Ten Foods to Forge a Healthy You

Graeme Sait

Aug 28, 2010 • 22 min read

Eating your way to health and longevity will outperform supplements because superfoods contain all of the co-factors and synergists that ensure maximum nutrient performance. Supplements will always be a poor substitute for real foods, but what is “the real thing”? No it’s not cola with your burger and chips. Here are some genuine “defence foods” that we could all embrace as an inexpensive, but highly effective, wellness strategy.

1. Savour Stir-Fried Kale

Twice a week you should head out to the garden and pick a handful of the lower leaves from your kale plant. If you don’t have a garden, then plant a few kale plants in pots on your veranda. It will only take 3 or 4 plants to feed a family and they last for about twelve months. Chop the kale into 10 cm wide slices and stir-fry it for a few minutes. Add a little butter and Nutri-Salt™ before enjoying one of the most nutritious vegetables on the planet.

Kale is the highest vegetable source of antioxidants. Most people are familiar with the many benefits of broccoli, but kale is vastly superior. The scientific measurement of antioxidant value is called the ORAC score. Kale has double the ORAC score of broccoli with a score of 1700 vs 800 for broccoli. It also has six times more vitamin A, seven times more vitamin K, 150% more calcium, seven times more beta-carotene and eleven times more lutein. In fact, it has more of the powerhouse, eye-boosting lutein than any other any plant. Broccoli is best known for its luxury content of the protective phytonutrient, sulforaphane. Kale has similar levels of this medicinal compound.

Hot Kale Tip – Combine chopped leeks with your kale before stir-frying and you will neutralise the mild goitrogenic effect of this vegetable (and they taste sensational together).

2. Guzzle the Good Oils

Saturated fats have been unjustly demonised. They are essential nutrients and some of them are superbly protective. In fact, two of the healthiest oils you can eat are based on this type of fat. Forget all of the Heart Foundation hype when it comes to these particular saturated fats because they have more benefits than I can possibly cover in this brief segment. Coconut oil and red palm oil contain medium chain fatty acids with remarkable attributes.

Coconut oil is a saturated fat that can actually help you lose weight because it speeds up your sluggish metabolism, so you can effectively burn more calories each day. This medium chain fatty acid is not stored as fat but is sent directly to your liver where it is converted to energy. Coconut oil is a rare source of lauric acid. The only other significant source is in breast milk. It can also enter cells without insulin so it is of immense benefit to cell starved diabetics. This oil has a very high smoke point so it is one of the healthiest cooking oils.

Red palm oil is a deep orange-red colour, because it contains the highest levels of carotenes of any plant. It also contains the highest levels of vitamin E. Most people supplement with alpha tocopherol if they are seeking the antioxidant protection of vitamin E. However, it is now understood that there are eight different forms of vitamin E. There are four different tocopherols and four different tocotrienals and they work synergistically like the B group vitamins. We were supposed to take them together. All of them are present in red palm oil. The tocotrienals are now known to be forty times more powerful as antioxidants than the tocopherols. Red palm oil contains the highest levels of tocotrienals of any food.

Hot Red Palm Oil Tip – The antioxidant level of this oil is so high that you virtually can’t oxidise it when cooking, so it becomes the ultimate, healthy choice, cooking oil.

3. Get Into Green Powders

Chlorophyll is a blood cleansing defence food and the most concentrated form is found in the green powders that can be sourced in most chemists and health food stores. Chlorella is exceptional for heavy metal removal and it is an excellent blood purifier. Fermented super greens are superior to standard powders because the microbes have rendered the nutrients so much more bio-available. The probiotic organisms involved are still active so you are ensured of rapid delivery of the nutrients found in sprirulina, wheat grass, barley grass, kelp and assorted brassicas.

Spirulina is the highest source of plant-based protein but these amino acids are much more active when the microbes have worked on them. Spirulina is also the highest plant form of vitamin B12, a nutrient that is sadly lacking amongst the many vegetarians I have tested over the years. In fact, this shortage is not limited to vegetarians; a large portion of the population seems to be B12 deficient. This is probably linked to the fact that many hybridised grains have lost their capacity to uptake cobalt, a building block for B12.

