Getting your “Five-a-day?” Congratulations! But you’re probably still deficient.

September 18, 2012

Around the world, health professionals are unified in promoting the consumption of fruits and vegetables. In Canada, we optimistically suggest that everyone should be getting “ 5 to 10 a day “, while in the US (as well as the UK, Germany, and others), the slogan is simply “5 a Day”.

The problem is, “5 a Day” simply isn’t good enough anymore. It might have been in the 1950s, but in today’s world we would have to consume significantly more than that in order to be optimally healthy. In fact, I’m not sure that the majority of us can do it with food alone. And the reason for this is twofold: food today isn’t as nutritious, and our nutrient needs are far higher than they used to be.

Today’s food just doesn’t cut it.

Every so often, Health Canada tests fruits and vegetables in Canada and provides tables listing their nutrient content. When you see a product label indicating the percentage of Vitamin C, iron, calcium etc. per serving, those values are calculated by plugging the recipe into a computer program which uses the data supplied by Health Canada. (Individual companies are not sending their food to be independently tested by labs, so having this data is important.)

Last week I discovered an article from the Globe and Mail published on July 6, 2002, ( ten years ago! ) by Andre Picard comparing the nutritional values, as provided by Health Canada, of 25 different fruits and vegetables between 1951 and 1999. The following is a sampling of what they found:

Everywhere you see red, the nutritional value has gone down…and that’s a lot of red! As you can see, the levels of vitamins and minerals in all of the foods they looked at have almost universally deteriorated, a lot . Take potatoes, for example, since it’s probably the most consumed vegetable in North America. The amount of calcium has gone down by 27.5%; the amount of Vitamin C, iron, and riboflavin have each gone down over 50%, and the Vitamin A in potatoes is completely gone…there used to be Vitamin A in potatoes, and now there is none! For the 25 most popular fruits and vegetables that were examined, nutrient losses were similar.

To put this into perspective, back in 1951, a woman could get her full Recommended Daily Allowance of Vitamin A by consuming just 2 peaches . Today, she would need fifty-three (53) peaches! Or how about the fact that you would have to eat eight oranges today to get the same amount of Vitamin A in just one orange in 1951.

Canada’s situation is not unique. According to data in the US and the UK, similar losses have been tracked in their food supply as well.

The first question to be asked is: why is this happening?  The most obvious reason has to do with mass-farming practices on the one hand, and the degradation of nutrients during long-haul transportation on the other. Historically, food was sourced locally and farming involved regular crop rotation, allowing land to lie fallow, and other techniques to ensure that the soil remained healthy, and in turn, so would the crops that grew on them. Millions of dollars have been spent on increasing profits through modern technology: fertilizers and chemicals to put out higher crop yields which are more resistant to pests and droughts, and which look beautiful to the eye. Where is the money ensuring that nutrient value has not been shortchanged as a result? Call me a cynic, but I’m not surprised.

The second question to ask is: what is being done about this? The answer: nothing. The only thing more shocking to me than the sheer magnitude of the nutrient losses is the fact that public health officials have known about this problem for decades and they don’t seem to see it as a problem worth addressing. This problem is not even on the radar! At the very least I would have expected Dietitians of Canada to make some sort of stand on food quality in Canada, given that our discipline’s raison d’etre is to promote healthy living through good nutrition. How can you meet your nutrient needs through food if the food doesn’t contain the nutrients in the first place? I’ve never had one communication from them addressing this issue.

So why is there no public outcry? The answer is that, despite the drastic decreases to nutritional values, our food is still good enough, if we eat very carefully, to (barely) supply our RDAs.

RDAs: Recommended Dietary Allowances

And that’s the problem. The RDA’s are defined as “the average daily dietary intake of a nutrient that is sufficient to meet the requirement of nearly all (97-98%) healthy persons.” We label our foods with %Daily Values (determined by picking the highest RDA value across demographic groups for the nutrient). The recommendations in Canada’s Food Guide (and the US MyPlate) have been developed in order to meet RDA values.  We’ve convinced ourselves that if we meet our RDAs, we’re doing what is needed to keep ourselves healthy. But we’ve forgotten our history. What does “meet the requirement” mean?

