Since the NFI Protocol is followed for a limited period (12–24 weeks, depending on the patient’s initial condition), we have prepared recommendations and guidelines for post-NFI Protocol eating habits to help you maintain the results you have achieved.
As outlined on our website, the primary goal of the NFI Protocol is the stabilisation of Type 2 diabetes, with the potential to discontinue anti-diabetic treatment. A desirable side effect is significant weight loss. In the long term, the NFI Protocol serves as a foundation for sustainable healthy eating habits.
By adhering to the NFI Protocol continuously for at least 12 weeks, you can achieve the following benefits:
- Development of healthy eating habits,
- Adaptation of the intestinal microflora to a plant-based diet,
- Replacement of taste buds on the tongue, leading to a preference for plant-based foods,
- Elimination of food addictions (e.g., sweets, pastries, cheese, meat, sweetened drinks),
- Establishment of regular eating patterns,
- Habitual consumption of fruit and vegetables,
- Exclusion of oils in food preparation (both for hot and cold dishes).
After completing the NFI Protocol, you will be able to manage your meals independently. It is perfectly natural to develop a preference for specific recipes from the NFI Protocol and enhance them with additional ingredients of your choice.
General Principles of Healthy Eating (NFI Recommendations):
Type 2 diabetes, obesity, and being overweight are, in the vast majority of cases, the result of poor eating habits. Even if you have successfully eliminated anti-diabetic treatment and achieved significant weight loss through the NFI Protocol, returning to your original eating habits will lead to weight regain and clogging of insulin receptors. To maintain your weight and overall health, it is essential to adopt a sustainable lifestyle change and adhere to the core principles taught by the NFI Protocol:
Breakfast
Most people stick to NFI breakfasts, such as oatmeal or cereals with a plant-based drink, chia seeds, and flaxseeds. If you’ve successfully eliminated anti-diabetic medication thanks to the NFI Protocol, feel free to experiment:
- Add sliced banana, mango, strawberries, or thawed berries to your breakfast for added variety and natural sweetness.
- Swap soya or almond plant-based drinks for oat or rice alternatives, or complement your meal with plant-based yogurt.
- A delicious combination includes cereals, a plant-based drink, yogurt, banana, and a drizzle of honey.
- You can replace oatmeal with bulgur; a recipe for banana-bulgur porridge with fruit can be found in our book Food for Better Health.
- Try tofu or cauliflower scrambles, which are indistinguishable from traditional egg-based versions. As they contain no animal fats, you don’t need to pair them with bread, but if you do, keep it to a minimum.
- Explore the wide range of plant-based spreads available in supermarkets, or make your own at home (e.g., ajvar, hummus, Mexican bean spread, baba ghanoush, broccoli, or mushroom spreads). These are excellent healthy alternatives, but limit the amount of bread consumed with them.
- Overnight oats or chia puddings combined with fruit and a plant-based drink are also very popular options. Simply leave them in the fridge overnight for a quick and nutritious start to the day.
- Instead of your morning coffee, consider taking a smoothie with you on your way to work for an energy boost.
Soups
To maintain the long-term results achieved during the NFI Protocol, we recommend the following:
- Eliminate animal-based ingredients (especially milk, butter, and cream).
- Avoid using flour for thickening soups.
- Exclude oils from your cooking.
How to thicken soups: The ideal thickener for soups is blended vegetables, such as potatoes, green beans, cauliflower, or celery. For a creamier texture similar to milk or cream, use cashew cream (soak cashews for at least 4 hours, drain, rinse with clean water, and blend).
A traditional flour-based roux keeps creamy soups emulsified. Soups thickened with blended vegetables may require a good stir before serving. However, this minor inconvenience is outweighed by the significant nutritional benefits.
How to caramelise onions without oil: Using 2 tablespoons of oil to sauté onions adds around 180 calories, contributing to gradual weight gain. Avoiding oils in soups is therefore recommended.
For most sugars (e.g., sucrose and fructose), caramelisation occurs at temperatures just above 160°C. At this point, sugars break down, creating a complex, nutty flavour. Correct pan temperature is critical: if the pan is too cool, onions will stick; if overheated, they will burn.
