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As you improve what you are eating, and find yourself eating more of living, raw, electrical foods, just keep in mind that you have been conditioned your whole life eating a certain way. You will probably find yourself leaning heavily onto the types of flavors, textures, and nutrients which are so common in a regular diet — salty, savory, protein-rich, fatty, sumptuous types of foods. This is typical of the Standard American Diet and of many diets around the world.
Nuts and seeds are sort of this type of food — high in protein and fat, and complex for the body to digest as you can see from other segments about how food gets digested. Ultimately, your body’s response to having to break down these complex protein structures is one where acidic by-products are created, which creates basically extra acidity throughout the body. It also creates a lot more digestive work for your stomach, liver, pancreas and intestines as compared with eating simple sugars from fruits or vegetables.
Rapid Regeneration is all about creating an alkaline environment which is the environment needed for your body to activate its self-healing process and truly detoxify, repair and regenerate. Eating nuts and seeds in a way runs contrary to this chemical purpose. However, sometimes we zig and sometimes we zag, and sometimes in order to get somewhere, you have to backtrack a bit and take two steps forward and one step back. These little delicious fatty protein foods have their role to play and still can be considered one of the good guys and on your side.
After all, if you are trying to transition into a more healthful lifestyle, what better choice of a high-fat food is there to consume? If it is protein and/or fat that you are craving, then what are you supposed to eat? A ribeye steak? A chicken thigh? A pork chop? Sushimi? An omelette? A hunk of butter? A glass of cow’s milk? A wedge of cheese? Better than eating these options by far would be to eat some nuts or seeds, spread some nut/seed butter, or drink nut/seed milk.
You could also eat avocado, coconut and olives instead of nuts and seeds. These foods do also have a liability in that they are an extra digestive burden and can slow down detox, although my experience is that these fruits do not have as severe an acidic affect as nuts and seeds. This is a nuanced approach however — all things considered, I feel better eating a small serving of chia, hemp or flax seeds than I would eating avocado, coconut or olives.
Important to consider when eating these nuts and seeds would be portion size, the type of nut/seed consumed, and food combining. You could eat a handful of nuts at the same time as a big bowl of fruit and it would be poor food combining activity and lead to acidity and a lack of nutrient digestion and absorption. Or, you could eat the same handful of nuts by themselves and the experience for your body would be completely different. In terms of portion size and the acidic blowback for the body, eating a big handful or small bowl of nuts is an entirely different experience than eating an entire one-pound bag of nuts — you can overload your body with too much and feel the tipping point.
Different nuts and seeds have different properties. While all have carbs, proteins and fats, the ratios are different depending on the nut/seed. Nuts that are lower in protein can be considered logically as less acidic-forming. There is also the question of the Omega 6 / 3 ratio in the fatty complex of a nut or seed, with the most favorable ratio being close to 1 / 1. Many nuts though are far higher in Omega 6s than Omega 3s, which can lead to an imbalance and even bodily inflammation. You can compare different nuts in how they rank in this calculation — you would actually notice that the hemp, chia, and flax seeds have a very favorable ratio, and walnuts are not bad either (more on this in an upcoming chapter).
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