Digestive Wellness: Strengthen the Immune System and Prevent Disease Through Healthy Digestion, Fourth Edition (60 page)

Protein powder: You can use this for snacks or to add nutrients and calories at mealtime. There are many good protein powders. Look for rice protein, pea protein, hemp protein, or whey protein. You can drink them with water or diluted juice, or use as the base for a smoothie with fruit.

Dahl: Made with red lentils, this is typically an easy bean to digest.

Your body also needs fats. They burn slowly and also nourish and soothe your nervous and immune system.

Healing fats: butter, ghee, coconut oil, olive oil, hemp seed, flaxseed, avocados, coconut milk, coconut water.

Some people tolerate nuts and seeds, or seed and nut butters. Use these minimally at first. Nut butters, such as almond butter, cashew butter, and macadamia nut butter, are often tolerated in small amounts. These can even be added to a smoothie or mixed with water to make a sauce to put on vegetables. Tahini, sesame butter, can be used the same way. If you tolerate nuts well, eat them. If you soak them first, you will make them more digestible. Roasting nuts also makes them easier to digest.

Eat non-gluten-containing grains such as rice, quinoa, millet, amaranth, teff, and buckwheat. Make these well cooked, like gruel, or put into soups. You will digest these best if you soak the grains first and also if you use more water than you typically would use. Most grains require two parts water to one part grain. To make grains easier to digest, I recommend three or four parts water to one part grain. Let the grain soak in the water for a few hours before you cook it. Soaking tricks the grains; they “think” that it’s spring and time to sprout, and they release precious minerals and nutrients that you’ll be able to use. You’ll find that the grain is easier to digest, plus the cooking time is cut in half.

If you look at your plate, at least half of what you eat each day ought to be vegetables. Cook these well, culture them, juice them, or eat in soups or stews. Fruits and vegetables contain excellent fibers and prebiotics, protein, minerals, vitamins, polyphenols, and carbohydrate. Here are some suggestions on what to choose:

Well-cooked vegetables, including
all
non-starchy vegetables and root vegetables. Root vegetables have more starch in them and can be more filling and satisfying. Be brave and try new vegetables: artichoke (boiled soft), arugula, asparagus, bamboo shoots, beets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, celery root (great in soup), chard, collard greens, cucumber, eggplant, fennel bulb (in soup or roasted), garlic, green beans, kale, leeks, mushrooms, mustard greens, okra, parsley, peas, potatoes (best boiled or in soup or stew), spinach, sweet potatoes, onions, winter squash, turnips, turnip greens, watercress, yams, zucchini.

Cultured vegetables, such as sauerkraut.

Sea vegetables. Common sea vegetables include kombu, arame, dulse, and nori. These foods provide minerals and easy-to-utilize proteins. Drop some kombu or other sea vegetable in soup while it’s cooking. Use sheets of nori to wrap vegetables or grains in; buy them flaked to use instead of salt in cooking and at the table. Soak some dulse and add it to your vegetables. Add some kelp flakes to your protein powder. You typically find these in the Asian section of a health-food store or in an Asian market.

Fresh vegetable juices prepared and used the same day. Try carrot, ginger, beet, kale, parsley, apple, watercress, cabbage, or sauerkraut.

The amount of fruit that people can tolerate when in a weakened condition varies. Use your body to discover the right amount for you. Start with these suggestions:

Very ripe fruit

Cooked fruit

Applesauce