and Cleansing
Diets
By Mary-Ann Shearer - AIM Chairman’s Club Director
Detoxification is something your body performs every second of the day. If it did not, carbon dioxide and waste products like urine and faeces would accumulate to the point where you would die. When I talk about cleansing or ‘detox’ programmes, I just mean following a diet that is so clean and pure that your body has enough energy and nutrients available to do some seriously deep cleaning and repair work, and is able to deal effectively with past dietary indiscretions and the side effects of medication. The best cleansing programmes are those that are 100 per cent raw plant based, but there are other variations that are also beneficial. A diet of raw fruit and vegetables over a period of a few weeks is recommended especially if your existing diet is highly processed and contains little fresh produce. Here are a few options that you could follow for any period of time from 24 hours to six weeks: • •
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An all-raw fruit diet, eating as much fresh fruit as you like during the day. An all juice diet, drinking freshly extracted fruit and vegetable juices throughout the day, making sure that you have at least three glasses a day but no more than six glasses maximum. A raw fruit and vegetable diet, eating properly combined fruit or vegetable meals throughout the day. You can also include a ¼ to ½ a cup of raw nuts or seeds every day. A fruit and nut breakfast, followed by a raw salad lunch and then a supper of salad and steamed vegetables.
Mar - Apr 2022 / to order call 011-675-0477
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No concentrated starch foods (like potatoes or rice) should be eaten on this programme and all snacks should consist of fresh fruit. As above, but for supper include a natural unrefined, unprocessed starch like potato, brown rice or corn on the cob. You can include BarleyLife, Just Carrots and RediBeets, as well, and in the other programmes listed below.
It is best to exclude strong herbs like garlic and onion while on these cleansing programmes as they tend to stimulate the appetite and can in fact slow down the metabolism (due to the high levels of mustard oil they contain which interferes with thyroid function). Remember that these cleansing programmes can be introduced for a few days just to kick-start your new lifestyle and need not be followed for longer than 24 hours in the beginning. Once you become more accustomed to a healthy diet, you can include more raw meals on a daily basis with greater ease.
