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by Steve Meyerowitz, “Sproutman”
Occasionally, I get asked “what do you eat?” I understand that it is a natural curiosity especially for those starting out on their health journey. But a classroom or lectern are poor places to truly answer such a question and I typically demur. Actually, I have trouble with the question. In my opinion, we all need to tailor our diets to our personal needs and my diet should never be your diet. Just as on the outside we all dress differently, on the inside our organs and glands are also unique. Rather, I recommend we listen to our bodies and be guided by the signals we get and then feed ourselves accordingly. That being said, I also understand the value of comparison and example. So finally, I have given in. What follows is a sort of typical day for me with the focus on food. I hope you find something in it for you. |
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Often, I begin my day by jotting down notes of my thoughts just prior to waking. I’m a busy entrepreneur with lots of goals and plans and a long list of to-dos. Frequently, my thoughts relate to the days priorities. Things are always changing, so it’s hard to keep resorting the list. The most important things tend to bubble to the surface in those early morning thoughts. So I try to capture them.
I haven’t used toothpaste in decades. Instead I brush my teeth with mouthwash. But not just any mouthwash. You can find some wonderful herbal formulas that include anti-bacterial and cleansing agents such as peppermint and anise oils, grapefruit seed and cinnamon extracts, golden seal, calendula, aloe vera, etc.
Before I exit the bathroom, I smear some wheatgrass cream over a sore on the upper right side of my nose. It is a basil carcinoma – a simple skin cancer. But I am not having it dug out the conventional way. I am treating it with an herb called black salve. It is so aggressive, it will exhume the cancer. I’ve done this several times. The cancer disappears but later returns. So obviously the salve is not strong enough or does not penetrate deep enough. But the wheatgrass cream (whose active ingredient is an extract of organic wheatgrass juice) cleans up the wound and beautifully restores the skin to nearly normal condition. |
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Now it’s time for my first food of the day. That’s easy. Agua; and lots of it. I drink a liter of water within 20 minutes. It is an intestinal flush. It clears the stomach and intestines. It works! Just remember to keep within dashing distance of the nearest water closet. I also take a systemic enzyme every morning. These enzymes devour errant proteins and help detoxification. Take them on an empty stomach. The big name brand in this category is Wobenzym. I take a vegetarian version called Medizym (www.Medizym.com). Wait 30-60 minutes before taking any food to give the enzymes a chance to work.
Now it’s exercise time. My minimum routine is a 35 minute run. My first food of the day is juice. My standard recipe is an all green juice made from kale, celery, parsley, lemon, and ginger. Sometimes I juice for two days at a time using a storage technique of my own invention where the juice temperature stays at just a few degrees above freezing. Sometimes I get my juice at the local juice bar. They know my recipe. However I get it, I consider juice my most nourishing meal of the day. As an alternative, I keep a stash of the best frozen wheatgrass juice in the freezer. I also use the only “freeze-dried” wheatgrass in the world that is of exceptional quality. (You can find it in the UK under the Xynergy label.) |
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After juice I work until I need a break and then it’s time for a smoothie. I consider my smoothies whole meals that require little chewing. They are just as satisfying and arguably more nourishing. If you look in my Power Juices Super Drinks book, you’ll find about 100 of these blended drinks dedicated to treating different ailments. A typical smoothie for me includes bananas, lecithin granules – alertness, focus, better mood, mental clarity, and nutritional yeast – highest source of B vitamins, and oat bran. Some days it will just be Klamuth lake Blue Green Algae, plus the banana. Other times it will be organic raspberries and blueberries, some of our best anti-oxidant foods, with the nutritional yeast and bananas. All these drinks include a powder probiotic formula that includes acidophilus and bifidobacterium. The probiotics are the most expensive part of this liquid meal. I lick the glass clean to make sure I get all 5 billion of these little guys! Note: I never add a sweetener. The fruit is all the sweetener I need. I just add water to taste. Whatever the recipe, this is a concentrated liquid meal. I sip this drink over the course of maybe 30-45 minutes. It creates a satiety that lasts for about 3 hours.
