Lunch. This needs to be smaller than breakfast. But remember to think RAW, COLOURFUL and CRISPY FRESH. This means that your main dish will be a salad. It is essential to have a dark green leafy vegetable and an orange vegetable each day, so in your salad you could include watercress and grated carrots. The dark greens give easy identification of where to find the calcium, iron, vitamins B, C, E, K, folic acid, and other trace elements that we need. The yellow-orange pigment in some vegetables provides carotine which is changed into vitamin A by the body. Home grown vegetable sprouts are rich in all these elements. Try sprouting alfalfa first.
To your colourful salad you could add a few olives black or green, a little olive oil, freshly snipped herbs – mint, parsley or chives, lemon juice, sliced cold potatoes, some cooked peas or kidney beans. You will soon learn your own preferences. A jacket potato is a good extra for colder weather.
For this to be a complete meal, you now need some natural plant protein and wholemeal bread. This could be beans on toast, or sandwiches made with sliced nut roast, or a hot vegetable casserole with a variety of added beans. Serve an interesting bread with this meal, with a scrape of nut butter, and some cooked vegetables too.
You will feel very satisfied and yet not bloated.
Evening meal. This is often the time when we eat the largest meal, perhaps a large cooked dinner, so this is greatest challenge to existing habits. Teatime is the end of the working day, and to make our stomachs work the hardest when we are settling down to relax is a poor health policy. It clogs the system, digesting very slowly. We do not use any energy to burn it off and so it turns to fat.
All we need at this time of day is some light crispbreads and fruit. Or on a cold winter’s evening a hot vegetable soup and crusty bread. We do not need protein at night.
This pattern of eating, leaving a strict gap of 4-5 hours between meals will give your system a calm routine, with no periods of overload. Because the food is whole and often raw, you will get all the nutrients you need, and so feel satisfied more quickly. This avoids bingeing and overeating. You may lose weight too.
“Don’t eat between meals!” The reason for the GAP is to give the stomach time to complete its digestion cycle before any new food is put there. If you have a nut or an apple or a even a juice drink, there is something to be digested. The stomach then has to stop where is has got to and start on the new things to try to get them to the same stage. It is possible to find some of the earliest food still there after 13 hours, but in a horrible condition. The GAP makes sense doesn’t it? Do not eat between meals. Let the stomach do its task in the time it takes. You will get more nutrients out of the food that way. And try to leave 4 hours after food, before going to bed.
Remember only 21 days to feeling ‘better’. You could try this for 21 days, couldn’t you? The tastes will be new but they will be fresh and clean. And your body will be so happy – it will think it is on holiday! It is only your taste buds that might complain at first, but if you persevere, they will soon catch up with the rest.
How does this affect all the elements of our being?
Physical – purer blood, more resistance to infection, more energy, weight loss.
Mental – able to think more clearly, and make better decisions. More motivation to plan and organise. Longer times of lighter, more constant moods.
Spiritual – pleasure in the colour and textures of the food you prepare and eat.
Moral – more sensitive and more aware when you are doing something or saying something hurtful, or sharp.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
After your physical ‘detox’ you have learned about building up the body by eating natural foods. In the last booklet we talked of getting rid of the foreign bodies in our consciences too. You will need food for the moral and spiritual elements, so that they can rebuild too.
Jesus calls himself the Bread of Life. Here are some crumbs from the bread of life to |
