Vitamins, minerals, enzymes and trace elements in fresh, raw vegetable and fruit juices are extremely beneficial in normalising all the body processes. They supply essential elements for the body's own healing activity and cell regeneration and thus speeding the recovery. All juices should be prepared from fresh fruit immediately before drinking. Canned or frozen juices should not be used.
A precautionary measure which must be observed in all cases of fasting is the complete emptying of the bowels at the beginning of the fast by enema. This is done so that the patient is not bothered by gas or decomposing matter formed from the excrements remaining in the body. Enemas should be administered at least every alternate day during the fasting period. The patient should get as much fresh air as possible and should drink plain lukewarm water when thirsty. Fresh juices may be diluted with pure water. The total liquid intake should be approximately six to eight glasses.
Tip 155. Fasting Therapies for Psoriasis
Since psoriasis is a metabolic disease, a cleansing juice fast for about seven days is always desirable in the beginning of the treatment. Carrots, beats, cucumbers and grapes may be used for juices. Juices of citrus fruits should be avoided. The warm water enema should be used daily to cleanse the bowels during the fast. After the juice fast, the patient should adopt the diet of three basic food groups, namely (i) seeds, nuts and grains, (ii) vegetables and (iii) fruits, with emphasis on raw seeds and nuts, especially sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and plenty of organically grown raw vegetables and fruits.
All animal fats, including milk, butter and eggs should be avoided. Refined or processed foods and foods containing hydrogenated fats or white sugar, all condiments, tea and coffee, should also be avoided. After noticeable improvement, goat's milk, yoghurt and home made cottage cheese may be added to the diet. Juice fasts may be repeated after four weeks on diet.
Tip 156. Why Fasting Is the Master Remedy
Fasting is the master remedy. The common cause of all diseases is the accumulation of waste and poisonous matter in the body, which results from overeating.
The majority of persons eat too much and follow sedentary occupations that do not permit sufficient and proper exercise for utilisation of this large quantity of food. This surplus overburdens the digestive and assimilative organs and clogs up the system with impurities or poisons. Digestion and elimination become slow and the functional activity of the whole system gets deranged.
The onset of disease is merely the process of ridding the system of these impurities. Every disease can be healed by only one remedy - by doing just the opposite of what causes it, that is, by reducing the food intake or fasting.
Tip 157. An Invitation to Fasting
Instead of rushing to complete your day before your evening meal, consider fasting. Use the 2 to 3 hours you would expend on dinner to meditate and "recharge" spiritually.
If you suffer a chronic illness, fasting is the best remedy for the treatment of disorders resulting from toxins in the system. general vitality. To begin with, try fasting on orange juice and water for two or three days. The procedure is to take every two hours from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. the juice of an orange diluted with warm water on 50:50 basis. If the orange juice does not agree, juices of vegetable such as carrots and cucumber may be taken. A warm water enema may be taken each day while fasting to cleanse the bowels.
After the short juice fast, the you may adopt an all-fruit diet for about two days, taking three meals a day of fresh juicy fruits such as apples, pears, grapes, grapefruit, orange, pineapple peaches and melon. After the juice fast, follow a well- balanced diet of seeds, nuts, and grains, vegetables and fruits. This diet should be supplemented with milk, yoghurt, butter-milk, vegetable oil and honey. A further short juice fast or periods on the all-fruit diet may be necessary at intervals of a month or two, according to the needs of the case.
Tip 158. Fasting For More Efficient Digestion
Fasting is highly beneficial in practically all kinds of stomach and intestinal disorders. It is curative and in serious conditions of the kidneys and liver. It is a miracle cure for eczema and other skin diseases and offers the only hope of permanent cure in many cases. The various nervous disorders also respond favourably to this mode of treatment.
Fasting should, however, not be restored to in every illness. In cases of diabetes, advanced stages of tuberculosis, and extreme cases of neurasthenia, long fasts will be harmful. In most cases, however, no harm will accrue to fasting patients, provided they take rest, and are under proper professional care.
Tip 159. Not all fasts are equivalent.
Not all fasts are equivalent.
The duration of the fast depends upon the age of the patient, the nature of the disease and the amount and type of drugs previously used. The duration is important, because long periods of fasting can be dangerous if undertaken without competent professional guidance. It is, therefore, advisable to undertake a series of short fasts of two to three days and gradually increase the duration of each succeeding fast by a day or so.
The period of the fast, however, should not exceed a week of total fasting at a time. This will enable the chronically sick body to gradually and slowly eliminate toxic waste matter without seriously affecting the natural functioning of the body. A correct mode of living and a balanced diet after the fast will restore vigour and vitality to the individual.
Tip 160. The Key Rule for Fasting and Fatigue
Only very simple exercises like short walks may be undertaken during the fast.
