Fresh Start Healing Diet

Fresh Start Healing Diet

Over the years, we’ve crafted a fantastic cleansing menu that is both healthy and nutritious, as well as gourmet and delicious. Our ingredients are fresh and organic (with the exception of rare specialty items not available in organically certified form). Your meals consist of various raw vegetables, fruit, nuts, and seeds, as well as some cooked/baked dishes, grains and legumes. These clean, detoxifying, and living foods have been proven to improve digestion, nourish your cells, restore enzymes, and assist in energy restoration.

We support the local food-growing community by purchasing most of our produce from local farmers and a family-owned health food store that sources its products from local growers.

What to Expect from Our Meals?

We use Vegan Cuisine (except honey). Your meals are dairy-, gluten-, meat-, fish-, and other seafood-free, as well as sugar-and egg-free

  • Most of our breakfasts are fruit-based and contain a green salad. A few breakfasts are savoury.
  • Lunches are the biggest meal of the day and include a variety of veggie-based (savoury) dishes.
  • Suppers consist of hot soups accompanied by gluten-free crackers (not raw).
  • Three times a week, you get a healthy gluten-free dessert for supper.
  • A basket of organic apples is always available for a snack.
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Allergies and Dislikes Meal Customizations

Some of our guests have food allergies, Sensitivities, Texture Issues, and Major Food Dislikes. We aim to accommodate your unique dietary needs whenever possible. However, it presents a significant challenge for us, as it requires extensive individual meal planning and a substantial increase in kitchen team staffing.

Due to this, we kindly request that all guests with food allergies or sensitivities disclose them before registration, so that we can assess what we can do to accommodate them. Meal customizations are offered at an additional fee, which helps us to cover the extra staff hours required.

Customized Free-of-Charge

Dairy, gluten, meat, fish and other seafood, sugar, and eggs free. These foods are not included in our meals.

Additionally, if you need to change your portion size (for example, decrease or increase by 25% or 50%), we will adjust without additional charge.

Minor Customizations

Many of our ingredients are in the category of minor customization, including:

  • Many types of fruit, veggies and greens
  • Rare types of nuts (pine nuts, Brazil nuts, hazelnuts)
  • Most seeds (sunflower, pumpkin, hemp, sesame, poppy seed)
  • Legumes (beans, peas)
  • Gluten-free grains (quinoa, gluten-free oats, wild and brown rice, amaranth, buckwheat, millet)

Agave Syrup
Amaranth – $0 charge
Apricot – $0 charge
Arugula – $0 charge
Avocado
Basil
Beans
Beet
Beans
Berries (Blackberries, Strawberries, Raspberries, Blueberries)
Black Pepper – $0 charge
Brazil Nut – $0 charge
Broccoli
Buckwheat – $0 charge
Cacao
Cauliflower
Cayenne Pepper
Cherry – $0 charge
Chia seed
Cilantro
Corn
Curry Powder
Dates
Eggplant
Grapes
Grapefruit – $0 charge
Green Beans – $0 charge
Hazel Nut – $0 charge
Kale
Kiwi
Macadamia Nut – $0 charge
Millet
Mushroom
Olives (excluding olive oil)
Peas
Peach – $0 charge
Pear
Pine Nut
Pineapple
Poppy Seed
Quinoa
Radish
Raisin
Rice
Too spicy (=hot) $0 charge
Vinegar

Minor Meal customization fee per week: $0-75. The amount varies depending on the number of minor ingredients, their frequency of occurrence, and the complexity of customization. If too many minor ingredients or several more common ones need to be customized, they may fall into the moderate to advanced category. If the ingredient(s) requiring customization are rare in our dishes, we will reduce or waive the fee.

Moderate Meal Customizations

These customizations include ingredients that are frequently in our meals.

Apple
Banana
Bell Pepper
Carrot
Celery
Coconut
Cucumber
Flax
Garlic
Grains (quinoa + rice + millet + corn + buckwheat) $150
Ginger
Lettuce or Multiple Leafy greens (Kale, Asian Greens, Collards etc.)
Maple Syrup
Legumes (beans + lentils + peas) $150
Lentils
Onion
Orange
Paprika
Parsley
Pecan
Potato
Pumpkin Seed
Tomato
Tofu
Soy (Tofu and/ or Tamari Sauce & Miso) $150
Sunflower Seed
Walnut
Whole small seeds (poppy, sesame, flax, chia)

Moderate Meal customization fee per week:  $75 per 1 item; $125-150 for 2 items; $150 for substituting one of the following food categories: all soy, all green leafy vegetables, grains or legumes.

Major Meal Customizations

Because of the vegan, raw nature of our meals, nuts are a staple in our diet. Due to this, nut allergy requires advanced customization. Elimination of all sweeteners and fruit, as well as nightshades, is another major one.

Cashews
Almonds
Honey
Multiple nut allergy (does not include minor nuts such as Brazil and Hazelnut)
All Night Shades (potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, bell peppers)
Fructose-free, Glucose-Free, Diabetic Type I and Advanced Diabetic Type II Diet (cannot eat whole fruit and/ or needs cutting down or elimination of all natural sweeteners, such as dates, raisins, maple syrup and honey)
Complex meal customizations (multiple ingredients from moderate and advanced categories)

Major Meal customization fee per week:  almonds $175, cashews $250, cashews/ almonds $300; fructose/glucose/all sweeteners $250, nightshades $250, all nuts $350.

Complex Meal Customizations

The customization fee to be discussed, based on the extent.

