You can reduce stress—lose weight—detoxify—stop smoking—increase energy with living foods

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, April, 2003 by Ronald Bradley

Since 1960, hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world have improved their health remarkably by following the 100% vegan wheatgrass and living foods program developed by Dr. Ann Wigmore of Boston, USA. People with health problems such as overweight, stress, tobacco and caffeine addiction, high blood pressure, low energy, Candida albicans, high cholesterol, hypoglycemia, diabetes, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, cancer and many others have seen stunning improvements.

Dr. Wigmore's program, as conducted at Hippocrates Health Centre of Australia on the Gold Coast (since 1985), includes 14 major components, including: positive thinking, affirmations, meditation, visualization, Grander "Living Water," breathing, rest, gentle physical exercise, brushing the skin, steam detoxification, lymphacizing, 100% vegan raw foods, wheatgrass juice, colon cleansing with water enemas, followed by wheatgrass juice implants. In this article, we'll focus on the last three components.

Raw Foods

Why are raw foods vital for our health? There's a one-word answer: enzymes. Enzymes are catalysts in the body -- protein-like substances that maintain the tissues and general body functions, and digest food.

How important are enzymes? Totally. Life and enzyme activity are synonymous. Life cannot exist without enzymes.

Raw foods are brimming with food enzymes. Cooking food damages, and frequently destroys, these food enzymes. Heating food above only 40[degress]C begins to kill food enzymes, and heating food to 48[degrees]C for more than 30 minutes destroys all food enzymes.

When we eat raw foods, we consume the enzymes in the foods. Raw foods are thus easily digested by the body. When we eat cooked foods though, the body must create the enzymes necessary to digest the cooked foods. This constant need for digestive enzymes thereby depletes and stresses the body.

Without enzymes, we're dead. In fact, Dr. Edward Howell, the distinguished American physician who devoted his life to the study of enzymes, stated in his classic work, Food Enzymes for Health and Longevity, "After we have attained full mature growth, there is a slow and gradual decrease in the enzyme content of our bodies. When the enzyme content becomes so low that metabolism cannot proceed at a proper level, death overtakes us."

Imagine yourself at age 18 -- healthy, vibrant, energetic, bursting with enzymes. If you were to eat an all raw or predominantly raw diet from that point on, your body's enzyme content would remain high, diminishing very slowly. You'd probably live longer, feel younger, maintain proper weight easily and handle stress better.

On the other hand, if you (like most Westerners) were to consume a diet of predominantly cooked food, your body's enzyme content, would deplete rapidly. You'd probably live a shorter life, gain weight, and feel stressed and worse in general.

Which do you choose? Along, healthful life? Or a shorter, unhealthful life? Remember: you don't make this choice just once. Nature allows you to choose again and again -- for the rest of your life, every time you put anything in your mouth.

Sprouts and Greens

Sprouts and greens are also important in the Hippocrates Program. Any seed or grain can be sprouted, and the sprouting process creates even more enzymes and vitamins in the seeds and grains. In fact, all seeds, nuts and grains must be sprouted or soaked before eating, in order to release the enzyme inhibitors.

Buckwheat and sunflower greens may be grown in planting trays. Remember though: you must use dark unhulled buckwheat and sunflower seeds, not the pale hulled buckwheat you may have cooked for porridge in the past, or the pale sunflower kernels you've eaten.

Fermented Foods

Fermented foods (rejuvelac and sauerkraut) are very important for optimum health. Why? Once again -- food enzymes. The fermentation process creates more food enzymes, and the fermented foods thus digest even more easily. Long-lived peoples throughout the world -- the Huazas, the Bulgarians, the Vilcabambans and many others -- have been noted for their traditional consumption of home-made fermented foods. In fact, the Eskimos have even found that their working Huskies can work harder and longer after eating fermented meat -- left in the semi-frozen slush for weeks or months -- than after eating freshly killed meat.

In recent years fermented foods have become misunderstood by some. Because cooked yeast in bread, beer and other foods has stimulated growth of the Candida albicans bacteria, some have concluded that all fermented foods have the same effect in the body. Wrong! How do we know? Because most people have Candida to at least a small degree. Everyone who has attended Hippocrates has consumed yeasty foods: rejuvelac, and sauerkraut (cabbage, beetroot, carrot). And everyone has reported lessened Candida symptoms, and experienced better health. We've therefore concluded that live yeast bacteria in raw fermented foods don't aggravate Candida. Cooked yeast in bread -- and drugs (legal and illegal), steroids, antibiotics, birth control pills, alcohol and refined sugar (found in virtually every processed food) all aggravate Candida.