The RDAs were originally developed during World War II in order to determine what minimal nutrient intake was necessary to keep our servicemen and women up and fighting during periods of rationing . As in, how much Vitamin C do you need to prevent scurvy? Or how much thiamin to prevent beriberi? Or the amount of Vitamin D needed to prevent rickets? We’re not talking about optimal nutrition here. These are the levels known as adequate to avoid overt nutritional deficiencies , but they in no way give us the amounts needed to prevent long-term chronic disease. As an analogy, it’s like asking what’s the minimum amount of air I can put in my tires to keep my car moving? Having anything less than the optimal amount of air yields more wear and tear on the car, reduces its efficiency, and shortens its life overall. Having less than optimal nutrition does exactly the same thing to your body.

As I pointed out earlier, in 1951 it was extremely easy to meet your RDAs. A couple pieces of fruit and a few vegetables, each of which was chock-full of a wide spectrum of nutrients, and you were there. In fact, you’d be taking in far more nutrition than simply meeting your RDA values. In 1951 it was easy to be optimally nourished with food alone.

The RDAs have been updated every decade, and most nutrient levels have only changed slightly over the past 50 years. Where the evidence has strongly indicated a role in disease prevention (eg. Calcium & osteoporosis, Vitamin D & cancer), recommendations have increased. Surprisingly, most of the other nutrient recommendations have gone down!

If the history isn’t convincing enough, the RDA book itself states “RDAs are neither minimal requirements nor necessarily optimal levels of intake. It is not possible at this time to establish optima.” It’s in black and white, yet somehow we refuse to recognize that there is a difference between minimal and optimal.

Optimal has changed

Modern society is worlds different from the 1950s. Stresses to our bodies are increasing constantly: not only the go-go-go of today’s lifestyles, but also things such as lack of sleep; air pollution; noise pollution; the chemicals and toxins that surround us in our foods, cleaning products, beauty products, paints, glues, light bulbs etc. The list goes on. All of this affects us. Even if we’re not eating it directly, we breathe it in, and it absorbs through our skin. Our bodies defend ourselves with our immune system, our liver, our digestive systems, our skin, our tear ducts, our nose hair and so on. Those only work and regenerate if they are properly nourished and hydrated. The more stress, the more work they have to do, and the greater our nutritional needs to keep at full fighting strength.

Bridging the gap

“We are living to short and dying too long” – Dr. Myron Wentz. As a society, we’ve become very good at taking care of infectious diseases. Immunizations, antibiotics and antivirals are amazing at keeping us free from the multitude of diseases that brought down our grandparents and great-grandparents. Now, however, we are seeing an unprecedented rise in chronic degenerative diseases. The diseases that rob you of life; that kill you slowly, over years or decades. Cancers, diabetes, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, heart disease and so on. These are diseases that start off with oxidative damage to individual cells. Damage that could potentially be prevented or reversed with proper nutrition: antioxidants, vitamins and minerals whose function it is to protect each and every cell in the body.

Can we prevent these diseases with food today? I don’t think so. Not the majority of us, anyway, who can’t seem to get even 5 fruits and vegetables in daily; and those five just barely keep us from becoming visibly deficient. Not with the amount of processed food in our diet, whose nutrients have been stripped away and replaced with fat, sugar, and salt.

The way I see it, we have two choices, and one imperative. We can overhaul our diets to eliminate the processed food, so we can maximize the nutrients that we can get from our diets. We can do the best we can, and take a high-quality nutritional supplement as insurance. (I’ve written a couple of blog posts on this subject previously to help choose a good product) And we must demand better from our public health professionals and ultimately the government to see that something is being done about this. The problem is not irreversible, we just need to take action.