Non-Customizable Items

Some complex diet requests and staple items, such as olive oil and lemons, are non-customizable. We cannot accommodate Rotation, Celiac, Salt-Free and Food-Smell Allergies.

Rotation and Complex Diets (FOD maps, Salt-Free, Kosher).

Advanced Disorders of the GI Track. If you suffer from health conditions (Crohn’s, CEBO) requiring advanced meal customizations and work on GI restoration or cannot eat raw foods, inquire about our Go-Deeper Program.

Too picky an eater and complex customizations (=too many ingredients, multiple food groups, cannot eat the majority of vegetables or vegan foods).

Culinary herbs and spices, except for some fresh herbs such as cilantro and parsley. We cannot customize dry herbs and other ingredients that are part of spice mixes. If you have an herb allergy, please get in touch with us in advance to confirm if it can be accommodated.

Contact allergies, Celiac and other severe allergies (traces of specific ingredients may cause an allergic reaction) – our kitchen is not set up for such extreme customizations; we do not have separate facilities, cutting boards, knives, or other equipment, and we cannot guarantee any cross-contamination.

Food-smell allergies (ex., citrus), due to the difficulty of monitoring in a public setting.

Olive oil, lemon and lemon juice allergies (too staple)

Epipen-requiring allergies

You are welcome to come at your own risk and must bring an EpiPen (we do not have one on-site). While we do our best, we cannot guarantee that no mistakes or mix-ups of plates will ever happen. By choosing to come, you release us from liability.

Flavour Disclaimer

Please keep in mind that custom meals, due to not being standardized, may lack flavour or balance.

Limitations Disclaimer

When the meal customizations are too extensive, or we have too many guests with allergies, we may not be able to accommodate all requests or ask you to book for future programs.

NOTE: If your digestive system cannot handle a lot of foods and need a lot of work, please check out our Physical or Emotional GoDeeper Programs. These programs’ focus is health restoration, and we may be able to accommodate slightly more.

Upon Arrival Allergies Discovery

This is our WORST nightmare :) We spend hours planning custom meals, and if, upon arrival, we discover a new allergy, we need to start the process all over again. This is why we appreciate you taking the time to study this page and prepare a list of what you cannot provide at registration time.

However, we understand that in some circumstances, it still may happen. For those cases, we created a “custom protocol/ custom meal incidental budget” included in your program. If you need to add customization of additional ingredients upon arrival, the customization will be charged against that budget. If your customizations exceed the budget (for example, if you continue to add new or change ingredients that require customization), we’ll discuss with you an additional charge.

Why Does Fresh Start Charge for Allergy Customizations?

Some people get upset about the fact that we charge for meal customizations. They say, “All restaurants I go to do it for free. Here, I pay so much money and should not have to pay extra for accommodation of my allergies, dislikes and texture issues.”

However, before you go that route, please consider the following facts:

  1. As a health retreat, we attract many more people with moderate to severe allergies than other places.
  2. The meals are gourmet, include a large variety of ingredients and are made totally from scratch. They take up to 4 times longer to make than a typical fast-food restaurant meal.
  3. In restaurants, they prepare the same meals every day. At Fresh Start, every day and every meal is different (or you’d be bored and tired by the end of 21 days). Such a variety of meals requires more advanced custom meal planning (advanced meal customization may take 3-17 hrs. of planning alone, never mind prep time and extra dishes).
  4. In restaurants, they have assembly lines, where ingredients are precut and can be easily manipulated. We prepare fresh ingredients daily, and they differ.
  5. Due to the uniqueness of our menu and the high number of allergies, the preparation of our meals requires a higher calibre and training of chefs.
  6. Meal customization doubles the number of chefs required.
  7. The team needs to be aware of your allergies for the duration of your entire stay, not just for one meal. If someone is allergic to tomatoes, someone else is allergic to soy, and still another person dislikes beets, and yet another cannot tolerate cilantro, there are five menus to follow in addition to the main one.
  8. In addition to meals, we need to consider your supplements and juices to ensure they are also customized.
  9. “Newly discovered” allergy or meal customization request arriving in the middle of the program after everyone is trained and knows what they are doing requires us to start the planning all over. Since there is no ready-made allergy planning software, the process is highly manual.
  10. Undisclosed or unknown before arrival allergies and unpredictable, fussy eaters can contribute to our kitchen team’s grey hair.

Guys, we are talking about real life here… This is why we ask you to disclose all allergies, dislikes and other issues before arrival and to be understanding of our limitations and the fees we charge. Those fees typically do not cover all the time we invest, but they help a lot.

For Fussy Eaters and Those Who Do Not Like Veggies

Please review the sample meal pictures to ensure you can eat them. There is nothing worse than coming for a program and not being able to eat most of the foods we offer, and then exploding on day 4 or 5, or having to send a staff member to a grocery store to buy Cheerios to help someone in severe distress from not eating conventional foods. It happened; that’s why you are reading it.

We want to ensure that you clearly understand what foods we offer and that you enjoy them (or at least are willing to eat them). Our meals are super tasty and prepared with a lot of love, but, like everything, we cannot meet everyone’s tastes and standards. If you dislike vegetables and salads, struggle to eat healthy foods, or have trouble eating raw foods, this program may not be suitable for you.

The food we offer is healing and cleansing, and is designed to help you improve your health and wellbeing. If you are willing to go vegan for 5-9 days and are eager to try our delicious and healthy creations, that’s what truly matters. Being open-minded and ready to try new things is everything! We hope you enjoy our unique diet, which thousands of our guests have loved, and that you will take away many ideas and recipes with you.

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Disclaimer: The pictures above are samples and may vary from the dishes included in your program menu.