REJUVENATING DIET
If you are eager to bring about a distinct improvement in your general health, a good first diet is to eat only fruits, nuts and vegetables (cooked or raw) for thirty days. This diet is used in India when a person is feeling old and the body is wearing out. It cleanses and revitalizes the body.
During the first few days, you may feel weak, but gradually your strength will increase and you will start to feel light and happy. After 30 days, you can continue the diet, but milk products can also be eaten. The best time for this fast is when the weather is warm and fruits and vegetables are in season.
MUCUSLESS DIET
This is a good beginner’s diet. It eliminates toxins and reduces the level of mucus in the body. It is a good basic diet to go on after you’ve had a cold. Try it for a week.
Eat fruits, nuts or steamed vegetables. Allow four hours between meals. Drink fresh fruit juices with the pulp left in. Add a little black pepper to the juice to aid in the elimination of intestinal gas.
During the first four days, you may feel weak. During this time, foot massage with almond oil can be very soothing. After the fourth day, strength will gradually return. Get lots of exercise during the last days of this diet. It is best to avoid sex during this rejuvenating period.
GREEN DIET
This is a rebuilding diet. It is used to alkalinize the body, lose weight, clear the skin and cleanse the liver. It is also useful in relieving a toxic mucus condition.
For forty days, eat only green foods. That means salads, steamed greens, avocados, sprouts, green olives and mung beans. Unless you are using this diet to correct acne, green fruits such as honeydew, green apples and green grapes can be included. Yogi tea can be taken throughout this fast. Once a week, if your feel that you need more protein, you can eat a handful of nuts and a portion of cooked grains, but don’t overdo it! By eating too many nuts and grains you’ll give yourself a stomach ache and defeat the purpose of your fast.
When you break the fast, first add fruits, then grains, and finally dairy.
FRUIT FAST
When the spring comes, it is wonderful to go on a fruit diet. Do it during April or May for one month. Just say to yourself, “I am going to eat only fruits and nothing else.” Eat only one kind of fruit at a time. If you mix fruits in the same meal, you can mess up your whole system. Also don’t drink fruit juices on this fast. They are concentrated food. Only eat whole fruit. This is an especially good diet for men.
MUNG BEANS AND RICE
This is a good cleansing diet which still gives you plenty of nourishment if you have to work hard. It is a good winter fast, and it is especially recommended for people over forty. Mung Beans and Rice is good for the kidneys, colon and digestive organs. It is also beneficial in cases of constipation, or when food is not being digested thoroughly by the intestines. Mung beans are a very easily assimilated form of protein. Combined with rice and cooked until they have a soupy consistency, they are really a “predigested” food.
For thirty days, eat only mung beans and rice at mealtimes, with lots of fresh vegetables cooked into the same dish. Fruit may be eaten between meals as a snack, and you can drink yogi tea. As a variation, you can eat mung beans and rice with yogurt. In the winter, you can grind chilies into it to make it hot and spicy.
You can live on this diet alone for years and years and be very healthy. In India, there was a very saintly person. Mung beans and rice with yogurt was his entire diet. He would make it each night and eat it for breakfast the next morning. That man was a radiant light, just from the food he ate. People would come from all over to be healed by this man. Each morning they would form a long lie outside his door. Whatever sickness they had, he would feed them mung beans and rice with yogurt. And they would be cured! That’s why it is called the food for angels. It has protein, carbohydrates, everything you need.
MELON DIET
When the weather is hot, there is a fast you can do which will clean the liver, kidneys and intestines, renew the body fluids, and help you lose weight. You will need an ample supply of papayas, cantaloupes, watermelons and lemons. Here’s how it works:
Days 1-3: Eat only cantaloupes. They are warming and a laxative.
Days 4-6: Eat only watermelons. They are cooling to the body, and they will
work on the liver and kidneys.
Days 7-9: Eat only papayas. They will work on the intestines and digestion.
