ON FASTING AND CLEANSING

Many people have asked me how you begin the change to a Whole Food Plant Based Diet (WFPB).  Do you gradually ease into it or do you just go cold tofurkey?  After completing The Plant Based Nutrition courses at eCornell University, I remember this coming up in a discussion.  I, personally, went cold tofurkey!  While watching my dad go from a stroke to dementia I knew I wanted to make quick and permanent changes to the way I looked at food.  For others this may not be the motivating force behind a desire to make changes in your diet.

One of the suggestions during the class discussion was fasting, either water or juice.  That always sounded harder to me than just cutting the line I so tightly held to meat, fish and dairy, but everyone's different.  I came across a couple of articles from the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition newsletter.  There are great articles at Nutritionstudies.org with loads of information about plant based nutrition, but the article on a water fasting aka a cleanse.  The science behind it is explained in the article.

Whenever you embark on something that affects your health, always let your healthcare professional know what you're doing so they can monitor the results.  If for no other reason than you will get a starting point and results point.  If more people let their doctor's in on their WFPB journey, you will be aiding the healthcare community about nutrition which they are not required to learn as part of their education.

The spinach juice photo is from the article entitled

FASTING – An Effective Ancient Therapy for Today’s Health Concerns