Nutrition has always been an important part of Body Electronics. Quite simply, experience shows that people on inadequate diets do very poorly in the body work (pointholding) sessions. Routinely people receiving pointholding become very hungry or tired if they do not have a sufficient intake of key nutrients or a diet fit for purpose. "John Ray", its founder, always stressed a programme of what he called nutrient saturation.

For optimal sessions in body electronics the diet "John Ray" would state was ideal was comprised mostly of:

  1. Plentiful organically grown foods
  2. Fats and oils only heated to a temperature where damage does not occur
  3. Only sun-dried salt
  4. Fermented grains / sourdough breads
  5. Fresh vegetables and fruits, raw or cooked
  6. High enzyme foods (ones that contain an excess to that which digests itself)
  7. Plentiful natural sources of fat soluble vitamins
  8. Raw protein sources
  9. Live fermented foods containing bacteria natural to the digestive system
  10. A high percentage of raw foods (50% or more), which are correctly prepared by soaking or sprouting where appropriate
  11. An emphasis on an alkaline diet, although body electronics pointholding seems to require plentiful protein to be effective
  12. Clean, filtered tap water, or bottled spring water, preferably also acted upon to change its structure or energy imprints
  13. Supplemental enzymes and certain sources of full spectrum and organically complexed minerals.
  14. High quality supplemental microbe products.

Additionally John Ray always stressed that the diet should be mostly vegetarian with perhaps a little fish when needed, although some teachers, most notably Doug Morrison have focused more on the traditional diet research of the Weston Price Foundation and included meat in the diet.

Ideas on nutrient saturation from the diet have progressed since John Ray was speaking and writing on it. There is a general trend within nutritional experts towards feeding our gut microbes as being imporant in this respect. We can get much more nutritional value from our food than we think if our gut microbes are both plentiful and wide-spectrum. If we feed them what they want, they in turn multiply and do more digestion of other foods as well as being more effective in keeping harmful microbes in check.

The optimal human microbiome needs sources of carbohydrate to thrive. Sources of resistant starch (RS) and complex indigestible sugars such as inulin are prime feeders of microbes in our gut as they reach the colon intact. Although we get RS from grains and beans, many of these sources may have a detrimental effect also due to the presence of gut adhering lectins. Some plant foods are major sources of RS: raw potato starch, raw green bananas and plantains, tiger nuts, cooked and cooled white potatoes and possibly cooled white rice. Although these are carbohydrate foods, our gut bacteria work on such things to produce butyric acid - the fat in butter - for us to burn as fuel, rather than predominately sugars. Inulin one of the other "prebiotics" occurs in many foods, but notably the onion family, chicory and jerusalem artichokes.

Generally a range of fibres in foods are what is established scientifically to produce a healthy microbiome. Soluble fibre such as occurs as stickiness and goopiness in certain plant foods has been studied. This type of fibre occurs in such foods as flax seed, psyllium seed, buckwheat and amaranth.

Such prebiotic foods give people with a pre-existing poor balance within the microbiome some uncomfortable symptoms!

The Requirement for a Supporting Naturopathic Programme

Any good bodywork technique moves stagnant wastes from body tissues into the lymph and blood which can result in a temporary situation of lowered well-being. Naturopathic principles use a common sense and natural approach to the body and how it functions in health. We commonly have congested blood and lymph after bodywork and need to address the flow of wastes out of the body through its eliminatory channels. The lymph drains into the blood, the blood moves through the liver to process the wastes and the kidneys to come back into balance and eliminate some aromatic compounds. The skin eliminates through sweat, dead cells and sometimes spots. The liver pushes the neutralised wastes into the digestive system to be eliminated. Bodywork commonly creates a situation of this flow of wastes being out of balance. The cells are pushing out more than is eliminated. Naturopathic techniques address this flow and try to get it back into balance by enhancing the eliminatory ability. If this is achieved, wellbeing returns.

If we use suppressive techniques while we feel this lowered well-being, we are markedly hindering the effectiveness of the bodywork. So there is a requirement for people deeply involved in body electronics to learn about naturopathy and find the techniques which work for them.