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*[Not to be confused with Morris Dithers' answer in this classic SCTV skit.]
[The main course table from my recent holiday potluck with nutritionist friends, clockwise from top left: [out of the photo--Balsamic Glazed Brussels Sprouts]; Southwest Brown Rice Casserole with Beans [white bowl behind cutlery]; Tempeh-Brown Rice Curry and Vegetables; Baby Spinach Salad; Rutabaga Gratin; Cinque Pizza with olives, green pepper, faux meat and onion; and (in red casserole in center) Carrot and Sweet Potato Latkes. The latkes were fried–I have no idea what kind of oil she used. Yes, I ate one.]
In recent years, it seems, we’ve all become hyper aware of the connection between food and health; it’s one of the hottest topics on the internet, twitter, blogs, or in magazines; you can’t read anything, flick on the television or listen to the radio without someone discussing a new study or mentioning a specific food and how it is or is not good for us. Goji berries? Superfood. Kale? Will save your eyes. Sugar? The devil. Trans fats? Avoid at all costs. Refined flours? Shortcut to a heart attack. And so on. How do you decide what to eat?
Well, I had originally planned to tackle this rather amorphous topic in the new year, once we’d all recovered a bit from the holidays and I had more time to craft a thoughtful post about it (since I’ll be on vacation then–whoo hoo!). Instead, I’m going to leap right in today after receiving the following comment on the Simply Bar giveaway post (the first part in quotation marks is what I wrote in the original post itself):
“In addition, the company has prided itself on using real, natural ingredients, without any added fillers in their bars. For example, the “Cocoa with Raspberry” flavor contains soy crisps (like rice crisps in texture and taste), organic agave nectar, organic brown rice syrup, organic cocoa, raspberries, organic canola oil.” Six ingredients–that’s it!”
SOY CRISPS! has the world gone mad? I appreciate that these bars only have a few ingredients in them, but they are a few, highly processed ingredients.
Soy crisps – a bean that is only truly digestible when fermented, is processed into a crisp?
Canola oil – oil that is high in inflammation promoting omega 6, processed from rapeseeds and should only be eaten raw.
Agave syrup – the sugars of the agave cactus without the natural brake of fibre, controversy rages about whether it is low or high GI.
Brown Rice syrup – sugars inherent in rice – highly processed, super high GI, even though it’s brown rice!
Only six ingredients? Whatever happened to the good old nut and fruit bars of my childhood made entirely from nuts and dried fruit? I’d rather have a bar of dark chocolate than one of these!
Since I not only promoted the bar on my blog but actually eat them, I felt a response was in order (and I will respond to the email itself toward the end of the post).
First, let me outline how I decide what to eat and what not to eat; here, then, are the principles I follow and firmly believe in when it comes to “eating healthfully.” (This is not a post about how to keep to a healthy diet over the holidays; I dealt with that subject here. )
[African Sweet Potato Stew--pretty darned good for you.]
I. Aim for a Diet That’s 100% “Good-for-You”. . . .
More than anything else about food, I believe that we are, literally, made up of what we put into our mouths, whether food, drink, or breath. Whether fresh or rancid, pesticide-laden or organic, whole grain or refined, local or imported, dirt-still-clinging-to-its-roots or packed in a BPA-lined bag inside a box, food will contribute to the makeup of every cell in your body.
In nutrition school, we learned about a diet called NAG–Natural, Alive, and Good Quality. I wrote more about it in this post. Basically, the diet aims to include only real, whole, unprocessed and organic ingredients, with most (if not all) nutrition coming from plant sources. Lucky for me, I love healthy foods (I also happen to love unhealthy foods–but that’s a topic for another post).
My own tweaks to the NAG foundation were made because of the anti-candida diet I now follow (about which I wrote more here and here), and include, for the most part: no sugar (and most other sweeteners), no sweet fruits; nothing fermented (with a few exceptions); nothing moldy or yeasty (mushrooms, nutritional yeast, alcoholic beverages, many nuts and some fruits, etc); nothing highly processed (packaged or most canned goods); no gluten; very few legumes; no eggs or dairy. (The ACD typcially allows organic chicken, beef and fish, but I don’t eat those.) I include tofu occasionally, which is considered “acceptable” in about half the anti-candida diets out there (there is quite a bit of variation about what is included in the diet).
