Summertime… and the livin’ is easy. Or not, if you’re a farmer, and have to be up at 5 a.m. every day to make sure your plants are fed and nourished so you and your family and your local community can be fed and nourished. Farming is hard work, but it’s what keeps us alive and healthy. Hail to the organic farmer! All those organic greens fill us with vibrance when we consume them on a daily basis. But what about times when we can’t get our greens or if we work all day in a closed office and can’t get outside to do any gardening of our own? How do we stay healthy and avoid disease? Or do we?
Do you know there’s more disease around today than ever before? Infertility is on the rise. Cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and virulent viruses seem to be everywhere. More Americans are more overweight — dangerously overweight — than ever before. As David Sandoval of Green Kamut Corporation says, ” . . . if we were a frog or a lizard, we would have been put on the protected species list already.”
Why Is Illness On The Rise?
Advertising is one reason: we have gotten so confused and frightened by what we see on TV and read in newspapers and magazines that we’re afraid to make any healthcare decision without our doctor’s approval. We are convinced we’re not intelligent enough to take care of ourselves.
What we don’t realize is that traditional American (a.k.a. allopathic) medicine is crisis management via surgery or synthetic drugs. In other words, it primarily treats symptoms. Unfortunately, symptom suppression doesn’t address the root cause of the illness. Take cancer, for example.
Medical doctors are trained to see the root cause of cancer as cell mutation. Their approach, therefore, is to cut out or kill off the mutated cells so they cannot spread and mutate more cells.
Admirable, but only partially effective. Why? Because the tumor is merely a symptom of the root cause. The real root cause of cancer is lack of oxygen at the cellular level.
Cancer cannot live in the presence of oxygen. Period. End of discussion. That’s why doctors advocate no smoking and plenty of exercise, because both activities increase the amount of oxygen we take into the body. But, again, this course is only partially effective, because disease does not manifest itself over a short period of time. It actually takes months, years, and sometimes decades for a cellular problem to incubate to the point that it takes command of our lives.
If we opt to suppress our symptoms rather than deal with the root cause of those symptoms that are screaming at us to take notice, we eventually end up with disease. Why not pay attention, and interrupt those incubation cycles instead? There’s no mystery to interrupting those incubation cycles. Researchers have found that fully 95% of people with serious, chronic, or life-threatening diseases eat a non-nutritious diet. Just because it’s a cliché doesn’t mean it’s not true: we really are what we eat. Which means—believe it or not—we can get off the road to disease simply by eating live (raw, uncooked, non-pasteurized, minimally processed) fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds and green foods. In fact, green foods alone can reverse the trend toward disease.
What Are Green Foods?
Oh, come on—you know what they are! We’ve been hearing about them since we were little kids: deep-green leafy vegetables. Spinach. Broccoli. Arugula. Lettuce. Celery. Kale. Chard. Lettuce. Leeks. Scallions. Brussel Sprouts. Collard greens.
You get the picture.
Not vitamins or medicines, just deep-green leafy vegetables. Grandma knew what she was talking about when she told us to eat our spinach so we could grow up to be strong like Popeye. The nutrient power in deep-green leafy vegetables to heal and rejuvenate the human body is unmatched by any combination of synthetic medicines or supplements.
Here’s how it works: Green foods contain chlorophyll, the same green pigment found in plants. In case you’ve forgotten your high-school biology, the oxygen we breathe comes from the chlorophyll in plants. Simply put: no chlorophyll, no human life.
Chlorophyll is identical to human blood except that the center element in chlorophyll is magnesium, whereas the center element in blood is iron. Chlorophyll, in fact, is the only food perfectly suited to deliver and maintain the appropriate amounts of magnesium and iron needed to maintain good health to both men and women. Its magnesium, for example, goes directly to muscle tissue and can rapidly relieve painful cramps.
Some researchers claim that chlorophyll has the ability to release magnesium from its center and absorb iron, and thus become hemoglobin. Chlorophyll literally becomes human blood. More blood means more ability to disburse oxygen to the cells!
