Chakra Foods for Optimum Health: A Guide to the Foods That Can Improve Your Energy, Inspire Creative Changes, Open Your Heart, and Heal Body, Mind, and Spirit

by Deanna M. Minich

Nutritionist and yoga practitioner Deanna Minich's "Chakra Foods" provides information on how to heal emotional and physical woes through making the right food choices. The material for this book developed out of the author's highly successful "Nutrition for the Soul" classes, workshops, and private counseling sessions. Not a diet book, it looks at both the nutritional and spiritual aspects of the foods we eat and how they can heal us. For example, someone feeling stuck in their lives could turn to chapter 5 and find a list of orange foods -- apricots, carrots, salmon, pumpkin, oranges -- to help their sacral chakra. For each chakra, specific affirmations and other practices are also offered, as are meal plans and recipes. Helpful lists, charts, and diagrams help readers easily pinpoint and diagnose themselves and the various prescriptive options are all very clearly explained. With lots of useful sidebars, this book really is a treasure trove of energy medicine in the form of food -- truly food for the body, mind, and soul

* Looks at the energetics of what and how we eat and how to rebalance through healthier choices.
* Easy to implement and stick with plan.

Genres: Nonfiction, Food

288 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2009

About the author

Dr. Deanna M. Minich (www.drdeannaminich.com) is a wellness expert and author of five books. Having had health issues in her teens and twenties, she looked for solutions to feel better and understand her relationship with food. She embarked upon a scientific path to study nutritional biochemistry, while at the same time, explored other disciplines like psychology, spirituality, and philosophy. Her journey to find answers ultimately led her to combine her studies to develop an integrated, complete, lifestyle system called Food & Spirit™. Currently, she offers training to practitioners of all types to learn this color-coded method for full-spectrum health (www.foodandspiritprofessional.com). She has applied this system to the practice of detox to create Whole Detox, a whole-life, whole-systems, whole-foods approach to feeling vital and renewed. In 2014, she led the Detox Summit, the world’s largest event on detox featuring 30 experts in the field. She offers online programs for those looking for guidance on healthy eating and living the Whole Detox way (www.whole-detox.com). Dr. Minich is a Fellow of the American College of Nutrition, a Certified Nutrition Specialist, a Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner, and faculty for the Institute for Functional Medicine and University of Western States. Her passion is teaching a whole-self approach to living and bringing together the gaps between science, spirit, and art in healing.

Reviews

[Jodi · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book started off so well. It opened with comments about how there is no one diet that will suit everyone due to biochemical individuality and the importance of understanding that a calorie of protein, fat or carbs each has a different effect on the body metabolically. Good stuff to start with and I thought I was in for a good read.

But then, things got bizarre and I felt a huge urge to back away from it slowly without making eye contact.

Wowsers. It is nuttier than a nutbar in parts.

There are lots of examples I could give but these were some of the most disturbing. This book says that grief and anger can lodge in the heart chakra and cause heart disease, that the rise in gluten problems lately is due to the way our thinking has changed due to world events (and if the world political scene changed, gluten problems would disappear, by implication) and that those who have food allergies do so because they are not 'grounded' enough. Once you're grounded enough, allergies go away. This is why kids grow out of childhood allergies. They become more grounded as they grow older.

(Nothing to do with the fact that many of us are low in nutrients which protect the heart, that gluten is not a health food for anyone, and that human beings are not at all adapted genetically to eating large amounts of it and that the huge rise in allergies is due to many well-explained dietary and environmental and other factors and has real biochemical causes which can be dealt with and that must be dealt with, for the symptoms and allergies to subside. Course not. It is just faulty modern thinking! Simple.)

Must be nice to live in a world where you think you are healthy because you are mentally 'evolved' more than other people and so safe from becoming ill, and where you can look down on ill people with superiority, knowing that if they were stronger (or more like you) mentally they could get well. So you don't need to spend any time worrying about them or the actual reasons illness rates are growing enormously and the need for real action in this area.

Never let facts get in way of a nice fanciful story that makes you feel like you're better than everyone else, and not have to try and do anything difficult, or go out of your way to understand or help others, I guess!

Harmless in a way and probably can make some people feel really good. I guess the issue is when these people interact with ill people, or when ill people are given these messages and reject fixing the actual physical causes of their symptoms (or even the search to find these causes), in favour of working on their chakras as a sole healing method. When it doesn't work, they end up being told they are to blame for the lack of improvement and also still have the awful allergies etc. to live with. Not so harmless or nice.

