Prof. Spira shares his “Baked Banana Surprise” recipe and tips on dealing with food relapses while practicing the Mucusless Diet Healing System.

Food Relapse

The following discussion took place in the Arnold Ehret Mucusless Diet Facebook forum in February 2017 and includes tips about dealing with food relapses and the recipe for Prof. Spira’s “Baked Banana Surprise”:

Hey everyone…I’m putting together some things for a client about transition. She keeps relapsing into fast food 😮 I’ve told her about breaking the morning with fruit, big salads, stewed fruits, baking bananas if she has to…feel like a lot has to do with the mind but I’m open to more suggestions if you have them. Thank you 🙂 -Brittney Johnson (https://topofthemountainhealing.com/)

Response from Prof. Spira:

In the case of “fast food” relapse, I’d steer her toward some mucus-forming vegan options. I ate veganized bean burritos from Taco Hell for almost 6 months during the earliest part of my transition. As time went by, and I was able to get away from meat, I bought the refried beans from a store and made it at home with cleaner ingredients. But, regardless of what I ate, I always had a big salad, as per Arnold Ehret’s methodological suggestion, which helped everything eliminate.

I was also doing enemas, as instructed by Ehret in the Mucusless Diet and Rational Fasting books, which kept the mess moving. Before long I could not handle eating those foods without a lot of discomfort, which happened simultaneously with my taste buds changing toward fresh produce.

Ehret and his editor Fred Hirsch did recommend the limited use of meat substitutes for those having trouble, namely seitan (wheat gluten meat substitute–soy products were not available in the 1920s). I personally did not use seitan back then but some soy faux-meat products. Today, they are coming out with gluten and soy-free meat substitutes from peas that might be even better to explore.

However, I knew that they were not something I’d be eating all the time or for very long. It’s still better to have a soy, seitan, or pea protein burger, baked sweet potatoes, and a salad with some sauteed vegetables than a Big Mac and white potato-powder fries.

I used a bit of soy milk in the early days with raisin bran cereal that helped me get away from meat. Today I’d probably use the store-bought coconut milks instead of soy. Although, some people who have adopted nut milks for long-term usage would protest and say to make it fresh, I do not recommend using nut milks long enough to invest in the equipment needed to make your own. I used nut milks for less than a year and a half, and it was sparingly.

 

Non-Vegan Food Relapse Tools

There are some non-vegan options Ehret recommends for people having trouble getting off of certain pus-forming foods or having food relapses. Cottage cheese is recommended instead of regular cheese because it eliminates without leaving behind as much pus-like waste. I used cottage cheese for about 3 or 4 months until it started to make me sick. I used to make cottage cheese, apple sauce, and dates (even brown sugar added) when I craved pie, ice cream and cake. I then swapped out the cottage cheese for baked banana’s when I could no longer tolerate the former and didn’t look back. This was similar to one of the meals Ehret recommended for the first two weeks of one’s transition: 

“SUPPER: Mix (half and half) a stewed fruit such as apple sauce, stewed dried apricots, stewed dried peaches, or stewed prunes with some cottage cheese or very ripe bananas, mashed, sweetened with brown sugar or honey to taste. The bananas would be for a less “mucused,” or less acid, stomach. . .  . Cottage cheese with stewed fruit (see Lesson XV) is good for transition diet. (Arnold Ehret, Mucusless Diet)”

Ehret also said that an egg-based mayonnaise could be used as a salad dressing if it was craved (Click HERE to read more about the Vegetarian Recipes Lesson). I did not use any of the egg-based transitional options Ehret mentioned, but opted for a vegan mayo when I went through a mayo/vinegar food relapse period. I adopted Brother Air‘s philosophy with such things, which was to isolate an addicting mucus-forming transitional item that is craved and eat it guilt-free until I’m totally tired of it. Yet, don’t just eat it haphazardly. Apply Ehret’s transitional principles. If you do it correctly you can basically “eat something out of your system,” until you no longer crave, or in some cases, handle it. This does not mean that you should use this technique all the time and for all cravings you have, but when you find “transitional” menus in the Mucusless Diet book that you know you’ll need to get off of eventually, it is okay to allow yourself to eat them. The key to this approach for me was being disciplined with lemon-juice and distilled water enemas. Personally, I know that I would not have been able to overcome my fast food or pus-eating addictions without regular enemas in the beginning. I still ate meat occasionally until I started doing the lemon juice enemas, and then almost never ate or craved it again. In the early days, enemas really were the “forgiving factor,” as Brother Air would say, as I ate transitional options that were not totally mucus-free. But they were all much better than the hamburgers and hot dogs I’d been eating. I discuss how to do lemon juice and distilled water enemas in detail in my book Spira Speaks: Dialogs and Essays on the Mucusless Diet Healing System.

