The results of the cleanse are in...

As I write the full moon is rising above the tree line directly in front of me. It's in Gemini tonight which is all about communication, so it's an apt time to share with you my experience of the cleanse and its effects.

It's been almost two weeks of slowly re-introducing the omitted food groups back into my world and watching carefully what happens. I think this process is just as important as the cleanse itself.

The first observation is that I, personally, function a whole lot better without wheat or sugar in my diet. The Indians and Chinese would explain this through their theories of doshas and energies of food. For example, in my case, I am a blend of Vata(air) and Kapha(earth). Things like sugar and wheat are both cold and damp (heavy by nature), which aggravates Kapha's inert tendencies. The result is that I no longer enjoy the lightness and clarity which I experienced during the cleanse when I removed the culprits from my diet.

Many of you would share that same experience, as most people I pulse test react negatively to both wheat and sugar.

My next observation was how convenient food became again once wheat and sugar were allowed back in. During the first couple of days, you may recall that I reported I was caught in the gastronomic gulag of Rye, desperate for something to bring my blood sugar back to normality, but alas went without as there was NOTHING to eat that wasn't black-listed.

I realised that most foods of convenience contain wheat. Think about all the snacks or easy-to-make dishes, or foods that take you less than five mins to buy or prepare and what they contain.

Then think about the times you reach for something to eat as a reflex to quench something that may not be hunger related. If it isn't a piece of fruit or some nuts, then it's likely to contain wheat or sugar.

What I'm attempting to highlight is the relationship between our lifestyles and our health. It seems that the world of convenience isn't particularly beneficial to our wellbeing. Food is one thing, but what about other areas like pharmaceuticals, exercise and the age of technology?

Ask any open-minded doctor after he/she prescribes a pharmaceutical for a common ailment what the difference between it and taking a natural alternative is, and they will answer "time". Mild ailments like the flu, ear infections, lung congestion etc are not convenient so we turn to acid forming drugs to 'get over' them more quickly in order to return to our regular routine. Not only do we shoot the messenger, a sign delivered to us to say STOP, REST, NURTURE and address the imbalance that caused it in the first place, we also tell the immune system to sit back and take it easy buddy, because something else will do it's job.

Why can't we fit in 20-30 mins of exercise a day be it yoga, walking, swimming or whatever?

If you spend the time, the old adage of 'what you give is what you'll get' will prevail. The 30 min investment will return more energy, better focus, and an increase in productivity.

If your mantra is "I don't have enough time/money/energy" and that's the premise for most of your decisions, then when will you?

And think about how convenient our lives have become since computers and mobile phones have snuck into our world requiring satellites and creating wi-fi zones. Hey...I'm the first one to take advantage of these new tools of communication (this blog a case in point) but consider the effect and possible interference the free-range frequencies are having on our beings. We too vibrate at various frequencies...every organ, cell and quark, and when that frequency changes due to interference, we become unwell.

There's a great story about an office of people all dropping like flies which appeared to be a total mystery. The culprit turned out to be a faulty ceiling fan which was resonating at 18Hz. The length of the room matched an 18Hz wavelength, and coincidentally, the brain also operates at 18HZ. The story's not great because people became unwell, it highlights the fact that just because we don't see it, can't touch it, smell it, hear it or taste it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

There's plenty of research going on in this field, and if you wanted to watch a short clip from a BBC story on electro margnetic fields and the effects they have on cells, click here.

What I recommend is common knowledge. If your life requires a number of hours in front of the screen, tear yourself away from it every 50 mins, turn yourself upside down if you know how (hand stand, head stand or shoulder stand) or check in on nature and see what it does for your energy levels and brain.

Nourish and nurture yourselves through diet, relaxation, breathing, and exercising and you will find your body/mind/spirit will enjoy harmony with positive effects on your life.

I am happy to consult anyone on any or all of these areas. For a private session, call me on 0423 161 503 or email b@palateearth.com. For more details of the logistics of the session (location, price and duration), please click here and scroll down to 'Yoga Therapy'

For some healthy and delicious spring/ summer recipes, browse through the articles written here in November, or go to Marieke's recipe library.

back to palate earth

Days 11-14, the final run

DAY 11
Breakfast: citron pressé, taught Yoga, came home and made a green juice for our guests in lieu of coffee. Enjoyed a bowl of muesli, psyllium, rice milk, rhubarb, honey and cinnamon.

Lunch: was a couple of puffed rice crackers with buttery avocado and parsley salad. Avocados are just coming into season now and are at their best. Dinner: Marieke made a warm/cold salad. It's a very satiating combination, and moving into summer, becomes our staple dinner. You can sauté asparagus, broad beans, artichokes and chorizo (after the cleanse), roast beets, add a marinated goats cheese and display it all over a bed or roquette, cos and oak lettuces. Sprinkle your favourite sprinkles, and drizzle your favourite dressing.
Dressing: equal parts lemon juice, honey, dijonaisse and olive oil.

