SOLD: Beautiful Happyzine

By Tyson Hammond

Eating to feel good is something easy we can do to help our body and mind feel content and enjoy our lives a little more. Staying physically healthy is an essential part of keeping mentally and emotionally buoyant. One of the main things we can do to stay physically healthy is to eat good, nutritious food.

This week and next week I will introduce you to the remaining foods in my Top 10 feel good foods. Foods that work to support all the different chemical reactions that happen within our beautiful bodies to keep us healthy and strong, but most of all elevate our mood!!

Number 2 – Seeds

There have been many wars and lives lost over oil and the rights to it, none more obvious to the conscious person than George W. Bush taking America into Iraq. And it’s the oil found in a lot of the common eatable seeds that pushes this food group high up my foods that elevate your mood list to number two. There are a lot of different seeds we can choose to have in our diet but unfortunately probably the best seed for our bodies is illegal to sell as a whole seed in New Zealand. Every time I visit Europe one of the first things I buy to include in my morning muesli is Hemp seed. They are 30% protein, 40% fibre and have the perfect balance of Omega 6 and Omega 3 oils. It seems silly to think they are banned here for fear of them being used to grow THC containing Cannabis when the entire hemp plant has only minute trace levels of THC and hemp seeds have none. Anyway, the seeds we can buy locally make up for it. Those being – sunflower, pumpkin, sesame, linseed, wheat germ, poppy and the recently popular Chia seed.

It’s All About the OIL!!

It’s the Essential Fatty Acid (EFA) content of seeds has the greatest influence of elevating ones mood, well that’s what the scientific research will tell you. The EFA industry is huge, with all kinds of beneficial oils being marketed telling you that this one is the best for you. From Cod Liver Oil to Linseed oil, Evening Primrose to Hemp seed oil. This is why there has been a lot of research because if you can prove new and beneficial things EFAs can do for people then that product has a marketing edge. The oils from whole seeds, with the extraction of the oil taken place by chewing in your mouth before you swallow, grinding or soaking the seed just before consuming it is one of the best ways to take you Omega 3 and Omega 6 oils. These types of good oils can quite easily spoil and become rancid by heat and oxygen, and in some cases changing what is good for you into something that is bad for you. Extracting the oil yourself is always the best way. The seed and its oil stay unflawed for longer when it remains whole because that’s what it was designed to do.

Oil Makes You Rich and HAPPY!!

There is a growing body of evidence that suggests having a diet rich in EFAs will help you, in simple language, feel happier. The research is from all corners of the globe and what is most relevant to my last sentence are all the findings that link a lack of available EFAs to the brain and people with depressed mood, mood swings and cognitive disorders. With the brain itself being 60% fat it is important to have the healthy fats available otherwise some brain cell membranes that need these EFAs for construction and function will simply be made from an inferior building material.

I’m not saying though if you’re feeling down one morning, eating the muesli bar full of seeds will pick you up by the afternoon. What I’m saying if you include a healthy amount of seeds in your diet the cumulative effect will help you raise your ‘feeling buoyant bar’ a few notches over time.

Don’t Forget About the Minerals

Magnesium is another of the nutrients that is found in most seeds at high levels that has been shown to be beneficial for people suffering from mood disorders. Again a lot of research has been done on people with mood disorders and what nutrients they are lacking. Magnesium is one of these nutrients; therefore research followed that showed supplementation with magnesium improved these people’s disorders. No research has proven that eating foods rich in magnesium will help keep you happier and you won’t see in credible research in the near future doing so. However, if you join the dots, you’ll be doing yourself a favour if you want to stay buoyant by eating such foods.

How do seeds make it to number two on my list? The answer is simple, good oil and nutrient density. So much information, ambition, goodness and promise is packed into each single seed. Life of all shapes, size, colour, texture, beauty comes from within it. When we sprout a seed, all its stored goodness is transformed into live enzymes which burst into vitalised growth. If we include all sprouted seeds into this article, i.e. alfalfa, radish, broccoli, carrot seed sprouts etc you’d be wondering why seeds and their sprouts aren’t number one on my list. However, my number one happy food thoroughly deserves its place on top of the table. You might be surprised by it when you look back and compare it to all the other foods from the previous weeks but you won’t disagree I assure you.

Tyson Hammond is a Medical Herbalist and a Naturopath living in Golden Bay. He runs online weight loss programs and online stress reduction programs for ‘Wellgrounded Integrative Healthcare’, a company focused on helping people integrate beneficial and sustainable changes into their lives.
Contact: [email protected]
Website: www.wellgrounded.co.nz