#### **You Are What You Eat**

Since starting my org in 2018, I have been developing a personal diet to help me maintain my health while putting everything into my work. So that eventually I don’t even have to think about what to eat today, knowing that my diet is healthy in any way. Like a uniform you wear every day. You don’t have to think about what to wear, yet your clothes can be very mindful and cultivated.

”The Monku Diet” is based on two book references. The origin lies within an excerpt I read in a book by Ram Dass in 2018 which said very simply:

”Our body is our temple where we live and where we do the work \[…\]. It can be a ”clean, well-lighted place.” \[…\] What we eat affects the nature of the body cells and organs and the way they function.

1\. Don’t eat too much. 2. Eat light, healthy, unadulterated foods which are easily digestible.”

(Reference: Be Here Now - Ram Dass)

This should help:

* Set a guideline of ingredients, that…

* Prevent illness, waste, vibrations, mucus, and…

* Improve well-being, focus and health.

So that eventually, your body is very light. And one barely faces unwanted vibrations.

The second reference is from Shunru Suzuki about keeping the spirit in repetition. It is the important puzzle to the diet. In my search for and tendency to repetition, the Suzuki reference validated the diet. It can look like one always eats the same. But I really don’t. And sometimes I do.

”We may find it not so interesting to cook the same thing over and over again every day. It is rather tedious, you may say. If you lose the spirit of repetition it will become quite difficult… Anyway, we cannot keep still: we have to do something. So if you do something, you should be very observant, and careful, and alert. Our way is to put the dough in the oven and watch it carefully… Actual practice is repeating over and over again until you find out how to become bread.”

(Reference: Zen Mind: Beginner’s Mind - Shunru Suzuki)

This should help:

* Create healthy plates out of the ingredients, that…

* Behave in synergy to each other during the day (Breakfast, Lunch, Bridge, Evening), and…

* Keep the spirit of enjoying and preparing a meal with care.

So that eventually, you become the potato. With a very light mind.

#### **Ingredients**

In practice, you balance out all your ingredients into four characters: A, B, C, and D. To achieve a synergy and be able to create a healthy, light and unique plate for whatever time in the day by connecting one ingredient out of each character. The following example can help you as a frame to form your own ABCD with ingredients that work best for your taste, nutrition and stomach.

* A. Adds the foundations

* B. Adds the greens

* C. Adds the strength

* D. Adds the water

*ABCD (Balance for synergy)*

*A*

* *Potatoes*

* *Rice, Noodles*

* *Lentils*

* *Oatmeal*

* *Bread, Rice cake*

*B*

* *Carrots, Paprika, Zucchini*

* *Salad, Cucumber, Celery*

* *Red Beet, Cabbage, Kohlrabi*

* *Apples, Bananas, Pears*

* *Herbs*

*C*

* *Chickpeas, Beans, Peas*

* *Tofu, Eggs*

* *Sunflower-, Lin-Seeds*

* *Peanuts, Almond*

* *Butter (Shea, Cocos, Oat, Peanut)*

*D*

* *Water*

* *Tea, Coffee*

* *Oil, Soy, Seasonings, Veget. stock*

* *Lemons, Oranges, Tomatoes*

* *Oat milk*

*Plates (Create ABCD plates)*

*-> Bread (Crisp), Apple, Sunflower-Seeds, Coffee*

*-> Oatmeal, Banana, Lin-Seeds/ Peanuts, Oat milk*

*-> Noodles, Herbs, Tofu, Tomato (Juice)*

*-> Rice cake, Pear, Lin-Seeds, Water*

*-> Bread (Protein), Red cabbage, Sunflower-Seeds, Orange (Juice)*

*-> Rice, Cucumber, Egg, Soy sauce*

*-> Potatoes, Paprika, Tofu, Oil*

*-> Potatoes, Carrots/Herbs, Chickpeas, Lemon (Juice)*

#### **The Monku Diet, in a day**

*Breakfast:*

*I have a two-part breakfast in the morning.*

1. *A protein-crisp bread which holds seeds (A and C combined) paired with a cold, green (or red) Apple (B) and a Coffee (D).*