A warm water or neutral bath may be taken during the period. Cold baths are not advisable. Sun and air baths should be taken daily. Fasting sometimes produces a state of sleeplessness which can be overcome by a warm tub bath, hot water bottles at the feet and by drinking one or two glasses of hot water.
The craving for food will, however, gradually decrease as the fast progresses. Seriously sick persons have no desire for food and fasting comes naturally to them. The simplest rule is to stop eating until the appetite returns or until one feels completely well.
Tip 161. Unless you break your fast properly, its benefits will be lost.
The success of your fast depends largely on how it is broken.
This is the most significant phase. The main rules for breaking the fast are these:
* Do not overeat.
* Eat slowly.
* Chew your food thoroughly.
* Take several days for the gradual change to the normal diet.
If the transition to eating solid foods is carefully planned, there will be no discomfort or damage. The patient should also continue to take rest during the transition period. The right food after a fast is as important and decisive for proper results as the fast itself.
Tip 162. Basic Food Cures: Almonds, Cabbage, and Carrots to Relieve Gastric Inflammation
Almond milk made from blanched almonds in a blender is very beneficial for ulcers as it binds the excess of acid in the stomach and supplies high quality proteins. Raw goat's milk is also highly beneficial. It actually helps to heal peptic ulcer.
Cabbage is regarded as another useful home remedy for peptic ulcers. Cabbage is boiled in water. This water is allowed to cool and taken twice daily. The leaves of kalyana murangal tree, which is a variety of drumstick found in South India, have also proved helpful in the healing of the ulcers. The leaves of this tree are ground into a paste and taken mixed with yoghurt daily.
Raw vegetables juices, particularly carrot and cabbage juices are beneficial in the treatment of the peptic ulcers. Carrot juice may be taken either alone or in combination with spinach or beat and cucumber. The formula proportions in the case of the first combination are 300 ml of carrots and 200 ml of spinach and in case of the second combination, 300 ml of carrots and three ounces each of beets and cucumber to make half a litre of juice.
Tip 163. Basic Food Cures: Apples in Alcoholism
Apples are considered valuable in the treatment of alcoholism as their use removes intoxication and reduces the craving for wine and other intoxicating liquors. The raw celery juice is also considered helpful. It has a sobering effect and is an antidote to alcohol.
It is advisable that in the beginning of the treatment, the patient is given a suitable substitute to relieve the craving if and when such a craving occurs. The best substitute drink for alcohol is a glass of fresh fruit juice, sweetened with honey, if desired. In the alternative, wholesome candy may be taken. The patient should always have easily available juices, candy, or other snacks to be taken between meals if he feels a craving for a stimulant.
All refined foods such as sugar, white rice, macaroni products and white flour and meat should be avoided. The patient should eat several small meals a day in preference to two or three large ones and avoid strong condiments such as pepper, mustard, and chilli. He should not smoke as this will only increase his desire for alcohol.
Tip 164. Basic Food Cures: When you need fibre, eat beans.
Fibre is essential to human health. Many are tempted to ensure their consumption of fibre by using just one source, usually whole grains. Unfortunately, eating too much wheat fibre alone can cause unexpected results, such as acid stomach, and, surprisingly, constipation. Fibre from whole grains must be supplemented. Beans and peas are as useful as whole grains as sources of fibre.
Legumes have high fibre content. Much of this fibre is water- soluble, which makes legumes likely agents for lowering cholesterol. Soyabeans, besides this, can also help control glucose levels.
Tip 165. Beet for Heart Health
The beet juice has also proved valuable in arteriosclerosis. It is an excellent solvent for inorganic calcium deposit. Juices of carrot and spinach are also beneficial. These juices can be taken individually or in combination. Formula proportions found helpful when used in combination are carrot 300 ml and spinach 200 ml to prepare 500 ml of juice.
Any juice provides the potassium needed for general health of the circulatory system. Favour vegetable juices is there is also any "red" condition: red skin, red face, fever, inflammation, or toxicity. Favour fruit juices is there is any "cold" condition: clammy skin, fatigue, or obesity without toxic symptoms.
Tip 166. Bitter Gourd for Diabetes
Recent scientific investigations have established that bitter gourd (karela) is highly beneficial in the treatment of diabetes. It contains an insulin-like principle, known as plant-insulin which has been found effective in lowering the blood and urine sugar levels. It should, therefore, be included liberally in the diet of the diabetic.
For better results, the diabetic should take the juice of about 4 or 5 fruits every morning on an empty stomach. The seeds of bitter gourd can be added to food in a powdered form. Diabetics can also use bitter gourd in the form of decoction by boiling the pieces in water or in the form of dry powder.
