Spring Cleanse
Day 6
We dedicate this day 6 of the Detox Challenge to the colors white, tan, and brown. The “W/T/BR” on the form allows you to track the white/tan/brown-colored foods you are eating.
Action Steps
- Try to eat white/tan/brown foods at least once daily.
- Use your Tracking Journal to assess your white/tan/brown foods.
- Aim for a variety of white/tan/brown foods throughout the Detox Challenge!
White/Tan/Brown Foods
When thinking of white/tan/brown foods, processed foods may come to mind —foods like bagels, cereals, breads, pastas, cakes, cookies, and crackers. Those foods are not what is meant by the white/tan/brown category of plant foods. Instead, this category includes nuts, fruits, vegetables, legumes, spices, seeds, and whole grains that are beneficial to health. In fact, healthy white/tan/brown foods have anticancer and anti-inflammatory activity. Additionally, what makes this class of compounds special is that like the green foods, they contain certain compounds that can assist with liver and hormone health.
The Food List
This category contains more options that go beyond fruits and vegetables. They offer a wide array of legumes, nuts, seeds, and grains to sample in your daily eating.
White/tan/brown fruits:
These are fairly sparse on this list, but include apples and applesauce (excluding the skin), coconut, dates, lychees, and pears. Several types of coconut products which could be included in one’s diet such as shredded unsweetened coconut, coconut milk, coconut butter, and coconut oil. Dates can be used as a form of sweetener in a smoothie rather than adding sugar (although that they will also spike blood sugar!). Lychees and pears are refreshing choices that are moist and complement a salad or make for a nice snack.
White/tan/brown vegetables:
These include cauliflower, garlic, mushrooms, onion, sauerkraut, and shallots. Cauliflower and sauerkraut (cabbage) belong to the Brassica/cruciferous family of plants mentioned in the green foods section, while garlic, onion, and shallots are part of another family of plants called Alliums. This group is similarly rich in sulfur compounds (hence their pungent odors!) and have many health effects such as protecting against cardiovascular, cancer, and inflammatory diseases. Mushrooms encompass more than just the standard white button mushroom; there are several types that are considered to have significant medicinal benefit because of their ability to help the immune system. Examples of mushrooms to try include shiitake, portabella, crimini, and chantarelles.
The other categories of foods within this section include gluten-free whole grains, legumes, seeds, and nuts. Here are some choices to consider: legumes of all types (hummus, bean dips, dried beans or peas, lentils, chickpeas, peanuts, low-fat refried beans), nuts (Brazil, cashew, almond, hazelnut, pine nut, walnut) and nut butters, seeds (sesame and tahini paste, pumpkin, sunflower, flaxseed, and flaxseed meal) and seed butters (tahini, sunflower seed, and others), and gluten-free whole grains.
Legumes can be prepared from scratch by cooking dried beans or peas, or they can be bought prepared in cans or as dips. Metal cans are often lined with a chemical called bisphenol, so it is recommended to rinse canned legumes well before eating. Cooking legumes can be labor intensive, but you can make extra servings of legumes for other meals. Watch for the addition of lard or high amounts of fat in prepared refried beans. Choose pinto or black beans varieties that are low in fat.
Nuts are very healthy for the heart. Choose unsalted nuts; people tend to overeat salty foods. If you have digestion problems, you may want to buy roasted rather than raw nuts. Nut butters are wonderful complements to fruits— try a layer of almond butter on an apple slice or cashew nut butter on a sliver of pear. Similarly, seeds have many phytonutrients. They are found as seed oils (e.g., sesame seed oil, flaxseed oil), whole seeds, and seed butters (e.g., tahini is the paste made from sesame seeds). Nuts and seeds have not just beneficial phytonutrients, but also a good mixture of healthy fats and oils, fiber, minerals, and vitamins.
There are several whole grains on this list for those who can eat them. Choose alternative, non-gluten grains like brown rice, white rice, purple rice, and black rice. There is a wide selection of gluten-free grain products now on the market. However, please note that “gluten-free” on a label does not necessarily mean “healthy” as they can contain low amounts of phytonutrients and greater amounts of sugar and fat.
