As more Westerners begin to embrace the life-enhancing benefits of natural therapies, understanding what treatment works best for what condition can cause a headache itself.
Holistic health care, unlike Western medicine, treats the whole person to identify the cause of each symptom. As each body is different, treatments are then tailored to the individual—to not only cure dis-eases but also help people live continually in optimal health.
The Health and Vitality Center’s Dr Shiva Lalezar says many people who deal with fatigue, for example, may overcome it with controlled doses of Vitamin C—a common vitamin which has a profound positive effect on immune cells and is specifically anti viral when given intravenously.
“It helps patients live a vibrant life filled with energy, stamina and mental clarity through diverse natural treatments including infusion therapies,” she says.
“A 24-year female was presented to my clinic with worsening fatigue in the past six months. She also had enlargement of one lymph node in her neck which was biopsied and found to be non cancerous. All her blood work was also normal. She was however feeling worse each day and had quit working out and was dragging herself at work. She could not get out of bed in the morning and this was affecting her work.
Dr Lalezar said she did a series of blood work and found two viruses to be extremely high (Epstein Bar Virus and Cytomegalovirus).
“She also had high Candida antibodies and a low Vitamin D level. I placed her on high dose Vitamin C intravenously once a week and gave her Ribose powder (the monosaccharide sugar backbone for RNA and DNA), probiotic and placed her on a Candida-free diet.”
The doctor says within three weeks the patient’s energy level went from 50 percent to 80 percent and has been able to work out and function better at work.
According to life food expert, David Wolfe, switching from a junk food diet to a completely raw lifestyle, without adding supportive herbs such as reishi
“Whenever we have eaten anything in our life, our immune system is reactive to it,” Wolfe says. “Why? Because it’s Shakey’s Pizza, it’s Fruity Pebbles, God knows what else … Hershey’s chocolate bars, and our bodies go what the heck is this? The food comes in, the immune system is activated, white blood cells multiply—this happens every meal for years.”
“When we get on raw food, we don’t have that reaction and our body goes ‘whoa’ and it can be lulled to sleep. So our immune system can become susceptible because we’re not crying wolf on it. Very important concept. The mushrooms (reishi) keep all that buffered so our immune system doesn’t go to sleep.”
I recently caught up with Dr Lalezar to chat holistic health care:
What is one natural therapy everyone should know about and why?
DR LALEZAR: High dose Vitamin C because Vitamin C boosts up the immune system, fights against bacteria, viruses, and cancer. Vitamin C can be taken orally in the form of buffered Vitamin C up to 10,000mg per day. Oral Vitamin C however can be hard on the stomach and may cause diarrhea. Patients who need high doses of Vitamin C (10,000‐75,000 mg) can be given IV infusion. They see immediate improvement in their health.
Explain allergies and how they can be best treated?
DL: There are different forms of allergies. An IgE mediated allergy causes hives, swelling, throat tightening, and shortness of breath. This is seen with bee sting, certain medications, and highly allergenic foods such as shrimp, peanuts, strawberries, and shellfish. Allergies of this nature can be quick in onset and cause anaphylaxis and death.
Another type of allergy is IgG or IgA mediated and they are more insidious and less obvious. Patients may not be aware that their daily symptoms are due to an allergic reaction or food sensitivity. Milk, wheat, soy, eggs, beef, and citrus fruits are the most common food allergens.
Patients may experience vague symptoms such as fatigue, muscle aches, brain fog, irritability, mood fluctuations, dark circles under the eyes, inability to lose weight or gain weight, and many more! Allergies are best treated with elimination of the food, and strengthening the immune system with (omega oils), probiotic, Vitamin C. Antidote drops are also very powerful in treatment of allergies.
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Hungry? Before you head to the refrigerator, check out these tips:
1. Clean out your refrigerator and kitchen cupboards. Read the labels of every product in your home that you deem edible. If you can’t pronounce it, or it has more ingredients than words in the bible, chances are your body isn’t meant to digest it. Are there foods in your cupboards you feel guilty just looking at? Guilt is the greatest destroyer of emotional energy—therefore you don’t need it, or the Snickers bar in your life. Nature provides some of the most delectable treats you could ever imagine. Head to nutritional expert David Wolfe’s website www.davidwolfe.com, for the low-down on one of nature’s most incredible gifts: raw cacao. The cacao bean is nature’s number one weight loss and high-energy food.
