No sugar?!

Today is the first day of my two week detox.  No dairy.  No wheat.  No gluten.  No sugar.

No.  Sugar.

How could I ever put myself through such torture?!

The thing is, after what has seemed like months of incessant sugar consumption, over-consuming baked goods, over eating, and not what I would call the healthiest eating, I’ve reached a point where instead, I am asking myself, how could I not put myself through such “torture”?

I’m experiencing a different kind of craving.  I have a craving for a cleanse.

But what can you eat if you can’t eat dairy, wheat, gluten, or sugar?

This is when knowing your fruits, vegetables, and grains, and even more importantly – how to cook them, really comes in handy.  Luckily we live in a world of supermarkets, internet, and stoves and it turns out that it really doesn’t take much effort to find recipes that are friendly to a variety of diets.  As I cook my way through these next two weeks of detoxification, I will post the recipes worth posting and maybe inspire you to take a nutritious but delicious two week break from whatever it is you wish to take a break from.

My Dietary Guidelines

Our nation’s dietary guidelines are due for their 5-year revision this December.  As the debate goes on over what should be revised and how, it becomes unfortunately clear that the interests of the food industry lie more in profits than the health of the people.  The dairy lobby is concerned over warnings to cut back on sugar because is afraid that this would hurt sales of chocolate and strawberry flavored milk.  The meat lobby opposes strict warning on sodium that could put lunchmeats in a negative light.  This December, we will find out how much the food industry really cares about the nation’s epidemic levels of obesity and related conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

But instead of waiting for the government and profit-interested food industry to tell us what to eat, why don’t we take a few moments and a little bit of effort to educate ourselves?  Most of us know to eat fruits and vegetables and ample amounts of whole grains and that omega-3 fatty acids are undeniably healthy and to limit intake of excess sugar and the fats that are bad for you – such as saturated and trans fats.  We know how to eat healthy. So why do we need a triangle to tell us how to eat?  After all, we don’t eat off a triangle.

It’s time to take some responsibility for our health since clearly, there is no one else who is going to take responsibility – the government is too busy trying to make money.  We cannot expect the government to do everything for us.  They can keep the bad guys in jail and manage our national deficit, but they can’t tell you what to have for dinner.  I’ve made a set of dietary guidelines myself the way I think they should be.  This doesn’t mean that they might be the perfect guidelines for you, but this is the way eating works for me and makes me feel great.  I can only hope that you can find your ideal dietary guidelines that will make you feel great too and maybe mine will serve as a starting point for yours.