DAY 12

Breakfast: citron pressé, collected the greens from the garden, washed them WELL, and made the juice. This is definitely one thing I'll continue with once the cleanse is over as I've tweaked the combinations and quantities to produce a delicious drink which feels so good to start the day with.

Poached eggs, grilled asparagus and parley salad for Sunday brunch.

Dinner: Marieke baked a rice dish in the oven and wok tossed some garden delights on the side to accompany it.
For the basmati rice she slowly sautéd 'the holy trio' (onion, ginger and chili, garlic opt) grated a carrot and added the stock (1 1/2 cups of stock for the first cup of rice, and equal measures thereafter), and half a packet of coconut powder (in affect making a milder version of coconut rice). Cover it tightly with aluminium and bake at 180˚C for 20 mins. Check for doneness.

DAY 13
Breakfast: citron pressé. Let my liver enjoy the marination for 30 mins whilst collecting the greens from the garden, washing them WELL, and making the juice. This juice just gets better every day...is it the ratios or is it my palate? Muesli with psyllium, rice milk, rhubarb and honey

Lunch: rice crackers again with buttery avocado and parsley salad. Sprinkled some chia and gomasio over the top.

Dinner: With the leftover rice, I made my version of fried rice.
Wok tossed a finely sliced leek, walnuts, garlic and ginger, and added half a teaspoon of chili and tumeric once the base was cooked. Diced a portobello mushroom and zucchini, and added it to the wok. Tossed in a large handful of peas (this is about the only vegetable I would agree to use frozen) Moved the ingredients to one side of the wok and poured in an egg. Cooked it like an omlette and tossed it through. Serve with fresh coriander, and the usual sprinkles.

DAY 14

What...that's it? If you've followed it this far, congratulations! How do you feel? I'll offer my own insights into that in the next post.

Breakfast: citron pressé, followed half an hour later with a green juice. This of course, is one of the luxuries of working out of home....a delayed breakfast which spans over an hour.

I have since made another batch of fresh Muesli, this time with toasted hazelnuts.

Lunch: Instant miso soup (spiral make an excellent version which is another great source of sea vegetables, and highly alkalising!

It's not much for lunch, but again I had a late breakfast. The portions seems to be shrinking in direct relationship to my stomach.

Dinner: Kedgeree and wok-tossed veg. If you are a vegetarian, then kedgeree is the only known food that contains all 13 amino acids which are found in meat. Basically, it's the combination of dal and rice and it's what Indians eat every day.

My recipe calls for mung dal, which bears resemblence to the yellow split pea (but isn't).

Yellow lentils can be substituted for mung dal.

1 cup cooked brown bio-dynamic or organic white rice cooked by absorption method with 3 cardamom pods, 3 cloves and 1 stick cinnamon. Keep warm.

1 cup mung dal (split)
1 ½ - 2 cups vegetable or chicken stock
1-2 tabsp ghee
1 red onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp cumin seeds
½ tsp fennel seeds
½ black mustard seeds
½ tsp turmeric
½ tsp ginger powder
¼ tsp chilli powder

Sauté onions and garlic in melted ghee until soft. Add seeds and cook another minute. Add spices and stir to coat. Add mung dal, stir to coat, cover with stock, bring to boil, reduce to a simmer, cover with a tight fitting lid and cook approximately 12 minutes or until done.
Stir though the rice.

Days 8-10

If you've just joined us and would like to start from the beginning, then scroll down to the 'archives' and click on 'lets get cleansed'. There are Ayurvedic, TCM and other links which may provide some insight not only into the way you eat, but also the way you live.

I've been having different comments from people all around the world either by sms, email or on the phone, and I welcome them all.

My German friend in Chile says "great diet, but I can't stop the coffee".
My Irish friend in New York says, "Finding it hard to give up booze", and
my Aussie friend in Mansfield says, "that green drink of yours tastes like *%$@! pond slime".
Another Aussie friend in Germany has a lot to say about commercial muesli, and I'll talk about that later.

I'd be happy to answer any questions you have. Contact me

For our Northern Neighbours enjoying the autumnal month(Sheila O'Shea in particular whose request this was), a spring cleanse obviously isn't for you right now. What's good this time of year is a gallbladder cleanse. The Chinese consider the gallbladder and liver to be the organs of spring, and they are related in function too, so when you cleanse one, the other is usually involved. The reason why I'd recommend cleansing the gallbladder in Autumn however, is for the simple reason that apples play a major part in the cleanse by softening the stones (sometimes into liquid if you drink enough apple juice), and as we know, the season for apples is autumn.
It's actually very easy, lasts for 5 days only and you don't have to change much in your diet other than to consume a lot more apples than you normally would.
There are many variations of this diet, but they generally involve the same ingredients.

