Chapter 3:
Cleanse Your Body and Reset Your Life
For many years I convinced myself that as long as I ate mostly good, fresh food, “a little of this” and “a little of that” wasn’t a problem. I was wrong. Somewhere along the way, my knees got worse. I contracted a C-difficile infection, which causes serious inflammation in the colon when dangerous bacteria release toxins that attack the lining of the intestines. The pain and swelling spread to other joints and soft tissues. Of course, the medical community offered drugs, as I said earlier, one being a form of oral chemotherapy, to help control my conditions. I had already tried numerous cleanses, probiotics and antibiotics, and intense herbal and other types of therapies, but I found that while I would feel better for a short time, my symptoms always returned, and generally they were even worse. I’m too young to act like an old lady, I thought. I was too vain to allow others to see that even getting up from a chair was often excruciating. At times I felt pretty hopeless, especially when I came to understand that these virulent germs become resistant to various treatments and evolve into even more hardy strains. If you have similar or other “auto-immune” symptoms and choose a pharmaceutical treatment to assist you, implementing a cleanse and clean-eating lifestyle will help to curb side effects and bolster your healing.
After each cleanse and/or therapy I employed, I would ultimately resume my typical way of eating, which didn’t include enough healing raw fruits and veggies and still included small amounts of coconut sugar and refined starch. Eventually, I realized that even in small amounts these non-foods were literally stoking chronic infections in my body, causing constant damage and weakened immunity. It was a pattern that needed to be changed.
Most good healing plans to help people regain their health and vitality suggest about 90 days as a minimum commitment to reset your body. That may be true for many, but depending upon your particular issues, how widespread and deeply they’ve been imbedded in your system, it could be much longer. It’s also impossible to maintain the health you’ve regained by returning to your old lifestyle. After a body and mind reset, maintaining a “Real Food Lifestyle” forever isn’t difficult, because by simply eating real food and using recipes like these, you should always feel completely satisfied and content.
Many of the cookbooks and websites devoted to gluten/grain-free eating began because someone became sick. If that’s not the case with you, why wait until poor health is an obvious concern? Everyone, young or old, sick or healthy, will benefit by omitting all non-organic produce and livestock as well as wheat and most other grains, processed sugars, and low-fat, denatured dairy from their diets. Once you see and feel the difference, you’ll never want to go back to your old way of cooking and eating.
These days, I like to perform a mini reset four times a year, with the change of the seasons. I take an hour or two to give my kitchen a little “rebirth” and look forward to the new crops of seasonal fruits and veggies we’ll be adding to our meals. Because I’m happy with how I eat, these little resets seem to be more emotional, psychological, or spiritual for me rather than physical. Nonetheless, they give me that time to slow down and refocus, so I really look forward to them now. What grows in each season depends upon where you live. For instance, I’ve actually been able to grow certain tomatoes year-round here, while I probably wouldn’t be able to do that if I lived in Wisconsin (unless I had a greenhouse, I suppose). The best way to discover what’s in season in your area is to visit your farmer’s market. While I’m all for world trade and getting along with our neighbors, I still prefer not to buy zucchini that’s been shipped from Mexico and grass-fed meat from Australia, when I can support more local efforts. Being aware of what is grown locally to us will automatically help us buy what is fresh and in season in our area, possibly encouraging us to try a fruit or vegetable that we might not otherwise choose. This also gives our body a wider variety of nutrients when we’re encouraged to change up our selections. Never had figs? What do you do with persimmons? Lucky for us, we now have search engines at our fingertips! This is not to say that I don’t ever buy frozen berries or mangos and bananas shipped from South America, but I like to support local agriculture as much as possible.