This often carries me through to dinner unless the work level is too high or the stress level too taxing. If so, I will snack on something simple and easy to grab. Often that is nuts and dried fruit; today it was pumpkin seeds and banana chips and goji berries. International Harvest makes delicious trail mixes that offer a variety of dried fruits and nuts. My favorite is the Go Take a Hike! mix. Other days I have a bar. Bar foods are easy and offer quick satisfaction during the hectic pace of busy day. I try new ones often because there are so many. Yesterdays bar was white chia seeds with cashew butter, several berries, and agave syrup. Today’s bar is called Miracle Reds. It contains goji, pomegranate, acai, mangosteen, cranberries, brazil nuts, dates, agave nectar….you get the idea (www.MacroLifeNaturals.com). |
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When I complement these bars with a hot drink, it keeps me satisfied until dinner. I take two to three hot drink every day. My afternoon drink today was a green chai tea called Organic Hojicha Chai by Eden Foods. I often add “mylk” to my teas. Today I added coconut milk, but it could easily be rice or almond milk. I don’t make my own mylk very often because it is too wasteful of the nuts and almonds (my favorite mylk) and is very expensive. Instead, I prefer to make almond yoghurt or “cheeze.” This way I get to use the whole nut; there is no waste and because it is fermented, it lasts a long time. Back to the hot drinks: chai is my favorite and I also love ginger and licorice. When I’m in a more decadent mood, I’ll heat up a roasted grain drink that includes roasted barley, barley malt, and chicory. It’s a simple caffeine-free recipe. When add mylk and Stevia – the natural non-sugar sweetener – it is super satisfying for former coffee drinkers.
Well, I hardly have space left to tell you about dinner. But it’s not that important because I’ve already taken in all the nourishment my body needs for the day. Dinner is more ceremonial – a social event one has with family and friends. I’ve been 100% raw so far all day, but dinner – the non-essential meal – is where the cooked foods enter. It could be a steamed vegetable or a cooked grain. I’ll tell you how to minimize the cooking below. But first, if you want to have grains and beans on a raw diet, you must sprout them. Sprouting broadens the raw diet to include the world of grains and beans. This adds a level of balance and stability to the diet that enables more people to maintain it for the long-term. Even still, you should moderate your portions because some types of raw grains and beans can be difficult to digest even sprouted. If you feel the need for more of these foods, then low-cook them. Here’s how. |
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Boil water in an empty pot. Turn off the flame. Pour in the rice (or your favorite grain), put the lid on and come back 4 hours later. Many grains will be entirely softened at this point. Or you can warm them up and soften them some more. This approach minimizes the destruction of nutrients and increases the digestibility.
You may ask, but you haven’t mentioned sprouts? Remember, sprouts is more than alfalfa. It includes grains, beans, vegetables, and seeds. My favorites are the green leafy (mini) vegetables. I would rather have a salad of my own alfalfa sprouts than store bought lettuce. There is no question for me that home-grown buckwheat and sunflower greens tops any lettuce I can buy. But when the backyard lettuces are in season, I devour those, too. Since I test seeds for a living, my refrigerator is stocked with whatever I test. Sometimes it’s empty. Sometimes it’s overflowing.
My favorite foods? Sesame seeds and raw tahini. (Our highest source of calcium!) I love seaweeds – dulse, nori, wild Atlantic nori (Laver), and hijiki. Then there’s Italian olive oil, green olives, apricots with almond butter, guacamole, cilantro. My most common cooked foods are: rice mylk, wild rice, basmati rice, mochi, and Lundberg’s Seaweed Rice Cakes. I enjoy making cashew yoghurt, sprout breads and crackers (see my Kitchen Garden Cookbook), and kale and zucchini chips dipped in sesame sauce and dried in the dehydrator. And I get weak in the knees whenever I’m within sighting distance of cacao covered goji berries. But twice per year, I lead a juice fast and remind myself that not eating, can be even more satisfying.
