The Body Ecology Diet: Recovering Your Health and Rebuilding Your Immunity

The Body Ecology Diet: Recovering Your Health and Rebuilding Your Immunity

by Donna Gates

The Body Ecology Diet is best for people with systemic candida. The B.E.D emphasizes the importance of what we put into our bodies, restoring our inner health, strengthening our immune system, and establishing a pattern of living and eating well that will extend our vitality for years to come.

This book provides some simple tools you can use for the rest of your life, helping you live healthily and achieve a much-needed inner balance.

Summary Notes

A Silent Spring Within

“By rebuilding our health and our immunity, we can restore our inner ecology, and we will have a much better chance to achieve all our goals, including restoring the ecology of our outer world.”

The Body Ecology Diet is intended to strengthen the immune system and alkalize the body so that a healthy bacterial balance can prevail to promote optimal bodily function.

The first step in rebuilding a healthy body ecology is reverse candida overgrowth.

Candida is a pathogenic yeast or fungus that grows on our organs' inner and outer surfaces. While it is impossible to eliminate it, we can keep it under control. Το do so, one must starve the yeast and bad bacteria and create a strong inner ecosystem that prevents candida from thriving and taking over. 

Βy eating a mineral-rich diet that is low in sugar and consuming probiotic-rich foods such as kefir, sea vegetables, and sauerkraut, we can offer an environment for life-affirming bacteria to recolonize. Friendly bacteria (such as Lactobacillus and Bifidus) are essential for healthy digestion and fighting disease and infection.

Actions to take

Principles of the Body Ecology Diet

“Humans are contracted beings (we belong to the animal kingdom), so it is our nature to seek sweet, expanding tastes to balance the contraction.”

Seven key principles dictate how our body heals:

  1. Expansion and Contraction: The ancient Chinese and Japanese theories of yin and yang, the two opposing forces that comprise all aspects and phenomena of life. For example, hot and cold create warmth.

  2. Acid and Alkaline: Eating too many acidic foods allows yeast, viruses, and rebellious cells to thrive. To balance acidity, the body must rely on its alkaline mineral reserves (known as alkaline buffers).
    Good alkaline foods include sea vegetables, herbs, raw seeds (except sesame), raw kefir, raw apple vinegar, and filtered water.

  3. Uniqueness: Everyone's body is unique, and it changes over time, so pay attention to how you feel on a diet. You need to listen and learn from your body.

  4. Cleansing: Cleansing is a process when your body neutralizes toxins to heal and restore your body. Sometimes this process can cause unpleasant symptoms such as headaches, muscle aches, pain, flu, or skin eruptions.

  5. Food Combining: Improper foods or foods not suitable for our stomachs, like alcohol and sugar, lead to poor digestion and fermentation.  Properly combined foods allow the body to improve your health.

  6. 80/20: Following the 80/20 rule teaches you not to overeat and feel bloated. When you finish eating, leave a small space in your stomach to allow for proper digestion and absorption of the necessary substances.

  7. Step by Step: The toxins built up in your system cannot be eliminated all at once.

Actions to take

Description of the Body Ecology Diet

“Kefir in Turkish means to feel good.”

Let’s review the benefits of juicing, cultured vegetables, and kefir. 

  • Juicing: Make sure the candida yeast overgrowth and symptoms are under control before you begin juicing. When your body isn't fully healed, and you start drinking fruit juices that aren't properly combined, you're promoting fatigue by separating the fiber from the fruits and allowing the natural sugars to feed the yeast.
    The sour green apple fruit, for example, does not feed the candida yeast and is very tasty with lemon squash. You can also combine it with vegetable juices to add flavor. Eat it on an empty stomach an hour before you eat anything else.
  • Cultured Vegetables: Raw cultured vegetables are essential for our survival. They are good for our diet and help to maintain our internal ecosystem. Vitamin C and a high concentration of lactic acids, like enzymes, promote wellness and longevity. These enzymes aid digestion and facilitate consumption. 
    They eliminate and control cravings for pastries, bread, cola, and dairy products, as well as being alkaline and cleansing the colon. They are safe for pregnant women as they transport a healthy inner system for their babies.
  • Kefir: Kefir is a fermented dairy product that contains all of the necessary amino acids, enzymes, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and B vitamins. The Body Ecology Diet includes kefir because it does not feed the candida yeast and provides a beneficial environment for your body’s microorganisms.

Actions to take

Rebuilding the immune system

“The digestive system (which includes the colon) is similar to the root system of a tree. A tree takes its nourishment and water through its root system, feeding them along the branches and out to the leaves. We take ours through the digestive tract, where the nutrients from food are carried into the bloodstream, then passed along to the various organs and absorbed into the cells of the body.”

There is a correlation between our immune system and the colon. Every meal we consume leaves some food wastes inside our digestive system and our colon. Cleaning the colon is necessary for our bodies to restore our immune system. It is an uncomfortable procedure for many, but it is critical for healing our bodies.

Many gastrointestinal diseases significantly impact the body's organs and symptoms, such as chronic diarrhea, constipation, headaches, and serious diseases. It is, thus, essential to clean your colon. Having a properly functioning colon will ensure that the body will absorb all the necessary nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. 

The process of colon cleansing includes a variety of therapies such as enemas, colonic irrigation, and a healthy diet. For example, foods high in fiber and vegetable smoothies are excellent for body cleansing.

Actions to take

Creating a Bright, Healthy Future

“People heal at different rates, and the successful introduction of new foods also may depend on factors such as stress, exercise, and the amount of sleep you get.”

When you have already strengthened your inner ecology and most of your candida symptoms have disappeared, you have finally achieved your goal of being healthy. It is now the perfect time to experiment with new foods that you can tolerate. 

Each of us has a different level of food tolerance. Check to see what is best for you first and if any new or recurrent symptoms appear in a short period. Then you can retry the food and eat it regularly. 

For example, plan your meals around the Extraction/Contraction principle to avoid cravings for sweets. You don't want to feed the yeast, but you want to feed yourself fully. 

You should also follow the 80/20 rule and make the most of your meal vegetables.   Support supermarkets that sell natural and organic foods and educate consumers about new products such as unprocessed coconut oil, olive oil, flaxseed, pumpkin seed, and other unrefined seed oils.

By shopping at supermarkets and grocery stores that sell products from local organic farms, you also support the local organic farmers in expanding their organic departments.

Actions to take

Blood Type

“After all, blood is the fundamental source of nourishment for the body. One blood type might need more of a particular element (like certain fats or minerals) than another type would. The idea that “one diet fits all” is a bit too simplistic.”

The Body Ecology Diet will guide you to eat healthily and in harmony with your blood type. It is essential to know that each blood type reacts differently to different foods. 

Pickles, for example, are not suggested for any blood type because of the refined oil and sugar used in their production. By eating foods right for your blood type, you can avoid the wrong lectins (proteins found in foods) that cause weight gain, early aging, and immunological diseases.

Actions to take

Special Foods, Recipes and Menu Suggestions

“Your goal is to create balance in your body by balancing the foods you eat.”

The recipes in the Body Ecology Diet are like a new universe ready to be explored. Successfully following the B.E.D means you need to get creative and be persistent. It may be challenging at first, but every beginning is difficult, so don't give up and continue to look for new techniques to restore your inner-eco system. 

Begin by making a grocery list and reorganizing your refrigerator or storage space one at a time. Small steps, such as keeping the lettuce in the fridge after washing and drying it, will make it taste better and last longer. Adding herbs and spices to your meals keeps them interesting and innovative each time. 

Review the Body Ecology Diet's principles as often as necessary. Once your body is used to eating healthily, notice how you feel after every meal. Ask yourself at every meal if it matches the previous meal and if you feel more contracted or expanded. What food combinations give you more energy? What meals make you feel better or worse? By being present and answering these questions, you will soon be able to tell how helpful the Body Ecology Diet is for you.  

Remember the uniqueness principle: everyone is different and has their own tastes and preferences. Instead of putting yourself under pressure, learn just to enjoy your journey.

Actions to take

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