I’d be very interested to hear your comments. Are you as shocked as I was? Do you see any other ways to solve this problem? (we can’t all grow veggie gardens in our back yards, sadly). What are your thoughts?

Why Pain Doesn’t Have to Be a Normal Part of Aging

By Renu Arora • August 26, 2025
The Move That Broke Me (Literally) For the past several weeks (months!) I have been in the process of moving houses. OMG! The longer you live in one place, the more “stuff” piles up. I quickly discovered that purging under a deadline is exhausting! My advice? Do yourself a huge favor: let go of anything you haven’t used in years. Clearing clutter isn’t just good for your home, you'll feel emotionally lighter, too. Decluttering aside, after a big day of moving furniture and all the other heavy or bulky things that required a truck, every muscle in my body was sore. My back, legs, arms—even my wrist—were screaming in pain. Climbing one flight of stairs felt like scaling the CN Tower. I felt completely wrecked. At an emotional low, everything I tried took me 3-4 times as long as normal. Moving through life at half speed, I was really not myself. This was 3 weeks ago. I expected at least a few days of soreness, but weeks later the pain persisted. I hate popping pills, but I was taking BOTH Tylenol and ibuprofen every morning just to get through the day. Yikes! The Line Between Physical Healing and Spiritual Healing You might be wondering: If I’m an energy healer, why didn’t I just “fix” myself? Here’s the truth: physical injuries need physical time to heal. Muscles, ligaments, bones—they don't heal in an instant. The physical body is relatively fragile, and needs care to keep it in working order. That said, it is truly remarkable in its ability to heal. I’ve always said that if broken bones are able to knit themselves together in 6 weeks, there is really nothing in the body that should take over 3 months to heal. But when pain lingers beyond the normal healing window, it’s often tied to something deeper: an emotional or spiritual block. So, if healing doesn’t happen in that time, one should then look to a spiritual cause either preventing healing from taking place, or more often, preventing the pain from going away, even through the body itself may already be healed sufficiently to be pain free. When my pain stayed intense after two weeks, I knew there was more to it than just overworked muscles. The Subconscious Connection: Feeling “Old” Working with the subconscious means everything is symbolic. In my case, the pain and fatigue I was feeling was accompanied by a single thought: “I feel old.” That thought immediately made me think of my mother, who recently turned 93! She had just broken her calf while traveling—right in the middle of my move! While I took out time to help prepare her house so she could recover at home, with everything else going on, I felt guilty that I wasn’t doing more. Like I'm a bad daughter for prioritizing my own life ahead of my mother's. And my own pain was only exacerbating my inability to do anything about it. Healing With ART (Accelerated Release Technique) Once I recognized the feelings at the root of my issue, I used my own Accelerated Release Technique (ART) to release the guilt and shame that I had been carrying. While there was a little more to it, after about an hour of ART, the mental fatigue disappeared completely and my physical pain drastically improved. Thank heavens! While my wrist is still tender, that's on me. There has still been lifting and schlepping stuff from my old home to my new one, and this past weekend was spent setting up my son’s new space for his next few years at university in Waterloo (hence more lifting and schlepping!) so I likely have a physical injury that hasn't been given a chance to heal. The rest of me, however, feels like my old - young - self! I can run up stairs, bend, and move freely once again without pain. Yay! Why This Matters for You Pain does not have to be part of aging. The subconscious mind holds powerful keys to healing emotional pain, physical discomfort, and spiritual blocks. Once you release the hidden beliefs and emotions weighing you down, your body and mind can return to their natural state: healthy, whole, and free. I believe it is everyone’s divine right to be healthy, happy, whole, and abundant. And with knowledge of ART, you can take your healing in your own hands. Ready to Assert YOUR Divine Right to Live Your Best Life? Registration for my next ART Masterclass is now open! Pay your $250 deposit to enroll by September 1st, 2025 (midnight EST) and get the two prerequisite courses FREE: How Heal From Your Past ($199 + HST) Connecting to Your Subconscious Without Hypnosis ($19.95 + HST) Spaces are limited—secure your spot today! Join with a friend and you’ll BOTH receive $150 off the Masterclass. 👉 👉👉 Click here to register for the Masterclass 👈👈👈 Have questions? Send me a message — I’d love to hear from you! I hope to see you in class!