Tip 167. Black Raisins for Sexual Vigour
Black raisins are also useful for restoration of sexual vigor. They should be boiled with milk after washing them thoroughly in tepid water. This will make them swollen and sweet.
Eating of such raisins should be followed by the use of milk. Starting with 30 grams of raising with 200 ml. of milk, three times daily, the quantity of raising should be gradually increased to 50 grams each time.
Tip 168. Buttermilk for Diarrhoea
An effective remedy for diarrhoea is the use of buttermilk. It is the residual milk left after the fat has been removed from yoghurt by churning. It helps overcome harmful intestinal flora and re-establish the benign or friendly flora. The acid in the buttermilk also fights germs and bacteria. It may be taken and mixed with a pinch of salt three or four times a day for controlling diarrhoea.
Should buttermilk be unavailable, eat yoghurt. This fermented food provides useful bacteria that displace the micro-organisms that cause digestive infections. Eating yoghurt just three times a week in any amount maintains the needed bacteria for intestinal health.
Tip 169. Carrot Soup for Diarrhoea
Carrot soup is another effective home remedy for diarrhoea. It supplies water to combat dehydration, replenishes sodium, potassium, phosphorus, calcium, sulphur and magnesium, supplies pectin and coats the intestine to allay inflammation. It checks the growth of harmful intestinal bacteria and prevents vomiting.
One pound of carrot may be cooked in five ounces of water until it is soft. The pulp should be strained and boiled water added to make a quart.
Three-quarter tablespoon of salt may be mixed. This soup should be given in small amounts to the patient every half an hour.
Tip 170. Carrots and Lady's Fingers for Male Sexual Stamina
Carrot is also considered useful in impotence. For better results, carrot should be taken with a half-boiled egg dipped in a tablespoonful of honey once daily for a month or two. This recipe increases sex stamina by releasing sex hormones and strengthens the sexual plexus. It is for this reason that carrot halwa, prepared according to Unani specifications is considered a very effective tonic to improve sexual strength.
The lady's finger is another great tonic for improving sexual vigour. It has been mentioned in ancient Indian literature that the persons who take five to 10 g of root powder of this vegetable with milk and 'misri' daily will never lose sexual vigour.
Tip 171. Cherries for Gout
The cherry, sweet or sour, is considered an effective remedy for gout. This was discovered by Ludwig W. Blan Ph.D. some 35 years ago. Himself a gout sufferer, Blan found some cherries to be miraculously effective in his own case and published his own experience in a medical journal in the American state of Texas.
Subsequently, many people with gout used this simple therapy with great success. To start with, the patient should consume about 15 to 25 cherries a day. Thereafter, about 10 cherries a day will keep the ailment under control. While fresh cherries are best, canned cherries can also be used with success.
Tip 172. Dietary Measures for Digestive Regularity
The most important factor in curing constipation is a natural and simple diet. This should consist of unrefined food such as whole grain cereals, bran, honey, molasses, and lentils; green and leafy vegetables, especially spinach, French beans, tomatoes, lettuce, onion, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, celery, turnip, pumpkin, peas, beets, asparagus, carrot; fresh fruits, especially pears, grapes, figs, papayas, mangoes, grapefruit, gooseberries, guava and oranges; dry fruits such as figs, raisins, apricots and dates; milk products in the form of butter, ghee and cream.
The diet alone is not enough. Food should be properly chewed, each morsel at least 15 times. Hurried meals and meals at odd times should be avoided. Sugar and sugary foods should be strictly avoided because sugar steals B vitamins from the body, without which the intestines cannot function normally. Foods which constipate are all products made of white flour rice, bread, pulses, cakes, pastries, biscuits, cheese, fleshy foods, preserves, white sugar, and hard-boiled eggs.
Tip 173. Drink fresh fruit juices, not canned or frozen.
Raw juices act as a cleansing agent and start eliminating toxins and morbid matter from the system immediately. This often results in symptoms such as pain in the abdomen, diarrhoea, loss of weight, headache, fever, weakness, sleeplessness and bad breath. These reactions, which are part of the cleansing process, should not be suppressed by the use of drugs. They will cease when the body is able to expel all toxins.
Canned juices contain proteins that have been "shocked" in the process of heating the product to prevent bacterial growth. These "polyamines" enter the bloodstream and encourage the growth of abnormal cells, both infection and cancer. The canned juice may also contain sodium, cancelling out the nutritional effect of its large reserve of potassium. For good health, drink raw, minimally processed juices.
Tip 174. Fibre for Disease Prevention
Dietary fibre plays an important role in the maintenance of health and prevention of diseases. Fibre forms the skeletal system of plants. Without it no plant or tree would be able to stand upright. Dietary fibre, the roughage of yesteryears, consists of those parts of the plant foods that cannot be digested by enzymes or other digestive secretions in the ailmentary canal.
