Are you tempted by a grape cure? A new fashion? Nay … This practice dates from the ancient Greeks. We deliver the method to you.
The grape cure is in season! With the craze for detox cures, this cure is back in fashion. But what are its real benefits? Its indications and contraindications?
Grape cure: an old treatment like Dioscorides
The virtues of the grape were mentioned in antiquity by Dioscorides, Pliny, and Galen. Practiced and recognized by the medical world in the XVIII th century, the uvales cures were created.
This cure received the blessing of the Academy of Medicine in 1933.
Principle and mode of action of the cure
Distinct from fasting, which offers the eviction of any food, the grape cure is part of mono diets, which consist of eating only one food, often easier to implement.
Knowing that the body uses up to 30% of its energy for digestion, by proposing a single food, the body can redirect this energy in the service of the elimination of toxins.
Rich in organic acids, tannins, anthocyanins, flavins, fibers, and water, grapes are both a diuretic, a drainer of the intestine, the liver, and an antioxidant.
Its richness in mineral salts, such as potassium, iron, or selenium, makes it possible at the same time to reduce blood pressure, regulate the cardiac rhythm, but also to stimulate the immune system, and preserve tissue aging!
In addition, the grape contains very little protein and fat. Quercetin, a pigment unique to black grapes, protects, besides allergies, the cardiovascular system and helps digestion.
The benefits of the grape cure
Both draining and revitalizing, this cure seduces its multiple benefits. The grape uses what are called emunctories, waste elimination organs (skin, kidney, liver, intestines), and makes it possible to dislodge toxins. But it brings other benefits.
For example, it has notable effects on:
• The digestive disorders: gas, bloating, constipation, stomach heaviness
• the sleep disorders
• fatigue, nervousness, and irritability: 90% of people who complained of fatigue have often seen a dramatic improvement in their condition
• the skin problems: acne, dull skin
• tinnitus, vision problems
• the weight loss
• the immune system
• the cholesterol: LDL levels decline.
• urinary infections, cystitis.
Tips and indications: prepare your cure
Consult a doctor before any treatment. In the first two days of the treatment, headaches, nausea, diarrhea, and insomnia may appear, they are the indicators of the start of the elimination of toxins.
If these symptoms persist beyond two days, it is a signal that the body cannot keep up. In this case, it is better to stop the cure. To avoid these inconveniences as much as possible, it is advisable to prepare your treatment.
On the previous days, it will gradually lighten the meals by avoiding meat, fish, coffee, chocolate, then cereals (bread, rice, pasta), to eat only the night before only fruits and vegetables. An enema or “purge” (blond psyllium, or magnesium chloride) before and during the diet will remove the residues from digestion in order to evacuate toxins more easily.
In the following days, the treatment will be devoted to gradually reintroducing the ousted foods in the reverse order: first vegetables, then cereals, then proteins, at the risk of not having stomach aches.
Knowing that a cure can last from a few days to a few weeks, the period of food adaptation must be equal to half the cure. So for a week of treatment, plan 3 days of food preparation and recovery.
Which grape to use for a cure?
The grapes must be of organic quality, ripe, and well-washed. Even consuming a single food, as long as it is flawless. It is recommended to eat the skin, where the fibers that facilitate intestinal transit are lodged, and the seeds contain a good part of the antioxidants.
It is the Chasselas which, by its thin skin and balanced sugar content, is best suited, alternating with muscat. Black grapes, Italia or Alphonse Lavallée can irritate the intestines.
Each grape variety has different properties, so it is wise to alternate them. You can also start and end your day with a glass of grape juice. Far from wanting to restrict yourself, you have to eat when you are hungry, so do not hesitate to eat several small meals, taking care to chew.
Plan on average 1 to 2 kg of grapes per day, but again it is your body that decides.
Contraindications
The grape cure is for everyone except diabetics and insulin-dependent and is not recommended for pregnant or lactating women.
For a cure of a few weeks, never start without having spoken to your doctor. Some courses also offer to coach.
