our diet. White sugar, white flour, processed-foods, margarine, dairy products, and any food containing preservatives or additives, were the next to go. If at this point you are wondering what was left to eat, so was I! While I had always cooked and baked many things from scratch, white sugar and white flour abounded in the recipes. However, these two items were feeding the yeast in our bodies, making the immune system weaker and the body more toxic, zapping energy. We both felt the need to cleanse our bodies of the previous years of transgressions. Next step. We each did a complete body cleanse. This included periods of fasting, juicing with fresh vegetables, and then slowly, after a number of days, reintroducing steamed vegetables and brown rice. The first few days were difficult, as toxins were released into the bloodstream for removal. Headaches and a lack of energy resulted. By the time the fast was ended we felt extremely well, full of energy and vitality. Consequently, cooking as I knew it, took on a whole new perspective. Meal preparation had always been taken seriously but now health oriented recipe books called to me. It was time to think beyond the past conditioning of the four food groups and other myths I was brought up with. The old ways no longer served us well. It was time to move on, to find a healthier way. We had devoted a lot of time and energy towards getting healthy and wanted to continue to keep supporting this very important objective. Eating in restaurants was not part of the equation at this point. I realized that we needed to control all food in-take in order to avoid anything that was taboo. At this time, there were no vegetarian restaurants in our city. Conventional places were not offering meatless •
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