Hot Green Powder Tip – Most people need to alkalise and remaining alkaline is one of the most profound health strategies of them all. The green powders are a great way to alkalise.

4. Cherish Your Chia

Imagine a food with 5 times more calcium than milk, twice the potassium of a banana and five times more antioxidants than blueberries. This same food has more iron than liver and unusually high levels of boron to ensure optimum performance of the luxury levels of calcium. Chia seed contains over 20% protein, including all eight essential amino acids and this is 2 to 3 times higher than levels in other grains. This wonder food also contains 15 times more magnesium than broccoli, 7 times more vitamin C than oranges and 6 times more fibre than bran and this is just the start of the story. This ancient Aztec food is the highest source of omega-3 fatty acids (eight times more than salmon on a weight to weight basis), it has as much soluble fibre as psyllium husks without the irritation and it can lower the glycemic index of problem foods like potatoes.

Chia seed is at its most nutritious if it is combined with water and left to form a gel overnight. It actually forms a gel instantly but the overnight soak effectively doubles the antioxidant level. These multiple benefits can be further extended if you sprout the seed. The biggest gain from sprouting is a dramatic increase in enzyme content and a further increase in vitamin C.

Sprouting Chia

Unfortunately, you can’t sprout chia in a jar like normal seeds due to its highly gelatinous nature. I like to add a couple of tablespoons of our ChiaTone™ product to a large jar of water, leave it overnight and then pour it over a square metre patch of soil. The seeds will germinate in a few days. The idea is to leave the seedlings until they are 4 or 5 cm high and then snip them down to 1 cm and add the unbelievably nutritious greens to your salads or sandwiches. The leafless seedlings will sometimes produce a second crop but after that they become bitter so you dig them in.

It’s not hard to organise yourself to have a new patch always coming on. If you can remember to spread the gel every couple of weeks you will have a constant supply of this incredible food for yourself and your family. I like to feed the seedlings with our mineral-packed liquid fertiliser, Life Force® Total Cover™. This is most effective if you water on the nutrients directly after planting the seed. This provides a more vigorous start and even more nutrition in the harvested greens. [Life Force® Total Cover™](http://www.nutritiongardening.com.au/collections/products/products/life-force-total-cover-ready-to-spray is the only known natural liquid fertiliser on the market with added selenium (specifically added to boost human health).

The above approach is more of a micro green concept rather than a simple sprouting. If you don’t have soil but would like to sprout your chia, then this is how to do it.

Lay a linen cloth on a dinner plate.
Spray a fine mist of water onto the cloth.
Sprinkle a layer of ChiaTone™ on top of the cloth and mist it lightly.
Cover the seed plate with a second plate but lift this plate to mist the seeds daily.
You will have tender chia sprouts in three days.

Hot Chia Tip – Ideally, your dinner table could include a salt shaker, a pepper grinder and a chia shaker. Chia can be sprinkled on food like potatoes to neutralise their negatives. Potatoes have a very high GI of 90 (higher than table sugar) and the soluble fibre in chia seed can reduce this down to a GI of 45. In this way you will still get to enjoy potatoes without spiking your blood sugar and gaining weight.

5. Go for Gojis and Dark Chocolate

Berries top the ORAC charts and the dried goji berry from Tibet is the king of the fruits. Dried goji berries have a spectacular ORAC score of 25000 (assuming they are organic and sourced from the cool mountain slopes of Tibet). They contain several times more vitamin C than citrus fruit and phenomenal levels of over twenty carotenes including lycopene. The fruit also contains nineteen amino acids, twenty-one minerals, dozens of phytonutrients and it is a rare source of germanium and selenium. Cocoa has been used therapeutically for hundreds of years, but we now understand why it has proved so beneficial. Dark chocolate, containing a minimum 70% cocoa, is actually amongst the world’s most powerful antioxidants with an ORAC score of 13500. Dark chocolate-coated goji berries offer a guilt-free indulgence and are a delicious functional food.

Hot Chocolate Tip – The band wrote a hit song that became a hit a second time when covered by Australian, Paul Kelly – no seriously, the hot chocolate tip is this; check the ingredients of your dark chocolate to make sure that it is free from milk solids. A thimble full of milk can reduce the ORAC score to zero. That’s why there is zero benefit in eating white chocolate or milk chocolate. It becomes just a destructive lolly! Most of the Australian dark chocolates contain milk solids. The only exception is the Whittakers dark chocolate brand (from NZ but available in most supermarkets).

