By Judy Davie
For further information about food and nutrition, visit Judy Davie’s website at www.thefoodcoach.com.au
‘I want to detox for spring — what do you think of these detox kits available from health food stores?’
A good detox diet is more than enough to encourage elimination of waste products and train you towards long-term healthy eating habits. Detox kits are full of insoluble fibre, cost money and do the same job as a diet rich in fibrous foods. To detoxify the system you must minimise the intake of hard-to-digest foods like red meat, poultry, cheese, wheat products and dairy, and increase the intake of vegetables and fruit. Most importantly you must eliminate all processed foods which may contain artificial flavours and additives, stimulants such as coffee, tea, chocolate, alcohol and tobacco.
By improving the digestive system, you increase the metabolism, toxins are released and weight loss occurs. To further speed up the detox process you should also add exercise to your daily life. Detoxification occurs through the skin, through sweat, as well as through our excretory processes. The more you sweat, the more toxins are released, so make sure you add plenty of cardiovascular exercise to your daily program.
‘I would love to try the October food plan but am allergic to cheese and mushrooms and don’t like fish. Is there any other way I can do the plan when these foods are eliminated?’
It often happens, someone will read a diet and just because they don’t like a few ingredients, decide not to go on it. Such is the limitation of set diets.
Once you are aware of the categories a food belongs to i.e. carbohydrates, fats and protein, it’s easier to substitute certain foods with others. The overriding rule, regardless of what you choose to substitute certain foods and meals for, is they must be low in saturated fat and as natural as possible.
Cheese is diary and although you don’t say whether you’re allergic to other dairy foods, if you are, you could substitute it with soy products like soy cheese and tofu. Mushrooms as a vegetable can be substituted with any vegetables other than the higher carbohydrate veggies like corn, sweet potato, carrots, and potato. And fish may be substituted with any other lean protein foods including chicken, turkey, cuts of lean red meat, and eggs.
Without fish in the diet you may be lacking in Omega 3 fats. Omega 3 fats can’t be made by the body and it is necessary to help reduce inflammation, thin the blood and protect the body against heart disease. Without fish in the diet it’s a good idea to supplement with fish oil capsules or add a tablespoon of flaxseed oil to your daily diet. Flaxseed oil is one of the few plant foods rich in Omega 3 fats. It’s delicious added to yoghurt at breakfast or used in place of olive oil as a salad dressing. Store it in the fridge and never use it for cooking.
‘Are some oils lower in kilojoules than others?’
All oils are energy rich and have a similar number of kilojoules gram for gram. For weight loss it’s always best to include them in the diet but restrict their intake.
Mono-saturated fats like olive oil and camellia tea oil are overall better for your health and studies have found they metabolise more completely than many other fats which can be stored and converted as fat.
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