Healthy Eating and Lifestyle Guidelines

To make the most of your detox program, it is essential to reduce or avoid as many toxins as possible.  This helps your body to make the necessary changes. For most people food is a major source of toxicity.  Listed below are some essential and optional steps that you can take to give your body a fresh start. The more you can incorporate into your lifestyle, the better.  I recommend you try to change a maximum of one thing on this list each week. Too much change, too quickly may cause more problems than it solves.

The food you eat can either be the safest, most powerful medicine
or the slowest form of poison.

The first, most basic principle of healthy eating: 

The contents of your fridge and pantry should look mostly like this:

NOT like this:

Every time you eat or drink, you are either fighting disease, or feeding it.

Eat more fruit and vegetables.  Fruit and vegetables contain many of the vitamins and minerals our bodies need to make things like hormones, enzymes and neurotransmitters.  Eat lots of veg:  asparagus, avocado, beans, bok choy, broccoli, cabbage, capsicum, carrots, cauliflower, chilli, cucumber, eggplant, garlic, ginger, kale, leek, lettuce, onions, peas, pumpkin, shallots, spinach, silverbeet, squash, tomatos, zucchini.  Eat fruit in lesser amounts:  apples, apricots, bananas, blueberries, cherries, coconuts, dates, grapefruit, kiwifruit, lemons, limes, mangos, nectarines, oranges, pawpaw, papaya, passionfruit, peaches, pears, pineapple, plums, rhubarb, rockmelon, strawberries, watermelon.

Eat less sugars, grains, starchy vegetables and starchy legumes.  All grains and starchy vegetables or legumes become sugar in your bloodstream when digested.  Small amounts are OK, but they can contribute to weight gain and chronic health problems if eaten in large amounts as most people do these days.  Avoid as much as possible:  white sugar, raw sugar, brown sugar, high fructose corn syrup, evaporated cane juice, rapadura sugar, fructose, maltose, dextrose, sucrose, agave, wheat, corn, maize, couscous, yam, taro, soy, jam, fruit juice, soft drinks, lollies.  Enjoy in moderation:  rye, rice, oats, sorghum, barley, buckwheat, millet, triticale, bulgur, tapioca, sago, quinoa, potato, sweet potato, kumara, parsnip, jerusalem artichoke, cassava, bean sprouts, chick peas, broad beans, fava beans, arrowroot, mung beans, garbanzo beans.  When eating grains, whole grains are far superior to “white” or processed grains (or things made from them).  So if eating rice for instance, choose brown rice instead of white rice.  Choose wholemeal products over “white” products like pasta, bread or oatmeal.

Avoid processed salt (any salt which is pure white and dry).  Most salts contain anti-caking agents. These are usually aluminium based and should be avoided. Ideally use Celtic Sea Salt or a form of unprocessed sea salt – it tastes identical to table salt.  Real salt will get a little damp when there is a spell of wet weather. If your salt doesn’t get damp in wet or humid weather, it probably contains anti-caking agents. Herbamare or Trocomare are delicious seasoned salts that are readily available at supermarkets and contain no “nasties”.

Don’t be afraid to eat fat.  We have been told that fat is bad. More recent (and less biased) research is showing that fat is not what we have been led to believe.  The simple fact is:  our bodies need fat.  If you don’t eat enough fat in your diet you will constantly feel hungry and your hormones (the chemical messengers of your body) will not function well.  Not all fats are the same.  Many fats are harmful.  This includes trans fats, soy, corn, cottonseed, canola oil, any other rancid, liquid or hydrogenated or partially-hydrogenated oils.  It is best to avoid any product that lists “vegetable oil” as an ingredient.  If the manufacturer isn’t willing to tell you which oil they use, it’s a good bet that it is a harmful type.  The best fats are coconut or avocado oils and fats of animal origin like the fat on meat or chicken, butter or ghee.  A good fat to eat uncooked is olive oil.

Avoid all artificial sweeteners.  Artificial sweeteners like aspartame are neurotoxins – they poison the nervous system.  Powdered aspartame does however make a great ant poison!

Exercise.  Your body is designed for regular physical activity (this doesn’t include hunting for the remote control).  You have a circulatory system that pumps blood and oxygen around your body, and this system has its own pump (your heart).  You also have a lymphatic system and this carries many toxins and wastes from your body.  Your lymphatic system doesn’t have an independent pump, and it relies on the big muscles in your arms and legs to pump the toxins out of your body.  You should aim for 30-40 minutes of moderate intensity exercise 3-5 times per week such as brisk walking or swimming.  Once you start to feel more energetic as your body detoxes, you should exercise at least twice a week with enough intensity to make you perspire.

