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Last week I wrote about the basic principles of cleansing and why this is the ideal time of year for it. Generally, I favor cleanses that consist of reducing food intake and simplifying the diet to things that are natural, non-irritating, and easy-to-digest. This regimen is best accompanied by an equivalent reduction and simplification of physical and mental activity. Virtually anyone can do this form of cleanse without worry of suffering ill effects. Rather than undertaking a more intense cleanse, people can usually get the same benefit from a gentler cleanse over a longer period of time (even a few weeks or months). If you choose to do something more challenging, I recommend you consult with a healthcare practitioner.
Now, let’s look at the details of how to accomplish this housecleaning.
1. Consume Less (on all levels)
This is just basic mechanics. If you want to clean out a sausage machine, you can’t keep stuffing meat into it. Consuming less means less energy is tied up in assimilating what you take in, and more resources can be devoted to removing waste.
Studies have shown that fasting induces organ regeneration, but a total fast (just water) for more than about a day is difficult for most people. Luckily, some of the same benefits can be achieved through “intermittent fasting” – fasting briefly and repeatedly. A study a few years ago showed a correlation between a 13 hour fast each day (between dinner and breakfast) and a reduced rate of recurrence of breast cancer. Subsequent research indicates that a longer fast can provide additional anti-aging benefits.
When a patient is interested in trying intermittent fasting, I have them aim for at least 14 hours, and ideally 16 hours between dinner and breakfast. This means all your meals are consumed in an 8 (to 10) hour window. This window should correspond roughly with the daylight hours (for example, eating only from 9 AM to 5 PM). In this way, when the sun is shining (the main presence of the Fire Element in our lives) there’s a parallel activation of our digestive fire, and when it’s dark, these organs are allowed to rest. This is what both Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine recommend.
Outside of this window, it’s ideal to have only water. During a cleanse, I believe it’s permissible to also consume plain, non-caloric, unsweetened herbal teas (avoid even non-caloric sweeteners).
Whether or not you choose to limit your window of eating, during a cleanse (and really, always) you should never eat to the point of feeling full. Fullness means the stomach is packed. Perhaps even stretched beyond its normal size. Rather than aiming for a feeling of fullness, the goal should be to simply not be hungry. So, stop eating at the point of feeling no more than 80% full. It may require some mental retraining, but you’ll find if you pause and listen to your body, this is enough. If you’re slow and mindful during the eating process (that is, giving it all of your attention), you may find that you need much less food than you think.
As I explained in the previous article, this reduction of consumption should go along with a fasting of the mind. Avoid media of all kinds – especially anything that involves conflict or pain. It’s just more to digest.
2. Choose Simple & Easy-to-Digest Sustenance
While many people believe a cleanse should involve zero food, and perhaps even substances to cause the body to purge waste, I see a safe and universal cleanse a little differently. Since I can’t assess the suitability of a strong cleanse for a person I haven’t met, I lean again toward gentleness. Rather than starving the body or taking the herbal equivalent of Liquid Plumbr, think of the process as one of satisfying the body’s minimum nutritional needs while replacing waste with nutrients.
In Ayurveda, the main fasting food is kitchari, a porridge made with rice, mung beans, spices, and occasionally vegetables. You can find lots of kitchari recipes online. For the easiest cleanse, you can have a day or several days of kitchari with well-cooked vegetables in it. For a more challenging cleanse, you can work your way from kitchari with vegetables to plain kitchari (just rice, mung beans, and spices). To take it a step further, you can then go to a day of just rice. To go further still, you can follow this with a day of just rice water (the solid rice strained out). To go further still, you can follow this with a day of just water, and then follow the cleanse in reverse – rice water, then rice, then plain kitchari, then kitchari with vegetables.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, a simple cleanse is achieved through a qing dan diet. Qing means clear, pure, or light, and dan means bland. This means generally avoiding rich (fatty) and foods that have a strong flavor (i.e., very salty, very sour, very bitter, very sweet, or very spicy). It sounds boring, but it’s easy for the body to handle and tends to calm the internal environment. All sweet processed foods would quality as very sweet, all salty snack foods would qualify as very salty, almost anything fermented or that contains vinegar would qualify as very sour . . . you get the idea. Primarily it’s a diet of whole grains, cooked vegetables, beans, and a little fruit. A staple is porridge known as congee (“con – jee”), usually with a base of rice cooked with several times more water than usual, sometimes with bland root vegetables such as yams.
