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Radiant Health and a Kinder, Gentler World

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Part 6, Chapter 58: The Health Continuum and Tying It All Together

I’ve covered many subjects in this book related to regaining your health and then staying healthy.

I’ve been actively studying health and fitness for over 30 years now and have had much training on the subject. There are, of course, many conflicting opinions out there. The in-formation presented in this book covers what I believe to be essential truth.

According to Dr. Bragg and Mark Kimchi, producer of the movie “Raw Food Documen-tary National Geographic Special Full New Vegan Weight Loss”, in reality there is essen-tially only one disease: Toxicity. There are, obviously, viral and bacterial diseases and, of course, people sometimes need emergency care for accidents and really serious life-threatening situations. Mr. Kimchi is referring to the vast majority of diseases related to lifestyle issues. According to MedicalNet.com, a lifestyle disease is “[a] disease associated with the way a person or group of people lives. Lifestyle diseases include atherosclero-sis, heart disease, and stroke; obesity and type 2 diabetes; and diseases associated with smoking and alcohol and drug abuse.”{1} It’s a pretty broad definition but essentially refers to diseases that are a direct consequence of people’s dietary choices. I would expand this list to include the vast majority of autoimmune diseases and conditions such as autism and Alzheimer’s disease, primarily because they can be traced back to either the body incorrectly responding to otherwise ‘harmless’ substances (autoimmune disease) or as a direct result of toxicity. (There is growing evidence of the role of vaccines in the increase of autism though I don’t personally think that vaccines are the only trigger in such in-stances.)

Mark Kimchi has the unmitigated gall to claim that the vast majority of disease can be cured by two processes.

1 Provide the body with abundant assimilable nutrition. In this case his therapy is fresh fruit and vegetable juices.

2 Quit feeding the body food and food products that are inherently destructive. The list is extensive: Meat, fish, dairy, sugar, flour, processed food, fast food, processed fats, high fructose corn syrup, trans fat … essentially the Standard American Diet.

To the above I would add restricted eating, which essentially is what a juice fast is. Actual fasting, too, very much falls under the realm of restricted eating.

The general approach of allopathic medicine is to treat the symptoms of disease to make the symptoms ‘go away’. Of what the actually cause of the disease is—to many doctors that’s not really a critical question. Nor do they really know what causes a particular con-dition. Their goal is to get the body’s operating parameters within a certain range, even if that means giving the patient a chemical control, a drug, to force a particular outcome.

Admittedly, sometimes drugs are a necessary stop gap measure. Unfortunately, drugs lead to side effects, so often more drugs are added to offset the new symptoms and then more


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drugs to offset even more symptoms—and suddenly you have an avalanche of ‘sick symp-toms’, and still no answer as per the actual cause or cure for the condition.

I submit that for the VAST majority of diseases the body knows how to cure itself. It re-quires only two things: The nutrients necessary to repair the damage and the avoidance of substances that will create the underlying issue. It’s an incredibly bold claim!

Hippocrates was right: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” The devil is in the details, of course. However, it is also true that the vast majority of what is sold as ‘food’ in the modern world is merely food-like: Something else, especially after it’s been processed. It’s definitely NOT what nature intended—and probably never even conceived of as possible in many cases. More and more it’s getting harder and harder to find fruits and vegetables that are highly nutritious and uncontaminated by modern farming pro-cesses. If our farm produce is contaminated, how much worse is food that is genetically modified and processed with so many chemicals that you need a chemical dictionary to understand what’s in it?

I’ve studied nutrition for many years and tried to come up with a way to explain it. The simplest way is to consider health, or the lack thereof, as a continuum. At the one end it absolute abundant health, virtually perfect health. At the opposite end is a plethora of disease conditions.

