post your diet!

Hi frederique_dreams, I'm a bit surprised that there haven't been a bunch of replies to your post because nutrition is such a huge aspect of our lives, & even more so for those wanting to restore their brains/bodies/spirits from the effects of various addictions. Have you read " The Omnivore's Dilemma " by Michael Pollan? It's an excellent read and will definitely make you re-think your approach to food! I've been mostly leaning towards a kind of combo of the "hunter gatherer" diet & the "100 mile" diet....these make sense to me on both an intellectual & gut level. I was also fortunate enough to have experienced several years of living in the Yukon wilderness, where our goal had been to live as self sufficiently as possible. I fasted quite often too (haha, not always voluntarily!) as well as some respectful use of psychedelics, all of which helped hone my perception of which foods were a good "fit" for me. Conscious eating is an amazing experience....mmmm....picking wild strawberries in a mountain meadow, what could be finer! I discovered that I was much more of a hunter gatherer type by nature than a farmer during that time. As much as I loved the idea of growing all our own food, I just didn't much enjoy mucking about in dirt.....I felt better wandering off with a big basket and picking all the berries, wild greens & mushrooms I could find. I became quite the amateur mycologist, spending hours in the forest & meadows picking mushrooms and then taking spore prints & working with a microscope & good field guide to identify them later. I did the same with the wild greens, berries & flowers. ( Did you know that wild violets are delicious and a great source of vit c?) I learned how to preserve all of these wild foods too. Some were dried, many frozen and a few canned. It's a great feeling to be able to wander off and recognize so many edible goodies! But we needed protein & fat in our diet to stay healthy in that country. Although my husband, who had often worked as a hunting guide, taught me to shoot & taught me well~~~I found that I just didn't have it in me to kill an animal. Yet I enjoyed a good moose steak or fresh caribou liver as much as anyone! So did that make me a hypocrite, to eat something that I refused to kill myself? I decided not, because, after all I had a husband who was a fine hunter, and I helped with every part of the preparation for the hunt and the skinning & butchering later, so it was a fair exchange. I could catch fish myself, that didn't bother me as much, so fish was an important part of my diet also. So, with all of the above foods, we had an extremely healthy traditional hunter gatherer diet. I would have been perfectly happy with these foods alone but the rest of the family wanted carbs. Anyone who has spent time in the wilderness knows that carbs & sweets are extremely rare and definitely would never have been a part of any daily diet for any of the first nations people. But it seems that everyone loves & soon craves carbs if they become available. I don't know why that is, but it's unfortunate because along with the sugar & carbs come pretty much all the diseases we have today from diabetes to heart disease. I know without a doubt that the years when I followed the above hunter gatherer diet with few or no added carbs, that was the healthiest & happiest I've ever felt. Have you heard about the "100 Mile" diet? This is a diet where you only eat the animals & plants which are indigenous to the area you live in, including plants that are cultivated too but only those that don't require a hothouse or other artificial growing environment. The idea here is that all the foods/medicines that are best for you in a particular geographical environment are the ones that occur there naturally. This one makes sense if you consider that we lived on a 100 mile diet throughout most of our history & were a lot healthier than most of us are today. It's very much a hunter gatherer diet too, except for some agrarian allowances. Well, those are some of my thoughts about food, but still...I try not to get too fanatic or "purist" about it. Some years ago, I was sitting with a bunch of my old hippie friends in this restaurant when this tall, really exceptionally healthy & fit looking cyclist came in and sat at the next table. We were all whispering to each other & wondering what he was going to order, because we figured anyone who looked that great would have to eat a very good diet. But instead of the big plate of sprouts & greens we were sure he would have ordered, the waitress brought him a cheeseburger and a coke! We struck up a conversation with this fellow and learned that he was totally broke & had just finished washing a pile of dishes in the restaurant kitchen...and the hamburger & coke was what the owner gave him in return. We asked him if he wasn't worried about the fat & hormones & sugar etcetcetc and he said, " I'm not worried, I'm grateful for whatever food comes my way." He actually made a good point. It's not just what we eat, but HOW we eat it. Someone who shovels down pounds of pure, organic, expensive food can still turn it into toxins if it is eaten with greed or anger. Good topic and I hope we hear from more Ebokians !