Many American naturopathic physicians recommend Bieler Broth (or Bieler’s Broth) – a bland green soup presented by Dr. Henry Bieler in his 1965 book, Food is Your Best Medicine. The basic idea is to steam or simmer several kinds of chopped green vegetables (ideally organically grown) in a couple cups of water until tender, then puree the whole thing, including the water, and consume warm. It’s best to use little or no salt.
Most recipes utilize some combination of zucchini, string beans, celery, parsley, chard, and spinach. Some cook and puree the whole thing, while others add some of the leafier ingredients (such as spinach and parsley) just for the last two minutes, or even don’t cook them at all. Also, there are differing philosophies on how long to cook the broth. I recommend that if you have very sensitive or weak digestion, you may benefit from cooking the vegetables for quite a while (perhaps 45 minutes on low heat). You can find many variations if you search for “bieler broth” online. Bieler Broth could be your sole sustenance for a cleanse, or something you use as a supplement. It’s rich in minerals and is considered to be alkalizing.
Finally, many people like juice cleanses because the all-liquid diet tends to clean us out well, and juice is tasty. However, fruit and carrot juices are very high in sugar, which is arguably a significant downside (non-sugary vegetable juices would be better in this regard). Second, because they’re raw, they’re not always easy for everyone to digest. If large amounts of juice upset your digestion or make you feel bloated, this probably isn’t the ideal cleanse for you. Third, some people have sensitivities to fruits and veggies that are high in latex or salicylates. And fourth, some people have difficulty digesting certain kinds of sugars found in produce, referred to as FODMAPs, which I’ll discuss in the next section.
3. Avoid Irritants
Any of the above foods, as benign as they may sound to most people, may present problematic substances to a sensitive individual. The best way to figure out your sensitivities is to eat a simple diet and pay close attention to what your body tells you. But sometimes it’s tricky, so here are a few common offenders to consider.
A. The Big Five: The most commonly problematic foods are gluten-containing grains (wheat, rye, and barley), milk products, corn products, soy products, and eggs. Oats technically don’t contain gluten, but they’re sometimes stored with glutinous grains, and some people are sensitive to a gluten-like protein in oats called avenin.
It’s important to remember that although many people have sensitivities to these five groups of foods, there’s nothing inherently bad about them. However, most people would do well to avoid these foods during a cleanse.
B. Common Irritants: Many people have allergies or sensitivities to shellfish, nuts, sulfites, alcoholic beverages, artificial colors, and preservatives. In addition, deep fried foods, charred foods, hydrogenated oils, processed meats, and all sweeteners should be avoided or consumed in moderation by everyone, and are worth cutting out for a cleanse.
C. Nightshades: Vegetables in the nightshade family – tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, huckleberries, goji berries, and all peppers – can make some people feel bad, especially folks with joint pain. Symptoms may include achy muscles and joints, skin rashes, itching, phlegm, and nausea. It’s probably a good idea to avoid nightshades during a cleanse.
D. FODMAPs: FODMAP stands for “Fermentable Oligo-, Di-, Mono-saccharides and Polyols” – a group of short-chain carbohydrates that are difficult for the body to digest. For most people, they pass through the body without being absorbed and without symptoms. But in some folks, their gut bacteria ferment FODMAPs and produce hydrogen gas, causing gas pain, bloating, diarrhea, constipation.
Anyone with Irritable Bowel Syndrome or longstanding digestive upset should try avoiding foods that are high in FODMAPs during a cleanse. They may be worth avoiding long-term, if you feel better without them; however, some scientists have suggested that FODMAPs play an important role in maintaining healthy gut flora and shouldn’t be permanently removed from the diet. The list of high-FODMAP foods is long, so if you suspect you have a FODMAP problem, I encourage you to read about this diet on the web.
E. High Latex Foods: These are only a problem for people with a latex allergy (usually you would know this from irritation from latex gloves, condoms, or blowing up a balloon) and they tend to cause itching, hives, nasal congestion, or difficulty breathing. Some foods containing the most natural latex are: apple, avocado, banana, carrot, celery, chestnut, kiwi, melons, papaya, raw potato, and tomato.