With the ACD, you will ideally re-introduce many of the banned foods after you’ve been following it for a while and are feeling better. For instance, now that I’ve been on the diet for over two years and am 90% better, I am eating some fruits, using (gluten free) flours, and consuming the very occasional treat with agave nectar or coconut sugar.
About my own eating habits, let me be clear: during the first couple of phases of the ACD, I followed the diet one hundred percent, 100% of the time–I never “cheated.” That’s because I was in great distress about my poor health and wanted to heal as quickly as possible. However, as one of our teachers at nutrition school remarked, even following the ACD “most of the time” will, eventually, lead to diminished yeast in the body and better health; it will just take longer.
[This would definitely be a rare treat. . . even if I weren't on the ACD. Cake recipe in Sweet Freedom; frosting here.]
II. . . .90% of the Time.
Just as highschool graduates might send their first applications to Ivy League schools; as aspiring editors aim to nab a spot at a ”big house” like Farrar, Straus and Giroux; or as newly-graduated life coaches dreams of being on Oprah, when it comes to eating, I believe we should endeavor to eat only the best quality, healthiest foods. But what happens when the grad isn’t accepted by Harvard or Yale; if the young editor is offered a job at Harlequin; or the life coach lands a local radio spot instead? Do they decline the lesser offer, or worse–give up entirely? Of course not.
In an ideal universe, I’d be eating a top-notch, 100% “perfect” diet all the time. My meals would be 70% raw, all organic, as close as possible to the condition they’re in when they’re plucked from the ground, and entirely unprocessed–things like this, or this, or this. While I may have lofty ideals when it comes to food and eating, I understand that reality doesn’t always comply. Consequently, I try not to beat myself up if I can’t achieve that ideal. If I can remain compliant 90% of the time, I’m okay with having something less than perfect the other 10%. (Certainly, there are other food bloggers out there who manage such menus far more often–and more consistently–than I).
For example, I’ve mentioned before that the HH enjoys eating in restaurants, and we still frequent them occasionally. I’ve found a couple of places that actually serve ACD-friendly food (at one, ”Israeli Salad” consisting of fresh cucumber, tomato and onion with olive oil and lemon juice alongside hummus; at the other, gluten free pizza crust with toppings of my choice, usually roasted garlic, baked tomato, red onion, spinach and black olives). As a result, we tend to patronize either of those most of the time.
Once a month, though, we head to a Malaysian restaurant I adore. They’re willing to provide vegan options and also hold the sugar at my request. Great! But I am fairly certain that they don’t grease their woks with organic coconut oil (or anything organic, for that matter); and I am not willing to stress about this. If I consume a small quantity of less-than-healthy oil once a month, I rely on the remaining 90% of my uber-healthy diet to compensate; it’s worth it to me to be able to enjoy the rest of the meal.
[source]
III. Listen to your body.
For the past couple of years, I’ve been rediscovering books by Geneen Roth and am devoted to her intuitive approach to eating–letting your body determine when, what and how much you eat. The woman has effectively peeked into my psyche (and my pantry), and I relate to her ideas on food as psychological comfort, how food serves many other purposes besides nourishment, and how we can learn to enjoy eating in the most natural and instinctive fashion. I’m not entirely “there” yet when it comes to attending to my body’s messages, but I’m learning.
I had my first epiphany about listening to my body only about a month ago, when I first began to experiment with coconut sugar. Having baked only with stevia (and a miniscule amount of yacon or agave) until then, being able to use a one-for-one sugar replacement was thrilling. I went a little crazy in the kitchen, baking cookies, brownies, bars, muffins and whatever else I could think of. I also tasted them all. . . and then some. I probably ate more baked goods in that week than I had in the previous six months. If that episode had occurred two years ago, it would likely have spiralled into an endless round of sweet binges, fuelled by sugar and guilt and the rationalization that “it’s the holidays.”
Instead, something odd occurred: I suddenly didn’t feel like eating so many sweets any more. My body said, “Give me kale! Give me black bean soup! Give me cinque e’ cinque!” (somehow, my body managed to pick up Italian while I was sleeping). I averted a crisis simply by listening to the physical signals I routinely ignored in the past. It felt great, and I’m striving to improve my skills in that area, and practise it more often. Your body intuitively knows what’s good for you. Listen to it.
[Meant to be eaten with friends: Pumpkin Bread Pudding with Caramel Sauce.]
