My name is Bea.  I’m working with David Snieckus to increase awareness in our community about the benefits of eating a plant based diet. Over the past 2 years I have grown to love David’s cooking and my new macrobiotic lifestyle.

I’d like to share with you an article (see below) I wrote last week that highlights a little bit of my story and journey back to wellness.

Wishing you a peaceful and healthy New Year!

POWER IN A POT OF SOUP
by Bea

As the calendar year draws to a close, and I am contemplating New Year’s resolutions, I am reflecting on the ongoing process of healing ourselves and the planet.  Many truths have been revealed to me during the past couple of years in my journey back to a healthful and purposeful life.  Whether you have been searching for a short time or a very long time for a solution to your health challenges, have you carefully considered what you are eating and thoroughly educated yourself about what’s in your food?  What are those ingredients?  Where did they come from?  How were they produced?  If you have not yet investigated this, you will be very surprised when you do, and you may decide you are ready for a positive change. 

Two years ago I found myself wandering through a Holistic Health Expo event, sponsored by the Center for Balance in Newton, Massachusetts.  One of the first booths I stopped at showcased a wise man named David Snieckus.  His booth display was miraculously simple.....a pot of soup on a white table cloth with some of his business cards.  That’s it!!  I’d been to this annual event a number of times in previous years, but I had never seen anyone promoting something as simple as home cooked soup.  I was particularly intrigued by the simplicity of this booth, so I struck up a conversation with him. 

In a very energetic and enthusiastic tone, David explained to me that he was hosting an event later that week, where an exceptionally healthy meal would be served in the company of a
guest speaker (a cookbook author named Jessica Porter), who would be giving a talk about macrobiotics.  David said this event was something I should not miss.  I attended the lecture later that week.  Jessica was lively, amazingly entertaining, drawing laughter out of the crowd, and the food was fantastic.  It was certainly more tasty and satisfying than anything I was preparing for myself at home.  This initial, direct experience with macrobiotic food convinced me that this type of cooking warranted further exploration.

When I first met David, I was still manifesting a long list of physical and emotional ailments for which I had STILL NOT found a reliable holistic solution after dedicating nearly ALL of my spare time and spare cash to what I thought was a detailed and thorough search over the past eleven years.  And, yet another year of suffering had gone by.....it was already November.....it would soon be January.....time for more life-changing resolutions. 

I’d become thoroughly exhausted and de-motivated after my extended search and exploration of methods to rid myself of fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic fatigue, sleep dysfunction, and chronic anxiety. My eleven year quest to re-gain my health had already cost me at least $100,000 in out of pocket medical expenses.  I had stopped keeping tabs on my medical spending; it was too depressing.

Over the years there have been endless prescription drug co-payments, physical therapy, large quantities of nutritional supplements, custom herbal preparations, homeopathic remedies,
magnets, and fees for MANY different types of holistic practitioners.  Are you tired yet?  I tried acupuncture, Reiki, energy healing, Qi Gong, Feldenkrais Method, Jaffe-Mellor technique, massage therapy, cranial sacral therapy, naturopathy, orthomolecular medicine, to name only a few.  Some of these methods were helpful for a while.  Results would last only a few hours or a few days.  Others were not helpful at all, and there was no money-back guarantee on any of these products or services.  What an expensive journey!  Does any of this sound a little bit familiar?

It took me many years of grueling physical suffering to realize that my body was too physically toxic during the first decade of my physical illnesses to integrate or benefit from the holistic
“remedies” I had been using.  I trust that many such energetically based therapies I tried DO in fact work.  However, they are most effective when the physical body’s nutritional foundation is
optimally balanced.  They may be much less beneficial if a person is not eating well. 

Up until 2004, I was still eating a conventional American diet.  I enjoyed red meat, chicken, some vegetables, lots of pasta and bread, and just about anything that was QUICK and EASY to prepare, because I was so fatigued all the time.  Historically, I’ve had a deep passion for ice cream, cookies, chocolate, and desserts of all sorts. 

Two years after meeting David, attending his cooking classes, informative guest speaker events, community meals and a summer macrobiotic retreat in Maine, macrobiotic cooking has become a sacred and staple routine in my life.  My passion for ice cream has faded.  Improvements in my eating habits are now sustainable. David has helped me re-define what it means to eat well.  I’ve learned to prepare delicious, gorgeous food I had never tried before, and it turns out that it tastes like REAL food, and it is not complicated to prepare.  I now understand that many wholesome, plant-based meals can be prepared in far less time than it takes to dine out at restaurants or cook animal based foods, and then present myself to my doctors asking for help with the latest painful symptoms. 

I’ve never been more motivated than at the present time to remain committed to plant-based, whole foods cooking and eating.  When I cook for my family and friends they are now impressed and want to try such recipes on their own.  My arthritis doctor remains puzzled that I have sustained a 15 lb weight loss over the past two years and that my body weight is completely normal.  There have already been substantial economic benefits to the changes I have made to my eating style.  I’m spending far less on prescription drugs and nutritional supplements than I have in past years, because I don’t need all of them anymore.  I wish I had met David 10 years ago.  I would have saved myself a great deal of physical and emotional suffering and MONEY!

All my pre-conceived notions about what it would be like to be free from conventional food, laden with animal products and refined ingredients have been proven false in my direct experience with what David is teaching and with eating the wholesome, unrefined, plant-based foods he has taught me to select and prepare.

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