5 day Gallbladder Cleansing Diet
I followed Dr. Lai Chiu-Nan's programme last May.
1. For the first five days, take four glasses of apple juice every day. Or eat four or five apples, whichever you prefer. Apple juice softens the gallstones. During the five days, eat normally, but for a better effect, avoid sugars, wheat and alcohol.
2. On the sixth day, take no dinner.
3. At 6 PM, take a teaspoon of Epsom salt (magnesium sulphate) with a glass of warm water.
4. At 8 PM, repeat the same. Magnesium sulphate opens the gallbladder ducts.
5. At 10 PM, take half cup olive oil (or sesame oil) with half cup fresh lemon juice. Mix it well and drink it. The oil lubricates the stones to ease their passage.
PS. 1cup=250ml, ½ cup lemon juice=3 lemons (approx.)

The next morning, you will find green stones in your stools. 'Usually they float,' Chiu Nan notes. "You might want to count them. I have had people who pass 40, 50 or up to 100 stones. Very many."
Even if you don't have any symptoms of gallstones, you still might have some. It's always good to give your gall bladder a clean-up now and then.

If you do shoot more than 40 stones, then I'd recommend having another go in a couple of weeks time.

But back to Spring...

DAY 8
Woke up with a citron pressé and went for a walk along the back track to the beach. You can either surf the Southern Ocean snorkel it for abalone, and today was particularly calm. The tide was also out which not only added to its beauty, but also exposed the leafy sea lettuce attached to the rocky sea bed. I harvested a handful and took it back home to experiment with.

So. Here comes the bit about sea vegetables, or seaweeds as they are more commonly known. I am by know means an expert, but what I do know is this... All terrestrial plant life began their journey as blue green algae. When the algae began to emigrate from the sea onto land, it lost its major food source of nitrogen and began competing for the next one, sunlight. That caused the algae to grow up toward the sun to feed, creating first small plants, then trees.
Because all plant life originated from the ocean, "...sea plants contain ten to twenty times the minerals of land plants and an abundance of vitamins and other elements required for man's metabolism, making them an excellent source for food and medicine." Paul Pitchford "Healing with Whole Foods"

I read the back of a couple of different packets of sea vegetables and found that some are simmered lightly for up to 7 hrs before being dried. As the leafy sea lettuce was considerably lighter in texture than its leathery kelp cousin, I simmered it for only 90 mins. It took only 4 hours to completely dry outside. The result was a very palatable flavour. It unfortunately lost some of its vibrant colour but the cooking definitely broke down the structure to make it more digestible. When it dried, it was quite beautiful in shape. A good first effort I think and I'm now inspired to play with it some more. Maybe cooking it in a sugar syrup would enhance its colour and give it a 'snap' when dried to garnish a desert....

Breakfast was the green juice, followed by the leftover millet porridge with rhubarb, honey, nuts and cinnamon.

Early Dinner was something more substantial. Rice pilau with roasted vegetables. I felt like something hardy.

• 1 cup of brown rice (I had brown basmati)
  
• 2 1/4 cups stock of your choice (meat stocks are a great source of calcium without needing to eat the meat)
  
• various whole spices such as cardamon, star anise, cloves, cinnamon quill
  
• onion diced, garlic, ginger, chilli chopped to taste.
  
  Set oven to 180˚C or 400˚F.
  Slowly saute the last 4 ingredients in a frypan until soft. Add rice. Add spices. Add stock and bring to boil. Season to taste. Pour everything into an oven-proof dish or a silver mixing bowl and cover tightly with lid or aluminium. Bake in oven. Walk away and forget about for 70 mins. Check, stir and add more liquid if req or fork it through and let rest with lid on for a bit.
  
  For the last half hour of cooking time, I added the usual suspects of segmented cauliflower, then asparagus and mushrooms for the last 10 mins, all drizzled with olive oil, tamari, honey, and seasoned with white pepper and salt.
  Enjoy.
  

DAY 9
Breakfast: citron pressé, no green juice this morning...sometimes it's good to have a break the repetition.
Back to the muesli. I love it and it's a great way to get seeds and nuts into you. My mother was inspired by my home-made variety, so she now adds her own assortment of bits to a commercial product, but here's what Mike offered from Berlin.

