AUTHOR OF THE 28-DAY CLEANSING
PROGRAM
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my good friend John David Mann for all of his work on the
original manuscript and for his professional input every step of the way. Even
though John was up to his ears in high-level professional work, writing, co-
writing, and editing tomorrow’s bestsellers with some of the hottest authors in
publishing, he managed to take the time to tirelessly go through the material.
John’s practical suggestions and uncanny grasp of any material he works with
are trademarks that helped to earn him the impeccable reputation in the field of
publishing, as an author, interviewer, and editor that he deserves.
I also want to thank all of those wonderful good-hearted people from
different parts of the world who have shared their home and hearth with me. The
experiences and knowledge I have gained about food and natural living have
been an educational experience that will forever be burned into my memory and
I will continue to draw on those memories in times of reflection and
contemplation. Even though many of these people will never see this book or
even the written word in their lifetime, I will never forget and always cherish the
generosity and love you showed this stranger from the West.
Contents
Cover Image
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. Energetics
Chapter 1—Quality and Quantity: Beyond the Realm of the Senses
Knowing Quality
Chapter 2—The Decline and Fall of Energetics
Before the Fall
The Decline of Energetics
The Legacy of the Machine Age
The Informed Battleground
Our Confused Substance
Chapter 3—Enter the Age of Sanity
A Step in the Right Direction
“Eating Well”
Energetics: The Conservative Approach!
The Soul of Food
Chapter 4—Your Most Intimate Relationship
Why Are You What You Eat?
Birds of a Feather
I Eat the Body Electric!
The Eater and the Eaten
Eat, Think, and Be Merry . . .
The Quality of Nourishment
Part II. Choosing Your Food
Chapter 5—The Essence of Choosing
Essence and Appetite
Choosing the Real Thing
Calling Your Own Bluff
Listen to the Questions You’re Asking
Chapter 6—Habit: Appetite’s Nemesis
A Doughnut Odyssey
Light at the End of the Doughnut Hole
Chapter 7—Choosing with Your Senses
Your Sensory Signature
Choosing Colors
Chapter 8—Circumstantial Choosing
Availability
Price and Priority
Chapter 9—Choosing with Your Personality
Dominant or Compliant?
The Spice of Life
Choosing by Association
Learned Choosing
Chapter 10—Choosing from Reaction
Choosing from Physiological Reaction
Cycles of Reaction
Opposites React
Proactive Choosing
Second That Emotion
Choosing Addiction
Chapter 11—Choosing from the Bigger Picture
Environmental Impact
Backyard Investment
You Are as Big as Your Environment
Chapter 12—Big Picture or Big Brother?
“Relax . . . We’ll Tell You What to Eat!”
Ghosts of the Past
That Was Then—This Is Now
Putting Tradition in Perspective
Chapter 13—More “Choosing Under the Influence”: Concepts,
Advice, and Dietary Trends
A Brief History of Dissection
The Misleading Power of Analysis
Choosing Professional Advice
Fear and Health
Choosing Dietary Trends
The Vegetarian Idea
Vegetarian Diets
The Vegan Diet
Raw Foods Diet (Plant-Based)
The Macrobiotic Enigma
Unraveling the Macrobiotic Dilemma
Chapter 14—Five Familiar Faces
Part III. Working Models
Chapter 15—Character Study
Chapter 16—Food’s Essential Character
Poetry in Motion
Patterns of Growth
Observing Identities
Rhythm: It Don’t Mean a Thing if It Don’t Have That Swing!
Chapter 17—Food’s Temperament
The Temperaments of Animals and Plants
The Temperaments of People
Chapter 18—A Basic Food Character Chart
Chapter 19—Shaping Characters
Learned Temperament
Altering Temperaments
The Five Energies