 

“Prof. Spira’s Baked Banana Surprise” Recipe for Food Relapse and Transition

In Spira Speaks: Dialogs and Essays on the Mucusless Diet Healing System, I include several recipes I used before a major food relapse in the early years. All were based on things I read in the Mucusless Diet Healing System, but adapted to my personal tastes and circumstances. 100% wheat spaghetti, cooked beans with large salads, cereal and soymilk, veggie patties along with large salads are a few things I discuss. Basically, a transitional “vegan/vegetarian” diet. But even within the realm of “mucus-lean” transition options, there are ways to include “micro-transitional options.” Let go of the notion of a linear, quick, and strict transition to becoming 100% mucus-free (and/or raw). I continue to see people who lusted after becoming raw or mucusless over-night, or even within several years, and then fall off the wagon and go all the way back to pus- and mucus-forming diets with no thought of the mechanics of the system. This path is not an all-or-nothing kind of thing. Everyone must transition at their own pace, physically, mentally, and spiritually.

One recipe that helped me get off of the cottage cheese/apple sauce/dates/brown sugar combination, and perhaps could be viewed as a “micro-transition,” was my “Baked Banana Surprise.” My Baked Banana recipe is as follows:

 

Prof. Spira’s Baked Banana Surprise

Baked Banana Surprise consists of bananas, chopped dates, and applesauce (brown sugar, coconut sugar, or cinnamon is optional). To bake: take bananas and cut the tips off of both sides, put them on a baking sheet (optional: covered, or baking sheet lined with, parchment paper), and place on a cookie sheet. Preheat oven to about 425 degrees F, put in bananas, then bake for about 15-25 minutes. About ten to 15 minutes into baking, check the bananas and turn them over to the other side with a spatula and fork or knife. The length of time for the bananas to be fully cooked depends on how ripe they were before baking.

Sweet banana juice should begin to ooze from the sides, which lets you know it’s done or almost done. Carefully take the banana off the sheet with a spatula or oven mitt, place in empty bowl, remove the blackened peel by cutting a slit longways down the banana, and then dump the meat and juices into the bowl.

 

Mix natural applesauce and chopped dates together and get ready for something extraordinary. If you do not have an oven, one other option is to heat some olive or coconut oil in a skillet, peel the bananas, and slightly cook them, turning them over periodically. This method is not as good as baking, but has a similar effect.

 

The Baked Banana Surprise can be eaten as a stand-alone meal, or you can follow it with a combination salad. Steamed vegetables and even 100% grain toast with nut butter can be added toward the end of the vegetable meal (see the “Transition Diet” lessons in the Mucusless Diet for more on this kind of methodology). A side of peas or beans can even be considered when the going gets tough.

This kind of meal is what I call “Ehret’s 2-Course Meal,” which consists of eating a fruit course, waiting 15 minutes, then eating a vegetable course. When you use the Ehret’s 2-Course Meal along with mucus-lean transitional items, it should be filling and quash cravings for worse foods. What is good about this meal vs. some standard fast food meals is that it is mostly mucus-free and all items are combined and designed in such a way to eliminate well without leaving behind piles of slimy waste residues.

Conclusion

In sum, I’d have your client re-read the “transition diet” lessons from the Mucusless Diet Healing System with a particular focus on the “vegetarian” menu options listed. Also, take a look at my video series on human addiction to pus- and mucus-forming foods HERE. Even if it takes months to overcome certain addictions, permanent changes will be made, which is the key.

Peace, Love, and Breath!

Prof. Spira
Mucus-free Life LLC