"...the humble muesli has been processed of course.. the grains have to be manhandled so that they have a shelf life and are also ready to eat!
It’s quite appalling how they strip out the ‘germ’ (because it goes bitter), and the fibre (too rough to chew), and after the processing they mix back in powdered vitamins, salts and sugars. I think in the UK at least, they’re still allowed to call stuff ‘natural’ if they put back (artificially) what they took out in the first place."

I had never heard this before, but explains why my batch turns rancid if I don't munch through it in time. I always thought it was the nuts, and it can be, but the oats I hadn't thought about. When I looked into it some more, I found that oats have 3-5 times more fats (lipids) than other grains, and are heat treated to 90˚C to stabilise them for a longer shelf life.

You can buy organic, unstabilised rolled oats at your local health food store, but store them preferably in an air-tight jar in the dark and try and use them within 4-5 weeks.


Lunch: Leftover rice pilau with roquette (arugula) from the garden, chia and sesame.

Dinner: Out came the parsley salad. The recipe for this is in the previous week's menu. It's kind of like a chunky salsa verde or gremolata and goes with almost anything.

Marieke also made a version of what she used calls " get carrots into kids anyway you can".

grated carrots, soft boiled eggs, blanched asparagus, sliced, snow peas, broad beans, whatever you need to use up from the fridge, basically. The dressing was the basic olive oil (or flax), red wine vinegar, mustard, honey AND the leftovers from an eggplant pickle which i swear took it to new heights. Believe me, this tastes a whole lot better than it probably sounds. Make sure the eggs are still warm, and don't be too precise about any of the ingredients.

We ate it with a puffed rice cracker, and some more green salad.

DAY 10
citron pressé, proceded 30 mins later by a green juice . The juice changes its flavour everyday. One day I agree with Charlotte, it tasted on the pond slime side, and the next day was delicious....so play around with the ratios. Half a grapefruit per cup will take the green-ness away if that's your desire.

Breakfast: Muesli with rice milk, sheep's yoghurt, honey, cinnamon, oatmeal and psyllium. Again, if you're not fond of the lanolin smell and flavour sheep's anything can give off, add honey.

Lunch: I slowly cooked a finely sliced leek (at the end of their season now) in half butter, half olive oil. Added Garlic, ginger and chopped red chilli. Sliced asparagus, mushrooms and added to the base mixture once cooked well. Turned up the heat. Added sliced zucchini, a Tbs of mustard about half a cup of water. Sliced greens...cavollo nero, silver beet, and tossed them into the concoction. Added in sliced spinach at the end with tamari, umeboshi vinegar (not much) and served with the usual sprinkles.

Sprinkles.
GOMASIO is a Japanese seasoning to use in lieu of salt, as the sodium from the sea vegetable is usually enough. Sesame seeds have a very high calcium content.

1 cup UNHULLED sesame seeds, soaked overnight, drained the next day and roasted in the oven till done. (soaking the seeds, nuts and grains makes them more digestible hence more nutritious)
Wakame, oven dried for about 10 mins on the same temp as the seeds (180˚C)

Either grind both individually in a mortar with pestle, or in the blender to a fine-ish grain or to your liking.

CHIA
I've mentioned Chia previously, but it is such a fabulous seed that it deserves another mention.
15x magnesium content of broccoli, 8x more omega 3 than salmon, 5x more calcium than milk and 3x more iron than spinach!

I also mentioned earlier the dangers of taking calcium as a supplement. "Self prescription of drugs or supplements is inadvisable as we can cause as much damage from having too much as we can from having too little" Anne Marie Colbin".
I'll discuss this more in another article, after the cleanse.

Dinner: It was Friday night, and we'd been invited around to a friend's house for a quick bite before heading to a wine lounge for some clever cabaret. None of these things, as may appear, are conducive to liver cleansing.....so a good test of my resilience after ten days.

Fortunately, our friends had also been cleansing and were not only sympathetic to the cause but are also constantly aware of what they eat. They all have the most magnificent gardens, bursting at the seams with an enormous variety of both fruit and vegetables, chickens and rabbits to boot.
Dinner that night was sushi and sashimi, inari rolls, Japanese spinach and fresh oysters. By the time Swanny had arrived back from the boat with a bucket of fresh scallops, we had no room left!


