I've recently had two former clients stay on in the Iquitos area to begin dietas. And I made this point to them and I think it's a valid point.
For most Westerners, a no fat, no salt, no spice diet of boiled river fish and plantains is difficult to maintain. But that's not the case among riverinos. It is, in fact, the favorite meal among people who live along the river. My team, for instance, eats that meal several times a day, each time with relish, when we are out in the jungle. They could have eggs, chicken, potatoes, beans and tons of vegetables and fruits but the choice is always fish and plantains.
So during a dieta done by a local, the meal isn't something difficult, it's the break from the difficulty of being alone. It's the best time of the day for them, the comfort food time.
As to salt, well, salt simply isn't used on food in the river by the locals. Salt is used to preserve fish and meat and not squandered on meals. It's traditionally been a difficult commodity to come by and so traditionally isn't eaten. That's no longer the case, of course, but traditions die hard. And many curanderos doing dietas are eating fish that's been preserved in salt. So while they'll tell you no salt, that's not always the case, depending on the availability of fresh fish.
As to no spices? No one uses spices in traditional river food. If you have peppers they are for sale or trade, not for indulging in.
No fat? No meat fat, yes, but lots of those river fish have plenty of good fatty oils in them and they work fine with traditional dietas.
So I guess I'm just trying to clear up the notion that the standard dieta is a difficulty for curanderos doing a dieta. It's anything but. It's only a difficulty for us gringos who are not used to and don't love boiled plantains and fish.
For me, for instance, the dieta would be the equivalent of saying that I'd be having chicken soup every day for several weeks. Or for a vegan that they'd be having steamed vegetables and beans.
I think you just want to eat simply, but that self-flagellation is not the point, at least not to locals. So I think it doesn't need to be the point with us, either. Dieta is a time of solitude, of learning to commune with the jungle and spirits around you, of slowing down to the point where you can hear what those spirits are whispering. It's a time of getting strong and clean. If the physical diet you are on prevents any of that or has you dreaming of food, then that diet isn't helping you attain your goals and so isn't the right physical food diet for you. If it is, that's fine. If not, then I think it ought to be modified, that's all, without taking away the simplicity of it.
Ain't that a kick in the pants?
ADD ON: I don't think there is anything wrong with the traditional dieta food. I just wanted to give it a context. For most westerners, I would think it would be fine to have steamed vegetables and beans/lentils, cooked plainly for our vitamin/protein intake. A lot of river fish have thousands of little bones and they're difficult to get the meat from unless you've grown up in that culture. My kids can do it, my ex can do it; I just tend to spit out an awful lot of the meat with the bones.
I don't think you'd want sugar, because of the rush, and I don't think you'd want meat, because of the difficulty of digestion. I don't think you'd want nuts for the same reason. I think you just want to eat simply, but that self-flagellation is not the point with locals and it doesn't need to be the point with us, either. Dieta is a time of solitude, of learning to commune with the jungle and spirits around you, of slowing down to the point where you can hear what those spirits are whispering. It's a time of getting strong and clean. If the physical diet you are on prevents any of that or has you dreaming of food, then that diet isn't helping you attain your goals and so isn't the right physical food diet for you. If it is, that's fine. If not, then I think it ought to be modified, that's all, without taking away the simplicity of it.
Now, I have never done an official dieta. I didn't even know the word until five or six years ago. Julio never discussed it, never told me to do one. What I did instead was walk across the jungle several times with Moises, and because it was such a bother to carry much food, we would eat farina with water, or a bird if we got one, or some fish with hearts of palm, or rice. Always simple. Always to make you strong. And all day we wouldn't speak five words, for days on end. Moises would be in front, I'd be behind, looking for his trail markings. And we would drink ayahuasca with Julio before we left to put the jungle in my blood, and we would drink when we returned, to keep the jungle there.
So when I talk about dietas, I'm not any sort of expert here and don't pretend to be. I am an expert of what people eat in the jungle and how they prepare it and do know that the favorite meal is plantain and river fish. People will choose that over mahass or tapir or monkey nearly always.
So I really just mean to give a context to dieta food, not sound show-offy. And I've watched a lot of my guests go on to do dietas in the last few years and have a difficult time with the food. And that interfered a great deal with the work they were intending to do. And then this trip out I watched my team, all of whom grew up on the river, though they now commute to live part time in Iquitos, turn down all the great food they were making for us, or I was making for us, in favor of their plantains and fish. And suddenly what I'd seen for years made sense in terms of the dieta: That only gringo's suffer the food think on dieta, not these guys.
And since I'd never seen anyone make the point before, I thought I'd make it. That's all.