Diet Experiment Day 10: The Gauntlet Has Been Thrown

I’ve been given another challenge.

I have been sent menu plans and recipes for Super Immunity from the nutritional counsellor running the group I am in. I have had a look at the menu plan and there isn’t one bit of animal protein on there. Not only that, the percentage of raw to cooked food is probably around 60-40 or even 70-30 in favor of raw. Essentially the opposite to what I have been doing and not recommended by either of the approaches, one saying that I need animal protein in my diet for optimal health and wellness, including immunity, and the other, just too much raw food. Not to mention that I am 4 days away from finishing this experiment and I’m basically being asked to pony up for 2 more weeks. It also looks, at first glance, like quite a lot of work preparing the meals.

How do I balance this? How can I incorporate 3 different approaches to nutrition that all  have stacks of research or thousands of years of clinical trials as well as my personal experience that validate their efficacy?

Probably, the first thing to do is look to see where they all overlap in terms of specific fruits, veggies and grains that are recommended. At first glance, there is actually quite a lot of overlap (which says a lot in itself if the same foods keep coming up over and over again as foods that are considered healthy across party lines.) Things like cruciferous veg, certain berries and other fruits, certain beans and one or two grains appear on all three lists. If there are any in the meal plan that are considered avoids on both of the others, they won’t be included. If something is on the meal plan and one of the other lists, I’ll muscle test it to see if I should include it.

Then I will adjust some of the immunity recipes to add some animal protein, but try and keep that to a minimum at maybe one meal per day. There are soups, stews and other cooked food included in the meal plan, so I may move them around a little bit so that some of the days that are mostly raw or cold meals are more balanced. That will probably be determined by muscle testing to see what would work best for the day

So, effectively, I’m going to do the best blend of the three that I can manage that maintains their general integrity, ask my body what it thinks, and then see what happens. However, probably won’t start it until I finish with my current experiment. It looks like I will need the weekend to study ingredient lists, get my pantry in order and come up with a plan to execute the plan!

So, I accept the challenge. Sort of.