1. The sugar break: The diet books that seem to work all stress the need to re-set the body, especially the pancreas, by taking a two to four week break from all sugars including pastas, grains and alcohol.
During this period I would tend to take bitter products, like burdock root or Pau D'Arco, and use foods that draw on sour taste constantly, of which more below. For emergencies I eat potatoes, okra, and some licorice.
2. Directed eating: It might sound pedantic but I rarely eat a meal that I haven't thought about in terms of its consequences. If I cook a roast for the kids I ask how can I balance all that sweetness? If I have a compulsion to eat a comforting pasta I avoid wheat and opt instead for buckwheat (which is in fact a variety of rhubarb); I look to use herbs like parsley that purge parasites, every day. I use them in abundance. I eat raw garlic for the same reason. The sense of direction includes the style of cooking. I avoid heating food at very high temperatures and increasingly I avoid oils for cooking for that reason. I try to ask whether a food has a natural place in a human diet by which I mean would it have been eaten 40,000 years ago.
3. What not to eat: Naturally I have a what-not-to-eat list but I include the proviso never say never. The list consists of sugar, breakfast cereals, pizza, pasta, grains, sandwiches and wraps, farmed fish, root vegetables exposed to light for a long time, liquidised soups and juices (they create no digestive juices), most breads from supermarkets, no processed foods, no soy foods, no nuts and seeds exposed to light for long periods, and then I roast nuts and seeds just before eating them (it destroys rancid oils and parasites). There are more but this is a representative list. These are foods that pose bacterial, fungal, parasitic or digestive risks.
4. True balance: I search out balance in most meals and across the week. Having said I avoid grains, I invariably eat them so I balance wheat with spelt, oats and rye, and I try to eat breads where the grains have been sprouted. I use sprouted seeds like alfalfa, grown in my kitchen, to balance out decaying foods. If I eat meat I will balance between meat and offal. Meat proteins are a small part of my diet because of the acidity they create. I balance them with sauerkraut or tamarind or yoghurt, pouring in alkalising sourness and the bacteria that aid digestion. I eat foods that are inherently cooling, like cucumber of course but also bean sprouts, apples, melon, lettuce, radish, celery, asparagus, broccoli. When I eat green vegetables I counteract their cloying dampness with herbs. Balance and detoxing are my main priorities in the kitchen.
5. Phasing: Finally if I think about how to introduce that type of diet, I would look at it in phases. First, introducing sour tastes into regular meals by adding sauerkraut, yoghurt or tamarind. Second, reducing grains of all types and balancing between them, opting for unleavened breads, toasting all breads. Third, using pulses as an alternative to meat proteins once a week and using some bean sprouts. Fourth, dropping meat consumption in favour of a wider range of proteins, and increasing offal consumption. Fifth, increasing herb content and salads and at the same time increasing water consumption. Sixth, altering cooking habits to purify foods and reduce heat.