Hot Goji Tip – It has been determined that we need to include foods equivalent to a 5000 ORAC score, on a daily basis, for adequate protection from free radicals. Just 20 grams of dried goji berries scores 5000!

6. Relish Red Papaya

We often call it papaw in this country but the red version is actually called papaya. Christopher Columbus called it the fruit of the angels and it has been used medicinally for centuries by cultures in sub tropical and tropical zones. All parts of this remarkable plant have medicinal value, including ripe and green fruits, the leaf, the skin, the seed, the bark and the flowers. The ripe fruit contains more vitamin A than carrots and 80% more vitamin C than oranges. It is also an exceptional source of folate, fibre, potassium, and vitamin E. However, it is the enzyme found in the green fruit and the leaves which lifts the papaya into the realms of the superplant.

The papaya is a unique source of a powerful protein digester called papain. This vegetable pepsin can digest protein in all conditions – i.e., acid, alkaline or neutral. Many people have compromised protein digestion due to a lack of hydrochloric acid and in these cases papain is invaluable. Papain is also an FDA-approved pain reliever. Insufficient protein digestion is a widespread health issue linked to arthritis, high blood pressure, constipation and diabetes. If essential amino acids are not released from protein, the entire system is affected. The immune system, for example is protein dependant.

Intestinal plaque can form a toxic barrier, which reduces nutrient uptake through the intestinal wall (skin health is a good guide to this problem). This plaque is a major cause of lymphatic congestion. This plaque forms as a result of inadequate protein digestion. Papain can dramatically improve protein digestion to avoid future problems, while gradually cleansing the intestinal walls of waste matter. This is the reason that Asian cultures favour green papaya salad and we could all make this delightful dish a regular part of our diet. Here is a recipe:

Green Papaya Salad

Ingredients for two servings:

1 ½ tablespoon of palm sugar
¾ of a lime
2 cups of shredded green papaya
1 clove of garlic
6 green beans
1 ½ tablespoons of fish sauce
1 tablespoon of dried shrimp
2 chilli peppers
5 cherry tomatoes
2 tablespoons of toasted peanuts

Shred your green papaya with a cheese grater. Crush the clove of garlic and then add the beans and halved cherry tomatoes. Pound them a few times with a pestle to bruise the beans and to release the tomato juice. Now add the chilies and pound them enough with your pestle to release the hotness, i.e., only pound once or twice if you like a mild flavour. Now add the green papaya, dried shrimp, toasted peanuts, fish sauce, lime juice and palm sugar and stir together well with a spatula.

Serve with sticky rice, a couple of thin slices of cabbage, green beans (lightly steamed) and Thai basil.

Papaya Seed for Parasites

Papaya seed contains a compound called caricin which kills intestinal worms. In fact, the seeds of this fruit are a highly effective treatment for many intestinal parasites.

Recipe:

Combine 20 ground papaya seeds with the same weight of honey in a warm glass of water.
Take on an empty stomach four days in a row.

Note: The leaves of the papaya contain an alkaloid called capain, which also kills or expels worms.

Red vs Yellow

Red papaya differs from yellow papaw in the type of carotenoids they contain. They contain similar levels of beta-carotene but the red fruit contains a large percentage of the much-hyped, power pigment, lycopene. This is a fat-soluble substance with twice the antioxidant capacity of beta-carotene. One Israeli study found that lycopene is ten times better than beta-carotene at inhibiting the growth of cancer cells (prostate, stomach, cervical and skin cancers).

Hot Papaya Tip – Wash several medium-sized papaya leaves before chopping them up and placing them in a large saucepan with 2 litres of water. Bring to the boil and then simmer without a lid until there is 1 litre of concentrate remaining. Strain the solids out and cool before storing in the fridge where it will last for 4 days. The dose rate is 50 mL three times a day. This liquid appears to be a powerful tumour fighter. In 1976, Professor Mc Laughlin, from Purdue University in the US, conducted intensive research work on 3500 plants to evaluate their tumour fighting potential, papaya was found to be the most potent.

