Breakfast Fruits Bowl

My breakfast fruit bowl of the day. I take four to five types of fruits. Fruits are Best for breakfast. Preparing a fruit bowl for breakfast is an art. Today I picked up an apple, an orange, one banana, four medium size Ber (Ber is Zizyphus), three dates, two walnuts, five almonds and a piece of coconut giri (meat).

The sequence of cutting depends on the type of fruit - the hardest variety goes first and the softest are the last. The nuts and dry fruits go in for the dressings. The fruits must be cut in a size that can be eaten one at a time.

Golden Rule - Drink your fruits and eat your juices.

I took 20 minutes to eat this bowl. Picking up each piece at a time and chewing till it turned liquid in my mouth. This helps in digestion and the fruits are digested in an hour in our stomach.

Read More

Breakfast - Have only Fruits

Breakfast

The best breakfast for a diabetic patient is fruits. God has been kind and he made the selection of fruits easy by making them in different colours. Select four to five different colours of fruits and prepare a bowl for breakfast. If you are on diabetes medication then 60% of your fruit bowl must contain citrus fruits. There is no restriction of any fruit, one may choose papaya, mango, chikoo and the best is the seasonal fruit. One may have up to one kilogram of fruits before 12 O'clock noon.

Sugar in fruits is natural and body absorption is simple. Refined sugar is broken down by body in two or more processes into sugar which can be useful. Natural sugar is absorbed in a controlled manner by the body whereas the refined sugar goes uncontrolled into blood. Refined sugar is hidden in numerous processed foods and ready-made beverages, whereas fruits are visible and thus enable us to control sugar easily.

Person on diabetes medication will have to eat more fruits to satiate in the beginning because of diabetic medicines. Naturally eating one kilogram of fruit in one sitting is not possible. To start with make two bowls of fruits. Eat the first bowl at about 8 AM and eat the second at 11 AM. Point to note here is to give three hours gap between these two helpings. Second important point to note is - the total quantity of fruits that an individual consumes must be up to one kilogram or less than one kilogram only. When I started eating fruits for Breakfast I used to eat about 900 grams of fruits. Since I was on diabetic medication I had to eat more to satisfy my hunger. Today I can make do with just two bananas and an apple or orange with increased energy levels.

How to Win Over Initial Hunger Pangs

1. Drink your fruits. While eating fruits for breakfast chew them to the extent that they become liquid in your mouth. A medium bowl of fruits must be consumed in 20-25 minutes. By doing so we assist stomach in digesting the fruits faster.
2. Cut small pieces and use a fork to pick each piece - one at a time.
3. Soak 15 to 20 raisins in water for 4 to 5 hours in water. Strain the water and store them in a handy container. Eat one raisin at a time whenever you feel hungry and chew it till it becomes liquid in your mouth. One can have up to 20 raisins in a day.
4. Split your fruits in two helpings. Have one helping around 7-8 AM and second helping after three hours around 10-11 AM.
5. Drink 1-2 glass of water after one hour of having fruits.

Dressing up The Fruits Dress up your fruits with them and let eyes too feast upon them. What's beautiful and tasty is always better for health.

1. Almonds - six (soaked in water overnight).
2. Walnuts - two (soaked in water overnight).
3. Dates/Prunes - three.
4. Coconut Meat/Giri. Add a piece of coconut meat/giri about two inches. This acts like catalyst for all breakdown of food in our body.
5. All nuts and seeds must only be consumed after having soaked in water.

• Hard nuts like almonds and walnuts - 10 to 12 hours overnight.
• Soft variety like cashews and seeds - 4 to 5 hours.

If you start fruits only for breakfast, within a week you will notice a wonderful change. However there is someone within you shouting - Is this my life? Don't listen to that voice. Just carry on, remember it takes 21 days to change habits. Best healthy food stays for lesser time in stomach. Fruits remain in our stomach for one hour and eight hours in our body. Animal protein being complex remains in our stomach for 4 to 6 hours and in our body up to 72 hours.

All and any fruit can be eaten. As mentioned earlier natural sugar never interferes with body functions, it's the refined sugar which causes problems. The selection of acidic or alkaline food matters only when a deficiency or excess of a nutrient exist in the body. For diabetes ideal fruit is citrus fruits. The problem occurs when you consume even one spoon of sugar. The body is lazy and consumes refined sugar first. So remember refined sugar is poison for a diabetic patient.

Eating Fruit on Empty Stomach

We all think eating fruits means just buying fruits, cutting it and just popping it into our mouths. It's not as easy as you think. It's important to know how and when to eat the fruits. What is the correct way of eating fruits?

1. It Means Not Eating Fruits After Your Meals.
2. Fruits Should Be Eaten On An Empty Stomach.

If you eat fruits on empty stomach, it will play a major role to detoxify your system, supplying you with a great deal of energy for weight loss and other life activities. Let's say you eat two slices of bread and then a slice of fruit. The slice of fruit is ready to go straight through the stomach into the intestines, but it is prevented from doing so due to the bread taken before the fruit. In the meantime the whole meal of bread & fruit rots and ferments and turns to acid. The minute the fruit comes into contact with the food in the stomach and digestive juices, the entire mass of food begins to spoil. So please eat your fruits on an empty stomach.

