Monday, September 12, 2011

Save Your Life With a Blender


Are you or your parents feeling poorly? Your health declining? Is your stomach constantly messed up? You have have all sorts of ailments like high-blood pressure or gout? 

Would you like to feel twenty years younger? Would you like to help your ailing parents feel better, even just a little bit? Well, you've come to the right place.

When I went to see my dad in hospice the other day, he looked like he was going to die at any minute. Around his eyes were dark and sunken. His cheeks looked the same. Throw in the oxygen tubes he had running in his nose and he looked like he could have keeled over and died at any moment.

That wasn't my dad. That guy near death was some guy I didn't even know.

My father was much worse than the last time I saw him three months ago. At that time, I went to see him right after he had been released from intensive care. We visited him and, within a week, he was up and walking around and feeling much better.

This time, on the first night, as I said, he looked like he was next to death. Besides an oxygen tank, he had a walker and couldn't safely make it by himself from the bedroom to the living room. He couldn't put on his clothes by himself nor could he even button his shirt.

By the time I left 7 days later, he was standing in the kitchen, without a walker, and was cooking his own biscuits and gravy (which, to my chagrin, he laced with salt before eating - as he has always done).

What was the secret to this miraculous conversion? Well, you can bet it wasn't because of the cocktail of chemicals he was being given by the doctors nor his SAD diet (consisting of heated up canned food). I believe that his quick recovery was due to my insistence that he drink one glass of raw vegetable and fruit juice before every meal. Then he can eat whatever he wants.

You don't even need a juicer. A regular old household blender is plenty suitable for making your own fruit and vegetable juice. Just throw in some celery, carrots, broccoli, cabbage, tomatoes, what-have-you with some bottled water then blend at high speed.

After that, add fruits to sweeten it up.


People will always tell you to eat healthy and cut down on processed foods and foods filled with chemicals and salt and other additives. That's obvious.

Everyone knows that eating healthy is better for you than eating the diet which is now referred to as, "SAD" (Standard American Diet).

If you were to list the factors that increase the risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke, intestinal disorders – just about any illness – the standard American diet has them all:
  • High in animal fats
  • High in unhealthy fats: saturated, hydrogenated
  • Low in fiber
  • High in processed foods
  • Low in complex carbohydrates
  • Low in plant-based foods
The striking fact is that cultures that eat the reverse of the standard American diet – low fat, high in complex carbohydrates, plant-based, and high in fiber – have a lower incidence of cancer and coronary artery disease (CAD). What's even more sad is that countries whose populations can afford to eat the healthiest disease-preventing foods don't. The United States has spent more money on cancer research than any country in the world, yet the American diet contributes to the very diseases we are spending money to prevent.

Yes. SAD is poison. But, as with people like my dad, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. He will still eat his mash potatoes and gravy and his steak and potatoes, but at least with a glass of homemade Frappe (juice) he fills his stomach up first and gets those raw veggies his body so desperately needs. And, if he has a glass of that before every meal, he won't eat as much salty chemical laced foods.

It's not the best solution but it is a practical one that worked wonders for me and my father.

It might work wonders for your too. Try it.

For more on raw food and the benefits of drinking raw juice and eating raw foods, check the Live Food Factor.

10 comments:

  1. Very impressive. THanks for the tip.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is amazing. Last night I watched Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead and considered doing a brief juice fast because of it. This morning I see this blog post. My dad had the same eyes shortly before he died. Talk about motivation!

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  3. Hi Mike... interesting.
    So... are the vegetables cooked? Raw cabbage?
    You have me intrigued... what about the fruits? Is it a separate drink from the veggie one?
    Does this drink take the place of an entire meal? How big a drink?
    I could stand to lose 20 lbs... This time I'd like to keep it off... if you can advise further, I would appreciate it.
    Cheers, buddy...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Not all veggies are as good for you raw as they are cooked, much less processed as easily. I get that using your anecdotal evidence backed by confirmation bias research seems to work for you, but while not as tasty, technically microwaving the juice before adding the fruit would bring out more digestible nutritional benefits.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks Mark,

    The Live Food Factor (the bible on raw food diet) written by 4 doctors with Phd's in diet would disagree with you completely. Cooking food - especially microwaving it - destroys enzymes that your body needs to process food. When you cook food, you kill off enzymes and cook out vitamins and minerals (everyone knows that). Microwaving them is the worst thing you can do.

    When you cook or microwave food then ingest it, you are eating dead matter. Your body must work much harder to digest dead materials than live ones. Humans are vegetable and fruit eaters (examine our teeth)... Live Food Factor Chapter 1.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Mike is right. Microwaving food is one of the worst things you can do to it. Microwaving changes the molecular structure of foods (imagine that bombing your food with microwaves could possible be healthy for you!)

    The only things worse than microwaving food is burning it to a charcoal state.

    Microwaving is OK for frozen foods and processed foods as those are already in a poisonous state.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I don't know why I bother, I do enjoy your blog and this likely bugs the crap out of you, but I feel obligated to say that you have confirmation bias and can't see past it.

    Here's an easy link to refute that cooked vegetables can be more beneficial than raw ones, depending on what you want to get out of them. I mean, it sources as few as 4 doctors, so it is therefore equally scientifically valid to your book by your logic.


    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=raw-veggies-are-healthier

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks Mark,
    If you can't be polite, don't post here. Confirmation bias? I speak from experience and have written articles on the subject, of which I suspect that you didn't bother to click on the links and read.

    I have been raw food for over 4 years.

    Even in your article, the advantages of cooking seems debatable. But nowhere is anything you have sent does it say that microwaving food is better. It's not even mentioned in your article at all. Yet you claim that microwaving juice is better for one's health.

    I won't argue with you excepting to say that what is best for each is up to the person. It seems to me you have a confirmation bias. I at least read your article, but you don't bother to read the links provided so I can't help you with your "bias..."

    Here's two for you to read:
    Microwave Ovens Destroy the Nutritional Value of Your Food..

    The Science of Raw Food.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Dr. Sears might not like animal fats, but they seem pretty good from this perspective, your raw foods theme fits in too:

    http://www.marksdailyapple.com/primal-blueprint-101/

    Also, your blog post reminded me of this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2011630/Cutting-salt-dosnt-make-healthier.html#ixzz1XncLDSkS

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1383393/Salt-intake-drop-increase-chances-heart-disease.html

    Years ago the official experts warned People to cut back on eggs or else your cholesterol would go up.
    Then, they came across this old man in the Midwest who had primarily been living on eggs for many many years,... his cholesterol level was perfect.

    I, myself, am inclined to listen to one of the worlds oldest men, his secret was lots of whiskey, cigarettes and wild women. ... problem is, I don't care for whiskey. I have to work on that.

    - clark

    ReplyDelete
  10. This happened to my dad too! He smokes cigs a lot and often drinks alcohol too, the doctor warned him about his health. And after he's taking a vegetable extract in powder form, his health improves quite significantly! The vegetable extract works in the same way as the fruit and veggie juice, but it's a lil' bit more practical in the serving I think.
    Hope all is well for your dad!

    ReplyDelete

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