F. High Salicylate Foods: These foods contain chemicals that are essentially a naturally occurring form of aspirin. Only people with a salicylate sensitivity are bothered by them (more often the case in people with asthma), and they should certainly avoid them during a cleanse. Symptoms of salicylate sensitivity include: nasal and sinus congestion, asthma, gas, digestive upset, diarrhea, and hives. The list of high salicylate foods is long, so it’s best to look it up if you’re concerned.
Okay, I know that’s a lot to process, so it’s worth saying again that most people don’t have sensitivities to all these things, and significant sensitivities to many foods is pretty rare. For most people, rice, millet, wild salmon, sweet potato and cooked squashes make a good, gentle diet for a cleanse. If you need more variety, you could add most well-cooked vegetables to that list (however, it may be worth avoiding nightshades for the reasons listed above and perhaps avoiding cruciferous vegetables if you find them difficult to digest).
I’d love to hear about your cleanse experience – both past and present.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
[post_title] => How to Cleanse, Part Two: The Details
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A couple weeks ago, I introduced some concepts on the workings of pain that I think are useful for everyone to know. They’re derived from my explorations into Traditional Chinese Medicine. Here’s a synopsis:
- Virtually all pain is due to stagnation
- Resistance promotes and worsens stagnation
- All levels of our being are interconnected, so
- Stagnation can spread between levels
- Movement on one level can alleviate stagnation on multiple levels
- Relinquishing resistance restores the flow
When I speak of pain here, I don’t just mean physical pain, but also emotional pain and even “existential pain.” Understanding the workings of our pain can be tremendously useful in liberating ourselves from it. Working from this model, our main goal is to get back into a flow state, and there are lots of ways to do this.
First and foremost, when we feel uncomfortable on any level, we can cause an immediate shift by not resisting what we’re feeling. Ultimately this is simply a choice – a choice that’s always available (albeit a choice we usually have to make over and over). However, it’s a choice that sometimes eludes us, so we can employ some methods to facilitate it. Breathing is a good place to start.
When we are in a state of active resistance, this is usually reflected in the state of our breathing, which is restricted. Opening up the breath – breathing deeply and fully into the body and specifically into the area that’s restricted – can help us to feel willingly what’s up and to let go of resistance. Breathing promotes movement and helps to clear stagnation. I cover many different breathing methods in the Live Pain Free course, but the most basic approach is just to lengthen the exhale – that is, emphasizing the letting go phase of the breath. As we do this, we can visualize that the breath is opening and flowing through the body – or a particular region of the body – improving circulation, bringing in fresh blood, and encouraging the removal of waste.
Exercise and stretching are also great for facilitating movement and clearing stagnation for the alleviation of pain of any kind. We can get more out of mobilizing the body if we actively intend that our movement is shaking up, dismantling, and releasing stuck emotions, negative thoughts, and other painful patterns.
Using our voice is another way to promote movement. Whether through toning, singing, chanting, or speaking the truth, both the meaning and the sound vibration we express can have an opening effect on us.
These are just a few of the many ways to restore flow when there is stagnation and thereby alleviate pain. Acceptance, forgiveness of oneself or someone else, letting go, trusting in the process, laughter, loving connections, and spending time admiring beauty such as in nature – all of these tend to have an opening or expansive effect on us that can profoundly affect our experience of pain.
Now, let’s look at a progressive way to understand pain from a scientific lens. A good starting definition is: Pain is the brain or mind telling you it thinks something is wrong. Whether it’s physical pain, emotional pain, or existential pain, there’s an implicit interpretation that this is not how things should be. The pain of depression, for instance, involves an interpretation that, “I shouldn’t feel this way. I should be happy.” The pain of arthritis involves a brain interpretation that a joint shouldn’t be grinding and inflamed the way that it is. In both cases, pain could be seen as an alert that the situation is threatening and requires intervention.
This alert system is more often accurate and useful with acute pain than with chronic pain. For example, you feel burning pain in your fingertips, you move your hand without thinking, and you avoid skin damage from the hot iron you accidentally touched. Chronic pain, on the other hand, is almost always a mistake.
A broader, more technical definition of pain can help us understand why these mistakes occur. Pain is an output – the result of processing in your nervous system – that’s unique to the person that’s experiencing it, and it involves numerous elements – nerves, immune cells, chemical messengers, memory, and emotion – that interact and combine to form a pattern that the brain labels as PAIN. (Thanks to pain researcher Ronald Melzack at McGill University for developing this definition.) This pattern is known as a neurotag or neurosignature and it’s more complex than we tend to think. Pain is as dependent on our psychology as it is on our physiology.