You have heard people complaining - Every time I eat watermelon I burp, when I eat durian my stomach bloats up, when I eat a banana I feel like running to the toilet. Actually all this will not arise if you eat the fruit on an empty stomach. The fruit mixes with the putrefying of other food and produces gas and hence you will bloat. Graying hair, loss of hair, balding, nervous outbursts and dark circles under the eyes all these will not happen if you take fruits on an empty stomach. There is no such thing as some fruits, like orange and lemon are acidic, because all fruits become alkaline in our body. If you have mastered the correct way of eating fruits, you have the secret of beauty, longevity, health, energy, happiness and normal weight.

When you need to drink fruit juice - drink only fresh fruit juice, NOT from the cans, packs or bottles. Don't even drink juice that has been heated up. Don't eat cooked fruits because you don't get the nutrients at all. You only get its taste. Cooking destroys all the vitamins.

But eating a whole fruit is better than drinking the juice. If you should drink the fresh fruit juice, drink it sip by sip slowly, because you must let it mix with your saliva before swallowing it. Best is to eat your fresh fruit juices and not to drink them.

Read More

Sunlight: Winter Fruits and Vegetables

One of the important necessity of healthy life is sunlight. Winters are devoid of sufficient sunlight due to numerous reasons, one of the prime reason is that Earth is farthest from Sun and about start the journey towards the Sun.

So how do we get the necessary radiations for healthy living. The one natural way is sunbathing and second is fruits and raw vegetables.

Fruits require sunlight for ripening and so do the vegetables. We must endeavor to eat more green leafy vegetables and fruits to get the sunlight radiations absorbed by them. This is the season of vegetables like spinach, fenugreek leaves, radish leaves, mustard leaves, carrot leaves, fresh coriander, turnip, beets, oranges, keenu, apples, etc.

Top 10 Winter Fruits and Vegetables

1. Carrots

This vegetable has the highest amount of carotene when compared to other fruits and vegetables. In addition it is an excellent source for vitamin B, C, D, E and K. You can eat them raw or cook them as you wish.


2. Oranges

This fruit is the best source of vitamin C and helps your body fight against germs and gives potassium, minerals, folate and fiber. Above all it is low in calories.


3. Apples

All of us know that “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”. Well, you can have this fruit at affordable price during winter and opt it as your midday snack and enjoy the benefits.


4. Turnips

This is a root vegetable in size of an apple. It has a sweet taste and starchy texture and contains fiber, folates, vitamins and minerals and the best turnips come in the market during winter.


5. Mustard Leaves
This is a winter crop which is highly nutritious. Several vital antioxidants, carotenes, vitamins and minerals are there in its fresh green leaves. Include the goodness of this food in your diet this winter and get the benefits.


6. Fenugreek Leaves

In India fenugreek leaves are known ‘Methi’ which is loaded with vitamins and minerals along with lots of fiber and phytonutrients. It helps in lowering cholesterol and blood sugar level along with many more and overall health benefits.


7. Spinach

Spinach leaves are one of the healthiest vegetables in the world. It contains flavonoids and carotenoids which are antioxidants along with lots of vitamins and minerals. It is rich in vitamin A, C and K and contains omega-3 fatty acids. If you want to get the complete nutrition, avoid boiling or cooking it too much.


8. Peas

This vegetable is rich in Vitamin – K and contains essential B – Complex vitamins. It has all necessary minerals along with folic acid and ascorbic acid. It is not just eaten after being cooked with other vegetables, but you can have it raw in salads and add it to soups. It provides you with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant benefits.


9. Radishes

Radishes are available in abundance during winter season. They are pungent or sweet in taste and provide you with potassium, lots of roughage, folic acid and ascorbic acid. You can either cook it in your way or even eat raw.

10. Beets

Beets can be consumed throughout the year, but they are the best ones during winter season. It contains compound that help prevent heart and liver diseases and also helps enhance the blood flow to brain.

In winter the body metabolism is low and so it is advisable to take fruits and vegetables that are low in calories and have dense nutrients. Eating seasonal fruits and vegetables is healthier because the nutrient contents vary when grown in off-season.

Read More

Preparation for October Challenge

Please finalise the menu for Tadka as per your palate and compile the shopping list. My recommendation for seven days-

1. Hara dhaniya - 7 small bunches.
2. Pudina - one bunch.
3. Ginger - 250gms.
4. Garlic - one pod.
5. Coconut (giri) - one and dry - one.
6. Lemon - 7.
7. Almond - 28.
8. Walnut - 14.
9. Dates - 21.
10. Magaj + pumpkin seeds - 100gms
11. Sesame seeds - 7 spoons required, 100gms as may be used for fruits and salads too.
12. Ground nut - 500gms.

(THESE ARE JUST A SUGGESTION)

Tadka for 7 Days

Dry Fruits - almonds -28, walnuts-14, raisins70, pumpkin seeds-70gms, flax-seeds70gms, groundnuts-100gms, sesame seeds-7 teaspoons, magaj-7 teaspoons, dry coconut grated-14 spoons.

