Spring 2009 Detox - Day 7

Final day of detox. How time flies! With all the raw energy available to you now, with eased digestion and improved sleep, what will you do? Projects won't be lacking, I'm sure of it.

Why not think of integrating living foods into your lifestyle? Without going all rigid and uncompromising, there are ways to eat mainly living foods while still leaving room for the rest. Now, let's see how to make the last meal of the day a living foods meal.

Supper

This is the meal where the whole family sits down and catches up on daily events. We have fun, we enjoy each other's company, we joke around... No time for raw warfare!

If meal preparation becomes too much of a burden, ask for help. Usually children will love spiralizing the fruits and veggies, or spinning the lettuce dry (how doesn't like to see just how fast that thing will spin). They can set the table, help make the sauce or soup with the blender (with parents watching) and bring some truly inspired ideas to the meals if listened to! Believe me.

Meals that will please most include a big salad, vegan wraps or zucchini "pasta" with a raw marinara sauce. Why not try a mexican fiesta with raw dehydrated crackers, guacamole, homemade salsa and all the trimings? Or try to "rawify" an old family favorite as a family?

Incorporating the living foods lifestyle into your own will take time, patience and perseverance not to mention creativity. But it is worth it, truly. Some time can be saved if you buy some organic foods already prepared: prewashed lettuce, baby carrots, or dehydrated crackers (at the health food store). You could also make larger quantities of some staples, like pâtés, and use them in different ways during the week: once as a pâté with cucumber slices, once as a filling for sushi, another time as an extra to your salad. Vary its flavor each time by adding different herbs and spices.

Integrating more healthy living and raw foods into our lifestyle is always going to be a challenge because we live in a society of hyper-commercialized fast and quick foods, all prepared in advance for the consumer. These foods are full of chemical and hardly fit for human consumption. But your health, and that of your family's, is really worth the effort. Pay now with your wallet or pay later with your health. It is our choice, individually and collectively.

Spring 2009 Detox - Day 6

Once breakfast is habitually a raw event, you are now ready for the next step on your transition to living foods: lunch!

Living foods lunch

Favor high water content foods such as leafy green vegetables (lettuce, spinach, collards, kale, etc.), sprouts (sunflower, alfalfa, etc.) and vegetables, all raw of course. Once you have made this a habit, your food intake is two-thirds raw!

You will have plenty of variety with these choices. The classical choice, salad, comes in all shapes and colors. A green smoothie is easy to bring along at the office in a tightly-sealed container. You can also bring fruit (or a nice fruit salad), dehydrated fruits (apricots, gojis, dates, etc.) or soaked nuts and seeds. Vegetable sticks with a dip (nut or seed-based, or vegetable-based) make a satisfying lunch. Mexican lovers can bring a raw fiesta with them in the form of guacamole, home-made salsa, and dehydrated crackers. Holé! Add some sunflower sprouts to this and you're in business.

If you go out with colleagues for lunch, try to eat a little something before heading out: this will help you make better choices. There is no stopping a hungry stomach! Drink a green smoothie, grab a few nuts or seeds, a banana or an avocado before going to lunch. Also, you can bring some nuts, seeds or raisins to perk up the restaurant's salad. Why not a sliced avocado and some sprouts? You can whip up a quick homemade salad dressing before work, in the morning. Nobody will say a thing.

Do not hesitate to ask for a custom-made raw vegan salad, without dressing, when you are at a restaurant. Most places will be more than happy to accomodate you and will bring you a very nice salad, exactly to your specifications.

Spring 2009 Detox - Day 5

At this stage, it is important to start thinking about keeping some healthy habits after the week is over. How do we do this? One meal at a time, quite simply.

Breakfast

The simplest way to transition to living foods starts with breakfast. This is our first meal of the day and it sets the tone for the rest of the meals of the day. Why not start the day right?

In the morning, the body is busy cleansing. So the breakfast has to be light and easily digested in order to not disrupt this process. Fruits fit the bill perfectly. Most fruits contain around 80% water. Eating these high water content foods allows the cleansing going on in the body to get done unhindered because fruits are easily assimilated.

To further ease digestion, eat fruits alone, on an empty stomach. Think of eating high water content fruits first (they will digest quicker), keeping bananas, avocados and dried fruits for later in the morning. Accelerate further the cleansing by having a mono-meal (meal consisting of one food only).

Chewing food properly is of utmost importance to healthy digestion. Too often, we do not take the time to chew our foods properly (properly meaning, to a creamy texture) before swallowing. This places a heavier workload on the stomach, who must grind food down to digestible morsels.

Those susceptible to candida problems would do best to have a green smoothie or a green juice in the morning. These liquid meals are alkalizing to the body and very easily assimilated (and so require little digestive energy).

Start the day right with a nice raw and living meal: green juices, green smoothies, or fruits - it's up to you. After that, you'll have loads of energy for all those other things you have to do in the day!

Spring 2009 Detox - Day 4

Now that the difficult third day is behind us, we will turn our attention to a very important aspect of this spring detoxification. The primary reason motivating this special week, at least in my mind, was to simplify our food intake so as to free up as much energy as possible for internal cleaning. Why would I feel the need to do some "spring cleaning" if I already eat well? Overstimulation.