Avoid processed foods.  Processing removes much of the essential nutrients from food, whilst retaining the energy.  This means your body receives more energy than it needs which it will convert to fat.  You still feel hungry because your body is crying out for the missing nutrition that has been lost in processing. Don’t be fooled by food that is “fortified”with vitamins etc. Manufacturers will often try to replace the nutrients that were removed in processing. Sadly the ones they use are usually the cheap, synthetic kind which may do more harm than good.

Avoid “white” foods – white rice, white sugar, white flour, white pasta, white bread etc. These are all highly processed foods.  See processed foods above.

Eat your food slowly and chew thoroughly.  Chewing process mashes your food into small pieces and partially liquefies it, making it easier to digest.  Secondly, when food hits your mouth, it stimulates saliva production.  Saliva contains its own digestive enzymes, so the longer you chew, the more time these enzymes have to get to work while your food is still in your mouth. This makes it easier on your stomach and small intestine.  The chewing process stimulates a reflex that primes your pancreas and other digestive organs to do their job.

Don’t chew gum.  When you chew gum, your brain thinks you're eating food, so it sends signals to your stomach, pancreas, and other digestive organs to get them ready for the digestive process.  Your pancreas is fooled into manufacturing a batch of digestive enzymes your brain thinks you'll need.  Eventually, your pancreas gets exhausted from the repeated over-production, so it won't be able to produce the digestive enzymes you need when you actually require them.

Sausages and cold meats from a deli  most of these contain nitrates or nitrates as preservatives – these are some of the most carcinogenic (cancer causing) food additives.  Some (not all) organic sausages are OK.  Even things like fresh corned beef, ham or bacon contain these nasty additives.

Eat a variety of foods.  Every food has a different nutrient/vitamin/mineral profile.  If you mostly eat the same food, you are probably missing out on some nutrients.  This will cause your body to keep sending you signals to eat to get the nutrients you need.  The more varied your diet is, the more chance you have of getting all the things your body needs to function effectively.

Avoid food additives.  Most food additives are harmful chemicals used to make manufacturing easier or cheaper, or to make the food taste better.  Your body can excrete a certain amount of these chemicals but when under stress it will store many of them in fat cells as a way of keeping them from the most important parts of your body.  Read labels.  If you can’t pronounce an ingredient, don’t eat it. If the manufacturer hides behind a food additive number (like flavour enhancer (621) – this is MSG), there’s a good chance it’s harmful. If the label has generic terms like “vegetable oil”, “natural flaovour”, “natural colour” or similar, don’t buy it. If the manufacturer is using good ingredients they’ll want to tell you what they are. If they’re trying to hide things under generic names, chances are they’re not good.

A good sweetener to use is raw honey.  Raw honey looks and tastes just like ordinary honey.  Raw honey hasn’t been heated above 45°C.  Heating honey prevents it from going candied – it also kills most of the goodness including enzymes and a natural antibiotic that is in honey.  If your raw honey goes candied, just place the bottle in lukewarm water, or leave it standing on the windowsill in the sun for a while.  You will have to buy raw honey from a health food shop.  It will be labelled “Raw”.  Other labels like “natural” are NOT raw honey.

If using sugar, use Rapadura Sugar.  This sugar tastes similar to brown sugar, with a caramel flavour.  It is made by pressing the juice from sugar cane and then dehydrating, preserving the minerals and other nutrients.  It is still sugar though, so try to minimise the amount you use.  Also known as Sucanat, Panella or evaporated cane juice.

Sit down to eat  Receptors in the soles of our feet turn on our sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) and turn off our parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest).  We want the parasympathetic nervous system to dominate when we’re eating.

Where possible, choose organic free range.  Animals like cows, sheep and chickens are meant to graze, not eat a diet of concentrated grain products while living in a barn or feed lot.  The nutritional value of the meat or eggs is far superior when the animals have access to healthy living conditions.

Detoxify your environment.  Your home and work can be major sources of toxins.  Try to eliminate or minimise your use of cleaning products (vinegar, bi-carb soda and other natural products make great alternatives), antiperspirants with aluminium, pesticides, herbicides, petrochemicals, paints, solvents and hair spray.

Aim for a diet that is 50% raw.  Cooking food, even at low temperatures destroys many important enzymes and some nutrients.  On the other hand, cooking makes other nutrients more available to your body.  An ideal diet includes approx. 50% raw fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds and 50% cooked food.

