Here is a conglomeration of the research that I’ve done about Herpes and diet.
Whole Foods Diet
While I was living in Victoria, BC I was introduced to one of a few books I consider THE BOOK TO GO TO when something goes awry with my health. This book I am referring to in this blog post is Paul Pitchford‘s“Healing with Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition”
Therefore, this was one of the first books I looked at to see if there was a way to heal herpes through diet. It turns out there is!
“In order for lesions and other symptoms to disappear permanently, one must follow a pure diet such as DIET A… for at least six months….
During outbreaks, a remarkably effective external remedy for most herpes sufferers is a bath in strong black tea. Add at least six ounces of common black tea leaves to very hot bath water, allow it to cool to a safe temprature, then soak in the water for at least an hour.”
– Excerpt from Healing with Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford.
The diet mentioned above consists of eating:
– Primarily grains, veggies, seaweeds, legumes, sprouts, herbs, micro-algae, Omega-3, and small amounts of spices. Most food should be lightly cooked.
– Plus absolutely no intoxicants including coffee, no concentrate sweeteners (Stevia is okay), no fruits (including tomatoes), all nuts and oil bearing seeds except flax seeds and its cold pressed oils. Spirulina is to be avoided but chlorella and blue green algae are okay.
“After six months if no lesions have reappeared for at least six weeks the diet can be expanded to include fruit, goat dairy products and small amounts of dairy products.”
– Excerpt from Healing with Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford.
Intense, eh?
Alkaline Diet
One other thing to note is that there is another diet that could help clear out the Herpes, and that is an Alkaline cleanse. I would guess that the Alkaline cleanse would actually rid the body of the disease completely after about six months of completing it.
Why six months? A guess from reading the fore-mentioned book.
Why would the alkaline cleanse ride the body completely of the virus? Supporters of the Alkaline Diet supported and publicized by Dr. Robert Young state that all sorts of diseases can be cured with this diet because it has been documented that viruses can’t live in alkaline environments. They need acidity to breed and grow.
I went on the alkaline diet for a month and a half and during that time I experienced absolutely no outbreaks, even though I was in high-stress situations (stress is a trigger for outbreak and I was consistently travelling and figuring out my life at this point). I wasn’t even concerned about it! Due to my finances I was finding it extremely challenging to stay on the diet and I began to eat vegan.
One week after not being on the diet and eating a small amount of raw chocolate my body responded with Bacterial Vaginosis with no apparent reason. The doctor and another friend of mine says that it sometimes just happens. I had this for a couple of weeks as I moved cities, began to live in a one bedroom apartment with three people, and started KYTT.
After three weeks of not being on the diet I began to notice symptoms. Then four weeks afterwards, just after moving to a less stressful situation, I had a full on breakout. Immediately I began to re-alkalize my diet as much as possible and took a shot of baking soda. I put lemons in my water.
The next day it had substantially gotten better, and each day it continues to improve, though its now been a week.
While researching this blog post I came across some websites that look really good for the alkaline diet:
Starter Guide to the Alkaline Diet
The 7 Most Alkaline Foods
I found Energise For Life’s Alkaline/Acidic food list here(in PDF).
You can find Dr. Youngs chart here for reference.
The Differences
I feel the need to stay as Alkaline as possible. Its a very similar diet to the one recommended in Healing with Whole Foods.
The differences are:
The Alkaline diet has more focus on raw foods and allows me to to eat tomatoes and nuts, while the Whole Foods Diet is focused more on eating grains and lightly cooked foods and restricts my eating further not allowing me to eat tomatoes or nuts (god, I love tomatoes).
Conclusion
From my experiences and research I have concluded that it is ideal for me to be on a high alkaline diet especially seeing how barely coming off the diet my body was reacting and I had a breakout among other bodily symptoms of other things I didn’t care for like pimples and warts growing back!
I will continue a high-alkaline diet immediately at the time of this post, and let you know how it all goes. That means that there will be an update post in six months… May 13, 2014.
God, I can’t wait to eat fruit again.
Further links on diet and herpes:
Alkaline Diet and Herpes
Stay Outbreak Free
The Cure
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