Anecdotal reports suggest that pure papaya leaf juice squeezed directly from the leaves may also offer a cure for dengue fever. The suggested daily dose is 1 tablespoon of fresh papaya leaf juice.

7. Gift Yourself Ginger

This is the world’s most popular herb and millions use it every day. It has been revered as “the universal medicine” in India and China for over 2500 years. Ginger contains three active compounds including gingerol, shogaol and zingibain.

Gingerol is a tremendously effective treatment for nausea (travel sickness, morning sickness, post operative illness and the inevitable nausea associated with chemotherapy). Gingerol has also been shown to enhance appetite, improve protein digestion and relieve indigestion. In 2004, US researchers found that gingerol slowed the rates of colon cancer tumours by 50%.

Shogaol kills the cold virus at concentrations of less than 1 ppm. One tablespoon of grated ginger provides the required amount. Shogaol is only released at boiling point and hence the benefit of ginger tea. Just add the tablespoon of grated ginger to a cup and pour over the boiling water. Leave the tea to steep for a minimum of 10 minutes before drinking. Drink four cups a day to counter a cold. Ginger is also a natural antihistamine, a decongestant and an immune supporter, so it is tailor-made for the common cold.

Zingibain, the third major ginger compound, dissolves parasites and their eggs. It has been estimated that 15% of us are negatively affected by parasites and almost all of the victims are pet owners. There is no surer recipe for parasites than letting a dog lick you on the mouth. Try to remember that the animal probably had his nose up another dogs rear-end earlier that day or he was savouring the maggot-encrusted bone he had just dug up. Don’t get me wrong. I love dogs, but you don’t let them lick your mouth! Albert Einstein used ginger to control dysentery when he traveled to Asia. Pickled ginger is combined with sashimi (raw fish) in Japan to kill the anisakid worm – a parasite sometimes found in raw fish.

Ginger and Heart Health

Ginger offers a four-fold effect for heart protection:

It is a proven anti-inflammatory. Inflammation is a master marker for heart disease. Ginger is also an effective tool to counter arthritis.
1992 research published in the International Journal of Obesity, suggests that ginger can boost weight loss by increasing the burning of calories.
Ginger can reduce blood pressure by stimulating circulation and relaxing the muscles surrounding blood vessels.
Ginger has been shown to lower LDL cholesterol.

Hot Ginger Tip – Accomplished NZ healer, Kevin McDonald, claims that ginger tea is the most powerful tool to boost liver health. In fact, you can make a ginger-based tea blend with fresh herbs that boosts the two key detox organs, the liver and the kidneys. Here’s how: combine a few slices of fresh ginger with 3 sage leaves, a sprig of rosemary and 2 sprigs of parsley in a cup of boiling water and let steep for 10 minutes. Drink this healing tea 3 times a day for three days each month. Kevin believes that every illness is linked to the liver, the kidneys or the digestive system.

8. Discover the Magic of Mountain Salt

Common table salt is a mere shadow of its former self following the industrial “cleansing” process. In fact, it is actually rendered unfit for human consumption. All of the supporting minerals have been removed and we are left with a totally unbalanced mix of sodium and chloride that can disrupt the critical sodium to potassium ratio (hence the link to table salt and high blood pressure). The average Westerner consumes 5000 mg of this unbalanced sodium chloride a day and this can disrupt cellular fluid balance leading to cellular dehydration and fluid retention. Cellular dehydration has been linked to a host of health issues.

The “body electric” is an amazing phenomenon with thousands of electrical reactions happening every second. Electrolytes are minerals that can dissolve in water and carry electrical charges. Sodium and chloride are the two key electrolytes but their performance is based upon the 81 other minerals found in natural sea salt. Good health involves a delicate balance between the body’s two reservoirs of water – the water inside the cells and the water outside the cells. Natural whole salt is the mediator of this critical balance while industrial table salt can disrupt the balance; the term “the salt of the earth” is recognition of this importance.

Natural salt helps with nutrient absorption, libido, insomnia, respiratory health, vascular health and it works with water to regulate blood pressure. It also is a key alkalising agent.

What is the Best Source of Natural Salt?

