I’ve explored nearly every way of eating imaginable. I’ve been vegan. I’ve followed paleo. I use organ-based supplements to rebuild hormone balance after coming off thyroid medication.
But one memory persists — how incredible I felt when I began each morning with fresh-pressed juices, when my meals overflowed with living fruits and vegetables, when food felt like energy, vitality, and sunlight in tangible rubber-on-the-road ways. The clarity and energy I felt were undeniable.
When my hormones shifted after I took myself off thyroid medication, I sensed a need for a little clean, pasture-raised, and wild-caught animal protein to help bring my hormones back into balance. It was humbling and exciting to realize that I needed to learn more about the breadth of what the dietary spectrum has to teach.
This realization sent me deep into the research — and what I do every day for work for CellCore naturally became the tool I used to explore my own questions. I wanted to understand why this middle ground made sense to me now, despite my reverence for the plant-based philosophy. What I discovered is what I now call “soil to cell coherence” — the idea that true nourishment depends on the connection between the microbes in the soil, the vitality of plants, and the intelligence of the human cell.
Protein: The Science Beneath the Debate
There’s a lot of debate around protein. But what gets lost is the simple truth: the body needs enough to repair, rebuild, and sustain, but not as much as some camps assert.
The baseline recommendation is about 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight per day to prevent deficiencies. But this is the minimum for survival, not the mark of optimal health.
Clinical studies show that adults, especially those of us over fifty or recovering from stress or illness, do better with 1.0 to 1.2 grams per kilogram. Highly active people may benefit from up to 1.6 grams.¹²³ Those ranges help maintain lean muscle, steady metabolism, and, in my personal and clinical experience, they’re vital for healing from toxin exposures.
A well-planned vegan diet can easily meet those needs. The key is variety — and enough total protein. In his book, Eat To Live, vegan doctor, Dr. Joel Fuhrman, recommends soy, lentils, quinoa, hemp, and peas to be sure to get every essential amino acid. What matters most though isn’t the label on the diet, it’s whether your body is getting the raw materials it needs to repair, renew, and rebuild itself.
Where Veganism Shines — and Where It Can Falter
Whole-food, plant-based diets offer, with lots of fresh, live, and local vegetables and fruits, provides powerful benefits. They calm inflammation, support heart health, and improve insulin sensitivity.⁴ They’re rich in polyphenols, antioxidants, and fiber — nutrients that feed a diverse and resilient gut microbiome.
But certain nutrients, such as vitamin B12, iron, zinc, DHA, and selenium, can be harder to get in full measure from plants alone.⁵⁶ Many long-time vegans stay vibrant by supplementing or adding functional foods that bridge those gaps… and supplementing with pills and potions out of necessity just doesn’t make sense to me, since I believe nature provides.
This is where We Are the New Farmers spirulina fits beautifully. It’s a living, nutrient-dense plant protein, full of chlorophyll, B vitamins, and trace minerals. It carries the same bright, life-force energy I feel in a glass of fresh juice!
For me, adding a small amount of clean, consciously raised animal protein brings grounding and stability. It provides easily absorbed nutrients, such as heme iron, vitamin A in its active form, and zinc, which are all crucial for cellular repair, metabolic function, and sustained energy.⁷
The Living Thread: From Soil to Cell
Science, and one of my current favorite doctors, Dr. Zach Bush, are now confirming what intuition has long known: our health mirrors the health of the soil. Regenerative farming restores microbial life to the earth and, with it, the nutrient richness of the plants and animals it nourishes.⁸⁹
Researchers are now even mapping the connections between the soil microbiome, the plant microbiome, and our own gut ecosystem — marking a living thread of communication that runs through all of life, what Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh called the interbeingness of life. ¹⁰
When that thread stays intact, food becomes information the body recognizes. When it breaks, even ‘perfect’ diets lose meaning.
How I Practice Soil to Cell Coherence
- Begin with life. Each morning I have a shote of wheatgrass, fresh pressed juice and/or spirulina in my smoothie, to cleanse my palate and remind my body what real, living food tastes and feels like.
- Honor protein needs. I build each meal with intention, whether lentils and quinoa or a small portion of regeneratively raised fish or eggs.
- Close the gaps. I supplement B 12 and DHA if I feel needed.
- Feed the microbiome. I fill my week with a wide variety of plants — thirty or more whenever possible — and weave in living ferments that sustain the diversity a healthy gut depends on.
- Support the soil. I buy from local, organic farms that work with nature rather than against it.
References
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- Bauer J et al. J Am Med Dir Assoc. 2013;14(8):542–559.
- Morton RW et al. Br J Sports Med. 2018;52(6):376–384.
- Esselstyn CB et al. Am J Cardiol. 2014;113(7):1071–1076.
- Melina V et al. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2016;116(12):1970–1980.
- Pawlak R et al. Nutrients. 2013;5(12):4861–4878.
- Otten JJ et al. Dietary Reference Intakes. National Academies Press; 2006.
- Montgomery DR, Biklé A. Front Sustain Food Syst. 2021;5:682762.
- Chabbi A et al. Glob Change Biol. 2017;23(2):715–732.
- Walters WA et al. Front Microbiol. 2020;11:1858.
Closing Reflection
Whether vegan, omnivore, or somewhere in between, the goal is the same, to live in coherence and alignment with Mother Nature and her ecosystems that sustain us. For me, that means choosing foods that carry vitality and deep nourishment from the soil to the cell, and honoring the intelligence of Nature itself.