IV. Lighten Up (Are We Having Fun Yet?)
Earlier yesterday on twitter, a famous vegan cookbook author asked, “Q: how much oil in a recipe before you won’t make it? Does mention of 1/2 c olive oil freak anyone out? 1/3 cup better? What is OK?”. Well, I think the answer depends on several factors. What kind of oil is it? How many servings does the recipe make? How much of it will I be eating at one sitting? How often will I eat it? Half cup (the amount in the recipe) is 8 tablespoons (120 ml) or 24 teaspoons (24 x 5 ml). If the dish yields 20 servings (a baked dessert), that’s less than 2 teaspoons per serving. If it’s a main course that makes 8-10 servings, it’s still 1 tablespoon or less per serving–less than most people use on one salad. Mostly, I wouldn’t think twice if the dish were a special occasion recipe–it’s only once in a while, anyway.
What struck me about the exchange was the idea that based on the amount of oil alone, people would eschew the entire recipe. I know people who eat raw coconut oil by the tablespoon, yet the idea of 1/2 cup in an entire recipe is anathema.
A while back, I was asked in a comment on this post about whether roasting nuts renders them less healthy–and, of course, the short answer is “yes.” But do I want to eat raw nut butter all of the time? No. I like the taste of toasted nuts better than the taste of raw nuts. Nuts still contain healthy fats. They are still a real food. So I eat them toasted sometimes, and I don’t worry about it.
My point is that you can be so focused on the health-related characteristics of your food that you overlook the fact that food is supposed to taste good and confer pleasure. As Andrew Weil notes in his book, Eating Well for Optimum Health, a rigid adherence to eating only “healthy” foods can negate the pleasure we get from sharing our meals with others–and sometimes the social contact is more important to our health than the absolute quality of the food we’re eating.
Which brings me back to the comment that started it all. Here’s my response to each of the points made by the commenter:
Soy crisps – a bean that is only truly digestible when fermented, is processed into a crisp? Yes, soy crisps are processed (they contain non-GMO soy protein, tapioca starch and salt); see my comments above about 90%/10%. As I’ve mentioned before, even though fermented soy is more easily digestible than non-fermented (eg, tofu), I do not avoid tofu or other non-fermented soy (eg, soymilk) in moderation. It is a great source of protein and contains isoflavones that are advantageous in myriad ways, plus many other health benefits. While it’s not for everyone (you can read about the pros and cons yourself), for me, soy’s numerous health benefits–and the fact that it’s been a staple food in many Asian cultures for centuries–makes it a desirable food.
Canola oil – oil that is high in inflammation promoting omega 6, processed from rapeseeds and should only be eaten raw. As far as I know (or can find information in my nutrition texts and online), canola oil is considered a “monounsaturated fat” because it contains mostly (about 55%) monounsaturated fatty acids. Like any oil, canola is made up of mono-, poly- and saturated fats in different ratios. It does contain Omega 6 oil, but it also contains a larger percent of Omega 3. In any case, unless the canola is organic and cold pressed, I wouldn’t want to consume it at all. Like any oil that is liquid at room temperature, canola is best when unheated. It might not be my first choice for baking or cooking (I don’t ever use it at home); however, I am not too concerned about eating a snack with it on occasion (see point II, above).
Agave syrup – the sugars of the agave cactus without the natural brake of fibre, controversy rages about whether it is low or high GI. I know that some people think agave is evil. I am not one of those people. The glycemic index (GI) of agave, when organic and processed without excess heat or chemicals, is relatively low (38 or so). Like any other natural sweetener, agave is harmful in large quantities. However, having read several articles about it, I’ve decided that, for me, agave is a good sweetener as long as it’s organic and not overly processed. Like maple syrup, it requires some processing to convert the raw sap into what we buy in the store. It is still a delicious, low glycemic sweetener–but like any sweetener, should be eaten in small quantities and as a treat.
Brown Rice syrup – sugars inherent in rice – highly processed, super high GI, even though it’s brown rice! Again, brown rice syrup is a traditional natural sweetener that’s been used for ages. The sugars inherent in rice are no worse, as far as I can tell, than the sugars inherent in wheat, spelt, millet, or any other grain. And while some processing is, of course, required to convert rice to a sweetener, I have been able to find absolutely no corroboration that brown rice syrup is high GI. Most of the articles I’ve come across list its glycemic index as around 25-35–rather low.