2. Clean out toxins and old waste with a cleansing detox. According to nutritional expert and Tree of Life founder, Dr Gabriel Cousens, research shows when intestinal toxemia is removed, symptoms such as fatigue, nervousness, gastrointestinal conditions, impaired nutrition, skin manifestations, endocrine disturbances, headaches, sciatica, low back pain, allergy, eye, ear, nose and throat congestion—and even cardiac irregularities—have been healed in hundreds of cases. Find out more at www.treeoflife.nu.
3. Download the Honest Food Guide from Mike Adams’ Naturalnews.com. This indispensable free guide was developed with you in mind, not big business. Unlike the traditional food pyramid (which is sponsored by major food corporations) you’ll find honest nutritional information, “not watered-down information designed to boost the sale of milk, beef and grains,” says Adams. Print out and post to your refrigerator for easy referral (and email the link to all of your friends!).
4. Make weekly trips to your local farmer’s market. Buying local is a great way to ensure your food is fresh, organic and free from scientific tampering. That is, anything genetically modified (genetically modified food is not as nature intended, therefore does not contain adequate nutrients and is considered by some to be unstable). The American Academy of Environmental Medicine recently issued a warning urging the public to avoid genetically modified foods. They also called for a suspension on GMOs until long-term, independent studies can prove their safety. Shopping at your local farmer’s market is also a way to become more connected to the food you eat, as you’re buying directly from the person who put their hard work, love and energy into growing the produce. There’s also an added bonus of upping your essential Vitamin D intake as you wander (without wearing chemical-laden sunscreen!) from stall to stall. See www.localharvest.org (US), www.farmersmarkets.net (UK) or www.farmersmarkets.org.au (Aus), www.farmersmarket.org.nz (NZ) to find a market near you.
I’m often asked why I choose to live on a mostly raw diet. When I began to understand that life creates life, it made the raw transition an easy one. Enzymes, which are present in live vegan foods, fuel the human body with nutrients that are almost completely devoid in cooked foods.
Since eating a roughly 80 per cent raw diet I have loads of energy, my skin has much better tone, my thinking is clear and I simply feel great.
Here’s are some basics:
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While I’m on the subject of healthy skin, I thought I’d include a post about my aversion to sunscreens. I don’t wear them and never will.
I stopped using sunblock the moment I stopped being a beauty editor a few years ago. A combination of gut feeling and research told me what I was being told to “protect” my skin with was little more than a poison (and poisonous it is).
You see, the sun is a life-giver. Without it, we’d be on our way out. The amount of sun we can tolerate depends on various factors from skin type to foods we include in our diet. But somewhere along the way, we’ve been told to fear the sun. Cover up and slather up the marketing hype tells us, and we’ll be doing a great job of protecting ourselves from that nasty cancer-causing ball or fire in the sky.
So why, was my question, had the skin cancer rates skyrocketed? Why were we being told to suddenly be scared of the very thing that gives life to the planet and everything on it? Dollars of course. Scare the masses and they’ll buy the product.
Here’s an excerpt from Natural News:
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Elite ultra-endurance athlete Harley Johnstone is giving Aussie livestock producers something to worry about, according to a story on ABC Rural News.
What’s making the meat industry quake in their bloody boots? The fact that Harley has ridden more than 160,000 kilometres in the past 10 years on a diet of fruit and water. No meat. No dairy. Just a good ol’ helping hand from Mother Nature.
“He could be every fruit grower’s best mate, and every livestock producer’s worst nightmare,” the reporter quipped.
The Aussie vegan has founded a raw food vegan group, 30 Bananas A Day, and says he’s the country’s biggest fruit lover.
“A typical day, well I’m quite active so I need a lot of calories. So that’s typically 35-40 large bananas, or if I’m not eating bananas that could be 20 or 30 mangoes, or a couple of kilos of dates from California,” he said.
“A lot of people say, are you nuts? And I say, no, I’m bananas.”
Harley’s fruit of choice, the banana
I love the idea and practice of being your own doctor … listening to your body to understand what works—or doesn’t—to bring you to your personal, ultimate state of well-being.
