I was a vegetarian for 12 years.
Now I eat meat, chicken, lamb, fish, and LOTS of saturated fats. I have a coconut oil smoothie twice a day, and lots of greens. A diet like mine isn’t an alkaline diet. It’s an acid-alkaline diet and my main philosophy isn’t just alkalizing. It’s alkalizing AND as close to total carbohydrate reduction as I can. On this diet I’ve seen friends who were skinny gain weight, and friends who were obese lose weight. I eat very little fruit – a few blueberries with my coco oil smoothie.
As you can see, I'm neither raw nor green, but I'm thriving, and so is everyone I recommend my diet to. Although.. I don't actually personally recommend it to many because it's always a battle to get anyone hooked on sugar to give it up, and honestly, I don't have the time to 'convert' people one on one.
Alkaline diet as purveyed on the net still has some work to do. Over my decade of consulting I've come to see that the old axiom 'one man's meat is another man's poison' is true. We can't all leap onto the same diet. I've also noticed that the purveyors of alkaline diet are moving the same way, now saying that raw is simply too hard, and that if you keep working towards the 80/20 rule (80% alkaline ash producing foods, 20% acid ash producing foods), you'll do OK.
Most purveyors of the diet are also interested in selling you their products - and that includes us. But there are some very good people out there putting in a great deal of work to educate the public and to provide free information to all. just understand that we are all selling you our products and we are all still learning ourselves.
That being said, it's not hard to see that my diet doesn't look like the ideal alkaline diet as 'sold' on the net. Frankly, it's not, and it's the result of a huge amount of research on both my part and my partner Cassie, who is the best health researcher I know.
So let's dissect it line by line:
1. I was a vegetarian for 12 years.
I did pretty well, considering I did what almost all vegies do. It's called the lazy vegetarian syndrome.
I ate bread and pasta to fill me up. Almost all vegies do. Raw foodies, who can't have bread, get their energy form sugar in the form of fructose in fruits.
I tried to cut it out, but because it is carbs I was trying to cut out, and I wasn't willing to replace them with high voltage foods like red meat, my energy suffered. looking back on it, I'd have to say the energy I got from my sugar and carbs was all quite transitory and i still suffered the ups and downs and lack of 'earthing' that one sees so often in 'lazy vegies'.
I still don't understand it, but when I began on alkaline water, I suddenly had an urge to eat meat. When I did, I had an amazing experience. It was as if a part of me returned.. a warrior aspect of myself and it felt.. strong. I've heard of similar experiences from many alkaline water users when their body seems to come alive again and start asking for what it wants.
2. Now I eat meat, chicken, lamb, fish, and LOTS of saturated fats.
And I have energy. Strength. Endurance. Fire. I read enough of Mary Enig's and sally Fallon's Eat Fat Lose Weight book to understand that I'd been led up the garden path by experts on the fat question. To encapsulate what they and other excellent writers say, when we became carb dependent and were told to reduce fat, we lost the source of energy we previously received from fat. At the same time I was researching coconut oil and actually wrote my own book about it. Coconut oil is a saturated fat. It also worked for me to slow up my obvious first symptoms of Alzheimers'. within 3 days of going onto a double dose of coco oil and kefir smoothie daily, my mind 'twanged' up into shape.
But meat?
Let's take a quick tour of our history, courtesy of Dr Wolfgang Lutz MD in his book, Life Without Bread. Dr Lutz says:
"In the beginning, during the abiotic-biotic transition, which stretched over about a billion years, nutrients consisted of carbohydrates. later, animals lived ona mixed diet of plants and other animals. The first primates were insectivores, eating mostly animal matter (and some plant substances) whereas the apes succeeding them were mainly vegetarian, but also ate a fair amount of raw meat. As tree-dwellers, the apes' diet consisted chiefly of leaves, fruit and shoots, some meat, but little starch.
Then, about six million years ago, the hominids branched off to develop along their own lines, and this involved a transition to the life of a hunter and to a diet consisting almost exclusively of meat and fat, which formed the bulk of the human diet until a few thousand years ago."
Yes, meat. But always grassfed and organic production.
3. I have a coconut oil smoothie twice a day, and lots of greens.
We've talked about the smoothie, but not the kefir. Kefir is a mould that converts milk into a yoghurt-like form. You drop the mould into a jug of milk, wait 36 hours at room temperature, and you have kefir. You remove 'Clarence' (our name for the mould) and store him in a small jar of milk while you consume your kefir.
Both kefir and yogurt are cultured milk products…
…but they contain different types of beneficial bacteria. Yogurt contains transient beneficial bacteria that keep the digestive system clean and provide food for the friendly bacteria that reside there. But kefir can actually colonize the intestinal tract, a feat that yogurt cannot match.
Kefir contains several major strains of friendly bacteria not commonly found in yogurt, (Lactobacillus Caucasus, Leuconostoc, Acetobacter species, and Streptococcus species).
It also contains beneficial yeasts, such as Saccharomyces kefir and Torula kefir, which dominate, control and eliminate destructive pathogenic yeasts in the body. They do so by penetrating the mucosal lining where unhealthy yeast and bacteria reside, forming a virtual SWAT team that housecleans and strengthens the intestines. Hence, the body becomes more efficient in resisting such pathogens as E. coli and intestinal parasites.
Kefir’s active yeast and bacteria provide more nutritive value than yogurt by helping digest the foods that you eat and by keeping the colon environment clean and healthy. Because the curd size of kefir is smaller than yogurt, it is also easier to digest, which makes it a particularly excellent, nutritious food for babies, the elderly and people experiencing chronic fatigue and digestive disorders.
Now, if you've read Dr Robert O. Young's books and followed his web discussions, you may be wondering what the hell I'm up to, because Dr Young says we must absolutely not allow any 'mould' into our bodies. 'Mould' in his view, includes mushrooms, an excellent source of alkaline mineral potassium, and also riboflavin, niacin and selenium. He further suggests that we should not consume vinegar 'because it is fermented'. Well I can't agree. Every time we breath in, we are ingesting thousands of mould spores. We have kilos of mould within us in a symbiotic relationship with our body. Without mould, we wouldn't live a week, because mould in the form of various yeasts breaks down pathogens in our food. Mould, yeast and bacteria all play their part in fermentation and breakdown of our food into energy. Mould is used to create enzymes in the body. From what I have read, mould, fungus and bacteria act in a concerted, synergistic dance of food conversion within our body. Being synergistic, trying to eliminate one of the 'dancers' will almost certainly affect their ability to achieve their purpose; good digestion, good elimination and efficient energy conversion.
I also disagree with his definition of moulds. Surely home use, store bought vinegar today is basically acetic acid, and as such, how can it be called a mould? And yet he does. Moulds are also yoghurt, tempeh, red rice yeast and all cheese. Wines and beers have also undergone fermentation, but does it follow that when you drink a '62 Montepulciano Rosso you are ingesting live mould?
So as I said earlier, I believe there is work to be done on acid/alkaline theory by some of its proponents.
And obviously, Dr Young wouldn't be recommending my Kefir.
Finally, my diet is possible because it is an acid/alkaline diet, not an alkaline diet. i am eating and drinking ample yet not excessive amounts of good acids and in the form of daily fresh greens, good alkalis.
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