What I Learned from My Own Clean Up
I have witnessed firsthand that natural treatments not widely shared in our society work miracles. One time my son’s dog’s tumor was killed and removed by using Blood Root salve after the veterinarian had no treatment to offer. Another son and my husband used Manuka honey to kill their deadly “super bug” (MRSA) skin infections when their antibiotic treatment didn’t work. Supporting my body to heal and maintain health without damaging it with pharmaceuticals is always my first preference. In a nutshell, this is what I’ve learned over the years:
•We can’t fix our health, or weight problems, with a seven-day or even a thirty-day cleanse/detox. It’s a good start, but it takes a full commitment to reset and heal the body, and the timing will be individually specific to each of us, so patience and perseverance are key.
•The chances of a chronic, stealth infection being at the root of many problems, including “auto-immune” issues, is high. The many different strains of Epstein-Barr virus, Staphylococcus aureus (commonly know as MRSA, and is not just a skin infection), cytomegalovirus, herpes, mycoplasmas, various strep and staph infections, and fungi, only name a few organisms we know of that can cause ongoing issues.
•Generations living on earth today have inherited nutrient deficient bodies, unhealthy gut flora, and infections causing widespread inflammation and literally changing our genome.
•Toxins from “modern conveniences,” overuse of antibiotics, chlorine, “fake” foods, widespread germ exposure/food poisoning, damaged guts, “dirty” vaccinations, heavy metals, medications, and lack of accurate detection, understanding, and treatments, leave us weakened and susceptible for co-infections and for these microbes to flourish.
•Aside from chronic infections, chemicals, and damaged digestion, nutritional deficiencies further deplete us and promote glandular and hormone imbalances, having profound effects on body systems, immunity, and weight-loss factors.
•It is imperative that we have a healthy, functioning lymph (our blood’s drainage system) and digestive system lined with beneficial bacteria. Besides immunity, these bacteria greatly affect metabolism and weight.
•We need raw food enzymes to help our body with the process of digestion. Culturing and fermenting foods enhance enzymes and provide life-giving probiotics for our gut, more than probiotic pills provide.
•We eat too much. And most of what we use to void our hunger is devoid of nutrients that feed our cells. Our bodies signal that they are hungry, because we are starving our cells of nutrients while providing them with too much sugar/refined carbs in the form of grains and starches. This fattens, ages, and continues to sicken us.
•We need nutrient-dense, easy-to-digest foods, so the vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids, fats, proteins, healthy carbohydrates, and all their cofactors can be broken down by our stomach acid and gut bacteria and fed to our cells and organs, allowing them to regulate each system and create constant energy.
•Organic fruit (remember, anything with seeds is considered a fruit) contains numerous disease-fighting benefits. Don’t let the diet police scare you into believing that the studies done on laboratory-made fructose is the same as the natural fructose in fruit.
•We need plenty of natural, saturated fats. We don’t need grains and extracted starches. Saturated fats are building blocks for brain cells and hormone production. Decades of low-fat eating has helped produce a generation of young women with fertility problems now.
•We must maintain blood sugar and insulin levels in a normal range (with the right eating habits) in order to maintain health. Both raise acidity and deplete minerals, hindering our natural ability to detoxify and making us prone to aging and disease.
•Feeling tired, fatigued, plump, bloated, hot, cold, depressed, or achy, is not normal, no matter what your age, as they are not signs of aging. They’re signs of a struggling body.
•A decision to help your body heal and return to optimal health needs to be followed by a simple strategy in order to stay the course and make it your new lifestyle.
•Our thoughts are affected by the health of the body and mind. Deficiencies and imbalances can create unhealthy thoughts and actions. Our thoughts and how we perceive our environment can literally change our genes.
•If your body has a chronic infection/illness many natural modalities along with diet may greatly improve your condition—however, the amount of improvement/recovery will be unique to you and your illness.
•True cravings are the result of addictions or deficiencies.