For example, if you were once attacked by a dog and it was frightening and traumatic, something as minor as a dog swiping you with its paw in an attempt to get your attention could be experienced as severely painful because of the elements of memory, emotion, and interpretation. So it’s easy for inaccuracy to enter the pain equation. In this case, there is no danger, nothing wrong that needs to be addressed, but your brain sounds a loud alarm anyway.
Even looking strictly at the biological workings of pain, there is still room for error, though. Acute injuries are usually completely healed within a matter of three to six months at most. The body part can be used normally at that point, so there should be no need for pain after that. However, during the initial event and the healing process, a persistent neurosignature may develop. During all the yelling, crying, and wincing, the nervous system can become sensitized in such a way that the alarm won’t turn off and/or it’s easily retriggered by related images, scents, sounds, thoughts, feelings, and memories.
At this point – and this is true of virtually all chronic pain – it serves no useful purpose. So there’s little value in trying to track down a tissue pathology, and even less in utilizing an addictive mind-numbing pharmaceutical to make it go away. Instead (or in combination with pharmaceutical interventions, if necessary) we can utilize approaches that take advantage of the phenomenon of neuroplasticity – the ability to change our wiring.
We explore many, many such approaches in my online course, Live Pain Free, and I encourage you to check it out if you struggle with pain. The most useful thing, as I discussed in the last installment of this article, may be simply knowing how pain works. I sincerely hope these articles have given you a new way to understand pain that helps liberate you from its grasp.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
[post_title] => Getting Smarter about Pain
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Early in my career, I found it gratifying to treat pain and I was pretty good at it. The art of choosing the right acupuncture points is fascinating, creative, and even fun. But then I attended a seminar on marketing where the instructor advised, “Choose a specialty and focus on just treating that one thing,” and a friend suggested I should become a pain specialist. At the time, it felt like someone suggesting to a painter, “You should limit yourself to painting only in yellow from now on.”
I was resistant to the idea partly because, like most people, I enjoy variety, and partly because the treatment of pain seemed like superficial work. Fixing sore elbows day in and day out would have been the equivalent of painting only in yellow, so I decided I couldn’t be a fixer of body parts. The only way I could be satisfied – and simultaneously facilitate a deeper level of healing – was to treat whole people.
Over the years since, I’ve come to understand that pain encompasses a huge range of health concerns and it’s often broader than we think. Chronic pain is frequently part of a complex pattern where it may be intertwined with depression, anxiety, anger, grief, psychological trauma, and also with digestive disorders, sleep disturbances, and more. So there’s plenty of opportunity for variety and depth, and there’s also a great need for pain treatments that are more intelligent than pills.
I’ve felt called to educate people on different ways of understanding pain. It helps more than you might think. In 2014, Lancet published a study on the impact of education on people with neck pain. Participants were divided into two groups: half of them got 20 sessions of physical therapy, lasting an hour each. The other half got 30 minutes of education and two follow up phone calls about pain. Throughout the 12-month study, both groups had equal rates of improvement. Spending a short time learning about pain was as effective as twenty hours of physical therapy!
I created an online course to teach people productive ways of understanding pain along with instruction in a wide range of do-it-yourself methods for stopping pain. We also unravel the broader psychological, social, and physiological context that the pain is wrapped up in. I know everybody isn’t going to take this course, though, and there are a few concepts I teach in it that I want to share with the whole world. So I’ll be explaining them in the next couple articles. Even if you’re not in pain now, chances are you’ll experience some in the future, or someone close to you will struggle with it. Knowing what’s going on inside can really help. And as you’ll see, the possible expressions of pain go way beyond our usual definition.
I want the world to understand this because it’s simple, it makes sense, and it gives us an intuitive sense of what to do about it. Here it is: all pain is due to some form of stagnation. When things (blood, food, lymph, energy, feelings, etc.) move freely through us we generally feel good, and when they don’t we feel bad.
Here are some examples. When we have a traumatic injury, there is damaged skin and nerves, crushed or severed blood vessels, torn muscle and other connective tissue, and perhaps broken bone. The damage means that free flow through the area is impeded. Thus, there is stagnation and it hurts.
