This is a full week of eating built only from foods on Dr. Sebi's approved list. No substitutions that quietly break the rules, no "close enough" ingredients. Every item below appears on the nutritional guide, and where a common version of a food is excluded — bananas, tomatoes, rice — the plan uses the approved version and says so.
Three things to sort out before Monday
Water. The guide asks for a gallon of spring water a day and excludes tap water by name. Whether you hit a full gallon matters less than not getting to day three dehydrated and blaming the food.
Shopping. Four things are worth a specialist shop or an order: burro bananas, key limes, seeded grapes and an approved grain or two (fonio, tef, kamut). Everything else is ordinary supermarket produce. Seeded watermelon and seeded grapes are the two that are genuinely hard to find, because seedless dominates.
Prep. Cook a batch of quinoa and a batch of wild rice on Sunday. Roast a tray of squash, onions and bell peppers at the same time. Four of the seven dinners below start from those two moves, and the week gets much easier for it.
Day 1
Breakfast — amaranth porridge. Amaranth simmered in water until soft, with chopped dates, walnuts and a thread of date syrup.
Lunch — kale and chickpea salad. Kale massaged with olive oil and key lime until it softens, chickpeas, avocado, sea salt.
Dinner — wild rice with roasted squash. Wild rice, roasted butternut squash, onions and bell peppers, thyme and oregano, olive oil to finish.
Snack — apple slices with tahini.
Day 2
Breakfast — berry smoothie. Berries, burro banana, hemp seeds and the water from a soft jelly coconut. If you can't get burro bananas, leave the banana out rather than using a Cavendish — the guide lists burro and baby bananas only.
Lunch — spelt pasta. Spelt pasta with cherry tomatoes, olives, sweet basil and olive oil. Read the pasta label for yeast and for wheat flour blended in.
Dinner — chickpea and okra stew. Onions, okra, chickpeas, cherry tomatoes, bay leaf and a little cayenne, over quinoa.
Snack — brazil nuts and a pear.
Day 3
Breakfast — quinoa porridge with mango. Quinoa cooked soft, mango, sesame seeds, a little agave.
Lunch — the big green salad. Watercress, cucumber, tomatillo, avocado, hemp seeds, dressed with key lime, olive oil and sea salt.
Dinner — stuffed bell peppers. Peppers filled with wild rice, mushrooms and onions, oregano and thyme, baked until the peppers give.
Snack — figs and walnuts.
Day 4
Breakfast — tef porridge with peaches. Tef makes a finer, smoother porridge than amaranth. Peaches, a little date sugar.
Lunch — chickpea and dulse mash. Chickpeas roughly mashed with avocado oil, finely chopped onion and powdered dulse, which gives it the taste of the sea. On spelt or rye flatbread, or in lettuce leaves.
Dinner — zucchini, chayote and greens. Zucchini and chayote sauteed with onion and thyme, amaranth greens wilted in at the end, over fonio. Fonio cooks in about five minutes, which is its main argument.
Snack — seeded grapes and brazil nuts.
Day 5
Breakfast — papaya and sea moss smoothie. Papaya or soursop, burro banana, a spoon of sea moss gel, hemp seeds, spring water.
Lunch — wild rice bowl. Leftover wild rice and roasted squash, dandelion greens, walnuts, key lime. Dandelion greens are bitter; the key lime and the squash are what make them work.
Dinner — mushroom and onion kamut. Mushrooms and onions cooked down slowly with bay leaf, turnip greens folded through, over kamut. Any mushroom except shiitake — that's the one exclusion in the category.
Snack — dates with tahini.
Day 6
Breakfast — avocado on spelt flatbread. With cherry tomato, sea salt and cayenne.
Lunch — okra and cherry tomato stew. Leftovers from day 2 if you made extra; otherwise a fresh pot over quinoa.
Dinner — nopales with peppers. Nopales (cactus paddles) with onions, bell peppers and oregano, over wild rice. If you've never cooked nopales, they're sold trimmed in jars and need rinsing well.
Snack — cantaloupe.
Day 7
Breakfast — amaranth porridge with berries. As day 1, with berries and agave instead of dates.
Lunch — purslane and cucumber salad. Purslane, cucumber, chickpeas, olives, olive oil, key lime.
Dinner — squash and chickpea stew. Squash, chickpeas and onions cooked down with achiote, cayenne, onion powder and bay leaf, over fonio.
Snack — prunes and walnuts.
The grocery list
Produce: kale, watercress, dandelion greens, turnip greens, amaranth greens, purslane, lettuce (not iceberg), cucumber, zucchini, chayote, butternut squash, bell peppers, onions, okra, mushrooms (not shiitake), nopales, cherry or plum tomatoes, tomatillo, avocados.
Fruit: apples, pears, peaches, berries, mango, papaya, cantaloupe, seeded grapes, figs, dates, prunes, key limes, burro bananas, a soft jelly coconut.
