Rainbow Plate--Each meal should be at least 80% plant based and no more than 20% animal based. Use dairy, meat, fruits (sugars) and fats as condiments only. Your plate should look like a rainbow with lots of colors on it.
Eat farthest away from you on the food chain (lower down on the food chain).
Human--> mammal--> poultry--> fish--> land plants--> algae and seaweed are the farthest away and the best to eat. A small piece of fish is better than a small piece of beef or cheese, but some animal protein is important in the diet.
Only eat foods that were available 1000 years ago. Our bodies are not equiped to handle anything artificial or fractured artificially. All of our food and supplements should be from WHOLE natural food sources, organic or wild if possible. If you must binge, eat 5 days a week like a peasant, and 2 days like an modern American.
Use:
Butter, never margarine or commercial mayo
Eggs, not egg substitutes
Water or herb tea, not soda. Drink pure, not chlorinated water--6-8-10 glasses per day, depending on body weight. See the book: Your Body's Many Cries for Water.
No white stuff--no white sugar, white flour, white bread, white rice, white salt, etc.
Some raw fruit or honey is ok as a condiment (dessert--it is a sugar).
Use sea salt or natural salt that is grayish or pinkish (the color is trace minerals)
Fiber---Our digestive systems need lots of fiber to function properly, 40 to 45 grams per day. We should get our fiber from whole sources. Check labels for fiber content of things you buy so you can get to the 40 gram level daily. Whole grain bread (you can tell if it has fiber if it weighs a lot as compared to white bread), whole grains, oatmeal (not instant), brown rice (real brown rice takes 30-45 minutes to cook), leafy greens, raw and cooked, root vegetables, beans, lentils. Beans are an important source of fiber and we should be eating at least 1/2 cup of beans daily. Aduki beans (or any small bean) produces less gas than a larger bean. My favorite is black beans. Also, adding a piece of seaweed (Kombu) into the bean pot when cooking, makes them easier to digest. Check ingredients of cans of beans you buy, you can find some with only beans, water and salt, and some that are cooked with seaweed. If you still need additional fiber, Amazon Herb Co. makes an excellent whole food fiber supplement called Fiberzon.
Other recommended whole grains: Quinoa, millet, bulgur, buckwheat, seeds and nuts. In order to get the most nutrition, some of these grains need to be soaked or lacto-fermented before use. See the cookbook Nourishing Traditions
Eat fermented and enzyme rich foods--- Eating lots of fresh raw vegetables and salads, and fermented foods like miso, tamari or shoyu sauce (not soy sauce), yogurt, raw vinegar, raw saurkraut and raw pickles supplies enzymes necessary for digestion to take place. Enzymes help digest fats, proteins and sugars and break them down so they enter the blood stream as very small particles which serve as nutrients to the red blood cell, and don't clog up the bloodstream. Lacto-fermented condiments and drinks (for instance catsup and ginger ale) can be easily made at home. See the cookbook Nourishing Traditions. You can also supplement in capsule or liquid form (Digestazon or Digestazon Plus),
Soy products and dairy products should ONLY be consumed if they are fermented. Use miso, tofu, tempeh, tamari, buttermilk, yogurt (unsweetened), sour cream, butter and cheese. No soy milk, no soy burgers, unless they are made with tofu.
Lacto-fermented foods (like yogurt) are an excellent natural source of friendly bacteria. These bacteria naturally repopulate the intestinal track after you get your intestines cleaned out and working properly by following this diet.
Trace minerals--- the enzymes need trace minerals to do their job. Seaweed, wild coldwater algae, hard leafy greens, organic produce and properly prepared grains are good sources of trace minerals. Eat seaweed and algae every day. Add seaweed and leafy greens to every pot of soup or vegetable dish you make. (Seaweed at the beginning of the process, and greens at the end. Greens don't need much cooking, just need to wilt.) Recommended seaweeds are Dulse, Arami, Nori, Kelp (Kombu). Recommended algae is blue green algae (Aphanizomenon flos-aquae from Klamath Lake). Best source of algae: Aquazon from Amazon Herb Co.
Fats --- Fats are a necessary part of our daily diet. There is a book called Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill by Udo Erasmus that outlines the "good" fats and "bad" fats. Basically there are only four fats that our body can digest. These are butter, green olive oil, flaxseed oil (only use raw-keep refrigerated) and animal fat. None of these fats should be overheated. As soon as we saute or overheat them, we transform them into the "bad" kind. Crisco, margarine, cooking oils, commercial mayo, all fried foods, etc. should be eliminated from the diet--these are the trans-fats (artificially transformed fats). To cook vegetables in oil, add a small amount of water to a large iron skillet, float a small amount of olive oil or butter on that, then add the sliced vegetables, adding more water as it evaporates. I call this stir-boiling as opposed to stir-frying. This keeps the oil from overheating. We should be taking at least 1 tsp. each of raw lignan-rich flax seed oil, raw green olive oil and cod liver oil daily.
In health, Lynn Degen
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