Water Drop Test: Heat a metal-bottomed pan over medium heat. Test the temperature every 5–8 seconds by adding a large drop of water. Initially, small bubbles will form, followed by vigorous steaming and sizzling. When a single large droplet forms and moves around the pan like a mercury ball, the temperature is correct. If the droplet splits into smaller ones, the pan is overheated and should be cooled.
Once the pan reaches the correct temperature, wipe the test droplet with a tissue to ensure the surface is dry. Add the chopped onions and stir well. A desirable brown coating will form on the pan’s surface. Stir until the onions reach the desired colour. At this point, add garlic (if included in the recipe), mix for a few seconds, and immediately deglaze with boiling water or vegetable broth. Continue stirring until the onions are translucent.
How to add healthy fats to soup: Fat-containing ingredients should be added towards the end of cooking or as a garnish when serving. Here are a few tips:
- Sesame seeds: Perfect for Asian-style or clear vegetable soups.
- Pumpkin seeds or kernels: Ideal for pumpkin or creamy soups where their colour stands out.
- Chopped nuts: Walnuts or pistachios work well when sprinkled on creamy soups just before serving.
- Sunflower seeds: Dry-roast until golden for a crunchy garnish, or soak and blend for a creamy texture.
- Cashews: Use to prepare a cooking cream. Soak for at least 4 hours, drain, rinse, and blend before adding.
- Canned coconut milk: A perfect alternative to cream or yogurt for thickening or topping soups.
How to choose soup in a restaurant: When dining out, pay attention to whether the soup has been prepared with butter or thickened with milk or cream. Don’t hesitate to ask the staff – they usually won’t know, but they’ll likely check with the chef.
- If you need to decide between a meat broth and a vegetable soup made with butter, the lesser evil is the meat broth.
- Many restaurants often have tomato soup on the menu; kindly ask them not to add cheese to it.
- In Asian restaurants, it’s usually not a problem. However, avoid ordering “hot and sour soup,” as it typically contains egg and sometimes chicken.
Main dishes
Nowadays, it’s no longer a challenge to find plant-based recipes anywhere. You can start on our website – “Main Dishes After Completing the NFI Protocol”, in our book “Food for Better Health”, or browse the many vegan cookbooks available in bookstores. Magazines such as Vegan Food & Living, Olive Magazine and BBC Good Food Magazine also include plant-based recipes. Another source of inspiration is recipes directly on supermarket websites (Tesco’s Real Food, Co-op’s recipes, Sainsbury’s magazine, Waitrose), where you can filter vegan options. Whether you find a recipe in a book, magazine, or online, adapt it to follow the principles of NFI eating:
- If a recipe calls for more than 1/2 tsp of oil for four servings, reduce it to 1/2 tsp, and if necessary, replace the remaining oil with vegetable broth. If roasting vegetables in the oven, avoid using oil. Instead, baste them with water or vegetable broth every 5 minutes.
- If a recipe uses flour, simply omit it. If needed for consistency, consider substitutes such as corn or potato starch, mashed potato, etc.
- When modifying vegetarian recipes, replace butter with plant-based butter, milk with a plant-based alternative, and use readily available plant-based substitutes for cream (cooking cream, whipping cream, or sour cream).
Meat substitutes: The best choice depends on the recipe and your preferences. Eggplant and mushrooms (like oyster mushrooms or chestnut mushrooms) are excellent for achieving a meaty texture. Making vegetable burgers is also straightforward.
Tofu is perhaps the most commonly used substitute. Although bland on its own, it acts like a sponge and absorbs surrounding flavors. To prepare it effectively:
- Press out the water: place heavy books on it for 20 minutes.
- Cook it with vegetables so it absorbs their flavors, or marinate it (soya sauce is a common option).
- Simmer it in any sauce to enhance its taste. For certain recipes, soya chunks or granules might work better. Always ensure they’re in a sauce to prevent drying out.
Egg substitutes: For recipes where binding or shaping is necessary, flaxseeds or chia seeds work best.
- One egg equivalent: Mix 1 tbsp of ground flaxseeds with 3 tbsp of lukewarm water. Let it sit for 5 minutes until it forms a gooey mixture. Add this to your dough as an egg replacement.
