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Eyesight |
Eyesight |
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There
is a principle which is a bar against all information, If I assert that you can
probably accomplish more with raw foods then you can with laser surgery,
you'll likely call me some kind of a nut.
Terri certainly
thought I was, and no mistake. Terri was going blind, and she was
miserable. She had a somewhat rare condition where her eyesight was
tunneling. That is, Terri's peripheral vision was fading, and fast. She
was still in her thirties. In the last year it had gotten severe enough
that she came to me. "What has your
ophthalmologist told you?" I asked.
"That there is
nothing he can do, at all, except monitor how much vision I've lost,"
she said "A lot of good that does me." "Surgery?
Medications?" "He said none
are any help with what I've got," she said, with her mouth firmly
set. "I don't suppose you have any great ideas?" This was just the
start of what would be one jolly client relationship. And I did have an
idea or two. She was not going to like them. "Well,
yes," I said. "Naturopaths have accumulated decades of therapeutic
evidence about the food enzymes in uncooked foods, especially sprouted beans
and sprouted grains. The idea is that cooking temperatures as low as 130
degrees Fahrenheit destroy these enzymes, which are said to be essential to
keeping us youthful and healthy." "That sounds
pretty cutsey," said Ms. Congeniality. "It does to
me, too. But I cannot discount the possibility, since you have been
offered nothing else, that this research might apply to you. Some pretty big
names are attached to the study of raw foods: Ralph Bircher-Benner, J. Evers,
Herbert M. Shelton, Bernarr McFadden, Bernard Jensen, Paavo Airola, Edward
Howell, Victoras Kulvinskas, Weston Price, Royal Lee..." I was waiting for
her jaw to drop in hushed amazement, but nothing doing. She stared at
me, quite unmoved. So I rattled off
some more names. "...N.W.
Walker, Max Warmbrand, Christopher Gian-Cursio, John H.Tilden, Russell
Thacker Trall, Max Gerson, James Caleb Jackson, Harvey Kellogg, Ann
Wigmore... and there are others." "And just how
many of them have cured blindness?" said Terri. "I'm not sure
of the statistics, but keep in mind that you're not blind, either." "Not yet, but
it's happening," Terri said. "This has just gotten worse and
worse. My sight is limited just to what is in front of me, and that's not
very clear either. My vision has gotten so bad that I can't drive; I can
hardly even read any more." And mostly to
herself, she muttered, "Now what am I going to do?" That is technically
a question, although it didn't come out much like one. Still, any port
in a storm. "You could try
a 90% raw food, mostly sprouts diet for a few months," I said. "A few
months?" "At
least. What I have read emphasizes that while nature heals, it takes
time. The nature-cure authorities generally agree that it took years for
our body to develop an affliction, and it will take us months to get out of
it." "If it works
at all," said Terri. "Yes, if it
works at all." There was a long
silence. Counseling training
at The wait went on.
Seemed like hours. "I'll try
it," she finally said, "But this had better be worth it. How
much of this stuff do I have to eat?"
Familiar question
to a health nut who raised two kids on sprouts. My children will
readily tell you that I gave them sprouts for breakfast, carrot-zucchini
juice for lunch, and borsht for supper. While that is mainly true, it is
not the complete truth. My motto was, "Eat this good-for-you item
first, and than you can have what you want, within reason." My kids had
plenty of ice cream, brownies, cookies, chocolate candy and other goodies on
a regular if not daily basis. I get a lot of heat from purists who think
I was a sell-out to nature-cure philosophy. But I got far more heat from
their mother and my out-laws, er, in-laws, on the weird health foods I fed
those "poor children!" Compromise is a fact of life. If you
hold too, too firmly to your principles, you risk them being discarded lock,
stock and barrel. You can't let the baby be thrown out with the bathwater. This philosophy of
the golden mean was to be given the acid test by Terri. "You'll need
to eat at least two jars full of sprouts a day," I told her. "By
jars, I mean mayonnaise-sized or mason jars, about a quart and a half each.
By sprouts, I mean a variety of alfalfa, wheat, lentil, radish, cabbage,
clover, and mung bean. You can grow your sprouts yourself. That
will save a lot of money, and they will be fresher, better for you, and taste
better, too." "Ugh,"
replied Terri. "Actually,
sprouts are better tasting than you might think. A lot of salad bars have
alfalfa sprouts. Radish sprouts taste exactly like radishes. Mung
bean sprouts are used in Chinese food. Try different varieties and
mixtures. Any health food store or food co-op will have the seeds. Soak
them overnight, and then rinse and drain twice a day. Start two of
three jars a day, and harvest them in rotation as they mature. That's
it." "Eat them
how?" asked the impatient patient.
