As practitioners of life cultivation, we only aim to live a healthy and happy life, a life without illness and medication until we die at age one hundred.

Most of the time we follow the crowd. We work hard in this world. We work hard so that we can live a better life. We work hard so that we can send our children to the best schools. We work hard so that we gain power and fame. Slowly, we want more and more out of our life, and we become lost in the end.

However, do we have to work so hard that we forget what life means to us?

Simple food and rough tea have real flavor. Bright windows and a quiet desk offer us a peaceful place to live. People who live a plain and simple life are wonderful. We should give up unnecessary desire. We should get rid of the burden in our mind. Then we shall live out the true taste in our life.

Only by giving up unnecessary desires and burdens in the heart can a person live the true taste of life. Let us see how we can achieve it.

01 Food Minimalism

A large part of the food we eat is unnecessary for our health, but we eat them without thinking what to do with this excess food. In fact, we only need to eat what is needed to survive each day.

If a person can meet the basic needs of life, he can enjoy life more calmly and fully

Henry David Thoreau, American writer, 1845

In the era of unprecedented abundance of material, people are chasing the sensory stimulation brought by material. They consume more and more, especially food. However, sooner or later, they come to feel the diminishing marginal effect. That is, material things are more and more difficult to make people feel long-term satisfaction. So minimalism came into being.

Minimalism is about getting rid of the things you don’t care about – the things you don’t need so you can make yourself more involved in the things that make you passionate.

Colin Wright, minimalist

After minimalism is introduced into our eating habits, more and more people hope to achieve the purpose of balancing nutritional needs with reducing physical burden and the maintaining of a state of physical vitality through simplified methods.

This kind of pursuit can’t help but make people ask, what exactly is a minimalist diet? How can this be achieved?

Basic guidelines for minimalist eating

As far as we, practitioners of life cultivation, know there is no one fixed standard for a minimalist diet. The different standards advertised on the market should be used as a reference for establishing our meal plans, or as a basis for avoiding certain eating habits. They should not be adopted by us regardless of our specific situation.

Start a standardized diet when busy

As practitioners of life cultivation, we should create our own set of healthy meal plans, and one of them should meet the needs of easy processing when we are busy. This will greatly avoid being unable to replenish nutrients in time when we are busy, or even having to go hungry, which will lead to gastrointestinal health problems in the long run.

Healthy meal plans do not have to include only cooked meals. They can also be meal replacements paired with vegetables and fruits that are easy to carry. Of course a prepared meal is much better.

Take it easy

Following a strict meal plan is good for health and weight loss, but it usually takes a lot of time, planning, and energy to make sure we are following the meal plan in the beginning.

“The purpose of minimalist eating habits is to create space, not to consume it.”

If we are overly concerned about minimalist eating and spend too much time finding or cooking certain foods, we are putting the cart before the horse. We should maintain the necessary sobriety. We do not want to let things that were originally simple end up to be complicated and exhausting.

Choosing the right nutritious foods our body needs is a manifestation of improving our eating habits. Then we can go a step further to a minimalist meal plan. In order to do that properly, we need to understand the reasons behind it and be able to choose and stick to it.

The important thing is to find a meal plan that works for us, and stick to it for a long time, turning it into a habit that will drive our other habits to be more refreshing and healthy.

Benefits of a minimalist diet

Regarding the benefits of minimalist eating, although it does not improve certain symptoms, if we stick to this habit for a long time, we may find some benefits.

Benefit one: More Time

Creating a minimalist eating strategy can save us time and energy on deciding what to eat.

Benefit two: Eat less

Eating less is not the goal, but we can keep ourselves active and healthy by eating less but a more balanced diet.

Benefit three: Create a clear nutrition plan

When we know that a minimalist eating plan will support our nutritional needs throughout the day, our health anxiety will ease a lot.

Benefit four: Reduce waste

With a clear eating mindset, our wasteful habits will change, and one of the most obvious changes is less waste.

Benefit five: A Cleaner Kitchen

By simplifying the use of our kitchen, those unnecessary ingredients and utensils will be towed away, and we will no longer buy unnecessary kitchen supplies. We will also end up with a more tidy kitchen.

Benefit six: A good figure

Developing our own minimalist eating plan will allow us to better understand what our favorite foods are. We can set up reasonably matched different plans, so that our balanced nutrition can find a minimalist presentation.

By understanding our own feelings and eating habits, we will truly understand our needs. Through a meal plan that matches our living habits and healthy ways, we will benefit a lot. The goal of a healthy body can be achieved more naturally and easily.

Sample meal plan

For a minimalistic meal plan, two foods come in handy. These are fruit teas and soup packs.

They are easy to prepare. It will help us to break into the minimalist eating habits. You may have heard of the hard-core lifestyle of early C (coffee) and late A (alcohol). However, we think this habit is unhealthy in the long run.

Instead, we recommend early T (tea fruit tea) and late M (mushroom soup package). 

In the morning, having a cup of fruit tea (mixed vitamins and nutrients of 17 kinds of fruits) can be more thoroughly absorbed, so that we can enjoy a cup of fruit tea full of vitality. It can be consumed as a breakfast at home or to start a day’s work at the workplace. The tea will start our day in a good mood and supplement good nutrition for the day.

For dinner, we eat a bowl of mushroom soup. Mushrooms are called meat in plants because their taste is similar to meat. They have the added advantages of low calorie and low fat. They have sufficient nutrition that most people need for nourishment. People who worry about getting fat will love it.

Call to Action

Folks, that is all for now. If you think this article may be beneficial to your friends and loved-ones, feel free to forward this article to them. Life cultivation is mostly for older people with declining body health. If you are young and energetic, this may not be your cup of tea. However, if you have family members or friends who are middle-aged or older, they may want to practice life cultivation to maintain a life without pain or medication.

This is an extract of the full treatise published in the Mustang BodyWorks Series, a paid-subscription. You may buy this full treatise for the price of US$5.00-20.00, using your PayPal account.

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