Looking to a general practitioner for health advice has never felt right. Why, I often wondered, did doctors generally look so unhealthy, yet were offering me pills and prescriptions that were apparently guaranteed to make me healthy?
I started questioning doctors as an eight year old, wondering how they (supposedly) knew my body better than me. My trusted family doc told my parents I didn’t have a broken leg. Not being able to walk should have been a clue that I did. Or so you would think.
So now, if I’m looking outside of myself for health and diet advice, I want to know straight away if the person is living by their own book. Ultimately, I believe there’s not a soul on God’s green earth that knows my body better than me. It’s just a matter of listening to what it’s saying.
“The first thing is to realise one’s limitations. It should be obvious that the moment one transgresses those limits, one falls ill. Thus a balanced diet, eaten in accordance with needs, gives one freedom from disease. How is one to know what is the proper diet for one? The purpose of all this is that everyone should be his own doctor and find out his limitations.” —Mahatma Gandhi
“If you are not your own doctor, you are a fool.”—Hippocrates
“Medicine is the most distinguished of all the arts, but through the ignorance of those who practice it, and of those who casually judge such practitioners, it is now of all the arts by far the least esteemed.”—Hippocrates
Ex-Beatles’ Paul McCartney, who was famously quoted as saying “if slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian”, now has a tune to encourage people to stop eating meat—at least on Mondays.
Check out his Meat Free Mondays website to send in your own little ditty, or just to get the lowdown on how eating animals affects the health of the planet and the people. Then, I say, let’s make every day a Monday!
“I’ve found without question that the best way to lead others to a more plant-based diet is by example – to lead with your fork, not your mouth.” —Bernie Wilke, quoted in Joanne Stepaniak’s The Vegan Sourcebook, 1998
As Christmas day nears, I’ve been thinking about jolly ol’ Santa and his love for milk and cookies … how his turning vegan could be the biggest gift to vegan activists everywhere.
Imagine the influence he’d have. Children worldwide would be begging their parents for freshly-made almond milk with a side of raw vegan truffle balls, forget the cows, thank you very much.
So, without further adieu, here is my letter to Santa this year—10 reasons he should go vegan. I just hope he gets it on time…
1. Your cholesterol levels, Santa, would be back to normal. No more need for those pesky GP visits and poisonous pharmaceuticals;
2. Your energy levels would skyrocket, especially if you adopt a mostly raw diet. Raw, live foods are packed with enzymes, which are the givers of life. Kids everywhere want to see you around for a long time to come. Eating raw and vegan is healthy for you, animals and the planet.
3. Santa, I know you love animals. What bigger gift could you give to them than not eating or wearing them?
4. I don’t mean to be rude, Santa, but being overweight is a serious risk to your health. Did you know tummy fat raises your risk for high blood cholesterol by about 50 percent? A healthy vegan diet will have you at your optimal weight in no time.
5. Most cookies are laden with butter and processed sugar. Many of the mass-produced kind are even worse, with ingredients made up of numbers and boasting names impossible to pronounce. Santa, do you know where your cookies came from?
6. Drinking cows milk has been linked to all sorts of dis-eases, including asthma, osteoporosis, heart disease, diabetes and more. Making milk from nuts is a cinch and doesn’t require harming animals or using massive amounts of the earth’s energy.
7. I hate to be the one to break it to you Santa, but that big fur collar that keeps you warm as you deliver your presents once belonged to real, live animals — defenseless creatures who were tortured and skinned without a second thought. I’ve also been told that fur has formaldehyde in it, which has been known to cause cancers. I don’t want you getting sick, Santa.
8. I know eating on the run must be tempting to a busy man like you, Santa. But I think you should know that fast food meats have thousands of additives that are addictive and fattening. Much of the meat on menus today are also full of pesticides and hormones.
9. Bacon and pork may be tempting, but did you know that pigs are more intelligent than dogs? Word has it they are intelligent as a three year old. I know you’d never eat a three year old, would you, Santa?
10. Those fancy leather seats in your sleigh may be comfy Santa, but did you know how many cows died to make them? If you compare your ride to the average Mercedes Benz, my guess is around seven.