“Plants are the ‘lungs’ of the planet,” says Yoshihide Hagiwara, M.D. in Green Barley Essence (Keats Publishing, 1985), “breathing out the oxygen all animal life needs to live. Plants are also the primary source of all that is of nutritional value.”
Chlorophyll not only increases oxygen levels throughout the body, it also releases carbon dioxide, which helps prevent disease incubation. Green food takes the toxic byproducts of our inhaling heat and pollution—carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide—and converts them into oxygen. It’s a simple equation:
Green Foods = Oxygen = The Most Powerful Disease Prevention and Recovery “Medicine” Available.[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container] Even the Side Effects Are Positive Side Effect #1 – Increased Digestion Here’s how it works: A lot of the foods we eat are simply not digested by the body: pizza, French fries, gooey chocolate cake—basically any kind of highly refined, processed food—you know the kind. As undigested food goes through the intestinal tract, it turns to waste, attaches itself to the intestinal wall (sometimes hiding in little pockets called diverticulum), and becomes toxic. Toxic waste is essentially slow-acting poison to the human body. Green foods, with their rich digestive and antioxidant enzymes, cause those toxins that have built up over the years (or decades) to begin sloughing off from their hiding places. Once they are voided, subsequent food is fully digested and fully eliminated. In other words, our guts feel better, our digestive tract works better, and our calories turn more to energy than fat. Side Effect #2 – Normalized Elimination Here’s how it works: Potassium causes the bowel to contract while sodium causes it to expand. Between contracting and expanding, contracting and expanding, the bowel gently squeezes waste material downwards until . . . viola! Daily, easy elimination. Does it get any better than that? Well, actually, yes, it does. Side Effect #2 – Alkalization Here’s how it works: Human blood needs a pH of 7.4 to be considered healthy. Anything above seven is considered alkaline, anything below seven is acidic—yet another simple equation. Most people gobbling Tums® and Rolaids® probably fall somewhere between five and six. Not good. Unfortunately, antacids neutralize digestive acids, often for hours. In other words, your body didn’t digest your pizza lunch because you neutralized your digestive acids, and now it can’t digest your meat and potatoes dinner, either. The entire day’s food joins the accumulation you’ve already got sitting in your gut, and the whole mess festers. Now you’ve got more acid indigestion, so you take more antacids, eat more, the cycle builds up more poison in your system until… that’s right – you’re well on your way to a disease-friendly environment. Eventual result: gastroesophageal reflux, diverticulitus, cancer, arthritis, and any other number of dis-eases. Dark-green leafy vegetables, on the other hand, counteract that acid indigestion with their alkalinity. The digestive acids keep working. The food gets digested. The contract/expand process pushes out the waste. No pain, no toxic build-up, no disease-friendly environment. (Read pp. 81-89 in my reader-friendly book “I Have a Choice?!” [order at bastisfoundation.yolasite.com/books.php] for a further explanation of proper food combining that can make your life much easier!) Side Effect #4 – Trace Minerals Here’s how it works: Each and every trace mineral functions in relation to the other elements of the body. They enhance the immune system by becoming the most efficient building blocks for our defender cells, T-lymphocytes, also known as T-cells. Trace minerals literally create a rapid response to disease by providing the raw material needed to manufacture those defensive enzymes. Man has never yet created a supplement or a synthetic “foodstuff” with the same benefits of the trace minerals found in deep-green leafy vegetables. Want proof? Look at any mineral chart. The #1 recommended source for virtually all minerals and trace minerals is always deep-green leafy vegetables. They are the best way to take in trace minerals. Deep-green leafy vegetables are also the safest way to take in minerals and trace minerals, because there is no chance of toxic build-up. The human body either utilizes or eliminates green-food minerals; it never stores them. It can store synthetic minerals, however, which can ultimately lead to another kind of toxicity because of their imbalanced cumulative effects. More Positive Side Effects Lactose-Free Calcium Energy Boost Blood-Sugar Regulation What Do I Do When There’s No Organic Market or Farmer’s Market Nearby? …..So, eat your spinach. Nibble on your broccoli. Down that arugula. Chomp on your celery and enjoy your kale and lettuce and leeks and scallions. Yum. And with every bite, remember: you’re taking a step toward protecting yourself against cancer, heart disease, emphysema, diverticulitis, adult-onset diabetes, and many other health problems. In a society that is at once overweight and malnourished, green foods are the best, easiest and most natural weapon we have in the fight to prevent and reverse the trend toward disease. ____________________________________________________________________ Dr. Bera Dordoni, N.D., lovingly referred to as the “Wellness Whisperer,” is author of the highly acclaimed book “I Have a Choice?!”, nutritional counselor, and a naturopathic doctor who has over two decades of experience counseling clients with ailments ranging from allergies to cancer to numerous life-threatening dis-eases. She incorporates the laws of attraction to help her clients accomplish their health goals and now holds wellness retreats and natural health classes at Oso Vista Ranch Retreat Center in the Ramah area. To make a retreat reservation, request a consultation or learn more, visit www.bastis.org or call 505-783-9001.
