-
“Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food.” “Foolish is the doctor who despises the knowledge of the ancients.”-Hippocrates
-
In humans it’s rare to be able to prove the effects of any diet or treatment as may be possible in lab animals, in part because of necessary ethical barriers, in part due to the many possible confounding factors beyond the few factors that can be isolated in any one study, in part because of the fact that the body works holistically, not like isolated factors in test tubes, and in part due to the long term nature of disorder development. It might also prove difficult to conduct a double blind study feeding one group fast food and the other whole, unrefined vegan. Nevertheless the research and anecdotal experience presented in this book may well have made it plausible that the usual SAD diet has worsened our disastrous and growing levels of degenerative disorders.
-
Remarkably the number of cases has been growing for which optimal changes in diet and lifestyle have apparently resulted in the body ameliorating or reversing the course of disorders, even heart disease with a prognosis of short term fatality, cirrhosis of the liver, both non- and insulin-dependent Type II diabetes, and asthma as well as other disorders. For information on cancer, please see “Dealing with cancer”.
-
“Optimal” means here a vegan approach emphasizing raw plant foods for at least a majority of calories. “Near-optimal” means consuming plant foods plus a helping of animal products less than the size of a pack of cards at most four or five times a week. Almost no dairy can be consumed when healing.
-
On Dr. Fuhrman’s “near-optimal” diet one may consume a larger percentage of cooked foods, including at most a deck of cards worth of animal products a day, if desired as condiments. Dr. Fuhrman does emphasize veggies (www.DrFuhrman.com).
-
Here “dormancy” means cell malfunction to the point of imitation of cell death, with the possibility of reawakening. For insulin-dependent diabetes, in addition to reawakening pancreatic cells, the auto-immune destructive activity may slow or stop, possibly enabling liberation from supplemental insulin.
-
For kidneys requiring dialysis, no claims have been made that anyone has succeeded in freeing themselves from dialysis, but no one may have tried the dietary changes at an optimal spa due to logistic difficulties with equipment for dialysis. However, when one consumes an optimal diet, creatinine levels that indicate dialysis may be imminent can return to normal.
-
The retreats that maintain a lower calorie raw regimen may not prove useful to those in good health who are interested in developing a maintenance raw vegan diet rather than detoxification. Lengthy fasts may not be appropriate for maintenance. Any of the following retreats could support significant healing for those in poor health. [www.bodymindretreats.com, 800-842-2125; www.DrFuhrman.com; www.hippocratesinst.com 800-842-2125; www.kushiinstitute.org The Macrobiotic Way by Kushi; Ann Wigmore Natural Health Institute (787) 868-6307 www.annwigmore.org; www.treeoflife.nu 520-394-2520; www.optimumhealth.org 619-464-3346; Rest of Your Life Health Retreat www.roylretreat.com; www.fredericpatenaude.com; www.HealthFulLivingIntl.com].
-
Supplemental insulin pushes the body around artificially, making hazardous the body’s responses to improvements in diet. Studies have shown that diabetics may not recognize that blood sugar is too low for safe driving. It’s safest to take steps to change the diet to an optimal dietary approach under professional supervision. Blood sugar could drop due to improved insulin sensitivity with the improved diet, so that the medication itself could cause a hypoglycemic event, unless adjusted. First steps and cautionary instructions as well as the consequences of missteps are discussed in a short book (www.LifetimeNutrition.com Peasant Eating for Royal Living by Nancy Peckenpaugh, 607-272-1297 ICS Press, Ithaca NY ISBN 0-9704508-0-X). (Please see “Helping hypoglycemia and diabetes”.)
-
A history of familial disorders may indicate genes that tend to promote disorders such as obesity or cancer, if the properties of those genes get expressed (used, called for, or activated). Such expression may occur only after years on the SAD diet, and might get halted or reversed by the dietary approaches described and referenced here. After all, not all of our genes do get expressed. Many genes only get expressed under special circumstances that the cell may or may not encounter. If these circumstances don’t arise, the gene doesn’t get expressed. Almost all genes that do get expressed have been programmed by evolution to optimize health and maintain a healthy homeostasis (state). Improvements over the SAD diet that are described in this book use healthier foods that might help deactivate problematic genes, and reactivate optimal genes (Dr. Gaynor’s Cancer Prevention Program, by Mitchell L. Gaynor, MD, ISBN 1-57566-526-3, pg 259).
-
“Disorder” is used in this book rather than “disease”, since the natural nutritional “order” is nearly lost in the usual SAD diet, eventually disordering the body. By consuming foods as ordered naturally, one might well make progress reestablishing the natural orders and processes of the body, ameliorating and possibly reversing many disorders.
-
It’s recommended that those who are healing from candida yeast avoid all refined and fruit sugars since they nourish the disorder. However, without these foods the chief source of calories becomes fats, which in excess likely inhibit transport of oxygen and nutrients. One solution may be to eat more carbohydrates in the form of sprouted grains such as quinoa, either raw (blending helps break up the fibers) or boiled if it feels more digestible boiled, or sweet potato, either blended raw (in a powerful Vitamix) or boiled.
-
If one just can’t envision going to raw vegan, but can see trying vegan or near vegan, challenges such as Type II diabetes, atherosclerosis and arthritis might respond well to switching. Further information and books on the vegan diet can be found from the sites www.vrg.org (410-366-8343) and www.DrGreger.org.
-
Please see “Tricks to transitioning one’s diet.”
Share with your friends: |