Pamper Your Belly
To improve my overall health, my first order of business was to pamper my belly—because a damaged gut cannot absorb nutrients efficiently. Even if you think you don’t have gut issues, my guess would be that you’re so accustomed to your routine that you may not even realize you’re not running as efficiently as you should be. Improving gut function allowed me to create energy for my body to then begin to clean and heal from the inside. The best defense against pathogens and toxins is to keep immunity strong, so invaders are beaten before they’re able to make our body their home. If you have a damaged gut, it cannot protect the rest of your body. I found that a diet that included processed carbs and GMOs (designed to blow up the stomachs of insects), the unnatural fructose in processed foods, gluten/gliaden proteins in wheat and other difficult to digest proteins in other grains, past infections, antibiotics and other medications, fluoridated water and toothpastes, and a lack of raw food enzymes had lowered my stomach acid and changed my intestinal microbiome. Studies show certain bacteria strains can even be responsible for adding on and keeping those extra pounds.
Low stomach acid (often misdiagnosed as just the opposite) means poor digestion of proteins, less bile and enzymes released, and allows pathogens that enter through the mouth to continue their journey. This creates mineral and other deficiencies and can have a domino effect in the body. When the large intestine has an overgrowth of bacteria or lacks the correct essential bacteria and cannot produce the enzymes necessary to break down carbohydrates, it can cause extreme amounts of painful symptoms. It’s very frustrating and confusing when even healthy fruits and vegetables seem to cause issues. If this is the case with you, you can have your doctor test for fructose malabsorption, but a temporary food elimination plan is a reliable way to detect which foods are most problematic for you. Even probiotics and healthy cultured foods can cause problems if you’re suffering from a bacterial imbalance. There are herbs and enzymes that can help, but a juice fast works wonders here, particularly celery and cucumber juice. Juice gives you nutrients without the fiber to feed the bacteria, giving your body time to heal and correct the issue. For very difficult issues there are more extreme treatments a good functional medicine doctor can suggest.
No matter what the cause, the simple fact is that whatever your situation may be, you still need to receive adequate nutrients to improve and promote healing. The good news is that given the opportunity our mucosal linings heal fairly rapidly, and once you’ve changed your diet and your symptoms wane, it’s likely you’ll be able to enjoy these foods again.
To begin with, I used an “elimination diet” approach by eliminating anything I thought could aggravate my gut for about four weeks. This included a lot of healthy foods too, so basically all I ate during this time was gently simmered non-starchy vegetables and broth, fruit, and eggs. Some of you may need to eliminate eggs in the beginning. After four weeks I added different foods back into my diet and noted any reaction. If you research an “elimination diet” or an “auto-immune protocol” there are many books and online sources to walk you through this stage. Once you determine offending foods, continue to eliminate them until you are healed enough that they no longer bother you. For me, onions, garlic, and mushrooms were the worst offenders.
You Hold the Key to Boosting Immunity
Aside from exposure to bacteria and viruses, fungal mycotoxin infections often go undiagnosed and untreated by modern medicine. Mycotoxin-producing fungi have been found in many areas of our food supply, from the soil foods are grown in, to grains, beans, nuts, coffee, dairy, corn, and even some fruits. It’s impossible to know when you may be exposed. Mycotoxins are released by mycoplasmas, which are parasitic in nature and cause widespread inflammation as a body attempts to combat the invasion. Mycoplasmas are particularly difficult to detect because they lack a cell wall and are easily able to change forms and evade the immune system. While some other countries screen for up to eight different species, the United States currently only screens for aflatoxins (the most carcinogenic substance known on earth!) and allows a small percentage to contaminate our food and livestock feed supply. The mycotoxins as well as their spore form are both heat stable and, astonishingly, cannot be killed through regular cooking methods. This information is not meant to scare you but, instead, to encourage you to be aware of the need to know your food supply chain whenever possible and to nurture and protect your immune system so it can protect YOU.
•Drink freshly juiced celery/cucumber and bone broth (or veggie equivalent on page 190) with sea salt to help correct, heal, and optimize your digestion.
•Keep your inner “garden” strong by omitting sugar, grains, refined starches, and most processed “food.”
•Include cultured and fermented foods and drinks in your diet as soon as your tummy can tolerate it.
•Correct deficiencies by drinking fresh juices and smoothies.