EVERYTHING we consume has an effect on our health. Fruits and vegetables are consid-ered health promoting while processed and fast food, both likely full of chemicals, are health damaging. Pharmaceutical drugs, too, are inherently toxic to the body and, in fact, are functionally designed to disrupt normal body functions. Unfortunately, because of other health damaging habits—drinking alcohol or a diet heavy in junk food—these too can create serious damage to the delicate balance that the body tries to maintain. There are doubtless thousands of factors that contribute to health on the one hand and disease on the other. “Let food be thy medicine” is a great idea, but it’s critical that it be healthy food—and truly healthy REAL food. Chicken fried in hydrogenated oil, sides made from processed package food and Twinkies for dessert are NOT real food and provide the body with little nutrition and a host of toxic side effects. Equally important is restricted eating and fasting in particular.

Unfortunately, in this country the Standard American Diet is similar to the seesaw illus-trated here. Consider the small bear the 5% fruits and vegetables that most people eat. The large bear is the other 95% Standard American Diet. In such a scenario, there’s no way that someone is going to achieve opti-mum health (the little bear on the ground). The only way to reverse this scenario is to heavily nutrify the body (make the little bear bigger). At the same time, the other half of the equation is to eliminate, or at least seri-ously reduce, the amount of toxins entering the body (make the oversized bear very small).

Too, what I’ve also discovered is that it takes very little toxic food to shift the balance in the negative direction. In my own case I’ve consumed an above average diet for several years now. Yet, 1 or 2 4-packs of Keystone Light can totally offset any progress I make toward reaching optimum health. It’s all a matter of degree.

Health is, essentially, a continuum. Everything we do, and especially the food we eat, will either move us in the direction of health and fitness or move us in the direction of sick-

{4}


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ness and disease. Many lifestyle habits—smoking and drinking come to mind—are seri-ously counter productive. Other habits like drinking fresh fruit and vegetable juice and exercise, are health supporting. The three pivotal steps that must be taken to develop optimum health are listed below.

1 Live on a diet that is 90%-95% vegan: fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and sprouts.2 Avoid consuming foods and food-like substances that poison the body.3 Systematically fast, ideally one day a week and more often if possible.

Of dietary choices, the following illustration makes the point abundantly clear. The more you follow a vegan diet, point 1 above, the closer you’ll move toward abundant health and wellness. At the same time, the more unhealthy foods that you eat, point 2 above, the closer you’ll move toward disease and death. I really don’t think I can make the point any clearer. Such is the reality of the health continuum.

According to Dr. Bragg we all have nine inherent natural ‘doctors’ at our disposal to facili-tate health. I’ve already talked about most them in this book.

• Sunshine• Fresh air• Pure water• Healthy natural foods• Fasting• Exercise• Rest• Good posture• The human mind{3}

The following is a summary of each of these health factors. It’s what I would call a truly well rounded approach to optimum health.

{3}


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SunshineHeliotherapy, solar energy, is a great healer. “All living things on earth depend on solar energy, the source of all life on earth. This earth would be a barren, frigid place if it were not for magic sun rays.”{5}

These days many people appear to be terrified of going out in the sun. They apply layers of so-called sun screen, which is inherently toxic and blocks the sun and the healthy for-mation of vitamin D3. I have spent a number of years working in the sun spending many hours a day outdoors. The worst ‘symptom’ I ever had was a glowing suntan. Too, it’s a well established fact that sunshine is critical for the formation of vitamin D. One could write an entire book on the subject of all that vitamin D does. (For details on vitamin D, read the “Vitamin D Solution” by Michael F. Holick, PhD, MD.)

Easiest of all: Grow a garden which will provide you the opportunity to get all the sunshine you need. Too, there are huge benefits from growing your own fresh vegetables full of vital chlorophyll—liquid sunshine.