well after years (i am post 50) of keeping various diets for the last year and a half i have found a diet that has given me more vitality and energy and health than i have had since the teen years it's called the POST IBOGA LISTEN TO YOUR INNER VOICE DIET    Start day with one ground bean infusion (commonly known as ground coffee - no milk, no sugar, no instant, no dehydrated, no decaf) After 2 - 3 hours: FRUIT  (watermelon in summer, oranges in winter) Late morning snack:  Dates Breakfast (around 11 - 12): Whole rye bread + sheep cheese / yogurt Lunch: (late afternoon): White Rice + Salmon (once a week quinoa in place of rice) 2nd ground bean infusion Dinner: Raw Oats with rice or almond milk plus 2x a day the following supplements: Solgar V2000 Shilajit Bhrami Gota Kola Ginko Ginseng Foti also as an orthodox Jew who keeps Shabbat my diet changes for 24 hours every week to celebrate the Shabbas so Friday night: Dry Red Wine, Challot, Fish, Chicken Soup, Chicken, Potatoe Kugel Saturday Day: Dry Red Wine, Challot, Fish, Chicken Stew, Potatoe Kugel and lets not forget it's not only about what you eat It's also HOW YOU EAT

Hi claudie_drifts, Edgar Casey said it is better to eat local food.  How did he know that way way back?  Now we get our food from Central America.  It is never a good idea to outsource you food supply.  Also, the fresher the better.  cinderpath

also diet is person specific and depends on 1) season (our bodies have different needs in the summer and winter) 2) age (our bodies needs are different from say 20 to 40 or 60) 3) enviroment (people in northern Canada will not have the same needs as those in  mexico)

been a vaggot all my life. the very thought of chewing on the dead flesh of something that has the same tissues that i do disgusts me. i stick with fruits, veggies, whole wheat and fish every once in awhile. peanut butter and, until not long ago, beet, were integral. planning on growing my own food soon. aeroponics FTW!:)

I've found that my motivation for eating determines how much nourishment I get maybe even moreso than what I decide to eat. If I spend time eating because I don't want to work or go to sleep, for example, I will invariably get indigestion. If I eat because I know my body must transform fuel into fertilizer to sustain life my digestion is efficient and I feel energized. I feel healthier buying food from people that seem sincere and benevolent. I know that I don't eat things solely with my physical mouth. Here are some things I like to cook: Plantain fried rice: make rice with a half chopped up onion, chilli peppers, tumeric, cinnamon sticks, and maybe some coconut water and nutmeg and black pepper. cook on med heat slice and pan fry a plantain add rice to plantains in the pan fry 2 eggs into the mess. salt to taste and enjoy! Root stew: Add to a dutch oven or close-able oven container: 3 sweet potatoes, cut 2 onions, diced 4 carrots, cut 4 celery sticks, chopped 1 bell pepper 2 sausages or other meat if you are into that chillis whole black pepper corns cinnamon sticks whole peeled garlic pieces chicken or vegetable stock is optional corn off the cob or any other ingredients you have laying around tomatoes, cut in half and layed on top so the skin peels off effortlessly after baking the whole mess for ~2 hours. Remember to stop eating when you are full!!! My father taught me long ago that it takes a few minutes for the stomach to tell the brain its full... eating slowly will prevent gross overeating while the message is being transferred.