•Use high quality, multi-vitamin/mineral supplements.
•Feed the “firmicute” bacteria, a species that promotes a balanced weight, with polyphenols found in berries, coffee, and chocolate.
•Exercise, outside in the sunshine whenever possible, to get your lymph fluids moving and for more vitamin D.
•Drink real mineral water by adding liquid plant minerals to filtered water.
•Use mineral-rich, high quality sea salt liberally.
•See a dentist regularly to catch any gum disease early (the same bacteria found in gum disease has been isolated from plaque in arteries).
•Manage stress with exercise, creative visualization, mini-meditations or prayer, finding something to laugh about, deep breathing, and tapping (I like to gently tap my fingertips on my face to relax—don’t laugh, try it right now!).
•Get adequate and peaceful sleep by learning to manage stress and not staring at blue light (TV, computer, cell phone) until all hours. Most of us no longer make enough melatonin and supplementing can be very helpful for sleep in particular.
•Take immune-boosting herbs and teas with a dose of spirulina.
•Add an anti-viral/bacterial supplement containing oregano oil, black walnut, garlic, clove, olive leaf, turmeric, etc. to your routine for prevention, especially when eating out. Charcoal or psyllium can help sweep the intestines of possible unwanted guests as well.
•Relax, forgive, use meditation/prayer to open your heart to give and receive as much love as possible (human, nature, and animal).
•Accept that you can’t go back and change the past but you can start now to make the future you want.
Whether you’re dealing with an “auto-immune” infection or just discouraging the next cold virus, this is the best way to ward off any of these dangerous invaders. Eat to protect and nourish your gut lining, keep your blood clean and full of alkalizing minerals and nutrients, and live a life that supports your immune system. Keep it as strong as it can be to discourage the ability for germs to take hold.
Why I Believe in Fasting
Fasting is an essential tool I used for my own body/mind reset and continue to use today. I decided to begin my reset with a fast after realizing Western medicine’s solution for me was a chemo drug and not what I had in mind to help me. Fasting has been used throughout history to improve mental, physical, and spiritual health, and recent studies cite various health benefits. How it works: Our cells generally burn glucose, which the body makes from carbohydrates for fuel. During a water-only fast, your body will generally use up its glucose stores in one to two days. After this, your liver will then begin to turn fatty acids into something called “ketones” to use as fuel. Brain cells burn ketones very efficiently, which may contribute to the clarity and sometimes euphoric feelings a fast often brings on (once you’re past the first couple of difficult days).
Supporting this is the brief omission of food, which conserves energy because it rests the digestive organs and keeps toxins from constantly rolling in. This extra energy allows the body to use its natural resources, such as enzymes and white blood cells, to help eliminate things like metabolic waste, damaged cells, pathogens, and other toxins. The more alkaline your blood and lymph system, the better (think minerals, green juices for alkalinity), as this toxic load being dumped is very acid forming, and acid blood will inhibit the body from dumping more toxins into it. Fasting also reduces the amount of opportunistic fungi and bacteria in the colon as they lose their food source. By the third day, the body should begin to burn fat for its fuel, so the toxins that have been stored in fat cells should now be able to be dumped at a high rate of efficiency. Some people experience flu-like symptoms from “carb withdrawal” and toxin release, which should clear after a day or so, depending on your body. During this time, I make sure to help my body to keep its detox pathways open as much as possible by drinking plenty of alkalizing fluids like mineral-enriched water. I like to use a brush on my skin both before and during my showers to stimulate my lymph system.
Though you’re not eating at this time, the bowels should still be eliminating; if not, stir a little psyllium, vitamin C, sea salt, or magnesium into water to assist in this. An infrared sauna, or a good dose of sunshine, stretching, yoga, prayer/meditation, bathing, and reading, are perfect accompaniments to fasting. If you choose to follow a similar path and you’re used to exercising, a little moderate exercise during this time is fine.