Avoid most soy products. Only eat fermented soy products like soy sauce, natto, miso and tempeh—from organic (non-GM) sources.  There is a growing body of evidence showing many diseases are linked to consumption of soy products like soy milk, cheese, yoghurt, protein, lecithin, oil, tofu, meat replacement products and many more.

Vegetarian and Vegan diets

Some people choose to eat either vegetarian or vegan diets for a number of reasons.  I respect every individual’s decision to follow their own beliefs about their food choices.  I would, however, like to point out a number of issues around the health aspects of vegetarian diets:  From my own clinical observations over years, I have found that vegetarians and especially vegans tend to have more digestive and overall health problems than those who eat meat, fish, eggs or chicken.

Census data from the UK shows that vegetarians die younger than meat eaters.

It is interesting to note the differences between carnivores (meat eaters) and herbivores (plant eaters).

Carnivores have a short digestive tract with a large stomach designed to handle large amounts of meat.  They eat occasionally – usually going for days without food.

Herbivores (ruminants) have a very long digestive tract, with four stomachs.  This is necessary because plant material is more difficult to digest than animal products.  They spend most of their day eating.

Omnivores – designed to eat both animal and plant based food have a medium length digestive tract, combining some of the features from both carnivores and herbivores.  The human digestive system is a medium length; it has a single stomach designed for protein digestion, and intestines for plant digestion.  This suggests that we are meant to eat a variety of foods:  fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, chicken and eggs.

We often hear of the beneficial nutrients in plant based food.  This is correct, but deceptive.  What counts is not the nutrient, but how much of the nutrient our bodies can absorb.  Plants are more difficult to digest than animal foods.

In a lab, many chemicals and processes are used to extract various nutrients for measurement purposes.  A portion of a particular food may contain a certain amount of a nutrient as measured in a lab, but this does not necessarily mean the nutrient is able to be used by your body.  Many lab extraction processes are not available in our digestive systems.  Also, some plants contain anti-nutrients that make it more difficult for our bodies to utilise the nutrients. 

Animal products are a concentrated source of essential nutrients.  Traditional cultures recognised that plant foods are often difficult to digest and most included preparation techniques like fermentation, sprouting, soaking and malting to make digestion of these foods easier.  Modern food processing has removed most of these beneficial practices from our diets.  See the section on probiotics for easy ways to add traditional probiotic foods into your daily diet.

Some people begin on a vegetarian diet and feel much better.  This is likely to be caused by the removal of harmful food additives and other processed food from their diet.  “The Vegetarian Myth” by Lierre Keith is an interesting read.

Does this mean we don’t need to eat fruit and vegetables?  Of course not.  There are many benefits from eating both plant and animal foods.  A balanced diet consists of food of all types:  fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, chicken and eggs.

Tips for Eating Out

Avoid Asian restaurants (yes, I know the food tastes great!).  The reason in many cases that the food tastes so good is that they add MSG or other MSG-like additives.  Even places that claim “No MSG” often add things like hydrolysed vegetable protein or yeast extract which are every bit as bad as MSG.  Asian restaurants also tend to use meat tenderisers and other nasty additives.

Avoid all fast food burger/chicken restaurants.  The list of food additives they typically use is frightening.  Have a look on their web sites at the ingredients lists.  You won’t understand what most of them are unless you have a degree in chemistry.  Some even wash their “fresh” products like salads in chlorine!  I once bought a burger and fries from a well-known burger chain.  I left it sitting on a shelf in the paper bag for over 2 years.  The bun, fries, meat, lettuce, and cheese all dried out, but at no time was there any evidence of mould or any other normal decay.  Nor was there any evidence of any pest nibbling on any part of the “food”.  Sometimes even insects have more sense than we do in knowing what is good for them to eat.

The best option for take away is often kebab restaurants.  They will usually provide the meat and salad from a kebab on a plate without the bread.  They tend not to use food additives on their chicken or lamb – beef quality is variable.

Sandwich shops will be able to provide a good salad.  Meat quality is variable.  Any preserved meat like ham or turkey will almost always contain nitrates (one of the nastiest preservatives).  Some will cook their own chicken or have boiled eggs.  This is a good option with salad.

Indian restaurants tend not to use many nasties because the traditional curries don’t need any preservatives or flavour enhancers.

The best option in more formal dining is restaurants that serve basic meat/veg, like grilled chicken with vegetables or something similar.

Always remember that restaurants don’t have to disclose what they put in their food.  I have found nasty additives even in restaurants that claim to be “organic”.  The more basic the food you order – like meat, vegetables, or salads the less likely that you will end up buying a nasty surprise!  Food additives can easily hide in unexpected places like sauces, dressings, drinks or frying oil.