Appalachia

This is the story of when I lived with a medicine woman in the mountains of Pennsylvania, and the truly transformational diet I went on

Photo by Thomas Despeyroux on Unsplash

Unci means grandmother in Lakota, it is also a term of great respect for a woman of wisdom. Kiaya was the name of grandma's grandma. Unci Kiaya, Sr. (if you will) was a Lakota medicine woman who walked the mountains of Appalachia speaking to people of the affects this new way of life was having in her community, primarily through diet. Years later her granddaughter Star would pray to understand all that her grandmother knew. Be careful what you wish for. Star discovered first hand what chemical poisoning is all about, and just how keenly food affects our bodies--whether or not one has a compromised nervous system.

Star has carried on her grandmother's work, and has also been given Kiaya's name. After her whole family was poisoned in their home by a fumigation company, Unci did all she could to figure out how to heal them, and herself. She discovered things like dryer sheets being made from the same chemical components as nerve gas, and the enzymes found in many laundry detergents would soak into their skin and burn them. Therefore, just the act of washing the family's clothes, although likely to have been weakening their nervous systems all along, was now visibly killing them. And she started to see how eating things like wheat or processed sugar could cause sever depression, dyslexia, and boarder-line autistic behavior; while some food sensitivities could manifest in homicidal tendencies--eggs, for instance.

Throughout this time she remembered the Medicine Wheel. The Medicine Wheel is comprised of four directions: white, black, red, and yellow representing the north, south, east, and west. Each tribe assigns different colors to different directions, but red is generally in the south. Just like on the Chakra system, red denotes the root and the body. While going to school to study nutrition and eventually get her Ph.D., she employed her indigenous knowledge to start whittling away at what was hurting her family so she could begin to nourish them back to health.

Even though Kiaya had been feeding her family relatively healthy and nutritious food, she had learned that the body only has a certain number of enzymes to process all the food we eat--each one being tasked with the breakdown of a specific ingredient. When she would cook her family bacon and eggs with toast and jam, maybe a glass of orange juice and coffee, for breakfast; then move on to turkey sandwiches piled high with lettuce, tomatoes, mayonnaise and mustard for lunch; finishing the day with a pot roast, potatoes, and a salad, she discovered a very long list of possible triggers for the reactions occurring in her husband and children. Each of those enzymes was being used throughout the day, and some, like those used to digest wheat, were being taxed with every meal for years.

Just like anything in life, if you are being worked hard all day, every day, for a very long time--you will eventually burn out. The same thing happens with our digestive juices. That is when we start to discover our bodies having negative reactions to the things, perhaps, we love the most. To discover what she and her family were having reactions to, she devised a menu plan based on the Medicine Wheel. Four foods a day, simply prepared, as a recipe for better health.

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When I got to the backwoods of Pennsylvania, I was so exhausted from work and travel, both Unci Kiaya and I slept for many hours. When I awoke she was cooking for me, and I ravenously ate whatever she put in front of me without paying it much mind, other than everything being quite tasty. This food was also a refreshing change to the conference cafeteria food we had been gorging on for the past week, as it was actually healthy and wholesome--quite in line with my Sunshine State sensibilities. On the second day of my stay at grandma's, to be blunt, I felt like shit. I was stinky and tired, everything in my body ached down to my teeth, and I was sweating with a slight tremble--anyone with an alcoholic in their life might recognize these familiar symptoms as the DT's. Indeed, when I awoke on the third day, after about eighteen hours of sleep, she informed me that when detoxing from any food sensitivity--especially grains like wheat and corn--one will experience very similar symptoms to delirium tremens, and when one relapses after the cleanse, one might experience effects similar to drunkenness.

This was amazing! Kiaya had written her dissertation on the connection between food sensitivities and alcoholism, so was well versed on what I was going through. Even though my physical person was in agony, my head and my heart were titillated that Unci had been teaching me unbeknownst--and using myself as the project!

Unci Kiaya's cleanse is simple. Choose one protein, one vegetable, one starch, and one fruit per 24 hour period. Don't go hungry--eat as much of those four foods as you want. When preparing the food, remember any oil, seasoning, stock, etc. is another food and should be extricated. So, for example, lets choose chicken, brown rice, green beans, and apples for our four foods on the first day. Roast off a whole fryer, or if one gets chicken in pieces, baking them might be the best preparation(when buying frozen, check the label to ensure the pieces are not coated in anything, like wheat flour); steam an ample enough amount of rice and green beans to get through the day; and with the apples, eat them any way you choose: fresh, baked, or sauced--but just remember, no cinnamon, butter, sugar, or other deliciousness. The second day, mix it up--maybe mahi mahi, quinoa, cucumbers and orange sound good as the orange can be used to season the fish. The ingredients can be used in any combination, as long as one sticks to the four. Also, if something like grapes are part of the daily menu, feel free to use a little pure grape seed oil, since they are essentially the same item.

Part of what is happening on this cleanse is a release and opening of one's detox pathways. The lymphatic system starts to drain, and the kidneys and liver relax from not being so stressed. The whole endocrine system is being given a chance to rest and heal, as well, since things like sugar, caffeine, and salt are no longer inundating it. At first the food might taste incredibly bland, and the olfactory senses might hardly be functioning. Guaranteed that after the fourth day, food will be much sweeter, smells will be much more distinct, and the head will be much clearer.

Sticking with the rule of four, any given food takes about four days to completely clear from the body. That is why most people have the feeling of being ill on the second and third days--they are going through withdrawals. If embarking on this particular gastronomical adventure, the other part of what to look for is triggers. What are the foods that are causing the withdraws? So, make sure that there is variety and creativity with the menu plans, and watch how the body reacts to each of the foods ingested.

Unci Kiaya recommends living this way for at least ten days to begin to really notice a change, but going longer is strongly encouraged.

This article was originally published on Substack. You can read the original here.