Female about 50 yrs old anyone with mood problems needs lots of tryptophan- found in eggs, cheese, chicken, grass-fed beef raw goat's milk organic dairy- cottage cheese raw organic hard cheese organic butter nuts, nut butters organic fruits and veggies organic chicken, beef minimal grains

male 34 i am on a similar diet - the MICRODOSING IBOGA MADE ME LISTEN TO MY INNER VOICE DIET i hope i is ok to also talk about eating habits as such!? it came after reading about fasting here in the forums. i naturally started paying attention to how hungry i am and found that all of the sudden i felt full. i went for a whole day and felt full all way through. only every now and then would a voice tell me to eat, but tuning back in i realized i still felt full - and did not fall for one of my drives! i have been on a pescetarian diet since 15 years (eating fish a 1, 2 sometimes 3 times per month max). still i tend to overeat. and in the last years i started o gain weight. so, listening to my body i found that my drives make me eat much more than i need, and i am able since 4 weeks to almost always control them! this is a good run.. secondly - and that is a very big new lesson (i always knew that i was overeating, i just could not help it) - i stopped eating in the evenings. that is huge to me. it changes how i sleep completely. instead of the body getting an other double dose of energy it actually comes to rest - after years of double dosed 'sleeping' i feel going to bed for rest! food i eat ordered by amount: boiled/fried/baked noodles/vegetables/rice/beans coffee+milk (3 to 5 times per day - i am playing around leafing out the milk, but have not settled) cheeses, eggs nuts, fresh fruit yogurts grains i plan to make grains part of my diet. i experimented for 4 weeks in september and it was great. i used spelt. the reason i stopped - it takes a day of soaking and +2hours of cooking until it is soft..

I recently started the Specific Carbohydrate Diet - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_Carbohydrate_Diet It's close to the Paleolithic diet and I started it because it has helped a lot of people with crohn's disease so I wanted to give it a try. It is a big change since I was eating rice nearly every day - and often only that because of the crohn but well I wan't to see if this diet might help me to get even better Only shame is that I wanted to go vegan recently but that wouldn't leave much and I couldn't do both so I put that off for later again and try not to go too deep into meat and at least stay "bio".

Im a vegetarian. I have skimmed milk and natural yoghurt - cant kick them, as the alternative (Soy) tastes like crud. Mainly i eat vegetarian curry, baked spuds, - not enough variety really, but i feel as healthy physically as i ever have. I dont eat bread (very very rarely if i do - and wholemeal), and the only cereal i have is porridge oats, which i cook with water. So ive kicked the high calorie carbs, and now i stick to spuds, fruit, beans, and vege's. After a whole life of binge eating as a coping mechanism, its been pretty hard. (I was 125KG , now approx 77kg) but after a while you get used to it. I now get just as much enjoyment from vege curry as i did from a big domino's pizza and cream donut.

Hello I am new here, but find this thread very interesting! My name is Skyward and I got deathly ill last September.  I have no health insurance because I have Preexisting ( cervical cancer 2010) so as a small biz owner I am not allowed to even buy health insurance.  Long story short began violent illness of the GI type and was hospitalized one Friday until the following Tuesday when the ' office' lady found out I was uninsured. I was treated for a Possible parasite and/or Food borne illness (without a positive test result) .  Went home as sick as ever, and through much research and some Q and A with the doctor that I am 99% sure I have celiac.  I have had symptoms my whole life that no one ever put together. ANyway I am now living Gluten FREE with AMAZING results! I am an organic gardener and have been as long as I have been an independent adult, which helps feed my family. Just found out that due to my GI probs I am seriously B12 deficient and have pernicious anemia. Got some B12 injections fairly cheap and they made a huge difference in how I feel. I find Gluten free to be difficult at times, especially on the run, but changing our diets (especially in the US) is so important. My personal beliefs are that 99% of "ADD" in my community could be cured with a diet change. Two recipes that are super easy/healthy and feed you for days; enjoy! Here are some photos of my 'stock pot' and dishes! Tree hugger note- after I boil the peels and ends for stock I strain and add them to my worm bin (compost) Alter to  your tastes and budget; Roasted Root veggies (vegan) 3-4 Parsnips 1 Butternut squash 2 red potatoes 3 onions 1 bulb fresh garlic 3 carrots bunch of leeks 1 rutabaga fresh parley chopped (about 2-3 tablespoons) Sea salt and pepper to taste after roasting Toss in Olive oil Roast in the oven at 400 until lightly browned and soft to fork. {I leave the peelings on the carrots, and parsnips for added vitamins;} anything I peel I throw the peels and ends into a pot and boil like crazy to make Vegan Broth ! (use later to cook brown rice in or add to soup recipe below) My recipe for Vegan soup; Take leftovers from roasted roots above, chop bite size and add to vegan broth simmer and enjoy!