Ways to get more white/tan/brown foods:
- Add brown spices (cinnamon, clove, allspice) to your cooking and gluten-free baking
- Use dates instead of refined sweeteners to sweeten dishes
- Add diced onion to a stir-fry
- Drizzle warm tahini (sesame seed paste) over vegetables (e.g., broccoli, cauliflower, carrots)
- Dip vegetables into hummus (ground chickpea dip) or bean dip
- Have applesauce instead of pudding for dessert—dress up the applesauce with a dash of cinnamon
- Add mushrooms to broths and soups for more flavor and medicinal impact
- Sprinkle sesame seeds on a vegetable stir-fry
Nutrients in White/Brown Foods
Allicin
Allicin is one of garlic’s medicinal components that may contribute to its anticancer and blood pressure-lowering effects. To maximize the production of allicin, it is recommended that you let the crushed or chopped garlic sit for 5-10 minutes before cooking it or adding anything to it. This compound may also be antibacterial and antiviral.
Lignans
Several plant foods contain the phytonutrient lignans. Lignans are not to be confused with another phytonutrient class called lignins, which are related to fiber. Lignans are fiber-related phytonutrients that act as antioxidants and phytoestrogens (plant compounds with weak estrogen activity). The food that gets the credit for having high amounts of lignans is flaxseeds, which contain about seven times as much lignans as the runner-up food, sesame seeds. Other good food sources of lignans are sunflower seeds, cashew nuts, and peanuts. The benefits of lignans are that they are anti-inflammatory, promote healthy blood vessels, and act as anticancer agents, especially hormone-related cancers like breast and prostate cancers. One of the ways that lignans may be helpful in reducing cancer is by triggering release of certain enzymes in the liver that are responsible for deactivating toxins in the body.
Anger, guilt, and shame are complicated emotions that can stop us in our tracks and keep us from living vibrant, joyful lives. These emotions are often triggered by events outside of our control and tend to represent deeper, more subtle emotions below the surface.
Action Steps:
- Using your Tracking Journal, note whether you have had emotions related to anger, guilt, and shame come up for you during the Detox Challenge.
- Journal or talk with a friend or your healthcare providers about these emotions in your life, asking yourself these questions: “Do these emotions serve a purpose? Are they calling me to action? How are they impacting my life?”
- Notice whether you feel any guilt and shame if you veer away from your Detox Challenge goals. Oftentimes, when people break away from their goal, they feel guilty or shameful and abandon it altogether. This is a good time to remember that if you make a mistake, forgive yourself and recommit to the process!
Anger often emerges when we find ourselves thinking about a situation we can’t change or an action someone took against us. It is almost always directed towards something that has already occurred. Anger is toxic, especially when it lingers and is directed inwardly. One of the most common sources of anger for many is feeling anger toward our own behavior. Whether it’s eating something we “shouldn’t have” or saying the “wrong thing,” anger often surfaces in response to our own self judgment and insecurity within the world we live and the relationships we keep. It is important to move and release anger as it surfaces, as unexpressed anger has a tendency to lead to depression.
Not unlike anger, guilt and shame often emerge in response to our own actions, but these two emotions are often felt deep within and not always expressed outwardly. Feelings of anger, guilt, and shame feed into negative tailspins that often beget the very behavior from ourselves that we were struggling to overcome in the first place. Anger, guilt, and shame are the three most common emotions which trigger emotional eating and they are also the emotions most people report feeling after emotional eating episodes, often leading to a vicious cycle.
Ways to break free of the cycle involve cultivating awareness in our lives and slowing down. In today’s busy world, it’s easy to get stuck on autopilot without really processing much of what we do in a day. Mindfulness can help us to break free of unwanted thought patterns, behaviors, and feelings. Simply acting consciously and slowly places us in the present moment, not thinking about a future event or ruminating over the past. When we are present, our minds are free to make decisions based on our current state instead of running old programs that no longer serve us.
In the spirit of forgiveness and allowing ourselves to truly feel,
Ana
Track your progress...
Make sure you tick your progress off as you complete your objectives!
- Try to eat white/tan/brown foods at least once daily.
- Use your Tracking Journal to assess your white/tan/brown foods.
- Aim for a variety of white/tan/brown foods throughout the Detox Challenge!