?TIS the season for processed hams, stuffing, cakes and sweets. The most wonderful time of the year can also be the most unhealthy?for you and for the environment.

In a country where a feast usually includes fat-dripping lechon (roasted pig) on rice grown from chemicalized fields, are we ready to make peace with God?s creation?

There is a natural revolution in these environmentally challenged times that is breaking down traditional thinking and changing our eating habits.

Natural nutrition is the new food trend emerging as a health fix. It has defined the spa cuisine that has mainstream medicine taking notice. It is sun-cooked, organic, nutrition-dense, live with enzymes and plant-food-based things found in abundance in a tropical country.

Nutritious local food

Consumer can find the healthy oil for cooking in the coconut, the lowest glycemic index in raw coconut sugar, the highly mineralized cholesterol-lowering malunggay and sugar-lowering ampalaya, the sun-cooked fruits in vitamin C-rich mangoes and papayas, the potassium-dense bananas, and one of the highest concentrations of protein in durian. Just to mention a few.

Based on the premise that food is our closest relationship with the environment, natural plant-based nutrition lets us go direct to the energy and nutrient producers down the food chain: the green plants and certain bacteria, which convert sunlight into food energy.

We are able to cut the circuitous food chain of feeding relationships through which plants and animals depend on one another. We reduce carbon emissions by skipping fossil fuel-consuming, waste-producing livestock in our diet.

Sunfood diet

Many health diets have been spawned by modern-day health challenges. David Wolfe, author of the groundbreaking book ?The Sunfood Diet Success System,? defines in environmental terms what nutritional scientists are trying to tell us in their cryptic language.
?If we violate nature?s law by eating food that is processed, cured, embalmed, chemicalized, radiated, genetically modified and devitalized, the result is an imbalance called disease,? he says.

Artificial foods cannot be digested or processed by the body. ?They are the forbidden food that will cause man?s fall from grace,? Wolfe says.

Environment issue

Food is an environment issue. ?The processed-food industry has spawned an ecological disaster where grain farming has demineralized the fertile earth,? he says. ?Our landfills are polluted with nonbiodegradable trash. We live in areas that exceed smog standards from fuel emissions. Most of our tap water contains chemicals and excessive levels of lead,? adds Wolfe.

We are what we eat. What we eat deeply affects the way we think, feel and behave. The food we eat brings the necessary nutrients and other raw materials needed by our body to heal and maintain our health and vitality.

In the context of spiritual nutrition, the emotional and mental state of the eater and the one who prepares it are more important than the food itself.

A health resort in Batangas was built in 2002 around what Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, said, ?Let food be your medicine.?

CNN Traveler

The booming Asia spa and wellness industry has recognized the resort?s concept of healing through nutrition in a holistic environment. The industry awarded the Spa Cuisine of the Year to The Farm at San Benito twice?in 2006 and this year.

The Farm?s faithfulness in preserving the ecological balance amid 48 hectares of coconut-palm forest, lagoons and gardens has paid off. The latest online and print edition of CNN Traveler showcases the Philippine health resort at the foothills of Mt. Malarayat as one of the world?s best green places to stay.

The magazine, which focuses on conservation, the environment and local customs, lists The Farm at San Benito as one of Six Best Environmentally Friendly Hotels in the world?No. 4 after Kenya?s Borana Ranch, Belize?s Chaa Creek and Australia?s Daintree Ecolodge, followed by Ecuador?s Huaoroni Lodge and Switzerland?s Whitepod.

Feast without guilt

To help you attain a healthy celebration of the season, the all-Filipino chefs of AsiaSpa?s Spa Cuisine of the Year have whipped up a native-palate-friendly menu for Christmas to prevent your holidays from turning into a diet and environmental disaster.

The Farm kitchen effectively reduces carbon emissions by churning out a natural enzyme-rich, plant-based menu using organic ingredients and herbs grown in the nearby organic garden and fresh spices produced on the premises.

For one, you will find in the The Farm kitchen no heady whiff of MSG (monosodium glutamate)-flavored cooking, no odors of grease, seared meat and food additives so typical of Filipino kitchens. Flour, sugar and salt are raw, unrefined and mineralized by nature. Herbs and spices, vegetables and fruits are grown?and seeds sprouted?in organic gardens.

Least-used tool

Inconspicuous in one corner, the stove is the least-used tool in the remarkably quiet and airy kitchen. Sliced coconut meats in special dehydrators become crispy crackers still high in minerals.

High-speed blenders churn out refreshing fruit slushes and nutritious muesli. Food processors make vibrant carrot-and-squash salads rich in cancer-fighting antioxidants. Zucchinis go through a saladacco spiral slicer to make low-carbo ?pasta? wraps.

?Milk? and ?cream? mean almond and cashew soaked in water, and cold-pressed coconuts. Cheese are cultured not from animal source but with fermented berry juice and hand-mixed with pink sea salt of the Himalayas.

42 degrees

The chefs?Lucring, Elmer and Lucy?who have trained under visiting natural nutrition chefs from the United States and Germany, maintain the live state of food by soaking, blending, dehydrating, culturing and cooking at no more than 42 degrees Celsius, preserving its enzymes, vitamins, minerals and trace elements that otherwise would have been lost to high heat.

They encourage adding more live foods to our diet to restore vitality, energy and life force.

?Enzymes are the elements that eat away food that sticks to your ribs?all the undigested foods and fats stored in the cells?and pushes them away. If the fats remain in the cells, the cancer virus attacks and converts them into cancer,? says Dr. Ron Bardonado, The Farm medical chief.

?Retained fats and mucus solidify over a period of time into tumors that obstruct circulation and the flow of energy in the body,? he adds.

It says that cooking creates new compounds that are detrimental to health. These inflammatory chemicals made by the interactions of sugars, fats and proteins that form quickly at high temperatures are linked to cardiovascular and kidney diseases and diabetes.

Abundance of flavors

The joyful chefs create healthy culinary creations that satisfy not only the eyes but also one?s palate (mainly Filipino) and emotions out of an abundance of flavors, fragrances, textures and colors to show that eating for health need not be boring. They say in unison, ?It is not a diet, it is a lifestyle.?

It may take some time for the Filipino palate saturated with the taste of ?forbidden foods? to get used to healthy eating. But like it or not, climate change is upon us. Our food choices today will determine our future.