How Past Life Healing with ART Helped Her Let Go of Work Burnout

By Renu Arora • June 25, 2025
Discover how the Accelerated Release Technique (ART) uncovered a past life trauma behind a client’s workplace exhaustion — and how rewriting that story brought emotional freedom.

We are all energy healers

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Even if you don't know it

The connection between emotions and weight

By Renu Arora • April 11, 2025
More important than exercise or nutrition in managing weight is the emotional connection. This is just one example of the myriad causes for excess weight.

Here's what can happen when your Inner Child takes over

By Renu Arora • March 23, 2025
This is a story that recently took place in a class with one of my students. We had been discussing one of the most important things to take care of at the start of a session: reducing interference. When we start a healing session, we always connect with our guidance team (i.e. Spirit Guides) to make sure that they are "on board" with what we want to work on. There are a few reasons they may try to stop us. Sometimes they are merely reflecting back to us a belief system, of where we were unaware, that needed addressing. And at other times, they could literally have their own trauma being triggered, and that needs to be healed before we can move forward. Either way, without the cooperation of our guidance team, trying to solve issues can take far longer than it should because we are so vulnerable to their potential sabotage. More recently, I have added to the Accelerated Release Technique a requirement to check on the client's Inner Child as well for the very same reasons. I was demonstrating "how to start a session" using this one student as a volunteer and, not surprisingly, as this always seems to happen when I am hoping to demonstrate a new concept, we immediately got to see interference in action: my student's Inner Child decided to be a hindrance. We began the session with a particular problem in mind, but her Inner Child was having none of it! When asking if we would be allowed to receive "concise and timely answers" during the session, we received a definitive "no." Put another way, her inner child was literally telling us that she was going to put forward answers that would take us on a meandering route to our solution. Assuming that this Inner Child just needed some healing so that she would then acquiesce and step aside so we could continue to address our intended issue, I continued along that vein, finding out what the Inner Child needed. It was only a matter of a few minutes when the word "allergies" popped up and I was led to start shifting that energy type. And then it hit me. My student has mentioned in the past that she has a gluten sensitivity and that that was something she was keen to work on eventually eliminating with ART. OMG! Her Inner Child basically wanted to be able to eat a cookie! (And bread, and pie, and cake...and all the yummy foods she had felt she was missing out on.) She literally hijacked the session because that was what she wanted us to work on - and because she had the power to do so. That revelation came as class was ending, so apparently my student's homework is to work on her gluten sensitivity, or else her Inner Child will never give her any peace... And as her teacher, I can't wait to hear how it goes! Do you feel like your Inner Child might be running the show in your life? If you'd like to take back your own power, book a Discovery Call with me and I can help get you back on track. Or consider learning the Accelerated Release Technique and you can do it yourself. Click here for more details on the process.

No. You're not crazy.

By Renu Arora • March 7, 2025
Wondering if you're crazy? You're not. You don't have a medical problem, you've got a spiritual one. And the answer to heal lies in your mind itself.

