General Dietary Guidelines for Fertility / Infertility

Guidelines to simplify your reproductive enhancing, non-deprivational eating plan:

  1. Use Supplements - We recommend Usana brand supplements.  Read Dr. Lewis' information regarding general guidelines for what and how to order.
  2. Drink water and tea as your only beverages - between meals, at room temperature or warmer. Every time your body takes in cold liquid, it expends wasted energy trying to heat it up just so it can be absorbed and utilized. This is a very inefficient way of cooling down the body. We are supposed to cool down from the outside in, using the skin to perspire off the excess. Cold constricts. This is a universal law.
  3. Let sparkling grapejuice or sparkling water accompany your meal, instead of wine or beer. Non-alcoholic beer or Catawba juice is an acceptable substitute so you will not feel deprived.
  4. Cooking with wine is allowed if you let the alcohol burn off.
  5. Let your morning pick-me-up consist of tea or chicory instead of coffee - even decaf (add rice, soy, or almond milk.)
  6. Substitute rice milk, soy milk, or almond milk in recipes that call for milk.
  7. Substitute kamut flour, spelt flour, rice flour, or barley flour in recipes that call for wheat flour.
  8. Sprouted wheat and sprouted grains are much less allergenic than the unsprouted wheat grain.
  9. Try to stay away from all sweeteners. As your body adjusts to fewer drops in blood sugar levels, your cravings will diminish. If you have a sweet tooth, though, I recommend royal jelly in a honey base as a sweetener as you get added nutritional value from the royal jelly. Chlorella supplements help reduce blood sugar fluctuations.
  10. Raw agave nectar can be used as a sweetener, as it helps avoid blood sugar fluctuations as well.
  11. Good snacks include whole fruits (apples, pears, oranges); pumpkin seeds are fertility promoters; raw nuts, carrots and celery sticks.
  12. Use carob instead of chocolate where possible.
  13. Be creative. Remember, this is your eating plan. Make the recipes appeal to you.
  14. Use tea-chino instead of coffee if you miss the ritual:
  15. Clarified butter, sometimes called drawn butter, is regular butter that has been treated to remove any nonfat elements in order to improve its qualities as a cooking medium. Butter has two main components: butterfat and milk proteins; there's also a lot of water, sometimes up to 18 percent. Salted butter of course contains salt, too; for clarified butter, use only unsalted, as salt can lower the smoking point of the finished product and defeat the purpose of clarifying.

    Without the milk proteins, clarified butter can be heated to higher temperatures without forming brown specks or eventually burning, so it's good for gentle sautéing, or for more vigorous frying when mixed with a little olive or vegetable oil to boost its smoking point.

    The standard method for making clarified butter is to melt the butter gently in a sturdy saucepan until you see the butterfat separating out and forming a thick layer in the pan. Most of the milk solids will drop to the bottom of the pan, and a layer of white foam will form on top. Remove the pan from the heat--gently, so you don't disturb the layers--spoon off the top layer of foam, and carefully pour off the pure butterfat into a clean container. Discard the milky residue from the bottom of the pan.

    Another method is to melt the butter and then actually boil it until the milk solids coagulate and clump together at the bottom of the pan and the butterfat floats on top. If this method is taken further to the point where the milk proteins harden and darken slightly, the butterfat intensifies in flavor and color and is known as ghee, which is a mainstay of Indian cooking. The smoking point of ghee is slightly higher than that of regular clarified butter. Again, carefully decant the clarified butter and discard the milky leftovers, or strain it through a sieve lined with paper towel or cheesecloth.

    Once you've made clarified butter, you can store it in the refrigerator for several weeks, but be sure to keep it covered because fat absorbs odors easily. Use it for sautéing, for flavoring cake or crêpe batters, for tossing with steamed vegetables, or for brushing on a piece of poached fish for moisture and shine.
  16. Ice cream subsitutes - if you have an ice cream maker, try the following ingredients to indulge: