Spring Diet in a nutshell (the book tells more!):
Spring superfoods (to clean out the heaviness, wetness and mucous of a winter diet AND to counteract the wetness and heaviness of the spring season):
Sprouts of all kinds
Bitter green salads (spring mix)
grapefruits
bitter and astringent veggies like asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts, potatoes, etc.
dandelion greens and root (in salad, soup, tea) are huge spring antidotes!
In general: bitter and astringent veggies and lighter fruits like apple and pear, as well as berries. Reduce/eliminate heavier fruits like bananas and avocados.
For animal foods the best are chicken (prepare lightly, not fried) and turkey as well as fish (ideally freshwater--haven't figured that one out yet!) Lamb okay in moderation. Eggs good in moderation especially soft-boiled and poached (so not fried or scrambled).
No dairy except ghee and yogurt, ideally the yogurt is in the middle of the day (when digestion is strongest, so less likely to cause mucous reaction) and not with other foods (same reason). (Dairy=mucous=bad for already wet spring!)
Reduce the fats and oils (but don't eliminate--I am also a traditional foods omnivore that is big on fat soluble vitamins--esp. for kids, so this is a strange territory for me--lowfat ayurvedic spring! We think of it as lowER fat spring diet!)
So this list is NOT what most people consider kid food and we are even having trouble getting our not very picky 3 year old to eat a lot of it. I find if I just compromise, like he gets grapefruit and berries and dandelion tea with honey (only sweetener recommended in spring--always raw!) every day and then eats less (but not none) of the heavy winter foods, that seems to work well. I put ginger and cinnamon in his goat yogurt he has for snack each afternoon. He takes a little bite of candied ginger before meals (loves it). I am pretty stickler about things like mac and cheese and fried foods in the spring, though, so he's getting none of that type of "kid" food.
Today:
Breakfast:
Me and DS: Half grapefruit, 2 soft boiled (pastured) eggs, 1 slice Ezekial bread* with butter and blackberry jam, dandelion tea with honey
Lunch:
Me: Half turkey breast sandwich on Ezekial bread with tiny bit mayo, spring mix, alfalfa sprouts, tomato (not spring, but okay); radish, baby carrots, few potato chips (potatoes are spring, the lard they were fried in not), blueberries
DS: Half turkey breast sandwich on Ezekial with tiny bit mayo, baby carrots, blueberries, few chips
Dinner (out):
Me: Grilled chicken breast in lemon butter sauce, steamed broccoli, few bites penne* (white semolina); salad of spring mix, chickpeas, green peas, carrots, cucumbers (not springy--too wet), beets.
DS: Grilled chicken with lemon butter, more penne than me but not tons, steamed broccoli; beets, green peas, chickpeas, grapes
Snacks for DS: dried pears, blueberries, candied ginger (tiny bit)--missed his yogurt today
*grains: spring grains are barley, buckwheat, corn, rye, millet. Wheat is too heavy and mucous-forming for spring, as are oats. We compromise with sprouted wheat, millet, etc. Ezekial bread, but eat no more than 2 slices a day. The pasta was an eating out anomaly. I am trying to explore hot cereals for spring, like (organic, non-gmo) corn grits.
Seems like a lot of learning, work, and change at first--but it's starting to make so much sense to me and it's becoming really natural/easy to follow--and it tastes and feels great!
The idea of this kind of eating is that each season has certain qualities that our bodies mirror: dry heat in summer, dry cold in winter, and heavy and wet in spring. Our bodies tend to mirror these qualities and nature's foods (growing at that time) are the antidote. If we eat seasonally, we can counteract these qualities, that if left unchecked create mucous in spring, overheating in summer, and dryness and/or mucous in winter.
In winter the dryness tells our bodies to create mucous (to wet itself essentially) but most of the time we overshoot and lay down mucous (too much of it) everywhere (including the sinuses and intestines). This makes a great breeding ground for bacteria and viruses, i.e. colds!
In spring, if we don't dry out the winter mucous with the drying, astringent foods, the problem just gets worse--leading to spring colds, allergies, etc.
Then summer comes and we overcompensate to correct all that mucousy wetness and we overheat/over dry (esp. if eating heating foods: salt, spices, red meats--which I am a fan of, BTW, in general--esp. in winter). When we go from one season to the next without counteracting the previous season's qualities, we just get worse and worse.
I found all this when my 2.5 year old (then) son had a terrible, persistent (like it didn't wax and wain) red rash around his mouth last late summer. Is lasted 3 months (always there, always angry red!) and even accompanied some hives when he played in the hot sun! I researched and tried so much from eliminating this food after that to homeopathy to who knows what. Finally I found "Perfect Health for Kids" and read about overheating kids with heating foods (salt, spices etc) in the late (hot!) summer and the rash, hives, etc. that would result. I started him on a summer antidote (pitta-pacifying) diet and it resolved within a few weeks. The cold prevention grew from my reading and now I am convinced! Hoping to cure DH's allergies!
Don't know if anyone made it through this huge post, but this lifestyle is changing the quality of our lives, I hope it can for some of you, too!
