Hippy Dippy

A little more than two years ago, Caitlin, Joshua, and I went on a cleanse. At the time, Caitlin was working for a Naturopathic Clinic in Tacoma, and her coworkers were teaching her about the blood type diet, colontherapy, and nutritional rehabilitation. Essentially, the philosophy is this: our bodies are machines, and as such, what we put into them is directly correlated to what comes out of them. If our bodies are not functioning well, it’s probably because we are not treating them well.

A cleanse is like a tune-up for our bodies. Over the years, we have put all sorts of gas and gunk into our bodies, and by cleansing, we try to scrape off some of the buildup and begin again.

In Naturopathy, cleanses are closely linked to the blood type diet. The blood type diet essentially argues that our bodies have evolved in unique ways and they have unique needs, and our blood type can act as a roadmap to navigate gas and gunk. As a rule, meat and vegetables are great gases for O blood types, while grains and dairy serve as gunk. For A blood types, grains and vegetables act as gases, and meat and dairy build up gunk. The B blood type is more balanced, and there are many meats, vegetables, grains, and even dairies that serve as gases; however, corn and wheat still serve as gunk. Finally, AB blood types gas up on seafood and vegetables, but produce gunk with red meat, wheat, and corn.

In most cases, a cleanse can kick start the blood type diet. First, we provide our machines with the simplest and least harmful of gases to clean out our systems, and then, we gradually add other positive gases for our blood type. In order to find out which foods are good gases, we can either follow the roadmap laid out in “4 Blood Types, 4 Diets: Eat Right For Your Type: The Individualized Diet Solution to Staying Healthy, Living Longer & Achieving Your Ideal Weight,” or once we begin to add other positive gases, we can check our heart rates. If our heart rates go up once we’ve eaten a food, this serves as a warning that our bodies are struggling to metabolize the gunk we’ve just taken in. If our heart rate remains the same or even goes down, this means that the food is an efficient fuel for our bodies.

During a cleanse, we eat fruits and vegetables, olive oil, and either soy or rice milk. Berries, flax, and other sources of insoluble fiber are particularly desirable because they act like sandpaper inside the digestional tract by knocking and scrapping off gunk. Water, of course, is also an important element and is also used to flush out our systems.

On a typical cleanse day, I usually prepare a shake with two cups of frozen fruit (preferably berries), a banana, and rice milk for breakfast. Bear in mind that not all shakes are created equal: Kyle, Stacy’s husband, prepares the most epic shakes I’ve ever heard of, including soaked seeds, spinach, carots, carob powder, brewer’s yeast, flax, and lutein. Basically, if you can drink it (and it’s made of fruit, vegetables, soy or rice milk), then feel free to experiment with all sorts of terrifying combinations.

For lunch, I’ll fix a huge salad with spinach, carrots, broccoli, and onion tossed with olive oil, apple cider vinegar, salt, and pepper (apple cider vinegar, salt, and pepper are technically cheating, but otherwise I find mass quantities of fruit and vegetables unpalatable). Alternatively, I might bake, steam, or fry veggies. The same goes for dinner.

Cleanses can last anywhere from one day to seven days, and they are usually broken by adding rice, and trust me, rice has never looked nor tasted so good. The first two days of a cleanse are usually the hardest. Although you may be stuffed with carrots and lettuce, psychologically, nothing but that piece of pizza will ever make you feel whole again. For an extra challenge, try cleansing in a household full of ice cream, chocolate, and cheese (Joshua is a firm believer in comfort food, and he’s in his last three weeks of school).

I’m on my fourth day of my cleanse, and I’ve consumed approximately five carrots, six bananas, two bags of frozen berries, one carton of soy milk, one bag of edamame, one box of spinach, four heads of broccoli, two onions, one head of garlic, one cup of olive oil, one cup of apple cider vinegar, 6 gallons of water, one bag of grapes, and one grapefruit. Just in case you were wondering, that’s pretty much a meal every one and a half hours, or alternatively, eating and drinking all day long. When Joshua brings home his roast beef po’boy dripping in debris, I stuff my face with spinach.