So Santa, if you’re reading this, I urge you to take the pledge. Go vegan in 2010. Imagine the energy you’d have delivering presents next year. Those rosy cheeks would have a truly healthy glow, Mrs Claus could learn new culinary skills, whipping up raw vegan recipes to share with the elves. I’m certain Rudolph would be grateful too, knowing for certain he won’t be re-named venison when it’s time for retirement.
And to PETA, I think I’m onto something. I’ll let you take it from here.
If we vegans get tired of talking protein, we can always switch the subject to iron. One of my favourite ways to ensure I get a good amount of iron is by drinking blackstrap molasses (stir a teaspoon or two into a cup of warm water).
This by-product of sugar cane processing is also packed full of other nutrients that are beneficial, no matter your diet of choice.
Check out some of these health-boosting benefits:
• As many a meat eater may tell you, animal meat is loaded with iron. What they likely won’t mention is that blackstrap molasses provides more iron for less calories and is totally fat-free.
• When you’re pregnant or menstruating your need for iron increases. Two teaspoons a day gives about 15 per cent of the daily recommended iron intake. Add raw green to your diet to really pump up your iron.
• Blackstrap molasses is a great source of calcium. Calcium is essential to life (and doesn’t come from cows milk as the marketing hype suggests). I recently heard that, besides strengthening bones, calcium binds and removes toxins from the colon and helps with prevention of migraine attacks.
• It’s also an excellent source of copper and manganese and a great source of potassium and magnesium.
My blackstrap molasses of choice is from Wholesome Sweeteners. It’s fair trade, organic and of course, vegan.
If drinking molasses isn’t your thing, check out these delish-looking gingerbread cakes from fab recipe site Vegan Yum Yum, just in time for Christmas. When I make my batch, I’m going to substitute crushed flax instead of the egg replacer. I’m also not into margarine, so will check out some more natural vegan alternatives.
Gingerbread Cakes
Makes 9 small layer cakes
2 Cups Flour
2 tsp Ginger
2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1 Cup Molasses (unsulphured, like Grandma’s brand)
2/3 Cup Hot Water
1/2 Cup Earth Balance Margarine
1/2 Cup Sugar
1 Ener-g Egg, optional
Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese
1/4 Cup Earth Balance Margarine
1 lb Confectioner’s Sugar
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
Zest from 1 Lemon
Preheat oven to 350º F.
Mix the flour, ginger, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl until well combined.
Prepare two 8×8 baking pans as follows: grease the pans with margarine. Lay a square of parchment paper down in the inside of the pans, cut to fit the bottoms. Grease the paper as well. Use some of the try mixture you just made to flour the pans, shaking/tapping out any extra.
Whisk molasses and hot water together.
Cream the margarine and sugar. Whip the mixture with the optional Ener-g egg until light and fluffy.
It seems this is my week to write about actress Natalie Portman. Since penning the article about the protein myth and how being famous doesn’t make you an expert, I’ve noticed there’s a lot of debate about whether Nat is a vegan or vegetarian.
From here, I got to wondering why we vegans care so deeply about celebrity diet choices, particularly once they’ve mentioned they’re one of “us”. And why we want to let meat eaters know their diet choices aren’t optimal for their own health, the health of animals and the planet.
My reasoning came down to this: it’s because we have learned and lived what it means to be animal-flesh-and-product free. It’s like finding the buried treasure, the golden ring, the never-seen-before episodes of Seinfeld. It’s so damn exciting that we want to let the world know, wake up the sleepy and declare our new found clarity and meaning to anyone who’ll listen. And we also want celebrities on our side. They have a bigger reach, they can influence more people. People actually listen to them.
But I also believe the every day person (like little ol’ me) can reach millions too, through tolerance and understanding, but also more importantly leading by example. Everyday actions that come from a kind place add up to be big actions of positive influence. Look at Oprah. She took one step at a time, doing what she believed in while practicing tolerance and understanding. Her little steps added up to be a worldwide phenomenon. Her success, it seems to me, came out of a deep desire to help others and her willingness to let others see her faults. To show that she is human, just like you and me. Most of us vegans were meat eaters and dairy drinkers too at some point in our lives, unless, of course, we were lucky enough to have vegan parents ourselves.
