El Sol Healing Retreat Center
Food (as thy) Medicine
Let go, find yourself, express yourself!
At El Sol Healing Retreat Center, we believe healing even takes place in the kitchen – Food (as thy) Medicine. We take on the mantra by the Greek physician, Hippocrates: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” His wisdom has stood the test of time, and studies now show there is science to back him up. A growing body of research is confirming the link between gut health and mental health, incorporating the vital systems of the immune, nervous, and the important endocrine system that regulates mood, hormones, and mental health. Studies have shown that what we eat directly affects the microbiomes in our guts. This can influence our energy, mood, and behavior positively or negatively – for example, excess sugars can lead to addictive patterns that manifest in our mental health. Understanding the interconnectedness of what we eat and our state of mind can help us make the choices that lead from “I should eat healthier” to “I enjoy this food which makes me feel good.”
Shifting the focus from external to internal metrics of healthy is the purpose of El Sol Healing Retreat Center’s conscious kitchen. By focusing less on a system of good food vs. bad food, and more on the connection and direct experience of nourishing your body and mind and feeling the benefits, food can truly be medicine, and understanding our relationship with it can help us understand our relationship to ourselves.
In many ways, our food habits are ingrained in us from a young age. We are heavily influenced by our culture, our parents, and our communities when it comes to our relationship with food. Whether we celebrate mealtime for its social and familial aspects, struggle with balance from too much or not enough when we were young, or turn to it as an escape, stress-reliever, or reward, understanding what comes up for us when we approach food can reveal subconscious patterns and the values and belief systems they reflect. Once we get to the root of these patterns, we can work from a place of awareness and decide whether or not the underlying values and beliefs serve our highest good. Food (as thy) Medicine
At El Sol Healing Retreat Center, we honor the role of food in our lives and expand it beyond its primary purpose of bodily nourishment – food can be an avenue to dig deeper into ourselves, consciously looking at our patterns and mindsets surrounding not just what we eat, but how and why we eat what we do. Our eating habits don’t just affect our mental health, they also reflect it.