If you’re relatively healthy, fasting is a safe, natural way to complement a life change. As I mentioned, this process takes a couple of days, so you won’t be eliminating a lot of toxins until then. If the thought of a water fast is too scary, a fresh juice fast provides your body with nutrients without the burden of digestion and is a bit easier, especially if you’re new to the idea of fasting.
What is Intermittent Fasting?
For me, intermittent fasting is just a fancy term for skipping breakfast. It just means to incorporate longer periods between meals on a consistent basis. Whether it’s skipping a meal, or fasting one day a week, or both, it has been shown to have numerous health benefits. I usually only have smoothies/food during the hours of 12–6 or, maybe as late as 2–8 (depending on my schedule) instead of eating all day long.
I believe eating this way has mental and emotional benefits as well, as I’ve witnessed personally. My body has the time to rest between digestion, my mind isn’t constantly thinking about what to eat. With full-day fasting I quickly learned that regular feelings of hunger are just because my stomach was used to getting food in a certain pattern and it would tell my brain it’s hungry. I also discovered that I am not going to die without food for a day. As a matter of fact, hunter-gatherers often went long stretches without food; it’s not an unnatural way of living—it’s just counter to what we’ve been taught in this land of abundance.
Don’t tell the diet police I’ve skipped breakfast for the better part of my life. I now often include one day a week, usually Monday, as what I call a rest day rather than a fast day. That’s because as I see it I don’t have to go to the trouble involved with eating. No shopping, cooking, or dirty dishes! I drink plenty of mineral water, herbal tea, or green juice, and plan something I look forward to around dinner time. Maybe a massage or a movie or a bath and a good book. Sound crazy? Think about it—you will learn to embrace the slight hunger pangs your previous habit was to squelch, by turning your thoughts instead to how good it feels to clean out and give your gut a rest. You won’t feel bloated because you overate, and you don’t have to spend any time in the kitchen or waiting at a restaurant. Soon, I believe you will even begin to look forward to this day. Have a family that doesn’t want to fast? That’s okay; they can eat a delicious sandwich made with my healthy bread recipes, so you don’t have to spend time in the kitchen or smell something cooking.
What Is Ketosis and “Keto Adapted” and How Is It Beneficial?
The “elimination” and “ketogenic” plan are the “diets” I followed to clean up my body and begin to bring my health back. While going Keto seems to be a popular weight-loss strategy these days, I did it to help me feel assured I had cleared (or at least sent into remission) as many sugar-consuming pathogens as possible that may have taken up residency in my body. Remaining on a Ketogenic Diet for a period of time has been shown to be extremely beneficial in managing many diseases, from epilepsy to even cancer, as well as for speedy weight loss. A Ketogenic Diet is essentially a very low-carb (approximately 5–10 percent), high-fat (approximately 60–70 percent), and moderate protein (25–35 percent) diet that forces the body to break down fats into ketones to burn for its fuel rather than a constant flow of readily available glucose. For instance, for a woman who weighs 150 pounds and eats approximately 1600 calories a day, this would equate to 136 grams of fat, 74 grams of protein, and 20 grams of net carbs (carbs minus the fiber).
The goal is to actually keep your body pumping out ketones, so you know your cells aren’t using glucose for their energy. It also means if there’s a glucose-eating pathogen lurking in a cell, you won’t be feeding it. Frequent eating of carb-rich foods reduces the body’s ability to burn fat and to lose its ability to produce ketones. Once we correct this, we become “fat adapted” and our bodies will easily use fat as a primary fuel source, reversing many health issues caused by the abundance of glucose.
