Holy Week or Lenten season a time for deep reflection by the Christian world, is popularly observed with a fast by most. This usually means abstaining from pork, beef and chicken, limiting one’s menu to fish and vegetable dishes.

The benefits of fasting is science-backed, and the practice dates back from the time of Christ. Some of these includes:

  • Detoxification
  • Better immunity
  • Weight loss
  • Clearer thought patterns
  • Better mood
  • Organ repair

If you’re thinking of doing a fast this Lent, first decide what it is you will abstain from:

  • Meat: Beef, Pork, Chicken
  • Fish
  • Refined Sugar, sweet laden desserts
  • Processed food

The idea is to eliminate food that we normally over-indulge in to give our body a much-needed break so it can rest and recuperate.

Choosing to fast from meat will have many health benefits, but if you really want to make the most out of fasting, then abstaining from solid food all together is the best way to go.

If a liquid diet is too extreme for you then eating only Wholefoods Plant based, without oil, minimal salt, and never fried for 30 days is another option you can explore. Or you can start with this and end with a 3-day liquid fast.

On the average, it is best to go on a liquid detox for only 3 days for first-timers, for those who do it regularly, you can extend it to 5-7 days without interrupting your hormones.

Here are some ways to go on a liquid fast:

1. Juice cleanse

Juicing vegetables and fruits is the best way to assimilate the most micronutrients into your bloodstream. A 350 Ml of pure freshly masticated fresh juice can contain a whopping 1 kilo of produce, which we normally can’t eat in one sitting in the form of a salad.

When juicing fruits and vegetables for a fast, make sure you choose a juicer that not only extracts the most from your produce but also retains the most vitamins and enzymes.

When considering a juice recipe, choose those that has 80% greens and only 20% fruits. Its easy to put in too much sugar in a juice cleanse by including too many sweet fruits, which defies the purpose of doing a detox.

Because juicing is pure and integrates immediately in our bloodstream, over dosing on natural fruit juices can elevate blood sugar, this is why its better to use beets, yacon, cucumber, and jicama as your base as these are low in sugar. Juice pineapple, dalandan, watermelon, melon mindfully.

2. Sorbets

If you insist in keeping the fiber on a fast, you can opt to make sorbets with frozen fruits and then add herbs. Similar to a juice cleanse, make sure that you don’t overdo the fruits ratio. Put a lot of herbs like mint, basil, rosemary, tarragon and add citruses like calamansi, lemon or lime. Spike it with anti inflammatory like ginger and turmeric. For fruits, use frozen coconut, coconut meat, papaya and other low glycemic fruits and take it easy on pineapples, mangoes and bananas. You can also opt for some sweet frozen vegetables like cucumber, jicama (popularly known to us as singkamas).

3. Soups

When you feel that your body is getting too cold from the raw juices or smoothies, opting to make soup is a great way to put some heat into your body. Just make sure to skip the oil, salt and sugar as the point of a cleanse is to flush off excess sodium, sugar and fat from your liver, gall bladder and kidney.

Opt for clear broths with added water and spices and if you’re going to blend carrots, pumpkins or squash then skip the milk based cream and butter and choose a blender that can juice vegetables and roots like pumpkin, squash, beets, add aromatics and then heat it to a gentle simmer.\

 

Tip:

To activate digestive enzymes during a cleanse, swish the juice or soup around your mouth a couple of times to coat it with your saliva before swallowing. Digestion starts in the mouth, through the enzymes that helps break down food found in our saliva before it even goes down to our intestines.

To make it easier for you to go on a healthy and successful liquid fast this Lenten season, and even way beyond, we recommend you use the Misso Multi Wonder Machine to minimize kitchen work and get the most juice from your chosen produce.

Misso Multi Wonder Machine is the best masticating juicer that squeezes fruits and vegetable to a dry pulp. It is the only slow juicer that can extract juices from hard stem dry superfoods like malunggay, wheatgrass and turmeric; it also has a sorbet function that can create ice cream like consistency from fruits, so you can load up on much needed fiber easily.

 

Caution:

Liquid fasts can bring about uncomfortable sensations such as headache, nausea and irritable bowel movement. These are all part of the detoxification process but if you feel that you’re having intense symptoms such as vomiting, prolonged migraines and diarrhea then you can start adding warming solids such as grilled Saba banana, boiled sweet potatoes, or cooked brown rice and steamed vegetables to minimize the shock of the liquid detox in your system.