Juice it Up

After last week's controversial post on coffee enemas, I would like to woo you back to Healer in Your Heart with something a bit more benign. We bought a juicer back in January right after Adam returned home from the hospital, and we started out juicing every day. Then after the Burzynski treatment took over our lives, the juicer started collecting dust. I would try to bring it out from time to time, but just couldn't get into a routine with it. Now that Adam is on a new protocol, I am making the effort to juice twice a day, every day. I would love to get up to three times a day, but for now I'm just glad we are using it regularly. And I tell you, it really does make a difference. The few times that I was unable to juice, I felt so tired and yucky. I know that juicers don't come cheap, and you really need to be motivated to prepare the vegetables and clean the juicer after every use. But, it really really is worth it. And it's absolutely essential for Adam's cancer treatment.

It's common knowledge in the nutrition world that the nutrients in freshly-made vegetable juices are more easily absorbed by the body. Commercial juices from the store are mostly reconsituted concentrates devoid of vitamins and with additives and preservatives thrown in. With fresh home-juicing there is no additives and the active enzymes and vitamins are readily available. Fresh vegetable juices also have a cleansing and detoxifying effect on the body which is they key to a successful cancer protocol.

I have read a LOT about cancer, and there are varying theories about it. Why does it develop? How does it develop? There is a lot the medical community still doesn't know, but many researchers have a pretty good idea how cancer works in our bodies. One theory in particular stands out in my mind, and seems to be confirmed by recent research. In a very simplistic non-medical sort of way, here is cancer in a nutshell. Our liver is the primary detoxing agent in the body. All the crap (official scientific term) gets filtered through the liver, and the liver produces chemicals that capture toxins throughout the body and flush them out. In our modern society we are absolutely innundated with chemicals all day long. Over 80,000 new chemicals have been developed and added to our cleaning products, toiletries and foods in the last century. Our livers are maxed out! There is only so much they can handle before they start to give up. Here is where cancer comes in. Nothing happens by mistake in my opinion, especially cancer. When the liver starts to wave the red flag, the immune system calls a board meeting. The liver needs help, and the body knows exactly what to do. They begin to plan a toxin depository elsewhere in the body to take the burden off the liver. Sometimes the body is so overloaded, it needs lots of depositories. So the body starts stocking away all these toxins in these holding areas known as tumors. I can just imagine the immune system board meeting. “You know that lung we keep having to repair? I think that would be a GREAT place for that new rubbish facility we've been talking about!” I think the body intentionally chooses weakened places in our bodies to start storing the toxic overload. For someone with undiagnosed celiac's disease, that may be a damaged colon. For a smoker, a tar-filled lung. Some people are particularly suseptable to damage from radiation, so the skin might be a target or the brain from cordless phone use (both of which apply to Adam). The body knows exactly what it's doing, and this cancer project is carefully planned out and executed beautifully. Did you know that when cancer cells are threatened by chemotherapy, the healthy cells in that area actually rally together and protect the tumor? A recent study in the U.S. shocked researchers when they discovered that as healthy cells are being destroyed by chemotherapy, they excrete a protein that protects the cancer cells from damage. Can you believe that? They figuratively throw themselves over the cancer cells to protect them as they go down. Kinda like secret service agents. The body knows exactly what it's doing. It NEEDS those depositories, and by God they are going to make sure they stay open. Especially when the body is being attacked by chemotherapy agents. The body knows it's going to need a lot more tumors to handle the toxin overload after the chemo treatment is over. Maybe that's why cancer always comes back.

All is not lost, however. What if you could detox the body and take the load off the liver? What if you simply removed the toxic overload and gave the liver a tune-up? The body wouldn't need the extra depositories anymore, and the immune system would be directed to take them down. And that is exactly what happens. There is a term out there called “spontaneous remission” that is floating around the medical world. It's how they explain someone with aggressive progessing cancer that suddenly presents without active cancer in their bodies. There have been numerous cases in medical literature of cancer patients suddenly turning up healed and with no trace of cancer remaining. The doctors scratch their heads and can't figure out why this happens. Call it God or call it good luck, but the medical community believes that spontaneous remission just happens. Guess what. It doesn't “just happen”. Dr. Harold Foster of the University of Victoria in British Columbia wanted to study what factors may be at play in cases of spontaneous remission and chose 200 cases to analyze. Far from being miraculous, most of these healings were due to drastic lifestyle changes and complimentary therapies. Many of these patients followed the Gerson diet and employed parts of the Gerson protocol, namely the juicing and coffee enemas. Other dietary regimes represented in the study were very similar to the Gerson diet. I have studied the numerous cancer diets out there and they are all remarkably similar. The Halleluja Diet, A. P. John, The Crazy Sexy Cancer Diet, Gerson... they are all either vegetarian or vegan, and low-fat. That is why we are doing what we are doing with our family's diet, and it explains why different cancer patients following different protocols can have similar degrees of success. The conclusion that Dr. Foster was able to reach is that far from being spontaneous, these patients were only categorized as such by orthodox medicine because the impressive results were due to alternative and complimentary therapies.

So back to juicing. Now you understand why feeding vegetables through a juicer, and the hassle of cleaning up afterwords is so worth it when you are fighting the cancer battle. If you want to watch a fantastic testimony on the power of juicing, watch Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. It's on Hulu, and it's fabulous. You will run out and buy a Breville juicemaker immediately! I can testify, the Breville is really good, and it's available on Amazon. If and when you decide to harness the awesome raw power of the home juicer, try our two favorite concoctions:

The Morning Green Juice

1 cucumber

2 leaves of kale

2 stalks of celery

1 Granny Smith apple

Feed these foods through the juicer. Kale and apples are supposed to be done on “low” but I find they clog up the juicer if you do that. I feed them all through on “high”, except the cucumber which is done last and on “low”. Squeeze half a lime into the finished juice and serve. Makes enough for two.

The Evening Detoxifyer

1 beet

3 carrots

1 Granny Smith apple

either 1cm piece of ginger or ¼ of fennel

Again, feed all these through the juicer on “high”. I squeeze half a lime into mine, because I find this a bit too sweet. Adam loves it straight up.