Given my own approach to healthy eating, I am comfortable consuming snacks such as The Simply Bar on occasion. If the bars’ ingredients don’t jibe with what you think is healthy, please, don’t eat them. I’m grateful to the commenter for prompting me to examine my viewpoint on these ingredients and articulate my eating philosophy in general.
["Does this mean we get to listen to our bodies, too, Mum? Because my body is telling me that it's time you gave me a treat."]
Perhaps most importantly when it comes to our diets, however, is that I believe each of us must make our own informed choices about the food we put in our mouths. If my approach doesn’t resonate with you, that’s fine; there are many other approaches out there to pursue. With so many sources of illness in our world–toxins, pollution, carcinogens, molds, bacteria, germs, viruses, electromagnetic pollution–I could go on–I think it’s essential that we don’t allow ourselves to become bogged down in the negative impact of them all. It’s still possible to eat well and enjoy your food while keeping an eye open to the possible drawbacks.
Whew! And if you made it this far in the post, well, I think you deserve a reward. Go get yourself a huge piece of chocolate, or maybe a (thin) slice of cake–made with real, organic ingredients, of course. 
I’d love to hear what you think about the issue–what constitutes a “healthy” diet in your mind?
********************
Last Year at this Time:Flash in the Pan/Gastronomic Gift: Brazil Nut-Cilantro Pesto (all stages of ACD; gluten free)
Two Years Ago: Gastronomic Gifts III: Marzipan-Topped Shortbread Cookies (not gluten free; ACD maintenance only)
Three Years Ago: Pumpkinseed Shortbread Buttons (gluten free; ACD maintenance only)
© 2010 Diet, Dessert and Dogs
For those of you who read my blog regularly, you know that I’m on a cleansing diet this week, an outgrowth of the Total Health course I’ve been taking for the past month and a half. Well, I hadn’t intended to post yet another non-recipe entry this week, but since I’ve received quite a few questions about why I’ve chosen this particular cleanse and how it works, I thought it might be useful to share a bit about cleansing in general and my own choice for this week in particular. I’ll warn you, though: what follows is a fairly long post (word count: 2443). If you’re simply interested in the food I’ve been eating, I’ll post that later–so feel free to come back then!
[Please note: This is a condensed and somewhat simplified account of the process, based on what I learned while studying to become a nutritionist, my own reading on the topic, and my personal experience with cleanses over the past five years. It is by no means intended as any kind of medical or professional advice and is purely my own perspective on the topic, presented for informational purposes only. ]
Q: Why Detox at All?
Whether you use the term “fast,” “cleanse” or “detox diet,” the process focuses on a single goal: detoxifying and rebalancing the body’s internal operating systems, primarily the digestive tract (but also the liver, respiratory system, urinary system and lymphatic system). Given the environmental factors, lifestyle, and eating habits of most of us in the modern world, I believe that everyone, no matter how thin, active or deemed “healthy,” could benefit from a cleanse once in a while. Even the instructor for our course (who has been following a strict regimen of ultra-healthy eating coupled with cardiovascular exercise, strength training exercise, yoga, dance, nia, sports, and a daily spiritual practise for over 20 years) undergoes a cleanse twice a year.
As denizens of the modern, industrial world, we are exposed to myriad toxins daily, both from within and without. Just by virtue of living near the great and wonderful metropolis of Toronto, I have the pleasure of inhaling highly polluted air most days of the week. For the first two months that we lived in this house, I could smell the distinct aroma of fresh paint gases (courtesy of the landlord, who was actually attempting to do us a favor) every time I entered the house. I ingest all kinds of unsavory substances that leach through plastic water bottles, the plastic containers I use to transport my lunches to work, the dyed and bleached clothing I wear, or the cleansers I use (though I’ve tried to eliminate as many of those as I can).
And that’s only the exogenous toxins. We also take in toxins from the food we eat, whether hydrogenated oils from junk food, artificial colors or flavors, or “milk” shakes at McDonald’s or Burger King. Because these substances are not made in nature and our bodies weren’t designed to process them, the liver works overtime to detoxify them out of the body (as much as possible) to keep us healthy.
