It’s officially day three of my stay at Eden Valley Institute of Wellness journey (I’m not counting the arrival day). The weeks here follow a pretty strict regimen. The regimen isn’t too bad though and really and truly I can feel that I’m detoxing which is the point. Monday and Tuesday are juice fasting days and Wednesday through the rest of the week we get to eat solids.

While fasting I have gotten into the habit of taking a exploratory walk after the morning juice and have been eyeing up a sizeable raspberry patch cordoned off by a high fence. Each morning I see a white haired little lady prodigiously weeding away but have thought to myself. “Self, if things get desperate see if you can get your arm through this fence or fashion some kind of grabber and make off with a branch or two.”

It hasn’t come to that though as we had our breakfast this morning of food glorious FOOD! The breakfast was delightful and toothsome and smelled fragrant and I was tempted to eat more… but I thought. No Florence they have served you the portions they have for a specific reason. Keep your greedy self in check and exercise a modicum of restraint. This meant that I ate slowly and enjoyed every last morsel. No conversation was welcome and my focus was fixed on my meal.

Now you might think oh! I was having pancakes, eggs, breakfast meats, croissants and syrup and every good thing. But the meal was plant based and not at all carb centric. It was DELICOUS as well as being nutritious. But to be fair, I could have been served sautéed shower curtain and I would have been thrilled!

Aside: before any of you keyboard gangsters take to commenting about how my plating and staging of the above food pictures could have been better, these pictures were hastily taken. My camera was in one hand and and the fork in the other poised to swoop and lay waste to the meal (which I did).

Breakfast first course : Mixed berries (from the aforementioned raspberry patch hooray!!!), tomato’s with cilantro, dressed in olive oil, mixed seeds (sunflower seeds, chia seeds, ground flax seed) and nuts, a quarter of an avocado.

Breakfast second course: Cauliflower, roasted potato’s, a bowl of Indian Red Dahl lentils, three cloves of steamed garlic (the garlic isn’t smelly when steamed and provides much needed phosphorous, calcium, potassium, iron, and sulfur)!

Another aside: When tested by a holistic doctor in Saudi, I found out that I was sorely in need of more sulfur which I learned from her compromises my joint health. Let’s keep those knees and ankles pretty … please!

Back to breakfast. It may not be traditionally what one in the West thinks of breakfast but you know, its actually really good and satiating. You’ve probably heard the saying (eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper). Flipping the order of how we eat may help us from feeling that uncomfortably full and also prevents indigestion and allows the body to evacuate the toxins easier. Note that the breakfast was not carb or starch heavy but fibrous and had a lot of different vitamins.

I’m into it. Let me know what you think about switching up your meals. Dinner for break-fast anyone?