Japanese Spinach (adapted from a recipe out of the New York Times)
500g spinach, stemmed and washed
3 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
2 teaspoons sugar (I'd use only one and honey of you're cleansing)
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon sake
1 tablespoon water (more to taste)
1/2 teaspoon dark sesame oil

1. Bring a large pot of generously salted water to a boil. Blanch a handful of spinach at a time for 5 seconds in the boiling water using a deep-fry skimmer. Cool, drain and gently squeeze out water. Chop coarsely.
2. Make the dressing. If your sesame seeds have not been toasted, heat a dry skillet over medium heat and add the sesame seeds. Stir and shake the pan constantly, and as soon as the seeds turn golden and smell nutty, transfer to a suribachi mortar and pestle or to a spice mill. Allow to cool. Grind the seeds just until crushed.
3. Combine the soy sauce and sugar in a small bowl and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Add the sake and water, then stir in the ground sesame seeds. Thin out with water. Toss with the spinach and stir together until the dressing infuses the spinach. Be careful not to bruise the spinach leaves. Divide into four small bunches and place in the middle of four small plates or bowls. Drizzle on a few drops of sesame oil. Serve at room temperature.
Yield: Four small servings
Advance preparation: You can blanch the spinach up to a day in advance. The dish can be assembled and refrigerated several hours before serving.

I abstained from the temptations of the wine bar, and to be honest... after 10 days, it wasn't really that difficult. It only takes 2 weeks to lose your palate for sugar, alcohol and anything else you thought you could never 'give up'.

Interestingly, this was the first meal which my stomach reacted to. It's usually a given that I will bloat at the sight of wheat, and I haven't felt bloated at all on this diet...until now. Then I remembered that Monica Henry had discovered a starch/ protein intolerance when pulse testing me a year ago, so I obviously still carry it. I didn't mind though....

Days 1-7 Spring Liver Cleanse

I’ve decided to go on a spring body clean whilst doing a Julie/ Julia by posting my daily menu. I’d like to invite you to join me, but only if it feels right. I will mention however, that Spring is THE ideal time to dust out the corners and remove the rubbish.
The main foods to avoid in most cleanses are wheat, alcohol, caffeine, tobacco, sugar, dairy, red meat and yeast. If you suddenly gasped, this would indicate your attachment to these groups. Don't worry, it's actually easier than it sounds if you focus on what you CAN eat rather than on what you CAN'T.
I’ll include a couple of recipes and other interesting ways to include incredibly nutritious and nourishing foods into your diet.

"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." (Ben Franklin)

And for fun I’ll categorise the foods I’ve eaten using the Chinese Five Phase Theory, and keep a journal of my moods and energy levels (I won't post all this as there's too much information with tables, but if you would like to keep a journal on the side yourself, then take a look at a comprehensive list of foods categorised not only into the elements, but also into blood groups, flavour, temp and acid/ alkaline. The two columns that I'm looking at are the elements and acid/ alkaline. (which I'll explain later)

As far as the 'eat right for your blood type' goes, my own personal experience contradicts this philosophy. According to the theory, my blood type of A+ has a sensitive immune system, high levels of stress hormone and should stick to a vegetarian diet. Well, I haven't had a cold for 4 years, stress ain't exactly my middle name, and after being tested by Dr Monica Henry , discovered that I occasionally require red meat.

If however, this philosophy works for you, then I would recommend sticking with what works.
I also like to adopt some Ayurvedic philosophies into my diet when including and avoiding certain foods. As a rule of thumb, I try to keep all philosophies in mind when choosing what to eat without being too regimental about any single one of them, otherwise the joy of eating can be compromised. What many have in common though, is a fundamental criteria for choosing foods, which is: whole,seasonal, fresh, local, organic, vibrant, and above all, delicious! If you wanted to know more about Ayurveda in a nutshell, then take the quiz to determine your 'dosha', or constitution. It's a rough guide but it give you the fundamentals, explain which foods to avoid, which time of day you're most productive in, why you're assertive, sluggish or dreamy etc. Ayurveda is essentially a science of healing, which is concentrated on the techniques and practices for maintaining a healthy and happy life

For a real insight into Ayurveda, join us next March when we travel through South India to explore the origins of Yoga and experience the benefits of Ayurvedic treatments at specialised retreats.
Read the itinerary

Healthy food is more than merely fuel we put into our bodies to make them work at peak efficiency. Properly chosen, the food we eat nurtures mind and spirit too." "Anne Marie Colbin"

Take your cleanse day-by-day, but I plan to aim for at least 2 weeks, maybe 3…. Don’t forget, that when you come off a cleanse or a fast, then you should take the same amount of time to slowly re-introduce foods back into your diet, and if you were suspicious about any particular food, then it’s the ideal time to observe what happens as you eat it again.

Oh…and the other thing to remember is to sit down without distraction when eating (if possible), and chew chew chew your food (32 times per mouthful is recommended) as chewing releases an important enzyme which aids the digestion and alkalizes the food.
And drink drink drink. If you have a few toxins roaming around in there, then water will help to flush them out once they’ve been released into your system through the cleanse. This is quite important!

