Beverages as Part of the Peace Diet Program

Beverages also play an important role in Dr. Terry Shintani’s Peace Diet program. It is mentioned is his Peace Diet book that beverages should be water or non-caloric beverages such as tea or herbal tea. Patients should avoid sugared drinks and artificially sweetened drinks. Ironically, sugar-free is worse than sugar because they add chemicals such as aspartame, sucralose and saccharin to sweeten "sugar free" beverages.  If a patient wants to try any sugar substitute, better use stevia because it is a natural glycoside from the stevia rebaudiana plant originally from Paraguay.  

Fruit should be eaten whole. Pure fruit juices are, of course, better than sugared or artificially sweetened beverages. For example, in comparing oranges and orange juice, the blood sugar response to orange juice is slightly higher than that of oranges. But there is a slow return to normal blood sugar. This is bordering on hypoglycemia or low blood sugar later. This low sugar can lead to fatigue, hunger and cravings. 

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What's worse is that juicing fruit makes the insulin go even higher. As explained in the Peace Diet book, high insulin levels contribute to metabolic syndrome. Drinking orange juice causes insulin to go much higher than eating whole oranges. If a patient wants to do juicing, add lots of vegetables to reduce the glycemic number of the juice. And remember that carrots, although very healthy and full of carotenoids and excellent nutrition, have a glycemic number higher than plain sugar and, though eating them is usually not a problem because they are just seven grams of carbs per carrot, juicing carrots could easily give a patient too much sugar. 

In drinking caffeinated beverages, tea is preferable to coffee because tea is alkalizing and also has some known anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory processes. Coffee is okay for health, but it can be acidifying. Further, it can contribute to afternoon tiredness and needs to be excluded in the regimen of spiritual development. What is even better is tea that does not have caffeine in it. Most herbal teas are very good for this purpose as Dr. Terry Shintani suggested. Hawaiian mamaki tea is known to have similar anti-cancer phytonutrients as green tea but has no caffeine in it.