http://www.gnosticmedia.com/wheatismurder http://www.wheatbellyblog.com http:// www.trackyourplaque.com http://www.wheatbellybook.com *I'm afraid wheat is not meant to be eaten from what I have been studying it is a toxic substance.

coldspring Thank you - nice to meet you

Its been one month and I can't live without unrefined coconut oil! It vanished my long long long fatigue...definite boost in my mood, skin great improvement and so on I eat 4-5 tbsp daily

years ago i substituted rye for wheat and sheep or goats milk dairy for cows the results were / are incredible

I find there are as many variations on what we 'should and shouldn't eat' as you can imagine... according to one nutritionist we shouldn't eat wheat, from another starch, from another dairy, from another meat, and fruit, nuts, etc. ad infinitum. At the same time, I don't think the enormous amount of preservatives and chemicals in our hyper-processed food can be good for us - and that's regarding 'decent' food you buy in the supermarket, like apples (that have been frozen for a year and pumped full of who wants to know what). Organic would be nice, but I don't trust what they label organic because fact is, it needs to be mass-produced, shipped, held on the shelf, taken home and THEN stored for a few days, and in all this time it doesn't expire. Eating true organic i.e. directly from the earth and free of pesticides would be ideal. Then of course there are the diseases that come with it, which strengthen the immune system if they don't kill you. I hope to microdose soon... in preparation for that, and for the flood a week after, I will be taking on a minimalist diet. Fruit smoothies, water not milk. Vegetables lightly fried to soften for digestion, with only lemon to garnish. Nuts for an excellent source of protein, though to prevent stomach problems I'll be stopping this a day before the flood dose. Fasting from 18 hours before the flood. This diet will last me from tomorrow until probably two weeks from now. It will be part of my ritual approach to the iboga root, preparing the body by making it somewhat clean, and preparing the mind by disciplining it free of the sugar hit we're so accustomed to in the west. Will report back after the experience.

Hi Sky, Glad your feeling well, health is a wonderful thing to have.  Oh, I checked you pots and did not see any pot in them.  That's ok for I know what it looks like. Best to ya,  cinderpath

Many many leafy greens! Collard greens, kale, chard, lettuce. Lots of sprouts, many avocados, ridiculous amounts of bananas. I get 40lb boxes of  organic bananas and will eat it within a week. Tons of hemp seeds, I make smoothies with around 5-6 bananas, a few tablespoons of hemp seeds, hemp protein, maca powder, spirulina, ginger. I feel amazing eating like this, I try to avoid cooking my food as much as I can, working at an organic, raw vegan restaurant helps a lot to keep me on track.

I was quite sick years ago with some serious digestive disorders..and drinking alot of ayahuasca in combination with a raw vegan diet helped alot. I still eat that diet and I never drink tap water. I only drink wild spring water..collecting it every other day etc is some work but I live near one and it is worth it.. I first cut out all grains completely..I am gluten intolerant as well..dairy went out as Im lactose intolerant and never felt great on diary anyway..I tried organic buffalo meat and chicken fish etc for a while becasue I tested allergic to beef also..but finally I cut out all meat and just began eating raw fruits and veggies, some nuts and seeds and some cultured raw foods as well. I did periods of juice feasting also. This all helped so much and it has been 18 months like this full time now. Occasionally I will eat a steamed potatoe with a bit of olive oil and fresh rosemary but that is like my cheat food. Mostly I live on lots of fruit, smoothies, huge salads and dehydrated raw foods my gf makes-my gf was a raw food chef for a few years so I have raw vegan organic pizzas and basically anything else you can imagine she can make totally raw and vegan. We eat tons of fresh herbs too..and I got really into wildcrafting so we eat alot of wild foods from the area. This is honeslty the best diet I have ever been on. I tried all kinds of weird low carb diets, high fat diets etc..none of them worked. I eat as much as I want to now..as much carbs as I want but only from fruits never refined sugars..and I feel great doing this. I think people should just eat to feel great and dont think about what you need to cut out...just think about all the great stuff you can add to your diet and then eat more of that. You will feel great for it and your body will just know what to do with all of that stuff.