Bah! This sort of nonsense is so fanciful and silly that I hope it'll be easily apparent to almost all readers that this is not stuff to take seriously.

Forget this book and get either 'The Yoga of Eating' or 'Primal Body, Primal Mind' instead. They are of such a higher quality in every way. Together they tell you so much about which foods our bodies evolved to eat and why and how to listen to your body and work out what foods are best for you as an individual.

[Shao Pin Hoo · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are into meditation and balancing your chakras, this book will teach you everything about eating right for your chakras. There's a list of foods that depletes the chakras, another that activates and balances them and recipes for each of the seven chakras.

If you don't know about chakras, Chakra Foods for Optimum Health will be the ideal introductory primer and an excellent healt food guide.

[Charleigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I approached this book with skepticism, but a willing spirit. I want to learn more about nutrition and food, and thought that the structure of the chakras might be a fun way of organizing information.
The quiz at the start to identify your chakra issues is fun, because who doesn't like doing quizzes? The individual chapters for each chakra go into greater depth about the issues identified with each chakra. Each chapter starts with a case study vignette of somebody who has issues with that chakra, then talks about what foods have the vibrational energy to help. The basic nutritional information seems sound and scientific, and the advice to slow down and connect with the food that you eat can't hurt.
I didn't try any of the recipes in the book, so I have no comment aside from that I am amused by the pun names.

[Lisa Erickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great resource on nutrition and the chakras, including how to stimulate, calm and balance each chakras through foods. Really changed the way I approach protein for grounding in particular.

[Christian Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent booking on the color coding of food and how it can be utilized for a greater health lifestyle.

[Rosalia · Rating 5 out of 5]

a must read

[Julie]

This book is EXCELLENT! I am fundamentally resistent to "diet" plans ... popular or not. It occurred to me that the government's "eat a rainbow a day" emphasis could work with feeding the human energy field in a way that would support energetic balance and health. Right after that epiphany, I saw a segment on Dr. Oz about it, and decided that was confirmation of what I had intuited that had just resonated with every part of me. I decided to search for "chakra diets" and found this book listed on several reputable sites. I was DEFINITELY *not* disappointed! The information in this book is the most comprehensive and well articulated information I have found on the body's energy centers. It also clearly describes the impact of good nutrition on body processes. I found it to be affirming as well as educational, and much more life-sustaining than traditional diet programs. I HIGHLY recommend it for folks who are seeking a healthy, sensible food plan that provides variety specific to your individual needs at any given time and that is easy to adapt in any food situation.

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVE this book. It changed the way I view food and my relationship with it. I'd always felt intuitively that there was a spiritual component to selecting, preparing and eating food. The book clearly expressed in articulated terms things that I had felt but never vocalized. The ideas presented in this book resonated with me and make a positive impact on my life. The recipes in the back are more like guidelines than specific recipes. I usually just use them as a starting point/inspiration for new recipes. I'd recommend this to those who are open-minded, looking to change their relationship with food, or for those who love food and cooking.

[Debra Brunk · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. I really tried to like this book. I have taken a class from the author. I teach yoga - I understand chakras and energy - I'm into nutrition and cooking. But this book just didn't work for me. First, it just felt too 'out there' for me - and I have a pretty open mind these days. Second, there weren't a lot of references to back up her claims about how certain foods support certain chakras.

There are some good and helpful take aways from the book - but don't expect to find a lot of evidence (even anecdotal) to support the author's recommendations.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book in pieces and parts. There's a great quiz inside that focuses you on what Chakra you should work on in your current state of mind, then you can read sections based on which one of your charkras needs some work. They give some background, some science and then some suggestions. The recipes in the back aren't really worth much, but the mantras and ideas are inspiring. Enjoy!

[Martha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading about conscious eating to promote both health both in the physical and spiritual. The book was structured in a way that made it easy to put together information with behaviors, without clogging it up with recipes. At the end of the book, it gave practical ways of applying through recipes, and tables of information that reinforced the information.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is way better than I expected. It is a good link between spirituality and eating, for anyone, whether you believe in chakras or not. There are some recipes in the back, but I have never tried them. The information was awesome though!

[Yvonne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting book because it provides an insight into self and body. Dr. Minich provides a questionnaire for each of the body's seven chakras. Then one can determine what areas of body and energy need possible changes to diet for better health and energy.

[C A Rollins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just received May 7th 2009. Haven't dived in yet but will this week.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book.

Easy to read, lots of information and help with diet and meditation