Copyright 2009 by Steve Meyerowitz, “Sproutman”
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Hello Sproutman, glad you are sorting out the skin cancer. Is it possible to do it with just wheatgrass (perhaps a poltice?) rather than cream. Or does the cream have something else to recommend it?
Sally
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Hello Sproutman,
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I attended your lecture at the NewLife Expo and I have a question that I wasn’t able to ask regarding water.
I see you sell a water distiller. I have been reading Doctor Norman Walker’s book– “Water can undermine your Health”, where he recommends distilled water as well. However, many other people say that distilled water is acidic due to lack of minerals and not good long term. I hear a lot of talk about these water ionizers (that alkalize and filter water) that also can be made with a super fine .01 micron filter that I think can remove colloidal minerals in the water and yet still alkalize it. Which do you think is better and why?
I’m a bit confused and not sure which direction to head in…I have never tasted distilled water to know how my own body responds to it on a personal level…I wish there were a way to do an experiemnt of drinking distilled water for 30 days as Dr. Walker suggests in his book…but I don’t see how I would do that in a simple way just yet– I think it would require me to own a distiller first. As I am not fond of buying bottled water for ecological reasons and due to the plastic toxicity that enters our bodies that way.
A penny for your thoughts. Thank you very much, Pearl.
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Hello Pearl,
You will see that my webstore http://www.Sproutman.com sells a few different kinds of water devices such as the water ionizers, the distillers, and filters. Comparing the different types of waters is a big subject. More than I can do justice to here. But as far as I am concerned distilled water is arguably the purest water that exists and for me that is a great place to start. Yes, it lacks of minerals and claims are made about it being slightly acid. But the truth is, it is absolutely neutral. And because of that characteristic, it immediately takes on the nutritional and energetic properties of whatever you put in or near it. So, if you place 3 grains of Himalayan salt in a gallon of distilled water, you will achieve a delicious homemade mineral water that is mildly alkaline. Also, if you position it on top of a magnet or in the sunlight with the cap open for an exchange of air, then oxygen and the sun’s rays will charge the water with life force. I think this is a good solution and a very affordable.
Whether or not you should go this route or choose a water ionizer, or a carbon filter, or an ultraviolet, or ozone water machine, etc., etc. is as I said earlier, more of a discussion than is appropriate for this method of communication. But I do have a resource for you. It’s my book Water the Ultimate Cure. There you can study the advantages and disadvantages of the various water conditioning, filtering, and purifying systems. Above all, no matter what choice you make, remember that water makes up approximately two-thirds of our bodies by weight. So drinking about half your body weight in ounces on a daily basis has the potential to do wonderful things for your health no matter which water you choose. Good luck and be sproutful!
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steve, i too had a sore on my face that never seemed to heal for YEARS… i used oxygen the other day on it and it seems to have disappeared. i’ll continue to use O2, to make sure it goes away forever.
cancer cells die in oxygen. 🙂
i understand there used to be a lot more oxygen in the atmosphere and it has been depleted over the years.
i have an ozonator that i use to purify water to drink, for the laundry, and now am using it to target spots on my skin that have been slow to heal.
remember to breathe! 🙂
(the word ‘spirit’ means ‘breath’ – that is my bottom line ‘religion’… breathing)
love, patricia
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Great discussion. And I REALLY like that you practice what you preach. That’s when you can tell a post has come together.
And I’m also fascinated by how fresh you made the routine [admit it: what you just shared has been regurgitated millions of time. ;-)].
Ben Johnson said people don’t need taught as much as they need reminding.
Good work.
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Steve,
What is the powder probiotics you are currently taking with your drinks, if you dont’ mind sharing this information. My husband and myself both have lyme disease and both of us are on antibiotic treatment for over 4 months now. We do currently take a probiotic to offset the antibiotics but would be interested in additional options.
Thank you
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