some good Info on the raw vegan low fat diet may be had here http://www.foodnsport.com/faq.php

Fat and cholestoral is good for the brain.  Much of the brain is made up of such.  Be careful of propoganda no matter in what costume it comes in.  Always look at all sides and know nothing is black or white. Rainbows

I wouldn't call the 80-10-10 diet propaganda, but agree on the importance of limited amounts of specific fats. -------------- Some good supplements: Omega-3 Vegetarian EPA-600 mg of EPA per softgel http://futurebiotics.com/product/92 ----------- Vegan DHA -200 mg http://www.nutraceutical.com/search/view_product.cfm?product_index=8004425 ----------------- http://www.nordicnaturals.com/en/Products/Product_Details/514/?ProdID=1425 Nordic Naturals Omega-3 liquid - Fish oil omega 3s = 1725 / teaspoon as follows: EPA 825mg & DHA 550mg + other omega 3s &  Omega 9 -oleic acid -290mg --------------------------- some interesting info: Survival of the Fattest: The Key to Human Brain Evolution - Stephen Cunnane - ISBN-10: 9812561919 ISBN-13: 978-9812561916 ---------------------------------- more interesting info: http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/fats.html "The puzzle of the big brain change involved scientists putting together pieces that at first look had no relation. The first piece of the puzzle involved discovering early human populations that demonstrated greater intelligence. They found evidence in the East African Rift Valley and on the southern Cape of South Africa. The second piece of the puzzle was the discovery that docosahexaenoic acid, (DHA), was a large contributor to brain growth. The third piece was the discovery that DHA was found in seafood. When scientists put all the pieces together they found that the early humans who lived near water sources and ate seafood experienced the big brain change!"   "Stone age women collecting shellfish could have easily provided themselves with a plentiful source of brain-specific nutrition, and their children would have naturally participated in exploitation of this extremely rich resource. There must have been enough omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids available in their diet to provide many generations with fuel for fetal/infant development as well as childhood and adult needs for the cardiovascular system and the brain. In contrast, the inland Australopithecines did not have access to omega 3 EFAs and got stuck at a brain capacity that was not much bigger than a chimpanzee for three million years." -------- "About two-thirds of your brain is composed of fats." -------------- "Myelin, the protective sheath that covers communicating neurons, (in the brain) is composed of 30% protein and 70% fat."

Sorry for the miscommunication.  I was only saying that an all vegan diet (which I was doing for 8 years up 3 weeks ago) has just as much propoganda behind it as does meat based SAD diets.  I studied for about a year before realizing that fish/meat is healthier for me than an all vegan mostly raw diet.  But to each their own as individuals we are stronger than the "some" of our parts.  Which is why I said: Rainbows.  So we can look at all angles and sides in developing a healthy diet for the brain and body.

coldspring thank you for your kind replies. I appreciate the concern you expressed in the first one, and the gentleness in the second. I am indeed taking a more moderate course at the moment. Especially as the weather becomes cooler (and I believe the quality of bananas, at least on the East coast USA, has deteriorated.) The raw diet did seem to work well as a cleansing diet following a short fast I did. QUOTE: "I was only saying that an all vegan diet (which I was doing for 8 years up 3 weeks ago) has just as much propoganda behind it as does meat based SAD diets.   I studied for about a year before realizing that fish/meat is healthier for me than an all vegan mostly raw diet. " 8 years, and a year of research is a very long time, you must have quite a story.