So, the reason I suggest a Ketogenic Diet for an additional cleansing period after fasting (or, if you choose not to fast) is this: When carbohydrates are consumed, insulin escorts as much of the sugar as it can into the cells to use for energy. Some of it will be converted to glycogen and stored in the liver and muscles for later use, released between meals when blood sugar is low and during exercise. Meanwhile, the yeasts are consuming as much as they can gobble up, while the body begins to store the rest as fat. All carbohydrates, simple or complex, are broken down by the body into glucose. So, by omitting all sugar and all processed carbs, there is no quick, easy food for the fungi or cancer to eat and no extra fat to be stored. Cancer and fungi cannot burn ketones for food, so they begin to die. Plain and simple. Unfortunately, when cancer has been fed long and abundantly, it will spread and grow its own blood vessels, making it much more difficult to kill.
Once your body is “fat adapted,” it can easily switch from burning ketones to glucose and back again. This is the natural state your body should’ve been in your entire life and how humans were meant to eat before the “eat three meals a day” mantra and refined grains, sugar, starch, and processed foods came into play—all of which keep our blood sugar soaring. Once adapted, to remain on a ketogenic diet, most people report keeping their net carb count to about 50 grams per day, ideally from just organic fruits and vegetables and not grains or processed foods.
During this time, I choose to omit dairy, however the difficult part for me was limiting fruits and vegetables because of their carb content. It is logical to me that (organic) fruits and vegetables are not an enemy just because they have fruit fructose and carbohydrates. While it’s my humble opinion that omitting grains and processed carbs is what makes this diet so successful, I heeded this scientific approach and did not try to change it up. I admit that physically counting my macro nutrients (fat, proteins, carbs) was irritating and aggravating. I used “keto test strips” (you can purchase them at your local pharmacy) to make it easy to make sure I produced adequate ketones for about a month after my fasts. There are several books and websites devoted to the Ketogenic Diet which can explain it in much more detail.
Once the body is rid of fungal overgrowth, adding plenty of (organic) fruits and vegetables to the diet is, I believe, the most beneficial and enjoyable way to eat. Fruits and veggies have been proven to have many disease-fighting and cancer-fighting abilities. Organic fruits that provide natural fructose also make substances that defend them from fungi. These substances are passed on to our bodies when we eat the fruit. Laboratory-made fructose is not the same.
The other carbs? Grains and starches have few, if any, benefits and unless you are a bird, they are not necessary in any way. Even the so-called “good whole grains” benefits are not comparable to fresh organic fruits and veggies, and can do more harm than good. There are only two reasons you crave these carbs:
1. Processed, starchy carbs are addicting.
2. The yeast and fungi are messaging via your vagus nerve (that runs from your gut to your brain) that they want food.
Because of the detoxification the body undergoes during the time it’s adapting to ketosis, you may not feel too great. This is one reason I recommend a fast, because it brings you into ketosis quickly, however the flu-like symptoms may be intensified with a fast, so a quiet Friday through Sunday is a good time to start.
Like I mentioned, you can take longer by just eliminating most carbs instead. While it generally takes anywhere from 3 or 4 weeks (or longer) to become fully keto adapted, everyone’s different, and the way you go about it could either prolong your pain or ease the symptoms. Also, taking enzymes at this time of change is really important, because your body will need to start producing plenty of fat-burning enzymes (lipase) instead of the ones that burn carbs (amylase). You may have headaches and be generally pretty cranky for a few days, not just because your body is adapting, but also because you’ll likely be experiencing some withdrawal symptoms from your body’s dependence upon sugar and carbs. Eating more good fat (fatty meats and fish, butter, eggs, nuts, sour cream, raw cheese, avocado, coconut) will stabilize your blood sugar and help cut your cravings. Fat is also very satiating, not to mention yummy.
Real Food for Life
Once I finished my reset plan, I began what I call my “Real Food Life.” This means I’ll have lower carb and higher carb days now, which come mainly from my veggies and fruit. A dietary lifestyle has to be practical to live by 24/7, becoming our lifestyle so that we never feel like we’re on a diet. This lifestyle works for me and brings a sense of peace instead of tension to my mealtime. I feel healthy, happy, and incredibly indulged with my eating pattern and the food I eat. With these recipes in this book, it’s easy to bake my own breads, pastas, and desserts. I often freeze some, so I can have an even quicker pizza crust or treat available.
