My Experience with the 21-Day Elimination Diet

My favorite smoothie ❤️

The 21-day elimination diet was an eye-opener from many perspectives. Dr. Susan Blum’s book provided helpful recipes that made the detox manageable, especially when gluten-free options were scarce a decade ago.

I dove headfirst into this journey, spending $400 at Mariano’s to stock up on ingredients—at a time when gluten-free products were almost non-existent (and often disappointing). One of my favorite recipes from The Immune System Recovery Plan was the granola from Chapter 10: Healing Your Gut Recipes—though I had to say goodbye to it when I went grain-free. I even attempted making my own ghee (spoiler alert: it didn’t go well), and quickly learned that store-bought organic ghee was the way to go.

The key to success? Preparation. Planning meals for breakfast, lunch, snacks, and dinner, making grocery lists, and then cooking everything in advance. A few favorite recipes I loved:

• Green detox soup and blueberry spinach smoothie from Supporting Your Liver Recipes (Chapter 13).

• Coconut chicken with almond lime sauce from Understanding the Stress Connection Recipes (Chapter 7).

• Almond blueberry muffins from Using Food as Medicine Recipes (Chapter 4)—a travel staple for me!

This experience taught me that food truly is medicine, but it also requires time, patience, and a lot of dishes! The good news? Once you get into the rhythm, it becomes second nature.

Missed my story? Start here with my food journey.

Coming soon: What’s really in your food? Learn to read food labels.