Basically Healthy Diet

So often I get the question about how to follow a diet that leads to healing and regular cleaning out of the body so a person can have long-term health. This needs to be sustainable but also somewhat idealistic if we hope to keep in remission any serious disease.

The guidance I give on this subject has not changed with one exception for 25 years of practice. That should, I hope, say something. It is the baseline of a healthy diet. One can be more pure and one may do very well on a diet that is less strict, but if you are not getting the results you think you should be, this is the first place to go. Always return here. If you need to do something special, do it after doing this for several weeks and see how your body does as you heal and return to normal, healthy and everything you are designed for.

1. Get your body ready for food before you eat

2. Eat with the circadian rhythms

3. Eat a high percentage raw

4. Continually support your intestinal microbiome

5. Make sure you preserve, protect and install useful metabolic acids.

Let us discuss these in turn...

1. Get your body ready for food before you eat

The most potent method is to put 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper (30-40k heat unit) in 4 ounces of very warm to hot water (120 degrees maybe) and drink down 10 minutes before each meal.

In the event that cayenne is not tolerated (and I recommend trying it out for a while before giving up) there are two other options: 1. eat some ripe fruit 20 minutes before the meal. Wait after eating fruit until the meal. This will also prompt the digestion. 2. Drink hot water or herbal tea (especially ginger or peppermint or fennel) about 10 minutes before and continue to drink into the meal.

Finally, make sure you relax. Find your center before you eat.

2. Eat with the circadian rhythms

3. Eat a high percentage raw

These two we will treat together with simple instructions.

For breakfast, have only fruit. There are other things which may be used sometimes, but best to use only fruit and to eat that fruit later in the morning, such as 10:30 or 11 am. In cases where it seems something more substantial is needed, have only steel cut oats or millet congee with apples and fresh ginger cooked into it, dates for sweetening and still raw fruit with it.

Lunch will consist of a large, robust vegetable salad. Robust vegetables include those which if we rub between our fingers still have substance. Another thought is if you could make sauerkraut with it. So, carrots, cabbage, beets, broccoli, snow peas, turnips, radishes, kohlrabi, garlic, onions, cauliflower, etc. Add sprouts when possible and some raw actual sauerkraut or kim chi to this to improve digestion.

Avocado, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, sundried tomatoes, raw nuts may all be added to the salad as desired.

Dress this salad with olive oil, vinegar (red wine, apple cider, balsamic are all fine), dried herbs, nutritional yeast, sea salt, black pepper, etc. Some sweet dressings are okay if sweetened with honey or maple syrup.

Do not use any commercial dressings.

With this, you may have cooked vegetables and some protein or sprouted grain bread or very sour sourdough bread. The protein can be animal or plant (steak, chicken, fish, beans, lentils) but the total raw should be about 70% of the meal. We will not have animal protein or any concentrated protein after 3 pm ever on this program. ("ever" means as a mainstay, this program allows and encourages 2 free days per month. Be aware that some people are highly addicted to sugar, dairy, caffeine, meat and flour. In those cases it may be best to avoid the addictive substances permanently.)

The evening meal is another salad as described above and a starch (sweet potato, squash, baked potato, summer squash) or steamed vegetable. Keep things to 70% raw if possible.

Consider olive oil, balsamic vinegar, fresh pressed garlic, chives, sea salt or an organic tamari as dressing for the starch. Nutritional yeast is again okay. Butter is acceptable in this program, though this should be grass fed butter or ghee. You could sauté mushrooms for the potato to change things up.

When the meal is done, stop. Do not have additional items or food or nightcaps.

If a mid-afternoon snack is needed, use almond butter and honey or dates and hazelnuts or something of this like which may be eaten totally raw and with enzymes in tact, but which is dense and gives some substance.

4. Continually support your intestinal microbiome

5. Make sure you preserve, protect and install useful metabolic acids.

Like numbers 2 and 3, these two belong together. The microbiome is where healthy acids come from in a healthy, naturally fed human.

The only way to maintain a healthy microbiome for a human is to have a pot of sauerkraut in your gut cooking all the time. This is made with the same things you would make sauerkraut on your kitchen counter, which is the same things I mentioned as raw, robust vegetables for the salad above. Eating two meals like this will insure that your microbiome is fed properly. Adding some sauerkraut or kim chi to the salad helps seed the microbiome--which we certainly need due to chlorine in our water, chemicals in our air, pesticides in our food, antibiotics in diary and in our food and so on...

Additionally, I often encourage dandelion root or burdock root capsules, which feeds the healthiest of microbiomes and also cools the gut at the same time. These are important tools to almost everyone. I recommend 4-6 capsules one time daily for 10 days, then take 2 weeks off and repeat. It can be taken steadily and switched to the other every few months.

Finally, put about a teaspoon of raw apple cider vinegar into each quart of water to drink. Drink this only and no other liquid (as a mainstay, it is okay to have juice or home made lemonade sweetened with honey, etc. on occasion.) and drink plenty of it every day and as the drink to drink at night, etc.

This will provide metabolic acids and will also help seed friendly microbiome.

Metabolic acids are vital to curb sugar cravings and to keep away anxiety and brain stress. We carry some supplements to assist with this when there is additional need for it. Usually, on this diet, there is no need for the additional supplements.

Be aware that acids can be lost through neutralization (dairy, citrus, magnesium supplements of all kinds and calcium carbonate) and through leeching them out (sugar, flour, lean protein). Also, if we lack blood calcium, we will simply not switch into daytime mode and will be therefore deficient in metabolic acids. This is complex and not vital to understand fully, just to know.

Now, I must finalize our discussion with a short discussion of animal products. Lean protein is undesirable as mentioned. But, fat-rich animal products, like organs and grass fed beef, duck, goose, dark meat from chicken and chicken including the skin and many fish are all okay to eat. These would of course be eaten midday. If eggs are used, these should be free range, organic and fertile. Preferably, you would know the farmer and know exactly what was done with the chickens.