Just a precaution: If you’re prone to hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), which can happen when someone who’s been eating a high-carb diet drastically reduces their carbohydrate intake or goes on a fast for the first time, the drastic reduction of food and/or carbs has not given the body enough time to create the right enzymes (remember to take enzymes) or metabolic state to burn fat for fuel. If you feel dizziness, nausea, or shakiness, eat or drink a little something and lay down.
The Benefits of Healing Broth and Spirulina
Broth, slowly cooked vegetable or bone broth, is very healing and comforting to the digestive system and has loads of benefits for the entire body. Bone broth is full of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, gelatin, collagen, and more good things. It’s very healing to the gut tissue, heart, skin, muscles, and bones. While bone broth contains collagen, the vegetarian version contains foods that promote our body to produce collagen. There’s obviously plenty of debate as to which is the better choice and that is clearly up to you and your individuality. The point is, choose one and drink it during this time, then implement it into your everyday lifestyle.
I always keep spirulina around during a reset or fasting period. I add it to my healing broth recipe (page 190) to make it easy to drink daily. Spirulina is a blue-green algae that is best harvested from deep Hawaiian waters or grown organically. This algae is thousands of years old and, like mycoplasmas, lacks a cell wall, as true algae do. High in minerals and amino acids, spirulina is 65–71 percent protein.
Spirulina has been consumed for thousands of years by people all around the world. It has been shown to significantly improve the immune system, increase endurance, thin the blood, and help break down clots and eliminate heavy metals and toxins. Sadly, our freshwater lakes, which also grow spirulina, are contaminated now, but spirulina grown organically or from deep, pristine waters is a powerful blood cleansing, chelating (heavy metal remover), and alkalizing agent. Does it taste good? Not so much, but then you don’t need much, and if you don’t make the broth, there are other ways to disguise the taste (fresh lemon juice works for me)—unless, of course, you like the taste of algae.
If fasting in any form is just not appealing, no worries—you can still detox and reset your body. It may take a bit more time with changes occurring more slowly, but it may be the best way for you. In this case, I would suggest following a ketogenic plan for 6–12 weeks.
Why I Consume Cultured and Fermented Foods
With the popularity of over-the-counter probiotic use now, it’s obvious that people are finally beginning to understand the importance of maintaining a healthy balance of bacteria in the gut. Research is showing that the types of microbes we house will even regulate our metabolism and fat absorption. Ever wonder why some people are just thin and others aren’t no matter what they seem to eat? The foods we eat will allow certain types of bacteria to flourish, and these bacteria even affect our cravings.
Eating fresh from your organic garden is best and safest way to eat, though not very practical for most people these days. Garden foods contain wonderful micro-organisms right on their skins that flourish in our bodies. It’s clear we don’t get enough of them anymore, so using the ancient method of food preservation is a wonderful way to up the beneficial bacteria in our system.
Fermented foods have been part of humankind for thousands of years. Dozens of cultures have used this process for preserving foods before refrigeration was available. High in enzymes, these foods are teeming with essential bacteria that help with digestion, make essential nutrients, eliminate toxins, strengthen our immunity, and cleanse our cells. From sauerkraut to salsa or pickles (the real kind that are naturally fermented with bacteria and not made by using heat), to kimchi, kefir, and kvass, you’re bound to find something you like. These condiments round out a meal and pair perfectly with fats, cheeses, eggs, meat, salads, beans, and potatoes. Take them in small amounts at first, until your body is accustomed to their powerful cleaning abilities.
Capsules with only a small number of microbes known to be beneficial (even beneficial bacteria can overgrow and become pathogenic) cannot compare to the power of raw, cultured vegetables, which contain far more strains of beneficial bacteria than found in a bottle. We need a diverse microbiome for optimum health and immune protection. Fermented veggies also provide us with a great source of vitamin K2, which escorts calcium out of our blood and into our cells where it belongs, reducing the risk of artery disease, blockages, or clots. If your gut microflora has been disrupted, it may be the root of any number of issues, including weight control and disease.