DAY 1
First thing I do when my feet hit the floor, is walk into the kitchen, warm the kettle and squeeze a lemon. Juice of half a lemon or 'citron pressé' with WARM water (not hot, not cold), is a great way to kick-start your liver, break the overnight fast, and enjoy a burst of vit C. Diluting the lemon with warm water softens the blow to the enamel on your teeth, and if this is already a problem, then I'd suggest using a straw to avoid the acid/enamel contact altogether.

Breakfast: Juice... after a long time without juice over winter, Spring yields many wonderful treats to either juice in your juicer, blend in your blender, or pulverize in your thermomix...if you're lucky enough to have one. Certainly blending or pulverizing are the way to go as you will consume all the fibrous material that juicers discard... unless you stir it back in at the end. I combine what is currently in our garden... beetroot, celery, silverbeet, spinach, parsley, and add ginger, half a grapefruit and a carrot. Now I know there's a lot of debate around fruit and veg combinations, but my theory is that as long as it's citrus or not sweet, then it's OK. Definitely avoid including melon of any description and stick to the melon rule... "eat it alone or leave it alone".

Muesli.I make my own by toasting organic everything including oats, pepitas, sunflower seeds, almonds, brazil nuts, coconut, then I add goji berries, cranberries, dried figs etc. You can add or take whatever you like to this recipe. Remember...recipes are only road maps!

Lunch: Parsley salad, roasted beets with sprinkled sesame seeds, roquette, and Indian egg salad.
Most of these ingredients came from our garden. I don't normally put so much effort into making a lunch like this, so I'll come clean and admit that they were leftovers from the previous day's entertaining.
The parsley salad is a huge hit with anyone who is fortunate enough to have it pass their lips, and I'll divulge the recipe. It's simple. LOTS of parsley washed, dried and finely 'chiffonaded' (sliced finely), capers, finely diced olives and pickles, parmesan (optional if you're on a cleanse) finely grated rind of a lemon, juice of a lemon, white pepper, HEAPS of olive oil/ flax seed oil combo (it'll just soak it up), and anything else you'd like to add. Some like the fury fish (anchovies), it's one thing I don't.

Dinner: Quinoa with spring veg, arame, walnuts and kimchi
I soaked some Arame (thin sea vegetable) and boiled it for 10 mins.
I boiled quinoa on the side for approx 12 mins.
In a wok I tossed the walnuts in butter (did someone say, cleanse??) , added chopped leeks with olive oil, cooked them well, and added a chopped tomato for another 10 mins.
Here you can add any veg you like...leafy greens if you haven't included them yet into your day, grated carrot, fresh asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower..whatever!
When cooked, toss through quinoa, arame and stir through till hot.
Serve and garnish with kimchi, sesame seeds, chia or whatever other clever little sprinkle you've pre-made which sits on call 24/7.

If much of this sounds foreign, I'm happy to explain if you ask. I'd also recommend using you favorite search engine to find out how to make kimchi, and check out this video (link below) for a very quick demo. Be clever, look at a few recipes and use the ingredients that you prefer as there are as many recipes for kimchi as there are Koreans. Avoid rice flour, more than a tsp chilli powder (the Koreans use a tonne), include sea vegetables and remember that you need to salt the cabbage for at least 2-3 days for the probiotics to bloom in full. It won't happen overnight.
Kimchi is a fabulous probiotic which would replace the supplements you take, naturally!
For a fun, 2 min demo, watch the video.

But if you REALLY want to make a great kimchi, then come to Marieke's next cooking class on Sunday Nov 29th where she'll include it in her christmas/ entertaining season repertoire.
Click here for details.


I'll discuss the wonderful world of sea vegetables later, but in the mean time, I'd suggest toasting a nori sheet RIGHT NOW, paint it with flax seed or olive oil, sprinkle some sesame seeds on it and you'd pretty much have your daily allowance of omega 3's, magnesium and calcium right there. Sarah Heathcote toasts her nori, paints it with sesame oil, and sprinkles it with truffle salt to meet her 7 yr old niece's tastes. I must say this is also very delicious.

DAY 2
citron pressé...wait at least ten mins, then juice, then...
Muesli for breakfast. Did I mention I eat the muesli with rice milk? I avoid anything 'enriched' with anything. They're normally enriched with synthetic vitamins and minerals and don't belong there.

Lunch Home-cured sardines, roquette with flaxseed oil, roasted beets and parsley salad (that parsley salad goes a long way... and keeps getting better with age, unlike most dressed salads.)

Dinner After teaching a class and coming home around 8.30pm, all I needed was something light. I cooked some leeks and mushroom with cumin seeds and turmeric powder, diced tomato, sprinkled it with chia and garnished with kimchi.

already my energy levels are rising!