Grains: quinoa, wild rice, amaranth, tef, fonio, kamut, spelt pasta, spelt or rye flatbread.
Store cupboard: chickpeas, walnuts, brazil nuts, hemp seeds, sesame seeds, tahini, olives, olive oil, avocado oil, sea salt, cayenne, oregano, thyme, sweet basil, bay leaf, achiote, onion powder, dulse, sea moss gel, date syrup or date sugar, agave.
To drink: spring water, and burdock, chamomile, elderberry, fennel, ginger, raspberry or tila tea.
How to cook the eight approved grains
This is the part that trips people up more than the food list does. Most of these aren't grains anyone grew up cooking, and a bad first pot of fonio puts people off for good. Ratios are grain to water by volume.
- Fonio — 1:2, about 5 minutes off the heat with a lid on. The fastest thing on the list, and the one to reach for on a weeknight.
- Quinoa — 1:2, about 15 minutes. Rinse first to wash off the saponin coating or it tastes soapy.
- Amaranth — 1:3, about 20 minutes. It stays slightly sticky; that's correct, and it's why it makes better porridge than a side dish.
- Tef — 1:3, about 15 minutes. The finest grain here, closest to a smooth breakfast cereal.
- Wild rice — 1:3, 45 to 55 minutes. Much longer than white rice. Done is when the grains split open.
- Kamut — 1:3, about 45 minutes, and better if soaked overnight first. Chewy, holds up in a bowl with dressing.
- Spelt (whole berries) — 1:3, about 50 minutes, also better soaked. Mostly you'll meet it as pasta or flatbread instead.
- Rye (whole berries) — 1:3, about an hour. The least convenient of the eight.
Wild rice, kamut, spelt and rye are the Sunday-batch grains. Fonio, quinoa, amaranth and tef are quick enough to cook the same evening.
Swaps if something isn't available
- No fonio — quinoa, same job, ten minutes longer.
- No kamut — wild rice.
- No nopales — zucchini and bell peppers with the same seasoning.
- No purslane — watercress, or any approved lettuce.
- No soursop or papaya — mango.
- No sea moss gel — leave it out. Nothing on the list is mandatory, sea moss included.
- No seeded grapes — berries, figs or cherries. Seedless grapes are excluded as hybrids, the same rule that catches seedless watermelon.
What makes this survivable
Most people don't come off this because the food is bad. They come off it in the gap between finishing work and eating, when nothing is ready and everything familiar is excluded.
So: cook the grains in batches. Roast more vegetables than you need. Keep dates, walnuts and an apple where you'd normally keep the thing you're avoiding. And pick one meal a day to be identical all week — breakfast is the obvious one — so you're only making two real decisions a day rather than three.
The coffee gap is the other one worth naming. Coffee isn't on the list, and ginger or burdock tea is not a like-for-like replacement. If you drink a lot of coffee, expect two or three rough days, and don't start this in a week that matters.
What this week will and won't do
It won't change the pH of your blood. Your lungs and kidneys hold that between 7.35 and 7.45 whatever you eat — a reading outside that range is a medical emergency, not a dietary result. What food moves is urine pH, which is your kidneys processing the acid load of a meal.
It isn't a treatment for any condition, and a week is not long enough to change much that's measurable in any case.
What it is: seven days of plants, no processed food, no added sugar beyond dates and agave, and a lot of fibre, potassium and magnesium. That's a good week of eating by almost any standard, and the reasons it's good have nothing to do with pH.
Common questions
Can I drink coffee?
Not within the guide. Approved drinks are spring water and the seven approved herbal teas: burdock, chamomile, elderberry, fennel, ginger, raspberry and tila.
Where's the protein?
Chickpeas, quinoa, amaranth, hemp seeds, walnuts, brazil nuts and tahini all appear through the week. Quinoa and amaranth are the two approved grains highest in protein — which is also why quinoa is mildly acid-forming.
Can I use garlic?
No. Garlic is on no reproduction of the guide. Onion, onion powder and a bay leaf together do most of what garlic was doing in a pot.
What if I can't find burro bananas?
Leave bananas out. The ordinary Cavendish isn't on the list, and mango or papaya does the same job in a smoothie.
Can I fast alongside this?
Plenty of people pair a shorter eating window with it. We cover alkaline fasting here, including what Dr. Sebi actually said about it, which is less prescriptive than most articles claim.
Is one week enough?
Enough to learn whether you can cook this way, which is the real question. Nothing about seven days is magic.
Next
- The complete approved food list
- Alkaline fasting: how to fast on this diet
- Check any food with the Ackaline app
- Is broccoli alkaline, and why isn't it approved?
Not sure whether something in your basket is approved? The Ackaline app scans any food and tells you whether it's on the list and why. The full week-by-week system is in The Alkaline Healing Blueprint.
For education, not medical advice. This way of eating is not a treatment for any disease. Talk to your doctor before making significant changes to how you eat, particularly if you take medication or have a diagnosed condition.