Fermented and cultured foods are easy to make. While I’ve included a few of my favorite cultured recipes here, you can also find books on the subject and many recipes on the Internet. These days they’re even easy to buy. Be sure you purchase a good brand that provides hardy strains of friendly microflora. Cruciferous veggies in particular, like cabbage, ferment wonderfully and are high in the super anti-oxidant glutathione, which has shown to detoxify by-products of toxic fungal wastes.
Gluten-Free and Paleo Versus Simply Real Food
While gluten has been found to be damaging to humans, the habit of replacing gluten with refined starches or starchy flours in gluten-free baking is not promoting health or weight balance in general. Many gluten-free and Paleo cookbooks rely heavily on extracted starches, starchy flours, and high-glycemic sweeteners, such as coconut sugar, to make their baked goods. Remember, when you combine these things, it’s quite a sugar slam that your bloodstream is getting. A person who follows a lifestyle filled with refined starches or starchy flours will likely be nurturing a simmering fungal overgrowth. If these baked goods are a once a month treat, it might not be a huge concern. But if your family is anything like mine, we like to enjoy treats much more often than one time a month!
Taking a little time out of life to follow a short-term plan that assists your body in regaining its natural state of health and balance before it becomes overwhelmed is something I believe you’ll never regret. Once I did that, rather than joining a specific dietary group, I just choose to keep it simple:
1. Eat the real, whole, organic, foods Mother Nature provides.
2. Enjoy the sunshine and outdoor activities.
3. Love big and find something to laugh about.
It really is just a simple lifestyle that I live and using these recipes makes keeping this lifestyle easy because I don’t feel like I’m giving up or sacrificing anything. We have bread, sweets, cheese (dairy or vegan is your choice), creamy sauces, and all the comfort foods we like, with a ton of full flavors.
Let the Sun Shine On
The media (and our California Tourist Board) likes to portray a California that is mostly a glitzy “Tinsel Town,” with money, celebrities, Valley girls, and health nuts. Yes, California has its share of us “kooks” and being touted as the sixth largest economy in the world yields some power, I suppose. But my California is full of a kind, diverse, active, and intelligent demographic of people who may appear a bit out-of-the-box, but are also often at the forefront of good change.
There’s nothing better than sharing good food and drink with good company, and while it’s understandable many of us have dietary guidelines we like to follow, we don’t want to cast a dark cloud over a joyful dinner table. We all need to remember that a common desire in humans is to bring people together, which, I believe, is usually why we argue. We want the other person to see and understand our way of thinking, our “side.” When the other person doesn’t come over to our side, no matter what the reason, we need to be gracious, especially when it involves something as fundamental as choosing which foods to put into our bodies, or not. The dinner table is a wonderful place to learn to embrace each other’s differences rather than (find more ways to) put wedges between us. The last thing we ever want to do is cause angry feelings in ourselves or anyone else because of our conflicting eating choices. This comes to mind when I see T-shirts with provoking slogans or negative comments on social media. Let’s live and teach by good example.
It’s not cool to make someone defend their choice or to try to force someone to eat or not eat something. However, if eating something is not life-threatening, I’ve found that relaxing my rules on occasion is the best choice for me. I don’t have celiac disease, I just prefer to fill my belly with more nutrient-dense foods than grains. A slice of regular pizza at my niece’s birthday party is not going to kill me, but for some it could make them very sick, so understanding and acceptance is key.
We can all help to bridge these gaps. It’s not difficult to prepare a meal without meat, but it may take some extra effort if you’re not used to it. If you’re vegan and eggs or dairy are served at the table, just smile and be happy that nothing had to give its life for the meal; and if there’s meat served, remember we’re all different and any evolution is on our own timeline. Let’s be thankful and allow meals to connect us again because teaching and learning can move mountains. With patience, they can also change habits, opinions, and the food on the dinner table. Bon appétit!