If we overeat and food is so crammed into our digestive tract that it’s barely moving, this is a form of stagnation and it feels bad. If we have a blood clot that’s blocking the flow, this is stagnation and it’s painful. If blood stops moving through the vessels that serve the heart itself, this is dire stagnation, and it’s intensely painful. If we sleep in a cramped position, are dehydrated, or don’t move much, our muscles can become locked up and irritated – i.e., stagnant – and they hurt.
In the same way, if we lose someone we love and we cling to them even though they’re not physically here anymore, this is mental and emotional stagnation, and it makes the process more painful. If we harbor any negative feeling (rather than allowing it to be felt and to move through us freely) this is a form of emotional stagnation, and so we suffer. Aside: all negative emotions are qualitatively different from positive ones in that they have a restrictive or contractive effect on the body-mind. Positive emotions have an opening or expansive effect.
I’m not implying that if you’re grieving a loss or have been stuck in a state of anger, you should feel bad or wrong for doing this. In fact, if you do so – i.e., if you resist what’s happening or tell yourself, “I shouldn’t be feeling this way,” – you only compound the stagnation, which makes the pain worse and impedes the healing process.
Resistance is a major cause of stagnation. So, looking at this mechanism in the broadest way, when we resist reality – meaning, we don’t accept any aspect of life (either in the outside world or within our own inner experience) – we contract ourselves, we tighten up, and we limit our own freedom. This causes stagnation and stagnation hurts – physically, mentally, and emotionally. Resistance causes stagnation and stagnation causes pain and suffering. If we resist the pain and suffering, we get caught in a vicious circle.
Although I learned about the connection between stagnation and pain when I was studying acupuncture, it was only through years of treating people and self-exploration that I came to understand the staggering implications of this mechanism and the role that resistance plays. When I began to see pain in this way – all the different forms and how profoundly it affects the course of our lives – it no longer felt like a limited career path!
Before I get into how to use this model to get out of pain, I want to add a few sub-principles. First, all parts of us are interconnected, so stagnation on one level can readily lead to stagnation on another level. For example, if we’re chronically angry, tense, or sad (emotional stagnation) this can eventually show up as, say, a tension headache or lower back pain (physical stagnation). Vice versa, living in a tight and inflexible body (physical stagnation) can contribute to a lack of mental flexibility – rigid thinking, frustration, depression, etc.
Second, because of this interconnection, clearing stagnation on any level tends to promote healthy flow on all levels. For instance, physical exercise is beneficial for depression, because moving the body moves the mind. Likewise, using the mind to imagine energy and blood coursing freely through a painful area of the body can often be as effective as painkillers. For the same reason, if we’re in physical pain, it is always worthwhile to look inward and see if there’s some story or emotional pattern we need to let go of.
Third, while resistance leads to stagnation, acceptance (feeling willingly, not arguing with reality, surrendering) restores flow. Thus, there is often immediate relief from suffering when we stop resisting it. So, to summarize:
- Where there is pain there is stagnation
- Resistance promotes stagnation
- All levels of our being are interconnected, so
- Stagnation can spread between levels
- Movement on one level can alleviate stagnation on multiple levels
- Relinquishing resistance restores the flow
Take some time to think about this and feel into it. And tell me about your experience with it in the comments section below. I’ll explain some ways to utilize this model next week and we’ll also look at an updated Western model of pain.
Be well,
Peter
Learn more about the Live Pain Free course
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Last week I wrote about the basic principles of cleansing and why this is the ideal time of year for it. Generally, I favor cleanses that consist of reducing food intake and simplifying the diet to things that are natural, non-irritating, and easy-to-digest. This regimen is best accompanied by an equivalent reduction and simplification of physical and mental activity. Virtually anyone can do this form of cleanse without worry of suffering ill effects. Rather than undertaking a more intense cleanse, people can usually get the same benefit from a gentler cleanse over a longer period of time (even a few weeks or months). If you choose to do something more challenging, I recommend you consult with a healthcare practitioner.
Now, let’s look at the details of how to accomplish this housecleaning.
1. Consume Less (on all levels)
This is just basic mechanics. If you want to clean out a sausage machine, you can’t keep stuffing meat into it. Consuming less means less energy is tied up in assimilating what you take in, and more resources can be devoted to removing waste.