There is sufficient evidence to suggest that an artificial depletion of fibre as in case of refined cereals and sugar has over the last 100 years contributed to several degenerative diseases. Recent studies in this area indicate that sufficient intake of fibre-rich diet may help prevent obesity, colon cancer, heart disease, gallstones, irritable bowel syndrome, diverticulosis and diabetic conditions.
Studies have also established that dietary fibre is a collection of elements with a variety of functions rather than a single substance with single function as was assumed earlier. This new insight into the true nature of fibre has given the lie to old beliefs that bran is synonymous with fibre, that all fibre is fibrous or stringy and that all fibre tastes the same.
Tip 175. Fighting Fat with a Vegetarian Diet
For a low-fat diet, eat a vegetarian diet.
Another benefit of the vegetarian diet is the much lower intake of fat, if dairy products, seeds and nuts are eaten sparingly. This accounts for lower serum cholesterol levels found in vegetarians, which considerably reduces the risk of developing heart diseases and breast and colon cancer.
A third nutritional advantage of the vegetarian diet is its high fibre content. Fibre, being indigestible, increases the bulk of the faces, keeps them soft and makes them easy to expel. One study has indicated that lacto-ovo vegetarians consume twice as much and vegans four times as much fibre as non-vegetarians. High fibre intake has been associated with decreased risks of diseases of the colon, appendicitis, cancer of the colon and rectum, hiatus hernia, piles and varicose veins.
McCarrison, one of the greatest authorities on food, has outlined a perfect diet. According to him, " a perfectly constituted diet is one in which the principal ingredients are milk, milk products, any whole cereal grain or mixture of cereal grains, green leafy vegetables and fruits. These are the protective foods. They make good the defects of other constituents of the diet, protect the body against infection and disease of various kinds, and their use in sufficient quantity ensures physical efficiency."
Tip 176. The Figgy Cure
Figs are an excellent food remedy for increasing weight in case of thinness. The high percentage of rapidly assimilated sugars makes them a strengthening and fattening food.
The fig is also the superlative treatment for haemorrhoids.Three or four figs should be soaked overnight in water after cleansing them thoroughly in hot water. They should be taken the first thing in the morning along with water in which they were soaked. They should also be taken in the evening in a similar manner. This treatment should be continued for three or four weeks. The tiny seeds of the fruit possess an excellent quality of stimulating peristalic movements of intestines. This facilitates easy evacuation of faeces and keeps the alimentary canal clean.
The pressure on the anus having thus been relieved, the haemorrhoids also get contracted.
Tip 177. Food Cures for Cataracts
There is increasing evidence to show that in several cases cataracts have actually been reversed by proper nutritional treatment. However, the time needed for such treatment may extend from six months to three years.
A thorough course of cleansing the system of the toxic matter is essential. To start with, it will be beneficial to undergo a fast for three to four days on orange juice and water. A warm water enema may be taken during this period. After this initial fast, a diet of very restricted nature should be followed for two weeks. In this regimen, breakfast may consist of oranges or grapes or any other juicy fruit in season. Raw vegetable salads in season, with olive oil and lemon juice dressing, and soaked raisins, figs or dates should be taken during lunch. Evening meals may consist of vegetable such as spinach, fenugreek, drum sticks, cabbage, cauliflower, carrot, turnips, steamed in their own juices, and a few nuts or some fruits, such as apples, pears and grapes.
Potatoes should not be taken. No bread or any other food should be added to this diet. After two weeks on this diet, the cataract patient may start on a fuller diet on the following lines:
* Breakfast: Any fresh fruits in season, except bananas.
* Lunch: A large mixed raw vegetable salad with wholemeal bread or chapattis and butter.
* Dinner: Two or three steamed vegetables, other than potatoes, with nuts and fresh fruit.
The short fast followed by a restricted diet should be repeated after three months of the commencement of the treatment and again three months later, if necessary. The bowels should be cleansed daily with a warm water enema during the fast, and afterwards as necessary.
The patient should avoid white bread, sugar, cream, refined cereals, rice, boiled potatoes, puddings and pies, strong tea or coffee, alcoholic beverages, condiments, pickles, sauces or other so-called aids to digestion.
Tip 178. Food Cures for Dysentery
Among specific food remedies, bael fruit is, perhaps, the most efficacious in the treatment of dysentery of both the varieties. Pulp of the fruit mixed with jaggery should be given thrice daily. To deal with a chronic case of dysentery, unripe bael fruit is roasted over the fire and the pulp is mixed with water. Large quantities of the infusion so made should be administered with jaggery. The pulp of the unripe fruit mixed with an equal quantity of dried ginger can also be given with butter milk.
The use of pomegranate rind is another effective remedy for dysentery. About 60 grams