The Detox For Living Diet is designed to give your body a rest, to keep it well-nourished and make digestion and elimination simple and effective whilst undertaking a detoxification program. All of my detoxification programs involve the taking of herbal medicine – by far the most powerful way of detoxing our bodies! You may like to start with the diet by itself at first, particularly if this is radically different from your ‘norm’. Perhaps one to three weeks of simplifying your diet first, then introducing juices before taking any herbal medicine. Taking colloidal minerals every morning will make your diet a whole lot easier, as minerals take cravings away from the foods you will be leaving behind.
This diet may be a detox unto itself, depending on what you have previously been eating! Too many changes all at once, particularly if you eat vast quantities of red meat, processed foods and drink coffee/caffeine tea and/or alcohol regularly, may be too much for your body to assimilate. The amount of toxicity arising from the depths of your tissues may overload you, rendering you straight into a full blown ‘healing crisis’. (See Chapter 11). Take it easy; be gentle with yourself. But also challenge yourself beyond your normal eating habits/stuck lifestyle patterns.
The Detox For Living Diet is based on common sense and designed with a busy person in mind, whether working or studying full-time, or perhaps you are a busy mum and both studying and working! When life is hectic, you may not have the time to sprout all your own grains before eating, (soaking will do), or to grow or pick your own organic vegetables, or even to sprout your own wheat grass. There are numerous books available on this subject, from sprouting to permaculture, so if you do have the time and inclination, great, go for it! It is of course relevant for a detox diet. But if you are like the rest of us, I hope you find these guidelines useful and simple to follow. You will note that I do not recommend a permanent exclusively raw diet, as there have been no traditional diets in existence containing entirely raw foods; and over a period of time this style of diet can seriously be depleting.
Anything ‘light’, fat reduced or refined is bad for your health and needs to be avoided whenever possible. As a general rule, the less ‘mucked about with’, the fresher and closer to nature, the better it is for our health whether undertaking a detox program, or just embarking on a healthy diet. Look for products that state they contain no genetically engineered foods…