The Budwig Diet

Have you heard of the Budwig Diet? The word ‘diet’ has a lot of negative connotations for many people. There are thousands of different diets out there, all claiming to promote health, weight loss, muscle gain, or a whole host of other “wonderful” results.

The Budwig Diet differs from these. Put simply; the Budwig Diet is a common-sense approach; if you eat good, healthful foods, you will be more healthy. If your diet contains all the essential nutrients and very few harmful substances, you are giving your body its best chance of getting and staying healthy, and fighting disease.

On the Budwig Diet, we encourage you to make small, achievable, practical changes – switching out unhealthy foods for fresh, nourishing options. You don’t need to go hungry, and your calorie intake is up to you as an individual; the Budwig Diet is a focus on the quality of what you take into your body. For people with existing health problems – for our patients who are already battling cancer, we believe that strict adherence to the Budwig protocol is the best way to enable your body to fight the disease.

The History Of The Budwig Diet

The Budwig Diet was developed by Dr. Johanna Budwig, an insightful clinician with a passion for developing an evidence-based, natural, and effective approach to health. Her research into essential fatty acids and the impact of diet and holistic health on disease progression and prevention has inspired the work of conventional medics and naturopaths alike.

Dr. Budwig created more than just a diet: a blueprint for health, based on a complete understanding of an individual’s physical and emotional needs as well as the benefits of a nutrient-rich, health-giving diet and lifestyle.

What Is The Budwig Diet?

As already stated, a lot of it is just common sense; eating natural, fresh food and focusing on nutritious organic fruit and vegetables. Add to this an attitude of respect – respect for the body’s ability to maintain and mend itself, given the right tools. Respect for the food we eat – seeing the value in good food, and natural vitamins and minerals. Additionally, respect for our emotional selves, along with an understanding that every part of the body and mind are interlinked.

The Budwig Diet teaches us to appreciate and consume only truly nourishing foods. No one on the Budwig Diet needs to starve themselves, to eat anything they don’t like, or to miss out. With the Budwig Diet, you learn to understand and enjoy the properties of natural foods. It’s a common-sense approach, and it includes simple healthy switches such as:

1. Cutting out refined sugars in favor of naturally sweet ingredients such as raw honey, pure Stevia, or ripe fruits.
2. Replace animal proteins with seeds, nuts, spirulina, plant sources of protein – and Budwig muesli.
3. Reduce your dairy intake – try swapping cows’ milk for oat, almond, or rice milk.
4. Reduce your wheat intake – gluten-free flour is now readily available, and rye, spelt and oat-based flours and baked products are naturally low-gluten.
5. Swap processed or animal-derived oils and fats for cold-pressed, virgin or extra virgin plant oils.

In addition, there are some specific recipes that Dr. Budwig created to help us attain peak nourishment and help to fight pre-existing disease. The most important was her ‘Budwig Muesli.’ A meal based around flaxseeds, flaxseed oil, and cottage cheese or Quark; this is a carefully planned mix of essential fatty acids which Dr. Budwig found could prevent, inhibit and actually reverse cancer growth for many of her patients. Dr. Budwig had great success with this mix and recommended it for everyone, not just cancer patients.

The Budwig muesli is one of the few occasions where Dr. Budwig recommends any dairy-based food. Johanna Budwig believed in the unrivaled health benefits of the vegetarian diet, the most direct way to benefit from fresh, raw nutrients with none of the harmful toxins found in meat.

For recipes, advice, a fully personalized wellness package, and much more, contact our expert advisors at the Budwig Center. For clients engaging in our clinical programs, we devote time during your stay to creating healthy, delicious meals, teaching the Budwig approach to nutrition as an essential component of your journey to health. Health comes from within.

Food Chart – Foods To Avoid And Foods To Consume

START YOUR DAY – Drink a glass of pure water.

FRUIT: 2 or 3 servings of fruit. The body is in a ‘cleansing’ mode in the morning and fruit is perfect. 10 minutes later eat your breakfast. Fruit takes 10 minutes to digest, but other foods take 2 or 8 hours. So never eat fruit (especially melons) after or with other food as this will cause gas and indigestion.

VEGETABLES: Cooking and boiling vegetables at temperatures of more than 105 F (41 Celsius) destroy important enzymes in the food, instead of steam cook your vegetables which releases 5 times the amount of vitamins than most raw vegetables. When possible eat the potato skins as that is where the vitamins are