Sauerkraut for breakfast! I kid you not, a small bowl of the fermented cabbage awaits each participant before each meal to be eaten before we embark on our morning feast. Added to which some 20 drops of herbal bitters need to be consumed also. All this is not just to get the gastric juices going but to prepare the digestive system for work.
I happen to like sauerkraut but mostly when its served with great lumps of fatty meats and sublime sausages, unlike the chaste little bowl in front of me. However the sight of the breakfast menu spurred me on – there was a terrific choice of spinach and red pepper omelette, a ful medames with beans, seeds and poached eggs, a muesli made wih chia (looked a tad like pond life), scrambled eggs with mushrooms and truffle oil – a truly imaginative selection. Sadly no tea (other than herbal) or coffee…but that’s what we’ve signed up for.
A full day’s programme followed with a hydrotherapy bath, a castor oil compress – warm oily poultice placed on tum and liver, covered with a towel and then a hot water bottle, after which you lie in a darkened room while apparently a load of toxins are drawn out from your liver, followed by various consultations with herbalists and nutritionists.
Exhausting….
