Orthomolecular Meal Planning

I continually have clients asking me to help them improve their diet.

As is described in my mood and schizophrenia articles, I find it best to maintain people on a high quality protein diet.  High quality protein intake provides our bodies with the building blocks to make neurotransmitters, to think, to regulate mood and to improve perception.  This diet includes a good portion of meat or eggs thrown into every meal. 

I typically go over the difference between proteins, carbohydrates and fats, as well as providing a categorical reference that places food items into these groupings.  Despite what many may think, junk food is not a food group and falls into the fast sugar category to be avoided!

My approach to addressing food intolerances is also important to mental health. This is also described in the mood and schizophrenia articles. In my experience, the top two intolerances to rule out are gluten and dairy.  To assess food intolerances I prefer diagnosis by elimination dieting.  I provide handouts to explain not only what food items are to be eliminated but also what is to be included in place of them.  Educating clients with food containers/boxes/labels helps them to see more concretely what is involved in purchasing the right substitutes.

After ensuring that a patient has adequate protein and has ruled out the top two intolerances, I sometimes do secondary eliminations such as eggs, soy, rice, citrus, etc.  Food intolerance testing can be helpful here but I tend to reserve this for cases having gone through preliminaries where further investigation is warranted; in such cases I recommend IgG Elisa testing. 

Orthomolecular Nutritionist Referrals

Sometimes its best to refer patients out if they are not used to making their own meals or are less savvy when it comes to cooking creatively. Sometimes all it takes is a few pointers to get patients off in the right direction.  It is however a lifestyle change that requires added work. In such cases, I refer clients out to an orthomolecular minded holistic nutritionist.

Rosalie Moscoe is great at helping clients with sample meal plans and going over orthomolecular principles endorsed by the clinic.  For orthomolecular nutritionist referrals, please call the clinic.

As an added note, we also provide a list of professional referrals we find invaluable in serving the mental health community of professionals including counsellors, psychologists, EMDR specialists, etc.  Other professional disciplines that we provide referral to include holistic dentists, MD’s, colon therapists, electro-dermal test specialists, allergists, and more.

Raymond J Pataracchia ND

NMRC Clinic Director