"Raw, except
perhaps for mung sprouts. Build your salads on a base of sprouts instead
of lettuce. Eat sprouts in a sandwich instead of lettuce. Top
sprout salads with tomatoes, cucumber, broccoli, cashew nuts, onion, salad
dressing, anything." "Dressings?"
said Terri, with a glimmer of optimism. "I can have dressings on
them? I thought they were full of salt and fat and additives." "Put anything
you want on your sprouts to make them taste good. You want this to be as
enjoyable as possible. I'll look the other way on whatever it takes to
get you to consume as great a volume of sprouts a day as you can. The
value of the sprouts far outweighs any drawbacks of dressings. You can
always make your own homemade ones, if you really want to do it up
right." "Like oil and
vinegar?" said Terri, with a very slight increase in interest. "Yes," I
said. "And, you know, it really isn't that hard to eat a lot of
sprouts. You can take nearly a jarful and press them down between two
pieces of bread and make a sproutwich." Silence. "The best
natural health writers say that you will also want to have fresh vegetable
juices daily for all the carotenes, lots of vitamin B-complex, vitamin C and
vitamin E, a good multivitamin, extra zinc, and a little selenium." We went over the
recommended therapeutic dosages, gleaned from my various sources. "I'll be
taking pills all day," she grumbled.
"All these
nutrients have a especially vital role in the health of the eye. Carotenes,
C, E, zinc and selenium are all involved with the antioxidant cycle.
Macular degeneration, cataract and diabetic retinopathy are two distantly
related conditions that have responded to such nutrients. Don't take too much
selenium; 400 micrograms a day is abundant, and half that will probably be
sufficient. The other nutrients have a safety record a mile long." Off she went,
certainly no more miserable than she was when she came in, but that isn’t
saying much. The phone calls
started almost immediately. "How many
sprouts?" "How do you rinse them again?" "What
vitamins?" "Is this OK to eat?" "How long to I have to
keep this up for?" And those were the
nice questions. Terri also fundamentally questioned what she was doing,
as you or I would, too. But driven by a lack of options, with that bare
desperation that can do more than words can tell, she did it. Kicking
and screaming, perhaps, but she did it.
One phone
conversation five weeks into it, I dared ask her if she was noticing anything
good happening. "No," she
said. "I went to the eye doctor this week, and he said there was no
change." "But isn't
that actually a good sign, Terri? Every other visit, didn't he say that your
vision was diminishing?" "Well, yeah,
he did." "Then 'no
worse' is an early sign of real progress," I said. "Maybe. I hate
eating sprouts." "Look, Terri,
I give you permission to hate my guts if it will keep you on the wagon and
help you see." "OK." She asked if she
could have rye bread. She asked if the bread could be toasted. She
wanted some yogurt. The other day she had a piece of chicken. It
was a dietetic confessional each time she called. And she called
often. Another month
later, she had been to the ophthalmologist again. "He looked and
said things were a bit better. He tested my vision and confirmed
it. He asked what I was doing, and I told him you'd call him and
explain it." So I did, hoping
for the best. The ophthalmologist
was actually very interested. He noted some of my references, expressed
his pleasure that Terri was improving with a condition that never improved,
and said whatever she was doing, she shouldn't change it a bit. End of
conversation. Terri, knowing full
well that she was doomed to following both of us now, and seeing better
every week, was still no easier to deal with. Months went by, and
her eyesight got better and better. In the end, two near miracles
happened: Terri's eyesight was restored nearly 100%, and she thanked me for
what I'd made her do. I will never forget
what a wonderful feeling it was to have been the educational and motivational
link that stopped Terri from going blind. Don't take this
next section too far out of context; just give it a moment. A fellow who was
born blind was once treated by a man who was said to be some sort of healer. The
treatment was a bit strange: the healer mixed dirt with his saliva and
applied the resulting mud to the man's eyes. He told the blind man to go wash
it off in a local pond. The man did that,
and came home, seeing. Everybody, of
course, asked him what had happened. He told them. This was all
pretty unusual, so they brought the man to the authorities, who also asked
him what happened. The man told them, too. There was
considerable, but inconclusive, debate at this point. The man was asked
what kind of a person could have done this. He responded that it was
perhaps some kind of holy man. Nobody bought that, either. So they brought in
the man's father and mother, to identify him and verify that he had truly been
blind all his life. This they confirmed. Then, the man was
brought in for yet another round of questioning, which focused on the
doubtful credentials of the supposed healer who did all this. The
authorities said that the healer was a phony and a fraud. The man replied,
"Whether that is true or not, I don't know. But one thing I do
know: I was blind, but now I see." It does not matter
how a person gets their sight back. By divine healing from above, or by
sprouted seeds of the earth: whatever works and restores something as
precious as eyesight must be taken as genuine, and good. Copyright C
2005, 2003 and prior years Andrew W. Saul. Andrew Saul is the author of the books FIRE
YOUR DOCTOR! How to be Independently Healthy (reader reviews at
http://www.doctoryourself.com/review.html
) and DOCTOR YOURSELF: Natural Healing that Works. (reviewed at http://www.doctoryourself.com/saulbooks.html
) For ordering information, Click Here .
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AN IMPORTANT NOTE: This page is not in any way offered as prescription, diagnosis nor treatment for any disease, illness, infirmity or physical condition. Any form of self-treatment or alternative health program necessarily must involve an individual's acceptance of some risk, and no one should assume otherwise. Persons needing medical care should obtain it from a physician. Consult your doctor before making any health decision. Neither the author nor the webmaster has authorized the use of their names or the use of any material contained within in connection with the sale, promotion or advertising of any product or apparatus. Single-copy reproduction for individual, non-commercial use is permitted providing no alterations of content are made, and credit is given. |
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