- Alternatively, use chia seeds (milder flavor and smoother texture): Mix 1 tbsp of ground chia seeds with 80 ml of lukewarm water.
Salads: When preparing salads, avoid olive oil. Instead, use high-fat alternatives like avocado, olives, sunflower seeds, crushed nuts, or similar ingredients.
How to choose in a restaurant:
- Vegan and vegetarian restaurants: in a vegan restaurant, ask them to recommend something on the menu with less oil and ideally without flour.
In a vegetarian restaurant, beware of dairy products (milk, cream, cheese). Try to avoid foods containing allergen 7 (dairy products). Tip: If you travel a lot, catch the mobile app “HappyCow – Vegan Food Near You”. Wherever you are, it will show you not only vegan restaurants, but all restaurants that offer a vegan option on the menu. The app also works well within the country. - Asian restaurants: they usually have tofu and don’t use conventional animal milk or butter. Sushi restaurants are also excellent as no oil is added to the sushi. Avocado maki will certainly taste good.
- Slovak cuisine: here you will usually have a hard time finding something without meat, cheese or cream. If they list allergens on the menu, choose only what doesn’t contain 7 (dairy products). Some restaurants will prepare vegetable risotto, pasta with tomato sauce, or roasted vegetables with roasted potatoes on request. Please stress to them not to use butter on the potatoes and to sauté the vegetables with as little oil as possible. Sometimes the chef is smart and just ask if they can make you something vegan.
If you can’t, the lesser of two evils is meat rather than something with dairy in it. - Holidays and buffets: it is very difficult not to succumb to the temptation that is right in front of you. But you need to be able to choose the temptation that will have the least devastating effect on your body. If you can find vegan food within the buffet tables, you’ve won. If not, improvise:
- combine your own vegetable risotto: scoop up some rice and you’ll find beans, chickpeas and often broccoli on the salads. You’ll also find a microwave in a corner somewhere, or ask the staff to warm it up.
- in the kids’ corner they usually have pasta with tomato sauce.
- feel free to wander over to the paella pan. If it’s not vegan, choose what suits you – the “meat eaters” will be happy if you leave the meat in.
- sometimes the meat is prepared with vegetables in a common sauce. Combine the sauce with vegetables with rice, pasta or potatoes.
Desserts
Desserts are never part of the NFI protocol. If you’ve gone at least 12 weeks without them, we recommend staying with the habit. Of course, you’ll come into a situation where you’ll have to choose a dessert, whether at family gatherings, weddings, or vacations. From the options presented, try to choose cakes without filling. As a rule of thumb, even more sugar is better than cream or butter.
If you are organizing a birthday party, try our recipe for“Unbaked blueberry cashew nut cheesecake“. A very simple and eye-catching dessert is the chia pudding and fruit cups.
Fruit: nowhere is it written that you have to offer guests cake. Fruit is the best dessert. Feel free to cut up whatever you have at home: apples, pears, oranges, plums, grapes, kiwi, mangoes … and serve in a bowl that everyone can scoop from. Add plum syrup or mint leaves to enrich the fruit bowl.
On a holiday with buffet tables, head for the cut fruit section rather than the cakes.
What to pack for your trip
When you’re packing for a day in the countryside, or a long car or train journey, you’re probably packing some goodies, bread with butter and ham, and sweetened tea to go with it. If you want to maintain the results you’ve achieved with the NFI protocol, try using some of the following tips:
- Try drinking teas without sugar. If you must sweeten, try dropping a date into your thermos, or sweeten with honey.
- The ideal drink is water. If you want to spice it up, add lemon and mint leaves (the water can be hot or cold).
- Be sure to load up on fruit. Not only will it fill you up, but it will also provide sugars and water. Apples, bananas, grapes or plums are the easiest to carry.
- Hummus is perfect for on the go. Don’t take pastries with it, it will dry you out unnecessarily. You can also eat it on its own.
- Vegetables also transfer very well: the aforementioned pepper strips, cucumber or cherry tomatoes.
- Pack cashews and a mix of different nuts or seeds to replenish healthy fats.
- Dried fruit is an excellent alternative to dried fruit (dried apples, bananas, freeze-dried fruit, dried cranberries).
Hiking with a healthy diet is the right way to stay healthy. Enjoy a beautiful day.
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