Wild Rose Detox, Day 1: What you can and can't eat

Day 1 is over and I'm doing well so far! Below is a table I've made of the foods that I should be eating and shouldn't be eating, and have stuck it by my work computer and on my fridge at home. I'm finding it fun and helpful to highlight all of the items that I've used as ingredients, so I can try to control the amount of each that I'm eating. I also section off my plate into a pie, so to speak, and only have Section 1 Foods covering a small slice of it.

The Detox recommends that you eat 80% alkaline and neutral foods in your diet (Sections 2&3), and limit your intake of acid forming foods to 20% (Section 1). 

SECTION 1 (eat less than 20%) :  Protein/Acid forming foods
Most recommended	Acceptable during programme	Not recommended during programme
Fish	Beans (dried fresh beans)	Buttermilk
	Beef	Cheese (of any kind)
	Eggs (whole)	Seafood (shellfish)
	Grains **	Yoghurt
	Lamb
	Lentils
	Liver
	Nuts (except peanuts)
	Oatmeal
	Peas (dried) fresh peas
	Poultry
	Pork
	Prunes (cooked)
	Rhubarb (cooked)
	Rice (white)
	Seeds (i.e. sunflower, flax etc.)
	Soy beans
	Tofu (plain, unsweetened)
	Veal
	Wheatgerm

SECTION 2 (eat 80% or more) :  Starch Foods/Alkaline forming foods

Recommended Acceptable during programme Not recommended during programme Millet, buckwheat Almond milk (without sweeteners) Bananas Rice (Brown) Apples Currants Quinoa Apricots Dried fruit Almonds Berries (blueberries, raspberries etc.) Fruit juices Cherries Flour of any grains Lemons Grapes Peaches, pears, plums, nectarines Honey Popcorn Malt Potatoes (baked) Malt syrup Pumpkin (squash, yams, sweet potatoes) Melons-cantaloupe, honeydew etc. Sesame seeds Molasses Tahini Oranges Tomatoes*** Pasta  Pineapple Raisins Soups thickened with flour Tropical fruit SECTION 3 (eat 80% or more) :  Bulk forming foods/Neutral foods Recommended Acceptable during programme Not recommended during programme Chives Arugula Cottage cheese Garlic Artichokes Mushrooms Ginger Asparagus Onions Avocado Tea (herbal, without milk)* Beans (green) dried beans Water Beets or Beet tops Bok Choy Broccoli Brussel Sprouts Butter Cabbage/Carrots/Cauliflower Celery/collards/corn/chards Cucumbers Dandelion Eggplant/endive/escarole Herbs (for seasoning) Kale Kohlrabi Lettuce Mustard Greens Okra Oils except peanut oil **** Pasley, parsnips, peas (green) Peppermint Peppers (green, red, orange, yellow) Radiccio Radishes Rutabagas Seaweeds (kelp, nori etc.) Sorrel Spinach Sprouts Turnips Vegetable seasoning (without yeast!!) Watercress

Notes
*Coffee, green tea and herbal tea are acceptable, max. two cups a day
** Barley, kasha, bulgar, spelt, kamut, amaranth, oats, rye, wheat berries
*** Food to eat in moderation: Tomato or vegetable juice, salt
**** i.e. Olive oil, flax oil, sunflower oil
To be avoided: The golden rules
Breads
Flours or flour products (pasta, cakes, pancakes, crackers, flour in sauces or gravy
Dairy products (except butter)
Tropical fruits
All fermented foods (wine, beer, vinegar, soy sauce, black tea, miso)

One of the main functions of the Detox is to balance the pH levels in your body in order for it to operate more efficiently at an optimum level. Our modern diet tends towards much more acid forming foods, making it harder for our bodies to do their jobs.

You are told to not eat flour, flour products, sugar, or fermented foods and sauces. Mushrooms and grapes contain yeast on their outer skin, peanuts have naturally occurring yeasts and molds, sugar is not permitted because yeast thrives on it ... Another function of the Detox is to rid the body of excess yeast, to balance the 'friendly' yeast and the 'naturally occurring yeast' in your body. Yeast over-growths and imbalances can cause digestive problems, bloating, headaches, fatigue, depression...you catch the drift!

