Once the festive fervour dies down, the one word that may be on your mind is detox! It’s always good to divert the focus back to health, especially after an extended period of celebrations. From delicious laddoos to luscious gravies, you must be gorging on all these delectable foods, making your fitness goals take a backseat. If you agree, we’re  telling you one way to rejuvenate your health and detox your body. Detoxification or detox can become a simple and smooth-sailing endeavour with mono diet.

Here are the answers to your ‘whats, whys, and hows’ regarding mono dieting.

What is the mono diet?

Mono diet or monotropic diet is all about consuming the same food for all meals throughout the day and maintaining such an eating pattern for a few days. The diet plan is straightforward and easy to execute. There are no complex smoothies or dishes to track here!

You’ll want to make ‘Just one meal – on repeat’ your new mantra this detox session after listening to what Dr Dimple Jangda, Ayurveda and Gut Health Coach has to say in her recent Instagram post.

Why should you do mono-dieting?

We agree that variety is the spice of life, but your versatile diet might be posing an excess strain on your digestive organs. Don’t your pancreas, liver, gallbladder, stomach, and intestines deserve a much-needed break?

When you adopt a mono diet, you are consuming a simple meal continuously for a few days. “Because there are no complex food groups to break down, your digestive system will spend less time and energy calculating how to digest a meal again and again,” shares Dr Jangda.

Did you know that your liver performs over 500 functions? It is the largest detoxifying organ and a vital part of the primary filtration system of our body. Your liver does a lot of things at once. It converts toxins into waste products, cleanses our blood, and metabolizes nutrients and medications to provide the body with some of its most important proteins.

A mono diet makes your liver slightly less busy. Since your diet is simple and predictable, your liver fulfills its digestive obligations quickly. Now, there’s a much better focus on flushing the toxins out of your body.

How should you do mono dieting?

The golden rule to remember is ‘Simple meal doesn’t mean a nutritionally deficient meal.’ The expert health coach stresses, “Do not go to extremes. Do not go mono-dieting on just a single food item.” We get that ‘just chocolates all day’ might be a childhood dream come true, but it can be dangerous to your health. So could living on only apples or bananas or grapefruit. Don’t mislead yourself into thinking that eating fruits is always healthy. A single food can’t fulfill the nutritional requirements of the body. Apart from nutritional deficiencies, this malpractice can also lead to muscle loss and various Ayurvedic imbalances in your body.

“Instead choose a simple vegetarian meal that is a healthy balance of carbs, proteins and fibre. A meal which is easier to digest,” she advises.

Mono meal for detox

Before you take a dive into the depths of the internet, here is a simple recipe for you to follow during your mono diet: Mung bean porridge, also called khichdi, can be prepared by following these easy steps.

Ingredients

• 6 parts unbroken white rice/ red rice
• 6 parts moong beans a.k.a green gram (soaked) or any lentil of your choice
• 6 parts vegetables like carrot, beetroot, potato, peas, and beans
  pinch of asafoetida, fresh ginger, ghee, turmeric, and salt to taste

Method

1. Soak the mung beans for 1 to 4 hours. Then, cook rice and soaked moong beans in water till it achieves a dry oatmeal consistency. Keep it aside.

2. In a pan, add 1 tbsp of ghee or cold-pressed oil of your choice, fresh ginger, a pinch of asafoetida and turmeric.

3. Add the chopped veggies and cook well.

4. Add a little salt according to your taste.

5. Pour this into the cooked rice-beans mix. Voila! It’s time to take out the plates and the spoons.

This ‘Khichdi’ will revamp digestion, absorption and assimilation of nutrients. In addition to the elimination of waste, mono-dieting with this nutritious recipe will glam up your hair and skin, boost your immunity and build up your overall health. That’s a good bargain, one could say.