When your liver is on overdrive neutralizing toxins that you take in, free radicals are formed. Free radicals are basically cell-killers, and they can result in cancer and chronic diseases that are often connected to inflammation (such as arthritis, heart disease, etc.). Those of us with weak immunity or overworked filtering systems (such as myself) suffer the consequences and wander around with stuffed noses, digestive distress, joint inflammation, or other chronic conditions that are so often attributed to “aging” or simply “life in general.”
One of my natural health practitioners put it this way: imagine a pile of bricks that’s being built into a little tower, one brick at a time. Each brick is a different toxin that your body has to deal with and try to eliminate. As with a pile of bricks, you can add quite a few to the pile without any dire consequences at all; in fact, observed from the outside, everything appears hunky-dory, stable and unchanged. One would even infer that the extra weight being piled on top is doing no harm, making no difference whatsoever.
But then you reach the point where the pile can no longer support even one more brick. You place that last brick at the top of the pile and–BAM! (not to quote Emeril in such grave matters, or anything)–the pile completely collapses. Your body works the same way. When you were younger (or healthier), you may have been able to tolerate a huge number of toxic “bricks” in your system. But tax the system long enough and then, suddenly, it appears as if everything breaks down at once.
That’s what happened to me several years ago. After assuming all was well for years (even though I drank up to a liter (quart) of aspartame-sweetened pop a day, had 3-5 coffees a day, imbibed wine and spirits on weekends and consumed whatever junk food, candy, cookies, cakes, or other garbage I desired on a regular basis), everything came crashing down. I spent about a year suffering from symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, endured multiple recurrent sinus infections (one so serious that it required four–FOUR!–courses of antibiotics to eradicate), and suffered almost continuous yeast infections, coupled with fatigue, depression, and general feelings of “lousy.” At that point, I really needed a cleanse.
All this to say, if there’ are any actions we can regularly take to diminish our load of toxic “bricks,” we should do so.
Q: What Is a Cleansing or Detox Diet?
Basically, cleansing means “cleaning up the diet (and, ideally, environment) to allow the body to rest from fighting off and eliminating toxins for a while, so that it can repair and rejuvenate.”
There are many levels of detox, depending on where you find yourself to begin with. It’s recommended that people start at a level just one echelon away from (less toxic than) where they are now, because detoxing encourages the toxins to exit the body quickly (through elimination and sweating, primarily), and if too many to escape too fast, you’ll end up feeling sort of like a deflated baloon in a mud puddle–or one really sick puppy (this effect is called a “healing crisis“).
The very first time I went on a detox diet, my naturopath–only two months into her practice–didn’t think to warn me what could happen if I changed my eating habits too drastically. She prescribed what is essentially a NAG diet, but without any animal products. After one day of the diet, I was felled by my body’s extreme healing crisis (I describe the event here). Luckily, it passed in a couple of days.
By starting “slowly”–that is, without altering too many aspects of your diet or life at once–you avoid a severe healing crisis. Most people feel a little bit tired or sleepy; some experience mild flu-like symptoms such as a sore throat, but these ususally disappear in a day or two.
Q: How Do You Know What to Eat and What to Eliminate on a Cleanse?
The diet you choose should depend on the diet you eat regularly before the cleanse. If someone enjoying a SAD (Standard American Diet) decided to embark on a water fast, it would likely spark a full-scale healing crisis and the person would feel rather sick. So decide where you are now, then move in baby steps toward a full-scale cleanse.
There are basically five or six levels of cleansing diet. Ideally, you would work your way up to the most challenging level as you clean up your diet over the years.
Level One: Basic non-toxic diet for everyone. (from Elson Haas, The Detox Diet)
Level one is what I often refer to as the NAG diet, the diet that, if followed regularly, should allow your body to exist with minimum toxic intake and to keep you pretty healthy. (Other versions are Anne Marie Colbin’s diet in Food and Healing, Tosca Reno’s The Eat Clean Diet; or Elson Haas’ diet in Staying Healthy with Nutrition.). If you’re not already on this type of diet, it would be the first step. Try this for a week and see how you feel. You could theoretically stay on this diet for the rest of your life.
Level One: The NonToxic Diet (from Elson Haas, The Detox Diet):
- Eat organic foods whenever possible.
- Drink filtered water.
- Rotate foods [ie, eat each of these no more than once every four days or so], especially common allergens such as milk products, eggs, wheat, and yeasted foods.
- Practice food combining.
- Eat a natural, seasonal cuisine.