So that’s just it. Just because I’m vegan doesn’t mean I’m right about everything, or have the answers to the world’s diet woes (although I’m certain I could guide and greatly help those who ask for it). And just because Natalie Portman is on her journey between vegetarianism and veganism doesn’t really matter either. It’s the kind actions we take, every day, that add up to make a big difference. If we all lead by positive example, who knows, eating animals could be a habit of the past sooner than we think.
But for the record, in Natalie’s words herself, and thanks to Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals, she is indeed vegan.
I’ll admit I’ve been guilty of thinking certain celebrities know everything. As if they’re born with an inner knowing of the best way to do things; carrying with them buckets of life-enhancing advice, pouring it out to star-struck interviewers who pass on their golden words to beguiled fans.
But as I was watching Top Chef the other night, I was jolted out of my celebutastic faze when guest judge, vegetarian Natalie Portman, stared at a plate full of vegetables and remarked something along the lines of: “Where’s the protein? As a vegetarian I find it hard to get my protein and this dish doesn’t supply it.”
Say wha? Does the widely adored once-vegan not know that vegetables, especially the raw variety, are packed with enzymes, which are amino acids that contain protein? And that you can actually have too much of the stuff? That it’s just a big ol’ myth that those on a vege-based diet will never be golden protein children like our meat-eating pals? That man made protein powders are über bad for you? That protein is a word that has been over-hyped and over-sold by companies trying to make big bucks from us unsuspecting plant people? Apparently not.
While I still think Nat is a great role model for those considering a plant-based diet, I know that my favourite celebs, vegan, vegetarian or otherwise, aren’t always armed with the right or best info. It’s up to me to do my research, and not whip out to the shops to pick up the latest vegan-tastic product, that’s guaranteed to make me live longer and stronger, just because a movie star told me to.
Natalie searches for her protein
Love Alicia Silverstone! Here’s a recent interview she did with Peta about her new book, The Kind Diet.
How’s Rocco, the meat-loving cowboy who Dr Oz put on a vegan diet for 28 days, doing? After being on death’s door only a month ago, he has embraced the vegan diet and has no plans to change back to his old ways, thanks to his new lease on life. Rocco says if he can do it, anyone can. Watch his transformation here:
The folks at Melbourne’s World Vegan Day 2009 festival have inspired this month’s vegan of the month pick. Event organisers have chosen a gorilla as their mascot for the popular fest, which is set for November 1.
This hefty fellow can weigh between 75 – 180 kilograms, lives on an herbivorous diet, yet has upper body strength at least six times greater than that of humans.
“We were impressed by its strength and ability to live harmoniously with the natural world,” coordinator Mark Doneddu has been quoted as saying. “World Vegan Day is an opportunity for people to learn about a diet and lifestyle that is the most ethical, environmentally-conscious and healthy.”
Bobby proves eating your greens makes you big and strong
Heartbreaking. Informative. A reminder for vegans. A wake up call for meat eaters.
I just came across Veganvideo.org produced by alifeconnected.org. To-the-point, yet kind and easy-to-watch (no Meet Your Meat graphic scenes here), it drives home the fact there is still hope for humans, the animals and the planet — if we all adopt a vegan diet.
“Expand your circle of compassion and the love will come back to you a thousand times.” VeganVideo.org
With articles out there like this one from Donna Fish at the Huffington Post, it’s really important vegans help to educate others about what it actually means to live meat, dairy and animal-product free.
With a headline of “Help! My Daughter’s a Vegan” only perpetuating the false belief that veganism is unhealthy and nutritionally lacking, the media is doing little-to-nothing to dig up the real health facts. What results is an empty, uninformative article that flippantly suggests a meat based diet is superior to a vegan one. This, in fact, as many vegans know, is untrue.
Rather than me bang on about how a healthy vegan diet can transform lives in so many positive, healthful ways, I think it’s best I turn to Olympic athlete Carl Lewis on the transformation he experienced when he became vegan.
“Can a world-class athlete get enough protein from a vegetarian diet to compete? I’ve found that a person does not need protein from meat to be a successful athlete. In fact, my best year of track competition was the first year I ate a vegan diet. Moreover, by continuing to eat a vegan diet, my weight is under control, I like the way I look. (I know that sounds vain, but all of us want to like the way we look.) I enjoy eating more, and I feel great. Here’s my story.”