Fresh AirPart and parcel with exercise is breathing. Obviously, one has to breath to stay alive, but that’s not the kind of breathing that Dr. Bragg is talking about. Deep breathing is critical for the exchange of gasses and in particular for getting rid of carbon dioxide. Dr. Bragg expresses the importance of deep breathing like this:

If a person doesn’t get enough fresh air—or if they are a shallow breather—and the oxygen intake doesn’t equal the outgo of carbon dioxide, then these toxic poisons can build up within the body structure. This can result in serious physical problems as the retained carbon dioxide can concentrate in other parts of the body to cause intense physical suffering.

Enervation (lack of nerve energy), could lower the vital force so much that the body’s great bellows—the lungs—cannot pump in enough air to flush the carbon di-oxide out of the body. See how important it is that you not only breathe fresh, clean air, but always be conscious that you must breathe deeply in and deeply out!{6}

I never realized just how important breathing was until my mother started developing severe breathing problems. She had a weak heart to start with—too many years of dietary abuse—but for many years a pacemaker forced her heart to keep pumping at a regular level in spite of ever diminishing vital energy. A few weeks before her passing her breath-ing was so labored that she required treatment with a BiPAP machine in the emergency room. While the doctors were able to get her ‘resuscitated’, even then we knew that her heart was failing. The pacemaker was no longer able to keep her heart pumping. At this juncture it was obvious to Emmale and me that my mother would not be with us much longer. Ultimately, at the end there was insufficient vital energy left to continue to suf-ficiently pump oxygen. In part because of heart failure and in part because of a severe build up of carbon dioxide, it was only a matter of minutes before we knew that she would be gone.

One of the truly best ways to breathe deeply is via sustained cardiovascular exercise. In my own case, I walk on a treadmill three or four times a week wherein I get my heart rate up above 120 beats per minute. In so doing one is forced to take in a lot of oxygen which then is used to heavily oxygenate the body’s cells. At the same time, carbon dioxide and other toxic gasses are flushed out. It’s a win-win situation all the way around, plus it strengthens the heart, which is, after all, just another muscle.

Most of all, when working out in your garden, take the time to breath in the fresh air and fully embrace the life-force that a garden is. To be sure, there is something inherently life


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giving about being in a lush garden, rich in chlorophyll and sunshine. It’s a vastly differ-ent, and far healthier, world than most of us live in wherein we spend much of our lives living in toxic buildings under artificial light and temperature control.

Pure WaterI talked extensively about water under the heading “The Importance of Drinking Water”, chapter 28. One thing I didn’t mention was fluoride.

Millions of innocent people have been brainwashed by the aluminum companies to erroneously believe that adding sodium fluoride (their waste by-product) to our drinking water will reduce tooth decay in our children. Americans get sodium fluo-ride in their drinking water without thinking about it. Sodium fluorine, a chemical “cousin” of sodium fluoride, is used as a rat and roach killer and a deadly pesticide! Yet this deadly sodium fluoride, injected almost by government edict into our drink-ing water in the proportion of 1.2 parts per million (PPM), has been declared by the US Public Health Service to be “safe for all human consumption”. Every chemist knows that such “absolute safety” is not only false and unattainable, but total illu-sion!{7}

A good water filtering system will take out fluoride, among other chemicals. Still, I’ve become convinced that the only safe water to drink is pure distilled water which is guaran-teed to be free of ALL chemicals. While writing this book I was also making pickles. Part of the process involves pouring boiling water over the pickles and allowing the pickles to cure. For any water used to cook with I use our water filter’s water. Shown here was the pan after two pots of water were boiled. It’s a rather expensive pot guaranteed to not leach metal contaminates into your water, and I use this pot for making vegan veg-etable broth for that reason. I was quite shocked when I went to fill this pot for the next phase of my pickling pro-cess. It was covered with this white powdery residue. I would have expected this if preparing salted boiling wa-ter. I did not expect this after boiling my filtered water. (I’m thinking that it’s time to get a new water filter!) Indeed I’m convinced that distilled water is the only water safe for drinking. Of the virtues of distilled water, Dr. Bragg has this to say:

Doctor Pure Water [using his healthy physician’s metaphor] is a vitally important healer and splendid friend. Water is involved in nearly every body process … Water makes up about 70% of your body, so you need a continuous replacement to keep your water level normal and healthy. Optimum is 8 to 10 glasses daily. When you eat fruits and vegetables you are also adding their liquids (distilled by nature) to your healthy diet.{8}

Dr. Bragg talks a lot about water. In fact one of his books, “Water: The Shocking Truth That can Save Your Life” is totally dedicated to the subject. Suffice it to say that water is critically important to your health.