I myself have never really given a thought to pH levels and yeast over-growths in my body, but this detox makes sense on many levels:

• Limits meat intake, including meat and fish
• Forbids the intake of dairy (although oddly enough, you're allowed to eat butter) and flour products
• Encourages you to eat more grains, veggies and pulses
• Encourages you to drink more water
• Encourages you to limit your caffeine intake, but doesn't make you suffer without it
• Recommends that you give up drinking alcohol for 12 days 

Essentially, there is nothing really that extraordinary about this diet. You could probably follow these guidelines and still be quite a lot healthier after 2 weeks, even without the supplements.

There are certain conditions that will make your life easier (and your results better) when doing the Wild Rose D-tox. Read here for a list of things may help a lazy person get though.


Breakfast 
I don't usually eat breakfast but this detox makes me quite hungry - I think it's because I'm not allowed to eat certain things, so my brain tells me I want to eat everything, even though I'm physically fine.

The detox says no fruit juices (Section 3), however it accepts apples, pears and carrots - so what is so wrong about making them into a juice? I've always been skeptical about carrots in juice, but it was actually amazingly good...
 

Everything tastes better through a straw! :-)

Luckily, my mum has a juicer. If you don't have one at home, then try one of the fresh juice vendors on the street. 

Lunch: Tofu omelette

with fresh corn on the cob

Lunch 

For tofu omelette, you'll need:
fresh tofu (for frying, unsweetened), cut roughly
spring onion
1/2 white onion, sliced
2 eggs
olive oil
chilli flakes
sesame oil
salt and pepper


Fry the onion and the white part of the spring onion in a tiny bit of olive oil. When soft, add the tofu squares and fry until nicely browned, then turn them over. Add the egg and the green part of the spring onion, season with salt and pepper and chilli flakes. When cooked, you can divide the omelette into quarters and then flip each quarter - it doesn't have to be perfect. Serve with a small drizzle of sesame oil.

Dinner
For a 1.8kg whole chicken (I used the Brazil chicken from Wellcome):


Preheat the oven to 190C. Stuff the cavity with half a lemon (pierce the flesh of the lemon with a fork first), half a head of garlic, 1 bay leaf, and (optional) a couple of sprigs of fresh rosemary, sage or thyme. Rub the chicken with a mixture of 2 tbsp of olive oil, salt and pepper, to season.

Place on a roasting tray with some cloves of garlic (I LOVE roasted garlic with everything!), and potatoes if you wish. I've chosen not to eat potatoes during the detox. You can baste it during the cooking time, but I don't bother!

The Detox recommends that you eat as much organic as possible. I'll be ordering quite a bit from South Stream Seafoods today, and my next roast chicken will be free range - no growth hormones - no antibiotics - no GMO feed!

Roast chicken  is one of the tastiest things I cook on this detox - it's great because you have plenty left for lunch and even dinner again the next day!

I served the chicken with roasted pumpkin. Scrub the skin well and dry, then cut the pumpkin in half - careful with the knife, these things move around a bit! Scoop out the seeds and discard. Cut it into approx. 1 1/2 " slices. Lightly coat a baking tray with olive oil (line with parchment if you want to be cleaner) - toss the slices so they are all oiled, place so they are not overlapping, and season with salt and pepper. Optimally they should be cooked at 200C for 30-35 minutes, but putting it in on the bottom shelf with the chicken at 190C is not a huge issue - they just aren't as crispy, so I stuck them under the grill for a bit while I carved the chicken.

And after...

The pumpkin before roasting...

While the chicken was roasting, I made guacamole for my Day 2 snack. 2 avocados, cherry tomatoes (quartered), big bunch of coriander (chopped finely), 1/2 shallot (diced finely), 2 tsp of lemon, a sprinkle of chilli flakes, salt and pepper. If you are storing the guac, putting the cling film directly on top of it stops it from turning black.

Eaten on rice cakes - you wouldn't have caught me touching one of these with a barge pole, but these are quite nice! I bought them at the organic food store on Bonham Road (opposite High Street)

More tomorrow! :-)