Days 10-12: Drink lemon and honey dissolved in water. It rids the system of excess mucus. Do not eat any solid food.
Days 13-15: Drink only plain water. Don’t drink it ice cold.
Days 16-18: Reverse the process! Drink Lemon-Honey water and nothing else.
Days 19-21: Eat only papayas.
Days 22-24: Eat only watermelons.
Days 25-27: Eat only cantaloupes.
To break this fast, eat only fruit at first. Then add yogurt if desired, then vegetables. Break this fast
very slowly and cautiously. Do not eat nuts and grains right away or you’ll suffer. It is advisable, during this fast, to massage the whole body frequently with almond oil.
This is a fairly strenuous fast. It can be modified by reducing each of the three central stages –
days 10-12, 13-15 and 16-18 – to one day each, making the diet last a total of twenty-one days. This makes
a fast a little easier, but still should not be attempted by someone with little experience with fasting. This diet has very beautiful effects, but your body must first be prepared.
BANANA FAST
This is another fast which is best not attempted by people with little experience of fasting. However, it has some very beautiful and unique effects. For those who have a history of drug abuse, it removes drug deposits for the medulla. It also rebuilds worn tissues and adjusts the iron, sodium and calcium factors in the body by replacing sodium with calcium.
For breakfast: Drink 1 cup of fresh-squeezed orange juice with the pulp left in it, sweetened with honey. After one hour, eat 3 medium-size ripe bananas. Chew thoroughly, this is very important, and be sure to eat the white strings which cling to the peels. Immediately after eating the bananas, eat the seed from one whole cardamom pod. The cardamom liquefies the banana and makes it easier to digest.
For lunch: Eat 3 bananas followed by the seeds of 1 cardamom pod.
For dinner: Eat 3 bananas followed by the seeds of 1 cardamom pod.
Begin on the new moon and continue for fourteen days until the full moon. Yogi tea may be taken along with this fast.
This fast may have its side effects, so be prepared! You may feel weak from the lack of customary nervous stimulants. In that case, drink more orange juice with honey during the day. If you become constipated, increase your intake of cardamom to a maximum of three pods at a time. Also, drink large amounts of hot water regularly. People often report that this diet makes them feel more emotional and hot-tempered. If you can stay with it, it will help to balance your emotions. If you experience a severe reaction to the fast, discontinue it according to the procedure below.
Breaking the fast: On the fifteenth day of the moon, drink only lemon juice in warm water with honey and eat no solid food.
Follow-up diet: To rebuild the body after this fast, eat mung beans and rice for twenty eight days. You can also eat fruit and yogi tea, but no dairy. The recipe for mung beans and rice must be altered slightly for this diet. Follow the recipe in the back of this book, but make the following changes:
Use 2 cups basmati rice
Use 10 cups of water
Add 1 Tbsp. fresh or dried mint leaves
Instead of “assorted vegetables” use green vegetables only.
JUICE FASTS
Should one ever go on a juice fast? Yes but only with extreme caution and wisdom. Juice fasting is good, but it does not take care of the intestinal tract. Toxins are released very rapidly, but there is nothing in the juice to form a stool, so the toxins may not be properly eliminated, causing severe problems. The rapid release of toxins in itself may be too strong for some people, causing extreme fatigue, weakness and malaise.
On the positive side, fasting on juices increases the cleansing capacity of the lungs, liver, kidneys, bowels and skin. It rejuvenates the mental, glandular, hormonal and nervous systems. It can also help to expel decaying cells and stimulate the way to ingest high percentages of the vitamins and minerals contained in these foods.
The best juices for fasting are alkaline juices. Those often recommended include carrot, beet and carrot, celery or a combination for the three. Beet juice is very powerful and should not be taken alone. Cabbage, parsley and cucumber juices are also used therapeutically. The nutrients in fresh vegetable juices are also assimilated in a matter of minutes, but in order to be properly digested they must be “chewed,” thoroughly mixed with saliva, before swallowing.