Studies have shown that fasting induces organ regeneration, but a total fast (just water) for more than about a day is difficult for most people. Luckily, some of the same benefits can be achieved through “intermittent fasting” – fasting briefly and repeatedly. A study a few years ago showed a correlation between a 13 hour fast each day (between dinner and breakfast) and a reduced rate of recurrence of breast cancer. Subsequent research indicates that a longer fast can provide additional anti-aging benefits.
When a patient is interested in trying intermittent fasting, I have them aim for at least 14 hours, and ideally 16 hours between dinner and breakfast. This means all your meals are consumed in an 8 (to 10) hour window. This window should correspond roughly with the daylight hours (for example, eating only from 9 AM to 5 PM). In this way, when the sun is shining (the main presence of the Fire Element in our lives) there’s a parallel activation of our digestive fire, and when it’s dark, these organs are allowed to rest. This is what both Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine recommend.
Outside of this window, it’s ideal to have only water. During a cleanse, I believe it’s permissible to also consume plain, non-caloric, unsweetened herbal teas (avoid even non-caloric sweeteners).
Whether or not you choose to limit your window of eating, during a cleanse (and really, always) you should never eat to the point of feeling full. Fullness means the stomach is packed. Perhaps even stretched beyond its normal size. Rather than aiming for a feeling of fullness, the goal should be to simply not be hungry. So, stop eating at the point of feeling no more than 80% full. It may require some mental retraining, but you’ll find if you pause and listen to your body, this is enough. If you’re slow and mindful during the eating process (that is, giving it all of your attention), you may find that you need much less food than you think.
As I explained in the previous article, this reduction of consumption should go along with a fasting of the mind. Avoid media of all kinds – especially anything that involves conflict or pain. It’s just more to digest.
2. Choose Simple & Easy-to-Digest Sustenance
While many people believe a cleanse should involve zero food, and perhaps even substances to cause the body to purge waste, I see a safe and universal cleanse a little differently. Since I can’t assess the suitability of a strong cleanse for a person I haven’t met, I lean again toward gentleness. Rather than starving the body or taking the herbal equivalent of Liquid Plumbr, think of the process as one of satisfying the body’s minimum nutritional needs while replacing waste with nutrients.
In Ayurveda, the main fasting food is kitchari, a porridge made with rice, mung beans, spices, and occasionally vegetables. You can find lots of kitchari recipes online. For the easiest cleanse, you can have a day or several days of kitchari with well-cooked vegetables in it. For a more challenging cleanse, you can work your way from kitchari with vegetables to plain kitchari (just rice, mung beans, and spices). To take it a step further, you can then go to a day of just rice. To go further still, you can follow this with a day of just rice water (the solid rice strained out). To go further still, you can follow this with a day of just water, and then follow the cleanse in reverse – rice water, then rice, then plain kitchari, then kitchari with vegetables.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, a simple cleanse is achieved through a qing dan diet. Qing means clear, pure, or light, and dan means bland. This means generally avoiding rich (fatty) and foods that have a strong flavor (i.e., very salty, very sour, very bitter, very sweet, or very spicy). It sounds boring, but it’s easy for the body to handle and tends to calm the internal environment. All sweet processed foods would quality as very sweet, all salty snack foods would qualify as very salty, almost anything fermented or that contains vinegar would qualify as very sour . . . you get the idea. Primarily it’s a diet of whole grains, cooked vegetables, beans, and a little fruit. A staple is porridge known as congee (“con – jee”), usually with a base of rice cooked with several times more water than usual, sometimes with bland root vegetables such as yams.
Many American naturopathic physicians recommend Bieler Broth (or Bieler’s Broth) – a bland green soup presented by Dr. Henry Bieler in his 1965 book, Food is Your Best Medicine. The basic idea is to steam or simmer several kinds of chopped green vegetables (ideally organically grown) in a couple cups of water until tender, then puree the whole thing, including the water, and consume warm. It’s best to use little or no salt.
Most recipes utilize some combination of zucchini, string beans, celery, parsley, chard, and spinach. Some cook and puree the whole thing, while others add some of the leafier ingredients (such as spinach and parsley) just for the last two minutes, or even don’t cook them at all. Also, there are differing philosophies on how long to cook the broth. I recommend that if you have very sensitive or weak digestion, you may benefit from cooking the vegetables for quite a while (perhaps 45 minutes on low heat). You can find many variations if you search for “bieler broth” online. Bieler Broth could be your sole sustenance for a cleanse, or something you use as a supplement. It’s rich in minerals and is considered to be alkalizing.
