It can be difficult to change your entire lifestyle and diet all at once. If for no other reason, we can only learn so much at one time. Here are some simple changes you can start with right away to shift to a more alkaline lifestyle for improved blood and health.
1. Buy full-sized carrots instead of baby carrots to avoid chlorine.
2. Rinse your rice. Eating pure can be challenging at times. Rice is an easy go-to for me and after looking into arsenic levels I settled in on Basmati from India. Brown rice can have even higher levels of arsenic than white, but rinsing your rice reduces about 30%-50% of arsenic in your rice altogether.
3. Always buy organic - at least know your dirty dozen! And for the love of all that is holy, don't eat corn or soy if it is not organic. Avoid cottonseed oil, canola oil, "vegetable oil" and corn oil and soy products. There are veggies and fruits that require little pesticide use and others that require tons. Tomatoes and potatoes should always be organic if you don't want poison in your food. Some veggies like cauliflower and eggplant you can buy standard if you can't find organic. Any products you buy with mixed ingredients, you need to read ingredients to check for these oils and GM items. Read them again periodically to make sure they haven't been snuck into products you've been trusting!
4. Substitute coconut oil for butter/vegan butter in recipes.
5. Use maple syrup in place of agave, honey, or other liquid sweeteners. Agave is a neurotoxin, but very popular in raw food recipes because it is easily found raw. Maple syrup is a much healthier choice.
6. Substitute coconut sugar for other sugar for a pure, raw food that is made from the dried sap of the tree. It has a low glycemic index and great taste.
7. Always choose cane sugar over beet sugar/fructose because of the risk of GMO's.
8. Never buy produce with an 8 in the beginning of the code, it is the symbol for GMO.
9. Chia eggs over chicken eggs! Your baking remains the same quality and you have just eliminated almost 38,000,000 pathogens per egg per recipe! To make: put a tbsp of chia seeds in 1/2 cup water and it will gel into a perfect chia egg. Besides cutting out the egg filth, you just added some great fats, fiber and other nutrients by using chia seeds. Even if you are using organic, free-range eggs, switching to chia eggs is a huge improvement.
10. Make your own raw nut milks. It's easy if you have a high-speed blender; All you have to do is blend soaked nuts with alkaline water. If you are in a pinch you can even skip soaking. Today I made a shake using 1/3 cup rinsed, raw cashews and water in place of store bought nut milk. When producers steam or quickly heat nuts to kill pathogens...and they are still mostly raw because the nuts have not been heated through.
11. Use baking soda rather than baking powder and add a squirt of lemon juice to the recipe for the acid. This eliminates potential aluminum and corn from the use of baking powder.
12. Use fresh lemon instead of vinegar. If you do want to use vinegar in a recipe it is not the end of the world. There is a big difference between adding a teaspoon to a whole recipe (knowing it isn't alkaline) and taking daily shots of the acid falsely thinking you are boosting your health. Just make sure it is organic vinegar as most white vinegar is made from GM corn.
13. Substitute avocado for yogurt in recipes. You will get all the creamy texture without the sugar, bacteria, or dairy. Avocados are so healthy, I take every opportunity to add them to my diet!