Chutney - choose your day

Hara Dhaniya
Nariyal
Pudina
Palak/available local green
Red Chillies
Garlic
Ginger

These can be the base and add tomato, garlic, ginger, green chillies, fresh lime and blend it. These ingredients are always part of our weekly purchases.

Sprouts

Sprouts add a crunchy flavour to our salad. Best is moong beans sprouts.

So today and tomorrow is the day. If you have whole green moong dal at home do it today or even tomorrow will be fine.

Sprouting is very simple if you don't ask anyone.

1. Take a katori/bowl of moong dal. Roughly one handful is good for a week.
2. On first sight you may feel that one handful is less, this is natural. Don't increase the quantity.
3. Wash it thoroughly and soak it for 24 hours. Change water once after 12 hours.
4. After 24 hours strain the water and store it any container(if perforated available use it) and cover it with a wet cloth.
5. Keep rinsing and straining water as per your convenience every 6-7 hours.

That's it. Within 4-5 days you will have sprouts.

If you smell something odd, rinse and strain is the magic that works.

Read More

Natural Living

I was reading an article and came across a beautiful reasoning of illness. The logic is what Nature Care teaches us.

All illness, symptoms and diseases are an intelligent manifestation of the super fine machinery called our body. They can never be corrected or cured by chemicals (medication) because it will only aggravate the root cause or functioning of our body.

The only cure is to change the input to this factory called body. The more we eat quality (Natural whole food) food there are more chances of faster recovery. This is so simple to understand. All those bad food cravings, bad habits and love for processed food is actually slow poisoning and suicidal.

The study in the article was about type 2 diabetes. It takes a normal body about 10-15 years of very bad lifestyle for type 2 diabetes to manifest. This sounds so logical because now parents with an average age of 40 years having teenage children are diabetic and their children are obese. Diabetes in such children is only a few months away to manifest.

So it's not about change of lifestyle of diabetic parents alone but the change must be for the whole family. Burgers, pizzas, momos, chips and cheese are not the sign of high standard of living but sign of one's inflated ego which has manifested due to the bad days in our childhood.

We still have time to correct it or we will be the generation who will be visiting hospitals daily to look upon our parents in old age and also our sick children.

Read More

Whole Plant Based Diet

A Simple Analogy

If there is no water in the overhead tank of your building, no amount of twisting and turning the tap of your kitchen will yield water. So if you don't eat sugar where will sugar come from in your blood. Insulin produced by pancreas in our body is responsible to control the sugar levels in our body. This mechanism has broken down due to some reason and thus Diabetes. Sugar is the primary source of energy for the body, consequently is the basic necessity for us. So why does the excess of sugar causes problems? The infrastructure of our body is unable to transport this excess sugar and a kind of logistics problem manifests in our body causing Diabetes.

I often meet diabetic patients to inspire them from my reversal story. The first thing they want to know is my Diet Plan. My answer to them in simple one line is - Whole Food Plant Based Diet. They are immediately dejected with my reply. However when I explain the diet in totality they reluctantly begin to show some sign of belief. Before I continue as to how I achieved my reversal I want to share my Whole Plant Based Diet plan.

What is Whole Plant Based Diet

A whole food plant based diet is one of the healthiest diets you can follow. Clinical research studies have shown that adopting a low-fat, plant-derived diet can aid in weight loss, improve insulin sensitivity, reduce blood sugar and cholesterol and reverse a Type II diabetes. Eating a whole plant based foods diet means maximizing your nutrient absorption and including foods from natural sources while avoiding the highly processed foods. Whole natural foods include fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, legumes and whole grains. A whole food is a food that is as close to its natural state as possible, such as a stalk of broccoli, a raw almond, or a scoop of quinoa, as opposed to a bag of potato chips, packed fruit juices or a ready made snacks.

Advantages

• Less Sugar. Plants have natural sugar, this means that the sugar in your blood will be steady for long time. You will be satiated for a longer time as compared to other sources of refined carbohydrates.
• More Fiber. Vegetables are very rich in fiber.
• More Vitamins. Vegetables contain a lot of vitamins and antioxidants which we need to protect our cells from free radicals.
• Better Digestion. Our body is able to easily process plant based foods.
• Better Hydration. Fruits and vegetables have water as inherent component.
• Less Toxins. Since the plant based food contains vitamins and nutrients in natural absorbance form their absorption is easy with lesser byproducts as toxins.
• Increased Energy Levels. Lesser load on body in utilizing plant based diet  increases energy levels.
• Balanced Diet. Whole plants based diet provides a natural balanced nutrition to our body. 

I can actually go on and on, however the advantages for a diabetic patient have been mentioned above. One of the side effect of the plant based diet will be loss of extra weight. The body will consume the excess fat and a person will achieve ideal weight. I lost 10 kgs in four weeks. I would recommend you to watch this video. The most able and accomplished person in the world is The President of United States and he has this to reveal about Whole Plant Based Diet.

Read More