How we healed her Insomnia

By Renu Arora • January 23, 2025
So she could finally get a good night's sleep

The voices in your head aren't you

By Renu Arora • August 30, 2024
The voices in your head aren't you. I was in the middle of doing prep work for completely overhauling my ART training over the next month and I realized that the above was something that I understood from the thousand(s?) of sessions I have done, but have never put into words. The voices in your head are not you. There is only one YOU in your head. That's the one THINKING. Asking questions. Making decisions. The one who knows what you want and don't want. So, who is calling you names? Making nasty comments? Saying things that you know aren't true? Or aren't how you really feel? I refer to these chatterboxes in your head collectively as "the peanut gallery." They fall into one of 3 categories. Something that was a part of you, but split off and is no longer "attached". Something that was never part of your energy. Or it's your inner child. If it's your inner child, that is the childlike part in every one of us that keeps us young, and they need some soothing. We all live with a younger version of ourselves inside. But this younger version has it's own needs and wants, and you have to learn to work together to live harmoniously! If it was never a part of you, it's some kind of energetic interference. Someone else - whether living or dead - is invading your space. It could even be your spirit guides themselves, believing that they are protecting you with that belief, or they themselves need healing and they are imposing their beliefs upon you. Most of the time, we just take the few moments we need to heal them so they no longer feel it necessary to interfere. And then there are the ones that were once a part of you. These are typically referred to as Alters. These were formed out of trauma. As a result of a traumatic experience, the body coped by splitting off the trauma into a separate segment in an attempt to "contain" it. These segments have their own consciousness and belief system...therefore they no longer truly represent YOU. People with dissociative identity disorder (DID. Formerly called multiple personality disorder) have Alters that are so imbued with trauma energy that they can occasionally "take the drivers seat" and during those times, "You" are relegated to the background. As such, people with DID will often have large gaps in their memory when an Alter had taken over. The wild thing is, everyone has Alters. It's only in DID that the trauma is so overwhelming for an Alter to be able to take control. You can speak to Alters. Find out what they need in order to heal. Once they are healed, they can integrate back into the whole. (ie. become part of you once again) And once you address all of the "personalities" that have appeared, the peanut gallery finally becomes quiet. For this week's story, while I was working with a client she suddenly shared that she felt like people want what she has, and wanted her to suffer...while all she wanted was peace. Her subconscious told me that that feeling wasn't the one we were supposed to work on, though. That that was actually symbolic of something else in her life...somewhere else that there was suffering and she wanted peace. She then told me "there's a part of me that wants to die." She clearly hears it say "I want to die." We both know that's not what she really wants. It's a voice in her head. In moments, I discover it's an Alter. This Alter was suffering and wanted peace. This is what we were being directed to heal. Once they are discovered, healing an Alter is actually rather straightforward and simple. So within a few minutes, the peanut gallery was quiet. She no longer needs to hear those words in her head again. What a relief! If you find this as fascinating as I do, then consider learning ART! There is a 5-week, live training course with me (conducted over zoom) and a couple of smaller prerequisite courses. You can find all the information about when the various courses are offered and their pricings by clicking here . You will be amazed by what you learn!

How long does energy healing take to work?

By Renu Arora • June 30, 2024
Your subconscious knows exactly how long it will take you to heal.

Losing your connection (spiritually speaking!)

By Renu Arora • January 24, 2024
This is a short one... A client came in for her first session with me, and as I typically do for an intro session, we planned to find and heal a life event for her. This generally starts off with us needing to find out a belief that the client is hanging onto as a result of the experience. I got my clues, but none of it meant anything to my client. I checked into see if we were being blocked, and I didn't see any issues, but still no spark of insight came to her. Worse yet, nothing was coming to me either. I usually get an intuitive hit to guide the conversation but this time, nada. Then it occurred to me to ask if she and I were still connected. I got a "no." No?? I tried again to connect and found, in a nutshell, that her spirit guides had booted me out! It sometimes happens that I can't connect initially, but I don't generally get kicked out mid-session like that. So I asked what her guides needed to allow us to move forward and it turns out that they needed an apology from me! I can only guess that I ticked them off in a past life. 😕 I apologized. Thankfully they accepted. And I quickly found that the information that I had received earlier had been completely false and we had to start from scratch. Happily, they didn't interfere again and my client and I went on to have a great session. 😃 Today's tip: if you are doing your own healing work and you find your intuition shut down, verify that you are actually connected! And don't be surprised if somebody's grudge from a past life comes up to be resolved. :) If you are interested in learning more about whether ART is right for you, either to learn for yourself, or to experience as a client, book a discovery call with me and let's chat!
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