Phase Two

After two days on all clear liquids, begin eating both raw and lightly cooked above ground veggies – steaming is best, but light stir-fry is OK. Make sure to eat broccoli, cauliflower and celery, all of which help remove toxins. All other above-ground veggies are OK (lettuce, cabbage, squash, zucchini, spinach, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, NOT parsnips, leeks, potatoes, yams, or other starchy veggies) but don’t consume too much of any one or two veggies. Everything in moderation. For instance, eating too much celery can raise blood pressure due to all of the sodium. Tomatoes and peppers (nightshade family) can increase inflammation in joints. Cauliflower, and broccoli (cruciferous family) can all impair thyroid function. All of these veggies are wonderful in moderation, but potentially harmful when consumed in excess. The best way to plan meals is to select veggies with different colors and try to choose veggies from different families. Green and purple cabbage are great choices, respected in naturopathic circles for beneficial effects on colon health.

Prepare veggies with just a bit of salt and spice (most cultinary spices are great for detox - just avoid anything with yeast extract, MSG, or hydrolized protein),a bit of organic soy sauce, or homemade cooked tomato sauce (organic tomatoes, basil, oregano, a little olive oil, and sea salt). Add any culinary spices you choose. Try to use turmeric- it contains curcumin, a detox aid- but don’t use more that a teaspoon per day. Any more, and it will actually clog up detox in your liver. To get a bit of fat in, add a bit of extra virgin olive oil to your veggies, but be moderate, using no more than one to three tablespoons per day. Don’t use any other oils, except for a bit of flax oil as a supplement on salad or veggies for omega 3 (see below).  If you use soy sauce, find a wheat free version, and be sure to cook it to a flash boil before eating it to eliminate any alcohol.  Potatoes, leeks, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, corn, lima beans, and all other starchy veggies should be avoided. The exceptions to the no sugary/starchy veggies rule are beets and carrots. Carrots provide enough nutrition to be worth eating, and aren't too hard to digest or too high in calories. Beets actaully aid in detox. Make sure to eat a few red beets- either cooked or juiced- on at least three of your 7 to 10 days. Betaine in beets is a phenomenal detox aid.

This may seem like a whole lot of persnikety detail, and a bit more than you want to be bothered with, but we promise that it's all important and that if you follow this program to the letter you'll be happy with the results.

Along with above ground veggies, the staples of your detox diet are brown rice and powdered brown rice protein. Look to eat from 600-1000 calories worth of brown rice and brown rice protein per day for a 180 lbs male, 500-700 calories for a 120 lbs female. Brown rice has around 200 calories per cup cooked, around 700 calories per cup uncooked. There really aren’t many calories in above ground veggies, so we’ll just ignore your veggie intake in our calorie computation. Nutribiotic makes a decent tasting vanilla brown rice protein (most brands are undrinkable) – make a shake with 2 heaping teaspoons for a 120lbs female, 3 heaping tea spoons for a 180 lbs male and drink 2 to 3 shakes per day. This will help prevent hunger, and will supply amino acids necessary for the detox process. Nutribiotic brown rice protein has about 40 calories per scoop.

The idea behind eating brown rice  and veggies exclusively is that these foods are highly nutritious while at the same time being very easy to digest. As a result, they provide a solid supply of energy and nutrients without diverting attention away from the detox effort. In addition, they actually bind toxins and carry them out of the body. Both foods have been staples of a number of traditional healing practices for centuries.

Avoid any food not mentioned on this list. Eat no meat, eggs, fish, grains (other than brown rice) or beans during your detox week. Avoid commercial sauces and salad dressings. Use a bit of olive oil, flax seed oil, or balsamic vinegar as dressing on salads. As to weather you should eat fruit during detox, there are two schools of thought. It’s easy to digest, but all sugar – even fruit sugar – is immunosuppressive, and if you do have issues with microbes (see our Dealing with Candida tutorial for more), they’ll feed off  of the fruit sugars you eat, and fighting them will distract energy from the detox process. We recommend avoiding fruit during your detox week, and starting to eat it again soon after comming out of detox.