The ancient Celtics referred to the primal oceans as Solé, which means soul. They understood that life itself began in this mineral rich soup, comprising 3% salt. Salt from 21^st century oceans no longer offers this pristine nutrition and life force. In fact, it is often polluted by oil spills, dioxins, mercury, farm chemicals and industrial waste. Mountain salt, usually sourced from India, is over 200 million years old and offers a pristine, energy packed alternative to sea salt. There is one salt from India that has been used in Ayurvedic medicine for thousands of years. It is remarkably mineralised and has an amazing taste as a condiment.

Mountain salt can be used to supply your daily minerals. The first cell emerged from the primeval ocean and we still need that perfect balance of minerals found in sea water. New research suggests we can increase our longevity with a daily swim in the ocean. Every hour we spend in the water our body absorbs ½ a cup of salt water and those balanced minerals are highly beneficial. Here is the recipe to make Solé, an ancient nutrient supplement that offers inexpensive mineralisation.

The Recipe for Solé

(26% mountain salt solution)

Add natural mountain salt at 3cm depth to a jar.
Add 10 cm of spring water and leave standing overnight.
Add more salt, if necessary, until fully saturated. There should always be some undissolved salt remaining in solution. Keep the lid on the jar to prevent evaporation.
Upon arising, drink one teaspoon of sole in a glass of spring water to mineralise your body and supply balanced electrolytes.

The Mountain Salt Detox

Mountain salt is used on the skin in ayurvedic medicine to draw toxins from the body and it can serve to boost mineralisation at the same time. A gritty combination of mountain salt and coconut oil can offer the detox equivalent of a 5-day fast. Here’s how you can do it.

The Salt Detox Recipe:

Take a warm shower to open your pores before coating your body with the salt and oil blend.
Combine 3 tablespoons of mountain salt with 2 tablespoons of coconut oil and ¼ teaspoon of lavender oil and mix together until smooth.
Lie down on a large beach towel and cover your entire body with this mixture.
Then wrap yourself in the towel and cover yourself with a blanket.
After 30 minutes, rinse off with warm water and pat yourself dry.

You will feel a warm sensation during this detox as circulation is boosted, and you may also feel energised from the absorption of minerals through the skin.

This salt detox can also be conducted in a Far Infra-Red Sauna without the towel or the blanket.

Hot Mountain Salt Tip – Apply a mountain salt poultice to affected areas and wrap with a cloth or cling wrap to counter arthritis.

Asthma Aid – Add 120 grams of mountain salt to 4 litres of boiling water and dissolve. Place your towel-covered head over the steaming brine solution and inhale. Fifteen minutes of this protocol, twice a day can be very helpful for asthma and bronchitis.

9. Flourish with Fermenting

All of the cultures that have enjoyed longevity have included a little lacto-fermented food with every meal. Why are these naturally pickled taste treats so beneficial? It is all about repopulating your digestive tract with highly beneficial microorganisms to compensate for the daily attrition rate. Any food at all can be lacto fermented and it basically involves utilising the Lactobacillus that are present on the surface of all raw foods to pre-digest that food. In the process of this pre-digestion the organisms produce lactic acid, which serves to preserve the food.

Captain James Cook traveled to Australia with 60 barrels of sauerkraut. He opened the last of these barrels 27 months later and it was still as good as the first one. Lactic acid inhibits putrefying bacteria and hence the shelf life of the preserved food. This was one of the first voyages of discovery where there was no scurvy and yet cabbage contains much less vitamin C than citrus. How was this possible? We will consider this after looking at the benefits offered by Lactobacillus, the probiotic organism involved in fermentation.

Benefits of Probiotics

These critically important creatures manufacture six of the B group vitamins and produce vitamin A and vitamin K. There is currently a flurry of research surrounding vitamin K2, the form of this vitamin that only comes from gut bacteria. It now appears that vitamin K2 does much more than was previously realised. It is a key blood thinner and artery cleaner and it is critical for the uptake of calcium into our bones. It also seems to have major anti-cancer potential with one study showing a 32% reduction in prostate cancer for those who had adequate vitamin K2.