DAY 3
citron pressé, give it ten minutes, then juice, then
Muesli for breakfast. Again. For extra fibre and help with digestion if required, sprinkle on oatbran and psyllium husk which I buy at the local Rye Health food store along with all my other muesli needs. Andrew also keeps a great stock of sea vegetables, chia, quinoa and other seeds and grains I will eat over the next few days. Support local!

Lunch: My first dilemma, but with a great lesson in it. I was out on 'my rounds', seeing a few clients, and found blood/sugar levels dropping indicated clearly by my head feeling light and my focus waning. And I was in downtown Rye....
What to eat without returning home? What are my choices? It made me realise how 'convenienced' our world has become. Everything available to me was inappropriate to my cleansing programme. I was surrounded by bleached, white, fast and processed and drowning in the smell of bad oils wafting from the dozen or so fish and chipperies on that strip.

So I returned home half dead, ate a delicious nectarine and had an early dinner instead. What I learned was to be organised, just how our forefathers were before the word convenience entered the culinary world. I now have to think about my day, plan my meal times and prepare for the times when I'm roaming the streets and take snacks with me (nuts, dried fruits, sesame crackers etc).

Dinner: Fresh trout oven baked with tamari, sesame oil, chilli bean paste, and lime juice. You can also add miso paste to this, mirin, or a combination of any these ingredients when marinating fish. Slit the fish to rub into the flesh, and cook accordingly, depending on fish size but for a trout would be around 12-15 mins at 180˚C.
(tamari is a wheat-free version of soy sauce)

I also roasted sections of cauliflower (yes...roasted!) with tamari, olive oil, a drizzle of honey and white pepper, plus any spices you may like to sprinkle over the top. Sumac works well.
The same recipe works for many vegetables than won't wilt in an oven. Play around with them.

Sliced zucchinis I bought from a local, organic farm this morning (Rosemary's... 201 Old Cape Shank Rd) pan tossed in a little butter (I think some animal fat in your diet is essential for processing the natural sugars found in other foods) with cumin seeds and tumeric.

I wok tossed fresh greens from the garden...silverbeet, cavollo nero, spinach with some garlic and ginger, and sprinkled sesame seeds over to serve, kimchi on the side and off you go!

DAY 4
citron pressé then off to teach yoga, so I eat a few nuts (preferably soaked overnight to release their full nutritional value) to keep the blood sugar regulated.
I picked up some backyard mulberries from the market today on the Rye foreshore which are quite early but delicious and highly alkalizing. Ate a few before returning home to make..
Breakfast Muesli with sheep's yogurt, honey and cinnamon. The honey/ cinnamon combo is fantastic for a range of things from lowering cholesterol , helping arthritis, preventing hair loss... google it in your spare time. I don't have any of these ailments fortunately, but it is also a good all-round tonic for the immune system, so I figure you can't go too far wrong with small quantities..

Dinner As it was a late breakfast, we had an early-ish dinner in the city at a friend's restaurant 'Residential'. Nice'n'light'wholesome consisting of a tomato consume; broccoli soup; gurnard fish with pickled cabbage and radish, spinach and cauliflower. Delicious. It wasn't hard to choose something from the menu which met the criteria of my cleanse.


DAY 5
The first comments have started to come in.... questions on how to cure sardines, discussions on sattvic food.... so if you're interested in the forum, scroll down and click on 'comments'.

Breakfast: citron pressé, give it ten minutes, then juice, then Muesli. Mike wrote to me today discussin the horrors of muesli in the UK, so I hope he posts the info on this site with links and all.
This morning I stewed some rhubarb gently for 7-10 mins with sliced ginger and added a bit of honey to lose the tartness. Spoon this over your muesli with some sheep's yogurt and more honey,

Lunch: Being a Sunday, I again had a late breakfast and early dinner which suits my earthy dosha right to the ground. (see the above paragraph on Ayurveda). This won't suit some people who definitely require food religiously at mealtimes. They tend to be more of the 'Pita' type (fire).

Dinner
Marieke wok fried asparagus, silverbeet and spinach with leftover trout and sardines tossed through some chilli soy bean paste, tamari, mirin with the usual sprinkles.

DAY 6
Breakfast: citron pressé, juice, soaked a cup of buckwheat, then off to Yoga. As Yoga is best practised on an empty or near empty stomach, I'd recommend only eating a few nuts to keep your blood/sugar regulated.
When I returned, I strained the buckwheat, rinsed it thoroughly (it eliminates that signature 'sliminess'), brought a saucepan of salted water to the boil, cooked the buckwheat for about 3-4 mins, and rinsed again in cold water. Now it's ready to use in anything you like. Make a risotto with it, add it to your yoghurt and rhubarb, or toss it in a saucepan with the leftovers from dinner the night before, which is what I did.