2. *A bowl of oatmeal (A), a banana (B), lin-seeds (at times peanut butter) (C) and oat milk (D).*

*In addition, I take a pill in the morning that adds vitamins, minerals, plant substances and antioxidants to the diet.*

*-> Bread (Crisp), Apple, Lin-Seeds (on bread), Coffee*

*-> Oatmeal, Banana, Lin-Seeds/ Peanut butter, Oat milk*

*Lunch:*

*For lunch, I have a bowl of white rice (A), sliced cucumber (B), an egg (C) and soy sauce (D).*

*-> Rice, Cucumber, Egg, Soy sauce*

*Bridge:*

*This came together only recently. I was always looking for a bridge that could energize me around 03:00PM, which I now found in red/sour cabbage (cold), currently still processed, but time and energy wise very efficient.*

*Here, I combine a rice cake or slice of protein bread (A) with red cabbage (B), sunflower-seeds (C) and a glass of water or cup of tea (D).*

*-> Rice cake, Red cabbage, Sunflower-Seeds, Water*

*Evening:*

*Now, The Holy Trinity. For dinner, not too late, I have potatoes (A) with carrots (and herbs from the carrots or external) (B), chickpeas (C) and juice from half-a-lemon (D). In addition I often take two leafs from a salad and add it to the herbs so that there is a little more green on the plate.*

*(The only seasonings I use in the diet are salt & pepper)*

*As dessert, I have an apple or pear.*

*Earlier in my practice, I sometimes combined a pear with a piece of chocolate after dinner, but then my focus often shifted to only looking forward to the chocolate. No more chocolate for me, at the moment.*

*-> Potatoes, Carrots/ Herbs, Chickpeas, Half-a-lemon (Juice)*

*-> Apple or Pear, Tea*

#### **Discipline**

The Monku Diet follows basic rules and requires discipline once the characters are in synergy. Imagine these rules as the level you set for your body. One is to find joy in eating non-processed food, which means that you always try to come back to the raw form. Instead of buying processed tomato sauce, you just take a tomato as it is. Knowing, it is enough to carefully clean some rice, \[very observant\], add chickpeas to it with some juice from half-a-lemon and your favorite herbs on top. Then you do it again tomorrow, maybe with potatoes and juice from half-an-orange instead. In repetition, you grow a connection to your ingredients and naturally create plate variations in your practice. The bag of potatoes this week will have another look next week. It is like LEGO with a no-waste-policy. Or a team of ingredients you build around your health. In it, you’ll also yearn for regional, organic ingredients. To form plates that are in harmony with nature.

Rules (if possible):

* Non-processed-rule

* No-garlic-please

* No-waste-policy

* Organic, Regional, Efficient

* Simple, healthy, light plates

Once you practice in the same timeframes, a positive and supportive side-effect for your body will be a light and structured digestion, at times like a Swiss movement.

Meaning, if you can follow this diet or elements of this diet with care, you’ll:

* Look forward to and honor every plate,

* Know how your body will react to a plate,

* Eat very healthy, fresh, regional, light, organic,

* Find joy in adding/ trying new ingredients,

* Know how many ingredients you need in a week, and

* Reduce personal food-waste to basically zero.

#### **Organic farming, EU-BIO-Guideline**

The nature and spirit of the diet with its ingredients is a product of organic farming. In the EU, there is a BIO-certificate for organically farmed products, which is a guideline that requires farmers to work after a set of rules:

* Farming in harmony with nature, the

* Preservation and promotion of soil fertility and biodiversity, the

* Use of farm-produced and organic fertilizers, a

* Preventive and natural plant protection,

* No use of genetic engineering, the

* Prohibition of synthetic chemical pesticides and fertilizers, that

* Plant, animal, soil, human and nature all play together.

On this road, the guideline verifies and protects the foundation of the diet, the ingredients, directly affecting \[the nature of your body cells and organs and the way they function\].

#### **Light Body, Light Mind**

The Monku Diet is a form to eat healthy in a very sustainable and cost-efficient way that will give you a light body without the need to think about your next plate. You can adjust the ingredients to your needs of personal taste and nutrition.

Justin

2023