Probiotic organisms promote the uptake of minerals through the gut wall into the blood, they digest lactose and protein, they promote regular bowel movements and produce antibiotics and anti-fungal compounds to neutralise pathogens. They also have anti-cancer effects and help to cleanse environmental pollutants from our bodies. However, none of these benefits explain the lack of scurvy on Cook’s famous journey down under. The reason that pickled cabbage outperformed citrus was related to the remarkable transformation that occurs following lacto-fermentation.

All of the beneficial compounds in those cabbages – the minerals, the vitamins, the antioxidants, the amino acids and the phytonutrients (like sulforaphane) were rendered five times more bio-available following predigestion by the Lactobacillus. This is one of the best arguments for the inclusion of lacto-fermented food into the diet of anyone who seeks a long, happy life. You suddenly have five times more nutritional impact. It is so simple to make fermented food. Here’s how you can make 6 months supply in 10 minutes, for less than $20.

Recipe for Sauerkraut

This recipe is based upon the fastest, cheapest way that you can ferment food but you may choose to use a clay pot with a lid if you would like to be a more elegant.

Take a red cabbage, 500 grams of carrots, a green capsicum, three red onions, 2 cloves of garlic and two chili peppers and chop them up in a food processor.
Mix the processed ingredients together thoroughly and place them in a large container.
Now take a standard 5 litre plastic bucket and add your first layer of the processed vegetable mix. The layer should be about about 4 or 5 cm deep.
Sprinkle a heaped teaspoon of Nutri-Salt™ over your first layer and then disperse 50 mL of Bio-Bubble™ over the layer.
Now create another layer and repeat the process above. Continue with the addition of layers, each treated with Nutri-Salt™ and Bio-Bubble™, until you run out of vegetables.
Now half-fill a plastic bag with water and seal the top with a twist tie or knot.
Place the plastic bag of water into the bucket so that it fully covers the vegetables and forms a loose seal.
Leave the sealed bucket of goodies for 3 or 4 days at room temperature to ferment.
Place the fermented contents of the bucket into jars and store in the refrigerator for daily use.

Note: Conventional fermentation involves all of the steps above but you don’t add the Bio-Bubble™. If you choose to exclude Bio-Bubble™, you will need 3 weeks for the fermentation rather than 3 days. The Bio-Bubble™ also introduces 200 strains of beneficial organisms and this serves to fast track the process while increasing the probiotic potential of the end- product.

10. Learn To Love Lemons

The humble lemon is the most alkalising of all fruits. People are often skeptical about an acidic fruit having an alkalizing effect but the acid or alkalising nature of a food is based upon the end product of the digestion and utilisation of that food. The lemon is a rich source of the alkaline mineral, potassium and this mineral is delivered in the form of potassium citrate – the single most alkalising compound in the human body.

Why Do We Need to Alkalise?

Acidity breeds disease in the soil, in plants, in animals and in the human body. Most of the degenerative diseases have a direct link to acidity. Cancer is profoundly linked. Professor Otto Warburg won his Nobel Prize by determining that an acidic body limits the blood’s capacity to carry oxygen, which in turn creates the anaerobic conditions conducive to cancer. The vast majority of cancer patients are acidic, so the proactive approach to avoiding this disease is to alkalise as a first priority. This typically involves increasing your intake of alkalising foods and minerals and reducing those that form acid. That usually means more fruit and vegetables and less meat and refined carbohydrates (comprehensive lists of alkalising and acid-forming foods are freely available on the internet). It may also involve supplementing magnesium, an alkaline mineral that is lacking in most people.

The Lemon Options

It could be as simple as starting each day with a lemon squeezed into a cup of hot water. If you want to get more serious you might try a lemon cleanse, where you mix 100 mL of freshly squeezed lemon juice with 900 mL of distilled water (the Pureau brand is available at most supermarkets). This solution is consumed at 120 mL per hour and it is washed down with a similar amount of distilled water. It usually takes at least a week of this protocol to reduce systemic acidity. You can monitor your progress using inexpensive pH strips from NTS Health. You should monitor both saliva and urine pH each day and always aim to try and maintain urine pH at 5.8 and saliva pH at 6.8. You are chasing an average pH of 6.4 as this is where everything works best. Interestingly, a soil pH of 6.4 delivers that best response and a plant sap pH of 6.4 will produce the healthiest, most disease resistant plant. A cell is a cell is a cell!

