Become what you eat and improve physical, emotional and mental well-being
DETOXING isnt just for drug addicts these days. Strict eating regimes that promise to cleanse us inside and out are touted in mainstream magazines and on cereal boxes.
The queen of detoxification in the Southern and Eastern Cape at any rate is Annelies Cowley of Port Alfreds St Francis Health Centre.
People who have attended six-day courses at her Ri 000-plus-a-day spa return slimmer, invigorated and give up cigarettes and caffeine, for at least a while.
All offer intriguing snippets of information about Mrs Cowley: She can see your aura. She can tell which types of food are good for you. She uses her hand as a metronome when she interviews you, to assess which of the things you tell her really matter to your health.
In person to lecture at Knysnas recent Gastronomica festival Cowley is a sweet-faced, conservatively dressed woman who gets right to the point: We are what we eatand what we digest, is one of her mantras.
Over the last 50 years 70 000 new chemicals have been developed, some we know are carcinogenic but many have not been tested on humans and their long term effects are not known.
Many weaken the immune system in the long run. Detoxification is a vital spring clean that helps the digestive system to recover from chemicals and stress, and revives hormones and enzymes. It enables the organs to absorb food better, and so improves physical, emotional and mental well-being.
With a faint Austrian accent she talks about seeing auras in such a matter of fact way you wonder why you cant see them too. You might think being healthy is drinking eight glasses of water a day, eating salads and vegetables and watching your fat intake. But, according to Cowley, you would still be doing a lot wrong.
For maximum effect you must drink your water hot (to stimulate the liver and bowel) and chew it, so your saliva can help digest it. Some vegeta~ bles, including celery, are better eaten cooked (too much raw food can make the body too alkaline). Cucumbers should be sliced into slanted ovals, dicing them robs them of energy.
She asked two chefs to prepare salads. The first did so to discordant punk music. He butchered a carrot and murdered lettuce leaves before throwing them on to a plate and flinging dates and pecan nuts on top. Using the same ingredients, the second chef took her time to soothing Baroque music, gently slicing carrots and cucumbers, slantwise, and arranging the ingredients side by side instead of in a confusing heap.
Cowley held her right hand over both plates and indicated that the punk-rock salad had an energy field of about 3cm. The food is crying, she declared. The Baroque salad had a field of at least 30cm. This would be good for you. Born and bred in Austria, Cowley trained as a nurse there and specialised in paediatric surgery. She caine to Africa in 1968, worked in a Lesotho hospital, and then moved to South America where she established five Ecuador clinics for an Austrian development corporation.
She returned to Lesotho in 1975, ran a private clinic and campaigned against Brucellosis, a disease endemic during severe drought. While researching cures she came across homeopathy, and then investigated herbalism, naturopathy, Reiki, polarity therapy, and energy and aura work.
In 1991 she co-founded the St Francis Health Centre, offering a holistic approach to health and a vegetarian detoxification diet for rejuvenation and the balance of physical, mental and emotional alignment.
Cowleys message is a mixture of strict advice and refreshing common sense. If someone serves you a delicious, decadent meal, bless it and eat it, and take Prohep afterwards. She doesnt believe in losing weight for the sake of fashion, but in weight control appropriate to age, which wifi follow if people eat and digest food correctly. She warns that a new eating disorder has joined the ranks of gluttony, bulimia and anorexia: orthorexia people so obsessed with eating healthy food that they become afraid to eat, isolated and malnourished.
Cowley does not offer eternal youth. But she does recommend detoxing as a miracle cure to modern lethargy. You will gain energy, clear skin and a feeling of well-being. You wifi look better and feel better. Many people say they dont need their asthma pump anymore. At St Francis, Cowley puts guests on a strict diet that excludes meat, dairy, wheat, sugar or alcohol. At her talk, she handed out a gentler takehome detoxification plan she recommended be followed for four to six days. It allows weak tea, rooibos, certain fruit juices, brown toast, most vegetables, chicken, lamb, two eggs a week, tropical fruits and stewed appies and pears, Bulgarian yoghurt, feta, plain cottage cheese, red lentils, herbs and diluted whisky or gin.
The lengthy no list includes coffee, tizzy drinks especially the diet variety, anything in packets, smoked food, bread spreads, milk, cheese, mixed yoghurt (especially the low-fat and no-fat varieties), tunnel-grown tomatoes and baking sprays.
She promises that a glass of hot water wifi clear any cravings. In detox you need more water for the toxins to be washed out. If you have to drink water cold, have a drop of lemon; it makes it easier to digest.
OUT OF TUNE: Detox guru Annelies Cowley tests the energy of a salad prepared viciously her verdict: very poor. Pictures: DESMOND SCHOLTh
CHOICE VEGETABLES: Annelies Cowley asks Knysna massage therapist Vanita Benjamin to hold vegetables in her right hand, and extend her left arm. Using kinesiology to test the strength of her left arm, she pronounces the red pepper will be good for her, but celery will be much better.
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