“For me the main thing is that you feel happy eating, since it is useless to eat healthy and feel miserable about it. It is important to learn to cook the basics, and bring those products that you know feel good to you to your comfort zone.”
Quim Muns, nutrition and cooking with an alkaline tendency from behind the stove
After a lifetime training in many fields related to food and hospitality at the hands of great cooking teachers such as Joan Roca , chef at Celler de can Roca (3 Michelin stars), Quim Muns used his extensive knowledge of nutrition, dietetics and food technology to change catering from unconscious fun to conscious and healthy nutrition.
The result of this change is www.phideal.com, a space to publicize the pillars of alkaline health.
His philosophy, to help improve the health and vitality of people through services and products based on the philosophy and alkaline diet. Based on his experience, he defends alkaline nutrition as the way to eat that works best to lead a healthy lifestyle , also offering the possibility of avoiding and reversing numerous so-called chronic diseases.
1. What motivated you to create the PHIDEAL blog?
In my case, several close experiences of health improvement, thanks to incorporating a more alkaline diet into our usual diet, made me discover and believe that this was a way to have better health, whatever your tendencies or food tastes.
I realized that we live in a world that is predominantly acidic and acidifying, and that a blog that helps to balance this imbalance would be my little bit.
In the blog I show aspects that have to do above all with food, and with the movement and care of emotions. Emotions affect the pH of our body either holistically or in a certain organ.
In summary, I try to give knowledge about the exciting inseparable relationship between acids and alkalis.
2. From your broad perspective as a Nutrition Expert and Cook, can you eat healthy and at the same time affordable?
You can always eat healthier and more affordable. Health is forged day by day , and a day of exception, from time to time, will not change anything. It also happens the other way around, if you follow an unhealthy routine, for one day that you "behave yourself" will not change anything.
For me the main thing is that you feel happy eating, since it is useless to eat healthy and feel miserable about it. It is important to learn to cook the basics, and bring those products that you know feel good to your comfort zone.
The ideal is to promote the consumption of alkalizing foods , until these represent at least half and that the acidifying foods we eat are of the highest quality and with a high nutrient density. It just so happens that alkalizing foods are usually the ones we understand to be the healthiest .
3. One day you told me about the importance for people who eat meat that animals are not slaughtered immediately so we don't eat all their stress...
Of course, an important parameter to obtain a better meat quality is its pH at the time of slaughter. Years ago, when I worked in a food and hospitality R&D department, we could see how an animal slaughtered with a high degree of stress resulted in poorer quality meat and a more acidic pH.
That is why slaughterhouses have a space where the cattle spend time to relax and calm down after the stressful journey. It is a way of seeing how stress influences the pH of the blood and organism.
4. We are aware of the famous phrase MAY YOUR FOOD BE YOUR MEDICINE…
If we start the day eating high quality food and nutritional density, we already have a lot of cattle. As the course of the day we usually have many moments of stress / cortisol / acidity, so having a daily alkaline reserve can be a powerful medicine against discomfort.
Drinking a good glass of alkaline water with lemon on an empty stomach like Alkanatur's is surely one of the best things we can do for our well-being.
We know that there is a strong relationship between what we eat and how healthy we will be. What happens is that living in a state of unconsciousness is easy and pleasant. A pleasant food eaten occasionally is not harmful, but as soon as we incorporate it into our routine comfort zone, we no longer enjoy it as much and it ends up being detrimental to our health.
5. What practical advice can you provide for most of us if we want to take care of ourselves but have little time for it?
I am going to give you five general tips, which are combined and strengthen each other
- Drink quality water and in sufficient quantity. 2 liters or more on average daily. Take a good glass of alkaline water with lemon on an empty stomach in the morning.
- Try to always eat vegetables at every meal and if it is in the form of a salad or green juice, even better.
- Move, walk, dance, play, play sports, whatever but move. Life is movement.
- Avoid sustained stress. Keep in mind that nothing in this world is real, you make reality with your thoughts. Punctual stress is even positive, but sustained stress acidifies the body, and as my grandmother used to say "don't get bad blood".
- Try to spend as much time as possible in healthy environments, go out into the countryside, breathe deeply, take a walk, let the air touch your face, walk on the beach barefoot...
6. We love a person like you, who has the vision of a nutrition expert and at the same time a cook... Do you think there should be more cooking professionals with such studies?
I am convinced that combining knowledge of cooking and nutrition is complementary and highly recommended. They enrich each other, help to have more respect for the product, and consequently, promote better cooking.
It can also be a limiting aspect. Knowing and being aware that there are foods and cooking techniques that are highly detrimental to health reduces the arsenal of techniques to impress your guests. For example, a paella made with white rice is more "vicious" than with brown rice .
In the case of hospital and school canteens, super-adjusted production costs are a clearly limiting aspect for offering healthy and palatable products. Most of the people usually complain about the quality of the food. This is a good example to prove that chefs and dietitians do not go hand in hand, although they live in the same universe.
Another thing is the quality restaurants where you go to eat from time to time, one day is one day and I think you have to enjoy it to the fullest.
7. Are you a user of the Alkanatur jug, can you tell us about it, do you also use it for cooking?
Excuse me for introducing you to the question you are asking me, but the thing is… I can't help it.
What do you know about wine? Well, there are hundreds of varieties... It can be red, rosé, white... It spends time aging in oak barrels... It has a degree of alcohol between... Red contains an antioxidant... They say that drinking a glass of wine a day is healthy...
What do you know about water ? It is a mineral, and it is very rich... that there is water that is very low in minerals, and...
We know very little about the properties of water, and that it is the nutrient we take in the most.
Using the Alkanatur Drops jug is an affordable and convenient way to obtain quality alkaline and antioxidant water . Drinking alkaline water is very important to help generate and maintain an adequate pH for a healthier body. Keep in mind that your body is made up of 70% water, therefore it is very convenient to provide the different parts of the body with quality water.
A good hydration of the body by consuming good quality water such as that offered by Alkanatur , is a good way to help achieve and maintain a good quality of life.
Keep in mind that an adult loses around three liters of fluids every day through sweating, breathing, urination... the body becomes dehydrated if we don't replace these fluids.
I have several recipes in which I use the water from the jug, but above all I use it for my alkaline gazpachos, broths and creams. I also use it to soak the legumes before cooking them.
Alkanatur:
We want to thank Quim Muns for this conversation. It is a pleasure to know the point of view of an expert in nutrition, dietetics and food technology on diet and alkaline water.
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(*) WARNING: Based on available scientific information. The mentions have not been evaluated by EFSA. Our water is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.