- Include fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, and, for omnivarians, some low or non-fat dairy products, fresh fish (not shellfish) and organic poultry.
- Cook in iron, stainless steel, glass, or porcelain cookware.
- Avoid or minimize red meats, cured meats, organ meats, refined foods, canned foods, sugar, salt, saturated fats, coffee, alcohol, and nicotine.
And while it’s not stated in this list, Haas also prohibits anything processed or made with chemicals or artificial colorings–this should go without saying.
["Sounds good, Mum, but do we have to do the part about avoiding meat?"]
Level Two: (this and later levels from Caroline Dupont, Enlightened Eating).
Level two is a step beyond level one, as “it eliminates all animal products and glutenous grains.” As Dupont points out, this can be a lifelong diet rather than a detox diet if mostly organic foods are eaten and sources of protein and vitamin B12 (which can only be acquired naturally through animal products) are carefully monitored.
For those who already eat a Level One diet as their regular fare, Level Two would be considered a mild cleanse.
Level Three: Living Foods Only
This level kicks it up a notch (seriously, WHAT is Emeril doing in this discussion?) by allowing only raw foods, effectively eliminating grains (except for sprouted grains). People at this level eat raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, freshly pressed juices, sprouts, and possibly raw dairy.
Q: Why Is Raw Supposedly Better? Why Are There No Grains? Isn’t That a Lot of Fruit–Why is All That Sugar in the Fruit Acceptable?
RAW: A raw diet provides the body with readily available digestive enzymes in raw, but not cooked, foods; these would otherwise need to be generated courtesy of your saliva, stomach, and pancreas. For that reason, it is much easier to digest raw versus cooked food; raw foods give the body a bit of a break so it can concentrate on other functions, such as detoxifying, maintaining, and repairing. People on all-raw diets have experienced incredible boosts in energy as well as healing effects.
GRAINS: Unsprouted grains (the kind we normally eat) are more difficult to digest than raw foods. There is nothing inherently wrong with eating grains, especially if your digestive system is in tip-top condition; but for those of us with digestive issues, or when cleansing the system, grains are just a bit too challenging.
FRUIT SUGARS: It’s true that a raw diet provides a large number of fruits, and fruits do contain natural sugars. But please don’t confuse naturally-occurring sugars with refined white sugar (or even honey or maple syrup, which are both concentrated sugars). When you eat something refined, the sugar is converted to glucose (a monosaccharide–the smallest sugar molecule, as it’s broken down by the body and passed into the bloodstream) extremely quickly, because it’s already practically in the form of glucose when you eat it.
With fruits, the sugars are bound up with fibre and other nutrients, and the body must work to extract the different elements in the fruit and to convert the sugars to glucose in the body. This means you won’t get the same kind of spike in blood sugar levels from eating a fresh fruit as you will from eating a piece of cake or even cup of coffee with sugar in it. Sugar in fruits is healthy and doesn’t generate toxins in the body. (Think of diabetics, for instance–they’re allowed most fruits). Fruits with extremely high sugar levels could be eaten in smaller quantities, but even then, they are still healthy foods. And fruits are digested very quickly and easily in the body–they are the easiest foods for your body to break down, so they don’t tax the system.
["Give us more fruits is what I say, Mum!']
Level Four: Blended Foods, Smoothies and Soups
By blending foods, you render them yet more easily digestible. Dupont suggests incorporating some of these foods into a raw foods diet; furthermore, this level is presented as an excellent “introduction to fasting for people with hypoglycemia, bowel disorders [or] constipation.”
Level Five: Juice Fast And/Or Master Cleanse
At this level, you’re basically removing the need for your bowel to process any fibre and are providing very nutrient-rich clear liquids that are processed very easily by the digestive tract. At level five, a person consumes only freshly squeezed or pressed fruit and vegetable juices, or the Master Cleanse, a mixture of filtered water, lemon juice, maple syrup and a pinch of cayenne pepper.
Level Six: Water Fast
At this point, only those who have already gone through the other five phases should attempt a water fast; drinking only pure filtered water gives the body’s internal organs the ultimate work break. According to Dupont, no one should even attempt a water fast who has not first “established a consistently healthy diet for at least 6 months first.”
["Yes, pure water is definitely good, Mum. Especially in summer."]
Q:Why Did You Choose the Cleanse You Did?
