By Maria Manazza
For the past almost 10 years of my personal health journey, I’ve studied several authors, healers, and healthy living proponents in search of the correct information to heal and maintain my own health.
I’ve participated (and still participate to a degree for curiosity purposes) in several fruitarian and raw groups, and for the most part of my journey I had considered the information that I had learned from Arnold Ehret to be the most important information that I had learned on the topic of health, until I began studying Natural Hygiene and participating in the Terrain Model group.
There are important topics that Natural Hygiene teaches about for healthful living and healing that go virtually unaddressed in most of the books that I previously read, and in the health groups that I’ve been a part of, which I’ll share with you now.
Here is a list of 4 topics that are important to learn about for building and maintaining our health. Of course, everyone here is fully aware of what they are already, but if you’re like me, I’m always up for reiteration.
These topics don’t receive much attention in any of the health groups that I frequent, yet they are arguably some of the most important aspects to learn on the topic of health and healing which I learned from studying Natural Hygiene.
1. In Natural Hygiene, we learn to work with the body, not against it. If the body is in need of cleaning and repair, we do everything possible to listen to the body and to REST when needed. We learn why rest is important. We do not push through or push the body beyond its capacity. Digestion is a complex task. Cleaning and repairing are complex tasks. We don’t want to overexert the body. We want to create healthy conditions, lifting the burden when required.
The Terrain Model teaches us to become more in tune with the body’s true requirements and to be able to recognize and listen to the body’s needs.
2. The Terrain Model teaches us that the output is only as good as the input and that simplicity is the key for true health. What we put into our mouths matters. I know all health groups focus on this. However, it’s unfortunate that a great deal of them are not aware about what foods truly supply the body with its optimal fuel. Even fruitarian groups miss out on the vital importance of including greens into our diet, focussing predominantly on fruit.
In the past, I did several extended fruit-only cleanses which never gave me the results that I had hoped for, which I can understand the reasons for today. The leafy greens are equally as important as eating fruits. Fruits and greens complement each other, and both food groups contribute to the body’s overall nutritional requirements. I remember learning misinformation such as that greens are difficult to digest in comparison with fruits, so therefore greens should be avoided in the diet for “detoxification,” which is damaging advice because detoxification is not something that WE do to our body. It is something the body does when we supply the body with its true requirements.
3. The results of one violation (disease, symptoms from wrong foods) cannot be remedied by inflicting more violations on the body. We simply cannot poison the body back into health, as many fail to recognize because they do not recognize what actually POISONS the body! Fortunately, the Terrain Model recognizes and teaches what exactly these poisons ARE and how to avoid them. I don’t know of any other health groups that are fully aware of the burden that herbs and spices, for example, create in the body. Just this knowledge alone is so freeing once we get over the initial shock. Letting go and returning to simplicity feels so freeing!
4. The Terrain Model and the hygienic way teach us the importance of water intake. This aspect is arguably one of the most important, which gets completely overlooked, especially in fruitarian groups. I’ve been ridiculed for suggesting that people increase their water consumption because many assume that either they already drink enough or that the fruits they eat supply the body with all its hydration needs. I once believed this myself, and as a result, I didn’t get near the results that I had desired for my health during the first 6–7 years of eating a high-fruit, clean, whole-food, mostly raw, vegan diet because I underestimated the power of simply drinking enough water!
Fruit may have been enough to meet our hydration needs long ago (if we only ate hydrating foods from an early age), but that’s not the case for any of us. Our species’ appropriate diet is a diet of hydration, and the diets we were all raised on were dehydrating foods. The body requires 80% water content for food to travel through the digestive tract to avoid the body pulling the water from our cells! Can you imagine how dehydrated we all are on a cellular level?
All the foods that we consume outside of fruits, greens, and high-water-content vegetables dehydrate the body to various degrees, which leads to a dehydrated lymphatic system. When the lymphatic system is dehydrated, it doesn’t flow freely, which leads to health issues over time.
When we speak of constipation issues in the body, that doesn’t necessarily translate to the colon and GI tract only. The lymphatic system (whole body) can become constipated and slow-moving as well, and dehydration through unnatural foods and living practices is almost always the root cause.
So, consuming water-deficient foods dehydrates the body, which causes it to draw hydration from its own cells to assist with moving the drier foods through the digestive system.
It took me years to realize how important water intake is, and I was that girl that had an aversion to drinking water. I could hardly bring myself to choke it down even though, in hindsight, I was suffering with chronic dehydration issues my entire life. Had I been taught to drink more water, I fully believe my past health issues wouldn’t have been so severe.
Natural Hygiene teaches us these important health aspects which generally go completely overlooked in the health community, and for this I am grateful to be part of this group and to have learned what Natural Hygiene has to offer.
Not a day goes by that I am not thankful for having discovered this path. I thank all those who came before me and used their precious time, effort, and life force energy to bring us this lifesaving information.
Mariah 🍒 Heal Thyself
Healthy Self…
This article shares Maria Manazza’s personal experience and perspective through Natural Hygiene. It is not medical advice.