If you don’t count salt, pepper, apple cider vinegar, and maybe the edamame, I only cheated once when I flavored my water with some horrible aspertame flavored crystals… To be fair, there was a pizza party in full swing and I was practicing some serious will power.

Ok, now for the truth: do I believe in this “mumbo jumbo?” First, let me acknowledge that this is getting pretty hippy dippy new agey for most people. Also, let me set forth a disclaimer: although most of my friends in New Orleans consider me a veritable flower child, a hippy in all her glory, this character summation is more of a commentary on this city’s absolute refusal to recycle, eat organic, and just generally hop on the green bandwagon. I’ve explained to a few that I am not, in fact, a hippy; I’m far too well-functioning. I have a full-time job. I graduated Phi Beta Kappa with honors in Art History. I’m married. I live in a house that I strive to keep clean. Most of my hippy-like tendencies can be chalked up to one thing: I lived in the Pacific Northwest for four years, and I fit in quite well.

With that disclaimer behind me, let me own up to those characteristics that perhaps lend credence to the “hippy in all her glory” assignation: I’m a big fan of body art, a Michael Pollan believer, a thrift store junky, and a bit of a ludite. Oh. And I’m taking the next six months off to travel the world. That too.

So knowing what we know about me, and assuming you still want to hear my opinion (it is my blog, after all), the answer is: sort of (how refreshing!). Do I believe in the blood type diet? Meh. Although the book was written by a doctor and is practically the bible for a whole school of medicine, I’m a bit disappointed by the cover graphics. I mean, the double entendre of the “4” is a little overdone, and kind of tacky. Also, I just can’t shake the word “Diet.” In general, I think diets are a bunch of BS, but I do appreciate that at least in this case, Dr. D’Adamo is talking about the “what we eat” kind of diet rather than the South Beach kind of diet (which, by the way, is the anti-cleanse). Also, I don’t believe in fasting. Period. Except maybe for Yom Kippur, Good Friday and Rammadan, but that’s it. If it ain’t religious, then it ain’t right. One more reservation: I am not a proponent of people starving themselves.

But, with all that hemming and hawing out the way, I’d say, “why not?” Is it really so hard to believe that our bodies are machines? That what we put into them is in direct correlation to what we get out of them? Is it even really so hard to believe that our bodies have evolved in such a way that certain foods act as efficient fuels and others clog everything up? AND that these fuels and cloggers might be different from person to person, blood type to blood type? Meh.

What I do know is this: I’ve tried it before, and I found a number of things to be true. First, during the cleanse you feel like poop, but you also feel more mindful about what you are putting into your body. Which is good. I think it’s important to stop using our bodies as receptacles for chemicals, grease, and nutrient-less foods. It’s also interesting to differentiate between desire and need in such a tangible way. I began to feel very Buddhist about it all. Desire is pain. I am renouncing desire. Ohm… No, but all jokes aside, I think that’s true too: the whole capitalist I want I want I want I want machine and all. Very true. Very insightful.

When you begin adding foods, you really do start to notice what makes you feel good, better, best, and what just weighs you down. For me, beans. Gotta love ‘em. Rice! The energy food! Fish: fresh and clean. Sushi! Yum! Veggies… The stuff of life. Fruit! A pick me up! Wheat. Wah-wah. Corn. Blurgh. Dairy: stuff me up and lay me down. Fructose corn syrup. A considerable fog. And then when you consider that pretty much most of what is sold in the grocery store is made up of like, 8 things and that four of them are wheat, corn, dairy, and fructose corn syrup… Aha. Profound moment of understanding.

Also, cleansing has become a way for me to process. I like to do things that mark the end and the beggining of something new. At the pizza party the other night when people were looking at me like the flower child they all know me to be, I joked that I was going on a cleanse to clean out all the sludge of the RSD. Which is true. I’ve been pretty unhappy for two years, and now I want to start over. I don’t just want to move on with all this build-up still inside of me. I don’t want to carry toxic waste with me wherever I go. And although this metaphor may conjure up unpleasant visuals of my colon and what's left in the toilet bowl, I’m ok with that. That’s just about hippy dippy enough for me.