Again, that was a late brunch, so I stuck with my constitutional eating habits and went for an early dinner, having a rice cracker with avocado, flaxseed oil and roquette, or a piece of fruit if required during the day, depending on how much energy I'm burning.

Dinner: asparagus, broccoli, spinach, silverbeet, cavollo nero and mushrooms quickly wok tossed with haloumi (sheep's cheese), served with a poached egg from Fi and Swanny's chooks down the road.

A quick word about spring cooking. Each season determines how to cook your food. Winter is traditionally long and slow, but spring requires fast, wok style cooking. i.e shorter times at higher temperatures, or light steaming, or minimal simmering.

I soaked ten almonds overnight to make a drink for tomorrow (serves 2)

and I soaked 1/4 cup of millet for breakfast in the morning in 1/4 cup of water, and 1/2 tsp of umeboshi vinegar (or 1/4 tsp lemon juice).

DAY 7
That's it? A week already?? Time then to observe how you're feeling if you haven't been keeping a diary, mentally at least . How are your energy levels, your moods, your toiletry habits, your clarity, your general wellbeing?

I feel..well....lighter. Physically I feel my stomach has shrunk, and today I didn't even feel hungry. I've noticed that I don't have a 3 o'clock craving for something sweet (which is ususally tamed by dark chocolate). Having to be more thoughtful about what goes in certainly removes the impulse for consuming something just to satisfy a need that may not have been hunger related in the first place.

I am enjoying more clarity, less tiredness in the afternoon and have become aware that my energy levels have regulated themselves. It really does feel like the energy of my body is flowing more freely, without getting 'stuck' in any corners. The Germans have a line, "Ich hab' kein bock mehr" which more or less means "I don't feel like it anymore"
Cleansing brings back your Bock.

This picture, by the way, is a corner of the parsley jungle which you're welcome to help yourself to if within driving distance

There is a Vedic expression that basically says that "...if our digestion is strong, our bodies can turn poison into nectar, but if our digestion is weak, we can turn nectar into poison."

If you really want to give your digestion a chance, here are some tips to improving it:

• Sit down while you eat.


• Eat in a quiet atmosphere.


• Focus on the food; do not read or watch TV as you eat.


• Don’t rush through meals or linger over them too long.


• Eat meals at approximately the same times every day.


• Stop eating before you are completely full.
  
• Eat when you are hungry, when the stomach is empty. ·


• Sip warm water with meals.


• Avoid ice-cold food and beverages.


• Sit quietly for a few minutes after eating.
  
  

DAY 7
Breakfast: I've adapted the millet recipe from one I found in Anne Marie Colbin's "Food and Our Bones". It's a great book and one that totally enlightened me on the subject of calcium. Many people think that calcium=bone density=less chance of breaking bones... but that equation isn't necessarily true. I'll discuss this later, but for now I'd recommend thinking about taking those calcium supplements just because you feel you need to..... A small plate of whitebait will provide you with over 300% of your recommended daily intake of calcium.

Cook the millet in 1 1/4 cups of water, or rice milk/water for about 20 mins or longer if you like it creamier (lid on, low flame). Meanwhile, toast some nuts and seeds of your choice... I like pepitas, sunflower, almonds, brazil... you can add anything you like, goji, dates etc. It's bascially a porridge, so I also add a sprinkle of cinnamon and nutmeg; rhubarb and sheep's yogurt with a drizzle of honey. This makes two servings, but if you're dining solo, then it'll keep in the fridge and it will re-heat well in the saucepan.

Lunch once again, a late breakfast meant an early dinner before heading to the cinema. In the afternoon I made an ayurvedic almond drink from the nuts I soaked the night before. It kind of replaced the campari cocktail...kind of.

• 10 almonds, soaked overnight and peeled the next day.


• 2 cups of rice milk or coconut milk


• pinch of crushed cardamon seeds and black pepper


• honey to taste

Blend the almonds to a fine paste. Heat the milk with the hony and spices. Add almonds and there you go. It's lovely warm, but also nice over ice.

Dinner I made another parsley salad just because I love it so much, and found some soft goats cheese in the fridge that I grated instead of parmesan. It definately needs a cheese of some description to pull it all together.

Ate that with organic rice crackers Marieke found down at the local IGA. Very impressed at how out little supermarkets are evolving...although still a LONG way behind the ultra-impressive Wholefoods Supermarket chain that started in the States 30 years ago. It's a different sensation one feels when entering a Wholefoods. One of trust...trust that everything in there is good for you without having to take out a bank loan to fill your trolley.

I soaked a variety of seeds for sprouting

I soaked UNHULLED sesame seeds for roasting tomorrow.