Overstimulation

Overstimulation? In living foods? Yup! And I am not referring to coffee or refined sugar or even salt. I'm talking about this tendency we have to eat complex meal consisting of a multitude of ingredients. While these meals are pleasing to the palate, they are more difficult to digest. Simply put, digesting complex meals requires more energy than digesting simple meals consisting of only a few (or even one) ingredients. We have fallen into the habit of eating for pleasure not to meet our real physiological needs nor for nourishment.

We have come to expect and want an infinite variety of foods. I'm the first culprit here (do you have any idea of the variety of tomatoes I plant each year?). We want new recipes, complex and subtle flavors, an explosion of flavor at every bit! There is nothing wrong with this, but it does require more energy to process such meals.

So this week, we will reacquaint ourselves with the subtle and rich flavors of simple foods. We will rediscover the pleasure of simple fare. We shall remind ourselves that, more often than not, simplicity is best.

Spring 2009 Detox - Day 3

Third-Day: the Decisive Day

Most know that when you start including more raw and living foods in your diet, the 3rd day is the hardest. While the body adapts to its new regimen, it may very well have some rather unpleasant reactions: bloating, flatulence, burping, headaches, etc... A lot of people get discouraged by this unpleasantness and give up on the whole raw food thing judging their bodies unable to adapt to this new diet.

What is going on explains itself rather simply. The typical diet these days has little fiber in it. And if it does, it is cooked fiber, which is not of the same quality as raw fiber. Our digestive tracts are just being "swept" clean by all that raw fiber. This is where the discomfort comes from. And since the body is being swept clean, the impurities are being evacuated, causing the headaches. It will take your body some two or three days to adapt.

If your experience some of these symptoms, be patient. Drink lots of water to facilitate the evacuation of impurities and also to expedite the sweping of the digestive tract. Try to rest if you can. Instead of rushing back to cooked foods, take time to observe what is going on and take notes. Establish a good communication with your body. Listen to what it has to say.

Take example on our "raw" owl: he observes attentively with his piercing stare.

And while you're at it, looking and observing, why not check this 25 minutes video. The title: What would it look like. It's all about oneness. So from a very personal introspection to a global vision... Sometimes cleansing is not just about cleaning up...

Photo found on Flickr

Spring 2009 Detox - Day 2

What quantity of food should I eat? Should I count calories?

These are questions that often come up. Especially during a detoxification, which seems to be associated with diet and weight lost. But this is not the aim of this detox.

The best way of controlling the quantity of food you consume is quite simply controlling the quality of the food you consume. During the present detox, if you avoid salt and spices (which excite the appetite), then very naturally, your appetite will adjust to meet your true physical needs.

In fact, and especially if you are very active physically, you will have to take care to eat enough. Raw and living foods naturally contain lots of water and fiber but little calories, even more so if you avoid nuts, oils and avocados (as in the present detox). The usual diet of people is the exact opposite of raw and living foods: it is low in water content and fiber but rich in calories. The need and reason for a transition period becomes self-evident when considering these facts.

Eat raw and living foods as much as you need to feel satiated. If you ate a good proportion of your previous diet in the form of cooked foods, you might need to eat more often while your body adjusts. Go for wholesome fresh and living foods and you will not need to worry whether you overeat or not.

Snacks can take the form of fruits (always handy) and vegetables (sticks, slices, etc.). Take some of these with you at all times and you will have healthy options to guard against the temptation of other less ideal options.

The detox menu for today consists of a green smoothie for breakfast, a tropical salad (pineapple, oranges, baby greens and sunflower sprouts) for lunch and another green smoothie for supper.

Spring 2009 Detox - Day 1

Ah! Spring has sprung and I feel like cleaning!!! The windows of the house have been closed all winter. The snow is melting revealing flower beds and a garden. But it is too soon to open the windows or plant anything... What's a girl to do? How about a spring detoxification (aka detox)? Why not!

And here I am. Day one. I planned my menu, I bought the foods. This week, it's simplicity all the way. Simple foods. No concentrated fats (nuts, oils or avocados). No dehydrated anything. Just fresh, clean, simple fruits and vegetables. No fancy recipes, but rather, simple meals made up of a few ingredients. This will liberate a lot of energy in the body so it can clean up and get rid of any and all impurities.

So, what better way to start this day than with a tall glass of water? Nothing will help you more during this week of "housecleaning". Begin each day with a tall glass of water. Then wait for hunger to manifest itself. If you have to leave the house, then bring along a breakfast, so you won't be tempted by "less-than-ideal" options.

We all know that raw and living foods contain a great deal of water. But you still have to drink. Start the day with a glass of water and hydrate adequately during the day. Just try not to drink with your meals as this dilutes digestive juices and hinders digestion. The water you drink during this week will help rid your body of its impurities.

Today I am having liquid meals only. One green smoothie for breakfast and two energy soups during the course of the day. If I need a snack, I'll be eating veggie sticks (no dip!).

Water will become your best friend this week. So, drink, drink, drink! Get your hands on the purest water you can find and drink.

Photo Credit: Robert Mclassus