Fatigue, headaches, moods swings, weight gain and inflammation; these are just some of the signs that indicate you may unknowingly be suffering from a silent invader – yeast.
Our health begins in the digestive tract, and rampant use of antibiotics and sugar addiction has led to an epidemic known as candidiasis, or yeast overgrowth in the body. The Body Ecology Diet is a new diet sensation from the US which aims to end this. Endorsed by actress Jessica Biel, for whom its principles have become essential, it promotes probiotic nutrition for weight loss, longevity and optimal health.
The best thing about this diet is – it really works! You could see dramatic results even within the first few days, especially if you have severe symptoms and start attacking them at the point where you’ll get the greatest return on your investment of effort. For example, the very first action is to eliminate all forms of sugar from your diet.
It’s all about re-adjusting the yeast imbalance many of us suffer – often unknowingly – restoring the body’s inner ‘ecology’ through different eating principles. The diet focuses on food combining and elimination, and the inclusion of raw, cultured vegetables, which should be consumed with most meals.
Following the diet, you’ll drastically reduce your intake of carbohydrates and sugars, and also change the quality of the fats and oils that you comsume.
The Body Ecology diet is governed by the following seven key principles, which work in harmony to heal you from the inside.
1. Expansion/contraction
This focuses on balancing out foods which cause the body to contract. Some foods, such as salt, cause a contraction of the cellular fluids. Too much salt can cause dehydration or extreme loss of bodily fluid. When we eat it, especially too much of it, we become thirsty. Foods with salt inside them, such as meat and cheese, produce a contacting effect. When we eat them, we feel more uptight or closed. A diet high in these foods can also cause constipation.
Other foods, like sugar, cause expansion. The bloodstream quickly absorbs sugar and produces energy. If you notice you’re feeling too contracted, you might also observe that you’re beginning to crave something expansive (with sugar in it) to help you relax or feel more open. The Body Ecology diet will teach you how to balance the foods you eat. Some foods are naturally balanced, and you’ll want to eat them often.
2. UNIQUENESS
This is about observing your body’s reactions and calmly assessing whether this new path is bringing you back toward balance. As the seasons move from hot to cold and back, and as you body’s every-changing condition and nutritional requirements shift, your food choices will, too. You’ll have freedom to move between raw foods (when you want to cool and cleanse your body and/or rest the liver) and steamed, simmered, broiled and baked foods (when you need easilydigested, warming foods).
3. Acid/alkaline
The knowledge of how to keep your blood in a slightly alkaline condition is vital to restoring your health. An imbalance toward too much acidity allows yeast, viruses, rebellious (cancer) cells, and various other parasites to thrive.
If you have an acidic condition from eating an acid-forming diet, your body is constantly trying to return to a more balanced state by calling on your stored reserves of alkaline minerals: sodium, calcium, potassium and magnesium. Continuing this way means you create a mineral deficiency that becomes severe over time.
4. CLEANSING
This is all about supporting your body’s own natural cleansing processes, and not suppressing any of the resulting unpleasant symptoms that arise.
Cleansing is you body’s natural way to get rid of waste or toxins, and it occurs daily in some form or another. Tears, urine, mucus, sweat – all are examples of body cleansing that we regard as very normal. But the body has other normal ways to eliminate harmful substances – giving us such distruptions as fevers, colds, and skin eruptions – and we have been taught that these are bad and need to be suppressed. The monthly menstrual cycle offers women a special opportunity to cleanse. The entire body enters cleansing mode, so take advantage of this and treat yourself well. Rest a little more, plan quiet activities and eat warm, alkaline-forming foods.
5. Food combining
This principle teaches which foods are incompatible in the stomach to avoid fermentation in the digestive system. It’s an important factor in combatting candidiasis; the overgrowth of yeast in your system won’t disappear if you are combining these foods improperly.
By combining foods properly, you’ll never be overweight. In fact, you’ll probably lose some weight. Properly combined food is assimilated better and allows the body to metabolise it and avoid storing fat. You’ll also have more energy.
There are three main rules for combining: eat fruits alone and on an empty stomach, always eat protien with non-starchy and/or ocean vegetables, and always eat grains, grainlike seeds, and starchy vegetables with non-starchy and/or ocean vegetables.
6. 80/20
Two rules: eat until your stomach is 80 per cent full, leaving 20 per cent available for digesting, and fill 80 per cent of your plate with a variety of land and/or ocean vegetables.
If you eat until you’re 100 per cent full, digestion can’t occur promptly, and fermentation occurs, with yeast happily feeding off the sugars produced in the process. Leaving about 20 per cent room in the stomach for the digestive enzymes to do their job is essential for efficient digestion and for quickly turning around your bodyecology imbalance.
7. STEP BY STEP
This concept intersects with all the other principles, rules and tips, and is about taking time to heal.
The impurities and toxins you’ve built up in your system over the years cannot be eliminated all at once – they must be removed in an orderly cleansing process. But this doesn’t mean it has to be slow. You can choose how quickly you go through the steps of healing. For example, when you first start the diet, you may have very uncomfortable symptoms of yeast die-off, since you are no longer feeding the it. If you absolutely can’t stand it, or if you need to feel better for work, you can slow down the cleansing by transitioning into the diet little by little.
