Whole Detox: A 21-Day Personalized Program to Break Through Barriers in Every Area of Your Life. / Deanna Minch, 2016. Harper One. 432 p. (paperback with tables in color). See my review of this book here.
Part 5 of a series of posts on carbohydrates and diet.
Whole Detox… by Deanna Minich, PhD, contains recipes for a 21-day diet, detailed instructions for each of the 21 days, and explanations of the concepts of detoxification for the whole body and mind. Minich calls her program a “full spectrum detox” diet, where full spectrum refers to both the energy levels of the body and the colors naturally available in fruits and vegetables which correspond to those bodily energies. Her plan is to affect detoxification gradually and naturally without negative side effects.
Minich’s approach to whole body health includes a description of carbohydrates and their benefits. The fruits and vegetables suggested in menu plans call to mind a rainbow* as the outer appearance of the fruits and vegetables match each color, from purple to blue to red to orange to yellow and white. She suggests your diet should include high-fiber carbs because Minich says you need “legumes, gluten-free grains and starchy vegetables” to ensure and maintain a balanced state of health.
Some high-fiber carbohydrates such as lentils, brown rice and quinoa contain important B vitamins which are essential for less bodily stress and the completion of certain metabolic processes.
The idea behind eliminating refined carbs from your diet is a good one. You want to eat whole foods. Only those foods which the body can recognize and can utilize in processing and breaking down a food’s components should be considered food. You want your body to become conditioned to handling food, not to grow lazy about digesting what you take in.
From refined carbs—white flour, crackers, chips, sweet baked goods, candies, white flour pastas, etc.—a limited amount of digestion can occur, leaving out the possibility of the body’s ability to digest and assimilate food. And refined foods make you fat, putting the weight on. You can sense how refined carbs—those processed “convenience” foods we often rely on—have no place in a healthy diet.
Minich’s suggestions for discovering which foods cause inflammation in a person’s body include cutting out the gluten to see if you have a gluten sensitivity. Or you can chose to actively eliminate one or more foods from your diet—foods you suspect might be at the root of indigestion, etc.—for a given amount of time. Then, going back and reintroducing that food will tell you whether or not it triggers inflammation or the immune response in your body.
Minich shares a process for this in her Reintroduction Protocol, which is a serious take on foods you’ve previously identified as problems. Sometimes all it entails to reset the body is a mini-vacation from ingesting a food that seems to be causing issues. But otherwise it can be enormously helpful in determining a healthful, inflammation-free diet for you personally.
See a list of Minich’s carbohydrates that are essential in a healthy diet—noting the ones that are not listed, like corn—here.
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