Finally, many people like juice cleanses because the all-liquid diet tends to clean us out well, and juice is tasty. However, fruit and carrot juices are very high in sugar, which is arguably a significant downside (non-sugary vegetable juices would be better in this regard). Second, because they’re raw, they’re not always easy for everyone to digest. If large amounts of juice upset your digestion or make you feel bloated, this probably isn’t the ideal cleanse for you. Third, some people have sensitivities to fruits and veggies that are high in latex or salicylates. And fourth, some people have difficulty digesting certain kinds of sugars found in produce, referred to as FODMAPs, which I’ll discuss in the next section.
3. Avoid Irritants
Any of the above foods, as benign as they may sound to most people, may present problematic substances to a sensitive individual. The best way to figure out your sensitivities is to eat a simple diet and pay close attention to what your body tells you. But sometimes it’s tricky, so here are a few common offenders to consider.
A. The Big Five: The most commonly problematic foods are gluten-containing grains (wheat, rye, and barley), milk products, corn products, soy products, and eggs. Oats technically don’t contain gluten, but they’re sometimes stored with glutinous grains, and some people are sensitive to a gluten-like protein in oats called avenin.
It’s important to remember that although many people have sensitivities to these five groups of foods, there’s nothing inherently bad about them. However, most people would do well to avoid these foods during a cleanse.
B. Common Irritants: Many people have allergies or sensitivities to shellfish, nuts, sulfites, alcoholic beverages, artificial colors, and preservatives. In addition, deep fried foods, charred foods, hydrogenated oils, processed meats, and all sweeteners should be avoided or consumed in moderation by everyone, and are worth cutting out for a cleanse.
C. Nightshades: Vegetables in the nightshade family – tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, huckleberries, goji berries, and all peppers – can make some people feel bad, especially folks with joint pain. Symptoms may include achy muscles and joints, skin rashes, itching, phlegm, and nausea. It’s probably a good idea to avoid nightshades during a cleanse.
D. FODMAPs: FODMAP stands for “Fermentable Oligo-, Di-, Mono-saccharides and Polyols” – a group of short-chain carbohydrates that are difficult for the body to digest. For most people, they pass through the body without being absorbed and without symptoms. But in some folks, their gut bacteria ferment FODMAPs and produce hydrogen gas, causing gas pain, bloating, diarrhea, constipation.
Anyone with Irritable Bowel Syndrome or longstanding digestive upset should try avoiding foods that are high in FODMAPs during a cleanse. They may be worth avoiding long-term, if you feel better without them; however, some scientists have suggested that FODMAPs play an important role in maintaining healthy gut flora and shouldn’t be permanently removed from the diet. The list of high-FODMAP foods is long, so if you suspect you have a FODMAP problem, I encourage you to read about this diet on the web.
E. High Latex Foods: These are only a problem for people with a latex allergy (usually you would know this from irritation from latex gloves, condoms, or blowing up a balloon) and they tend to cause itching, hives, nasal congestion, or difficulty breathing. Some foods containing the most natural latex are: apple, avocado, banana, carrot, celery, chestnut, kiwi, melons, papaya, raw potato, and tomato.
F. High Salicylate Foods: These foods contain chemicals that are essentially a naturally occurring form of aspirin. Only people with a salicylate sensitivity are bothered by them (more often the case in people with asthma), and they should certainly avoid them during a cleanse. Symptoms of salicylate sensitivity include: nasal and sinus congestion, asthma, gas, digestive upset, diarrhea, and hives. The list of high salicylate foods is long, so it’s best to look it up if you’re concerned.
Okay, I know that’s a lot to process, so it’s worth saying again that most people don’t have sensitivities to all these things, and significant sensitivities to many foods is pretty rare. For most people, rice, millet, wild salmon, sweet potato and cooked squashes make a good, gentle diet for a cleanse. If you need more variety, you could add most well-cooked vegetables to that list (however, it may be worth avoiding nightshades for the reasons listed above and perhaps avoiding cruciferous vegetables if you find them difficult to digest).
I’d love to hear about your cleanse experience – both past and present.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
[post_title] => How to Cleanse, Part Two: The Details
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[post_modified] => 2019-05-28 19:54:25
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