“The best thing about this diet is – it really works!”
Fermented foods
The plan is a gluten-free, sugar-free, probiotic-rich one, in which we encourage you to eat plenty of the most healing of foods… fermemted foods. Raw cultured vegetables, along with a magical fermented drink called young coconut kefir, are the real signature stars of the Body Ecology diet.
Fermenting the meat of the young coconut gives us another fermented food called coconut kefir ‘cheese’. The diet also has fermented protein powders and probiotic liquids. Thankfully, fermented foods are gaining muchdeserved overdue attention and a worldwide reputation for being magical healing foods.
The Body Ecology-approved cultured foods fight yeast and other unhealthy pathogens in your intestines. Besides providing your body with beneficial microflora (bifidus, acidophilus, plantarum, bulgaricus, and beneficial yeast), these cultured foods will be an important factor in recolonising your inner ecosystem.
GET CULTURED
Raw cultured vegetables are the diet’s superfoods that contribute immensely to healing and building your inner ecosystem. These have been around for thousands of years, but we have never needed them more than we do today. Rich in lactobacilli and enzymes, alkaline-forming, and loaded with vitamins, they are an ideal food that can and should be consumed with every meal.
Since cultured vegetables are an excellent source of vitamin C, Dutch seamen used to carry them to prevent scurvy. For centuries, the Chinese have cultured cabbage in the autumn to ensure a source of greens through the winter when they lacked refridgeration. Cultured vegetables are also a favourite food of the long-lived Hunzans.
How do I identify candidiasis?
From time to time in your life, you’ve almost certainly had fevers, stomach upsets, ear problems, headaches, skin rashes, aches and pains, and other physical complaints. Normally, these clear up fairly quickly, and the symptoms do not recur frequently. If they do recur, and you go to your doctor with one or several of these complaints but there is no apparent explanation or cure, then you may have a yeast-related condition.
How to make cultured veggies
Cultured vegetables are made by shredding cabbage or a combination of cabbage and other vegetables and then packing them tightly into an airtight container, leaving to ferment at room temperature for several days or longer. Friendly bacteria naturally present in the vegetables quickly lower the pH, making a more acidic environment so the bacteria can reproduce. The vegetables become soft, delicious and somewhat ‘pickled’.
The airtight container can be glass or stainless steel. Use a container that seals with a rubber or plastic ring and a clamp-down lid. Room temperature means 70 degrees fahrenheit. While three days is the minimum, we prefer to let ours sit for at least six or seven days, and have even left them culturing for weeks. Just taste them at different stages and decide for yourself.
Enjoyment and experimentation
Once you master the basic technique, be creative. Try different vegetable combinations, and include dark green leafy vegetables like kale and collards. Soak, drain and chop up some ocean vegetables, like dulse, wakame, hijikki, and arame. Add your favourite herbs (dried or fresh), seeds (dill or caraway) and juniper berries. Even lemon juice can be added to the ‘brine’. Try leaving out the cabbage altogether and making a batch of cultured daikon.
“Cultured foods fight yeast and other unhealthy pathogens in your intestines”
Two beginners’ recipes
One important secret to making really delicious yet medicinal cultured veggies is to use freshly harvested, organic, well-cleaned vegetables. After washing, spin them dry. Clean equipment is essential. Rinse everything you use in very hot water.
COMBINATION 1
3 heads green cabbage, shredded in a food processor
1 bunch of kale, chopped
(optional) 2 cups wakame ocean vegetables (measured after soaking), drained and chopped, with spine removed
1 tbsp dill seed
COMBINATION 2
3 heads green cabbage, shredded in a food processor
6 large carrots, shredded in a food processor
3-inch piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
6 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
Combine all of the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl
Remove several cups of the mixture and put into a blender
Add enough filtered water to make a brine with the consistency of thick juice. Blend well then add brine back to the first mixture. Stir well (if using starter culture, see below).
Pack mixture down into a glass or stainless-steel, air-tight container. Use your fist, a wooden dowel, or a potato masher to pack veggies tightly.
Fill container almost full, but leave about two inches of room at the top for expansion
Roll up several cabbage leaves into a tight ‘log’ and place them on top to fill the remaining two-inch space. Clamp jar closed.
Let the veggies sit at room temperature for at least three days. A week is even better. Refrigerate to slow down fermentation. Enjoy!
If you use a starter culture:
Dissolve one package of starter culture in 1/4 cup warm water (90°F) water. Add a small amount of sugar to feed the starter. Let starter/sugar mixture sit for about 20 minutes or longer while the L. Plantarum and other bacteria wake up and begin feeding. Add this starter culture to the brine (step 3 above).
Tips for eating raw cultured veg
Include at least half a cup of the veggies in any meal where you are eating protein or starch. Use the juice in salad dressing as a replacement for apple cider vinegar or lemon juice. You can also toss the veggies into salads, wrap them up in blue cornmeal tortillas, or serve them with blue corn chips.
Never heat the vegetables, or the valuable enzymes and bacteria will be killed. If you leave them out at room temperature for a while, they come alive and start to multiply quickly. So sometimes when you open a jar, the veggies overflow and start bubbling over the top. This is good! It just means your batch is rich with viable bacteria ready to go to work in your digestive tract and establish a new inner ecology.
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