Deep-green leafy vegetables have rejuvenating enzymes that are responsible for virtually every chemical reaction at the cellular level. The side effects are as good for us as the main effect!
Not only do green foods have heavy chlorophyll concentrations to oxygenate the body, they are utterly digestible. When we increase our food’s digestibility, we increase the speed of its elimination, which, in turn, helps eliminate illness.
Green foods also contain potassium and cell salts, which encourage normal elimination. Yes, fiber helps avoid or correct constipation, but the recent trend of relying solely on fiber is actually counterproductive. Fiber is bulky, and too much bulk can literally stretch the intestines out of shape, and, thus, out of proper functioning.
Let’s face it: Americans are gassy people. Based on the abundance of TV commercials for antacids, it seems just about everybody in the country has acid indigestion. Most of us don’t realize, however, that an overly acidic body is courting illness or disease. Alkalizing the body is one of the most powerful and important ways of interrupting carcinogenic incubations. Deep-green leafy vegetables do just that! They raise the body’s alkaline level to counteract its tendency toward acidity. No surgery, no laboratory-developed drug, no chemically treated supplement can get your digestive tract back on track as easily and effectively as dark-green leafy vegetables.
All too often, trace minerals are missing from the processed foods, and certainly any microwaved foods, we tend to eat on a regular, if not daily basis. A lot of today’s diseases can be traced back to trace-mineral deficiencies—in fact, trace-mineral deficiency may be the number one cause of disease in Western culture today.
Want strong nails and luxurious hair? Better yet, want to avoid or even reverse osteoporosis? The answer, of course, is calcium—and green foods are far richer in assimilable calcium than milk. Yes, you could take a lot of trace-mineral or calcium supplements, but the calcium bioavailability in a supplement is only a fraction of what you get from a single serving of deep-green leafy vegetables.
Incorporate concentrated greens into your fresh-vegetable-juice routine. Since green juices have no calories, they’re not stored as fat, they’re used as energy.
Hypoglycemics and diabetics take note: green juice alkalizes the small intestine, which, in turn, regulates the passage of glucose through the intestinal barrier. Result: natural blood-sugar regulation.
Numerous manufacturers offer many powdered deep-green leafy vegetable combinations that can easily be stirred or blended into water or juice. When ingested, they feed the bloodstream directly. Check with your local health-food store and ask them to show you what they carry. My personal favorite is Blender Culture (you can find more information about what is in these powdered greens at http://bastisfoundation.yolasite.com/health-shopping.php). You can also find many others online. For readers in the Gallup area check with La Montañita Co-op for their powdered green brands. Now you have no excuse for not downing your greens! These bottled powdered greens always come in handy for the winter months when we don’t have as much access to fresh leafy-green vegetables from local gardens and markets. But right now it’s summertime, so……..