When I was in nutrition school, after spending a full year following the NAG diet and trying out most of the other diets we learned about, I felt ready to complete a Level Five (Master Cleanse) diet for almost a full week. At that point, my “regular” diet was so non-toxic that the Master Cleanse was a good step. I felt great while on it and did reap the benefits of better digestion and more energy.
These days, however, my regular diet is more like Level Two, above. I already don’t eat meat; I already don’t eat refined foods; I already don’t eat most gluten grains on a daily basis. When I examined the next level–all raw–I realized that would be too challenging for me, and I was afraid I’d slip if I tried to limit myself to raw foods alone. As a compromise, I chose a diet that still eliminated the grains, but retained some cooked foods. I’m happy with the compromise and am feeling some pretty good results so far.
Maybe next time, I’ll be ready for another raw-go-round.
Q: Readers: What Do You Think?
If you’ve made it this far, I’d love to know: how many of you have tried detox diets or cleanses? What was your experience? What worked, and what would you warn against?
Aren’t chocolate truffles just the height of decadence? At this time of year, they seem to abound on coffee tables, in buffets, or in scalloped porcelain dishes that have been handed down from generation to generation.
Well, for dessert day here at DD&D, I thought I’d share a recipe for my favorite NAG-friendly chocolate trufffles.
I’ve always loved these ultra-rich, velvety treats, but in recent years have sought out other, more health-supportive ways to indulge my hankering. When I discovered raw truffles, I knew I’d found the winner–the candy I could eat with impunity yet would still allow me to feel just a little bit naughty while I savored them. And these babies actually contain many compounds that are good for your heart!
There are many recipes for raw chocolate truffles on the Internet and in raw lifestyle cookbooks (though not on the Holidailies site). I was given this recipe by a friend a couple of years ago, and I tinkered with it quite a bit before ending up with this version. The recipe uses both maple syrup and agave nectar, which allows for a smoother, silkier texture.
I also favor dark cocoa powder rather than Dutch process. Yes, I am aware that those in the upper echelons of the food blogging world would never make use of such a base form of cocoa; but it turns out, in fact, that the darker the cocoa, the more flavonoids it contains. So Dutch process is actually less efficient at fighting off all those pesky chronic diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, atherosclerosis, or Type II Diabetes. Mary Engler, in her article, “The Emerging Role of Flavonoid-Rich Cocoa and Chocolate in Cardiovascular Health and Disease,” tells us,
“It is important to note that the amount of flavonoids in chocolate is not only dependent on the cacao bean, but also on the processing steps involved in its manufacture, e.g., excess heat and alkalization (“Dutch” process) can significantly reduce the amount of flavonoids.”
Besdies, dark cocoa just looks so much better in this recipe.
Similarly, the fats in the cashews (mostly unsaturated) are also good for your ticker. And according to one of my favorite sites, cashews also contain a fair amount of magnesium, equally beneficial for heart health. If you aren’t concerned about the cashews being raw, go ahead and use regular cashew butter–it will still taste amazing.
These truffles can tend toward the soft side, so you must be sure to refrigerate them if you want them to hold their shape. If you’re not too fussy about achieving a perfect sphere, dig in as soon as you’ve rolled them.
Mostly Raw Chocolate Truffles
1 Tbsp. instant coffee substitute (such as Krakus, Caf-Lib, etc.)
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 tsp. tamari soy sauce (it adds depth of flavor–trust me)
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 Tbsp. agave nectar
1/2 cup dark cocoa powder
1/2 cup smooth raw cashew butter
In a small bowl, dissolve the coffee substitute in the vanilla and tamari that have been blended together. Measure the sweeteners into a measuring cup and add the tamari mixture.
Place the cocoa in the bowl of a food processor and add the cashew butter along with the liquid mixture in the measuring cup. Process until well combined and satiny smooth, scraping down sides as needed, about 3 minutes (mixture will thicken and become glossy).
While soft, divide mixture into 12-15 equal parts and roll into balls with your hands. Dust with more cocoa powder if desired, or create variations by adding chopped nuts, fruits, candied ginger, or whatever strikes your fancy. Store airtight in the refrigerator for up to 10 days (good luck keeping it that long).
[This recipe will also appear in my upcoming cookbook, Sweet Freedom, along with more than 100 others, most of which are not featured on this blog. For more information, check the "Cookbook" button at right, or visit the cookbook blog.]
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