You work out your average pH by multiplying your saliva pH by two, adding your urine pH and dividing the total by 3. i.e. if your saliva pH was 6.8 and your urine pH was 5.8 then you multiply 6.8 times 2, which equals 13.6. Then add 5.8 and the total is 19.4. Now you divide 19.4 by 3 and you get 6.4. This is the healing range that we should all try to maintain.

This is based upon the work of Dr Carey Reams who was a founding father of biological agriculture and a physician. He used a variety of soil and plant monitoring tools to monitor bodily fluids (a pH meter, a conductivity meter and a refractometer) and he apparently achieved amazing diagnostic and treatment outcomes with his system. It is rumoured that his failure rate at his cancer clinic was less than 1%!

The other use of the mighty lemon involves a diet that has become the world’s most popular detox and weight loss tool – the Master Cleanse.

The Master Cleanse

Part of the popularity of this juice fast is that, after day three, you really don’t feel that hungry. For some reason the combination of sweet, sour and hot relieves the hunger pangs. In recent incarnations this cleansing protocol is often called the lemon detox diet, or the lemonade diet. However, it was Hawaiian therapist, Stanley Burroughs, who developed the original “Master Cleanse”, right back in 1941. This diet (or juice fast) involves just three key ingredients, lemons, maple syrup and cayenne pepper. It offers detox, weight loss and healing of the digestive system but there are several other benefits linked to the components.

The lemon juice component supplies almost 600 mg of potassium in a rapidly absorbed form. The maple syrup offers another 600 mg of this mineral and together this represents a significant alkalising impact and improvement in the sodium to potassium ratio. This is probably why the Master Cleanse is renowned for normalising high blood pressure. Potassium is considered to be the single most important mineral in the Gerson cancer protocol and this is arguably the most successful cancer protocol in Europe.

There are other nutrients involved. The maple syrup delivers 12 mg per day of readily absorbed zinc and twice the RDI of manganese. Manganese is critical for cellular energy and deficiencies have been linked to chronic fatigue.

Zinc deficiency is widespread and this is a serious issue as it is so important for the production of killer T cells in the immune system and for the protection of prostates and breasts. The lemon detox diet is now widely used as a prostate cancer protocol and has been shown to reduce PSA levels by up to 50% in repeat tests following the ten day diet.

Canadian Researcher, Nairinda Seeram, has recently identified 20 different antioxidants in maple syrup including powerful flavonoids and a stilbene from the same family as resveratrol. Seeram hypothesizes that the tree releases phenolic compounds in response to invasive shock when the tapping process begins. The maple syrup and lemon juice together also offer 500 mg of fast food calcium each day.

Cayenne pepper is a wonder herb that was favored by the long living Hunzas. Recent research has shown that this extract from chili peppers can remove arterial plaque, lower cholesterol, emulsify triglycerides, remove blood toxins, improve circulation and lower blood pressure. It has also been shown to kill prostate cancer cells, heal stomach ulcers and boost heart health.

Then there are the other benefits of lemon juice. It has twice the vitamin C of oranges and offers major enzyme support. The liver can make more enzymes from fresh lemon juice than from any other food item and lemon improves enzyme performance when the liver is underperforming. Lemon juice also helps to lower uric acid levels.

So, as you can see, there are a multitude of gains associated with the Master Cleanse and that is why I will be braving 10 days with no solid food. There is also the potential of substantial weight loss. Research suggests that most people lose between 5 kg and 7 kg during the ten day diet and it seems to be a sustained weight loss. I have already lost 3 kg in the first three days so I hope it slows down or I will be an emaciated monkey skeleton in another week’s time!

Hot Lemon Tip – Lemon juice is not just a therapeutic marvel on the inside, it can also be used externally. It is an excellent treatment for acne, age spots, sunburn, athlete’s foot, ringworm and warts.

In Conclusion

I am prepared to wager that if you were to adopt these ten suggestions in your life, you would experience some profound changes. If you were to build kale, dark chocolate, ginger tea, goji berries, green powder drinks, red papaya, chia seeds and sprouts, fermented foods, mountain salt and lemon juice into your diet (and the detoxes associated with them), it would be virtually impossible not to experience remarkable benefits. Let me know how you go.