As you know, we have been spending a month getting ramped up for our 4 week Detox program. Since starting, I have purchased the strangest array of foods and spices as well as a means to sprout, dehydrate or ferment foods.
I used my sprouter to create 2 kinds of sprouts. One was a french salad mix which was delicious. The other was a mix of peas that created a rather odd looking array of sprouts. They were a little getting used to but were great with the salad dressing I made. I found that sprouts do not last long. They need to be eaten within a few days. It makes more sense to make one batch and start the next batch a day or so before you are ready to eat the first. Having two at once provided more variety but we could not eat them that fast.
My latest purchases include Umeboshi Plum paste. Yum. This is a pickled plum product that is rather sour but with the smooth fruity taste you would expect. I added some to my raw vinegar to may Umeboshi vinegar which I could not find in any store. This vinegar is a delicious base for salad dressings, or just simply sprinkled on food. I really have not found a purpose for the plum paste itself. As a fun thing, I found some rice wine with Umebosji plums in the container. The wine was surprisingly light and refreshing and it was quite a conversation starter seeing the plums floating on the bottom.
The next item is Nama Shoyo sauce which is very similar to Soy sauce. It has no MSG and it is not as strong. I made a stir fry this week and used it but it can be used in place of salt on anything.
Dulse is a dried seaweed product. you can eat it right out of the package and it is a little chewy like a fruit roll-up. Can't see eating it that way but cut up and added to food would be good. Seaweed is a very beneficial product to balance the thyroid. I aslo found a product called Modifian Brown seaweed extract. According to this product write-up, it can help to eliminate heavy metals from the body and aid in weight loss. I ordered some. Will keep you posted.
I found a sugar called Lou Han that is 100% natural from a japanese fruit. It has 0 calories, no after taste, can be used in baking and finally, it has no affect on blood sugar. I is supposed to be 300 times sweeter than sugar but I think maybe 3 times is more like it. I was careful to purchase some with no additives as some makers temper it with glycerin powder to make it compare more to sugar.
I found some seasoning that tastes exactly like Worchestershire sauce. It did not have the breakdown so I concerned that it has MSG. It was really good though on my portobella mushroom burger.
Since finding out about Himalyan salt, I have purchased Himalayan salt in a fine powder, coarse crystals and then as a cooking utensil. Yes, I have a cooking grade 9" round slab of salt that can be used on my gas stove top to cook food. I haven't done it yet, but it will naturally "cure" fish that I simply lay on the slab. By getting it hot, I can grill the food. Anyway Himalayan salt is supposed to actually help with blood pressure. Hallejuah. Something I don't have to give up. I also find a wide array of salts, including some black salt from Hawaii. It is certainly not meant to be eaten as a table salt but it is quite showy and can be sprinkled on some foods for a great presentation.
I mentioned fermentation. I have not purchased a crock but I am using a wide glass one gallon jar for my first experiment. I found a book called Wild Fermentation by Sandor Elixx Katz. His book is all about the benefits of naturally fermented foods and how to make them. He even includes some hooch recipes and stories about how he made hooch in prison. It is an interesting book to read. I was not aware that fermented foods should be a bigger part of our diet. For my first experiment, I shredded cabbage (of course), threw in some Daikon radish slices, Okra pods, a little red cabase, then immesed it in a brine of 1/ cup sea salt, dill, mixed color peppercorns and a little red pepper flakes. It looks like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie sitting on the counter. That might be why all of the crocks I found are not see-through. My husband says things are meant to ferment in the dark. Ok. Kitchen cloth to the rescue.
We have been on this modifed diet for almost two months now. We feel much better. My cough is all but gone but I do still have a cough in the morning when I get up. Harry does not cough at all anymore. As for his hearing, he thinks Dairy is a direct link. Every day without dairy, his Tinitus gets better. It has almost disappeared completely. Then if he eats even a small serving of cheese, his Tinitus comes back slightly. The more dairy he eats, the louder it gets.
I have noticed my blood pressure is better. I ran out of pills and felt rather light headed. So I took my blood pressure and it was 154 over 85. That is about what my blood pressure was running when I took the pills. It would have been 200 over 100 without them. Now with the pills I have gotten as low as 117 over 80 which I have not seen for some time.
I suspect I was about to become diabetic if I was not already borderline. Excessive thirst (which is a good thing when I have to drink so much water), frequest bathroom breaks (not unusual with all of the water), but then a little dizziness and blurry vision from time to time. In any case, we have eliminated sugar. I am not really using the stevia or Lou-han very much either.
My skin is much clearer, I don't seem to have the aches and oains I used to. I still get headaches but not as much. I have decided the headaches are related to blood pressure because I got them when I was out of pills. My attititude is better which was surprising since I did not realize that I was depressed and cynical. I would not have expected my diet to have anything to do with the way I see the world.
Harry has lost about 20 pounds now. I have lost 12, but then it is always harder for me to lose. We cheated this week and had Mexican food at a restaurant. After all we will be in detox for a month starting Monday. We didn't feel so good after eating like that. It upset Harry's sytem for several days.
I have to learn to use my Jack la Lanne juicer this week to prepare for my detox program. Luckily the first three weeks we get to actually eat food and only one week is all juice. I suspect we will see much better results.
Until next time.
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