Healthy Natural FoodsI’ve talked extensively about the importance of healthy REAL food for the body. The list is extensive: fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and sprouts. It also includes healthy oil: coco-nut, extra virgin olive and avocado oil. Really important too is Bragg’s apple cider vinegar. Moreover are minor foods such as organic honey and pure maple syrup. A significant part of the diet can be whole grains, though technically these fall under the category of seeds,


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previously mentioned. The same is true of beans and legumes.

The three remaining supporting foods are more supplements than food.

• An omega-3 compound is critical. It can be obtained from flaxseed oil but more readily from fish oil tablets, which admittedly is not vegan.

• Simply as a matter of erring on the side of caution, taking a multivitamin, and espe-cially a vitamin B-Complex supplement, in particular vitamin B12 in it is critical. This is especially so if you consume little or no meat. The vitamin B group is important for proper sugar metabolism important for stabilizing the nervous system.

The awful price we pay for our destruction of the B-Complex vitamins in our “civi-lized” foods is evident in the confusion, discouragement and desire for suicide—combined with the nervousness and excessive fatigue—so common in our lives and world today. In our opinion the excessive use of tobacco, alcohol, coffee, tea, cola drinks and drugs is directly related to a deficiency in B-Complex vitamins.

Millions suffer vitamin B-complex deficiency: People of every age go about their daily business with their vital energies barely above the point of exhaustion. Watch carefully what they eat and you will find they are not eating foods that help to build nerve force.{9}

• Another important nutrient requiring supplementation is iodine, readily available in sea kelp. If you eat sea vegetables as part of your diet, getting enough iodine is not an is-sue. Still, for some people—myself included—seaweed is not my idea of a delicious and delectable food. In particular, iodine is critical for thyroid function.

Beyond these the body will tolerate small amounts of other food. Tolerate is the word. I mentioned at the beginning of this section that health is a continuum. I have discovered that when I’m really on a focused vegan diet that I feel really good. If I deviate and start to eat bread, cheese, any kind of meat, pizza, and obviously beer, it doesn’t take long be-fore I feel lousy, weakened really. Too, with the addition of any of these ‘foods’ acid reflux becomes an issue. On a strictly vegan protocol I NEVER experience acid reflux.

My standard as the ideal diet consists of 90%-95% vegan foods, preferably raw as much as possible. That doesn’t leave room for much other stuff. The reason is simple: it requires relatively small amounts of non-vegan foods to disrupt the health continuum. This I have proven to myself time and time again. It’s all part of the “Ow it hurts when I do that so don’t do that syndrome.”

At the same time, on a Standard American Diet people are never really healthy. At such a time there are so many toxins entering the body that true health is not possible. Such people are actually sick all the time: headaches, sinus issues, fatigue, brain fog, aches and pains, allergies, digestive upset … however, since it tends to be chronic most people think that this is simply the normal way to feel. It is not. As one switches to a vegan based diet, and especially once fasting and juicing have become large components of their lifestyle, the change in how they feel is truly astounding. At the same time, if you go off track and revert to a Standard American Diet, the symptoms of this indiscretion become all the more apparent. As noted numerous times in this book, you are free to choose to eat anything that you want, but you are not free to choose, or ignore, the consequences, whether good or bad. As I’ve aged chronologically the reality of this truth has sunk in deeper and deeper. Dr. Bragg notes the following:

[The body …] is the only fine machine I know of that contains its own repair shop. It’ll work wonders if you give it the proper tools! It is constantly working for you! Its old cells are being destroyed and renewed every second. Biologically, it has no age limit. In fact, there is no biological reason for man to grow old at all. The body has the seed of eternal life! Man does not die. He commits slow suicide with his un-healthy lifestyle habits of living.{10}


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Slow suicide is a good way to put it. Having this realization led Joe Cross to doing his 60-day juice fast—when he realized that he was “fat, sick and nearly dead” from years of nutritional abuse. And he was. Along the way almost all of us hit some sort of health crisis that forces us to sit up and take notice, to force us to realize that Mother Nature is not playing games and that you ARE punished for stupid behavior.

FastingI’ve already talked extensively about fasting. The following from Dr. Bragg summarizes it far better than I ever could:

There is a misconception about fasting that must be clarified. It must be definitely and positively stated that fasting is not a cure for any disease or ailment. The pur-pose of a fast is to allow the body’s vital force full range and scope to fulfill its own self-healing, self-repairing and self-rejuvenating functions to the best advantage [and as your body ‘sees’ fit]. Healing is an internal biological function. Fasting gives the body a physiological rest and permits the body to become 100% efficient in healing itself. Fasting under proper care or with workable knowledge is probably the fastest way and the safest means of regaining health ever conceived by the human mind!{11}

Is fasting tough? It can be. Is it worth the effort? Absolutely!

ExerciseThe activity that we love to hate: Exercise. When getting up on my exercise days, there’s hardly a time that I don’t have to ‘talk myself into’ going and working out. There are at least a dozen things I’d rather be doing. Still, I’ve come to learn that exercise is a critical part of achieving excellent health. To be sure, building muscle increases the body’s ability to handle day to day tasks. When I garden, for example, I find that I don’t get tired out even after hours outdoors. Too, back pain has virtually become an issue of the past. Again using his physician’s metaphor, Dr. Bragg sums up the importance of exercise:

Doctor Exercise makes this statement, “To rest is to rust!” And rust means decay and destruction. In other words, the good doctor tells us that activity is life and stagnation is death. The good doctor further informs us that if we do not use our muscles, we lose them! [Of this there is no doubt!] In order to keep muscles firm, strong, vigorous and youthful, they must be continually used. Activity is the law of life! Action is the law of well-being. Every vital organ of the body has its specialized work, and its performance depends on its development, strength and health.

When we use the body, we build endurance, strength and vigor. When we become lazy and do not use our muscles, it brings decay and slow death. Daily exercise quickens and equalizes the circulation of the blood, but in laziness the blood does not circulate as freely and the changes in it that are so vital to life and health do not take place. [When] we have poor muscle tone … the muscles become flabby and unable to perform vigorous activity.{12}

Dr. Bragg has a lot more to say about exercise but I think it is best summarized like this: just do it. The fact is, failing to properly exercise is putting a nail in your own coffin. Like fasting, drinking enough pure water and living on predominately fruits and vegetables, exercise is part of the process to moves you toward the healthy side of the health con-tinuum.


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RestRest seems like an odd thing to include in a book related to health. As Dr. Bragg uses the term:

Rest means repose, freedom from activity, quiet and tranquility to me. It means peace of mind and spirit. It means to rest without anxiety or worry. It means to refresh oneself. Your rest should refresh your whole nervous system and entire body.{13}

It’s very specific. Sitting on the couch mindlessly watching television eating pizza and drinking beer is not rest. This activity is more like slow suicide.

There are obvious considerations. Lying on a firm bed with loose fitting clothing with your mind clear of anxiety and worry comes to mind. Another great way to rest is a sunbath on a warm day. The idea is to slow the mind and the body, to downshift to a state of calm-ness. In the society in which we live most people are in a constant state of activity. To be sure:

Sleep is the greatest revitalizer, but so few people get a long, peaceful and refresh-ing night’s sleep. Most people habitually use stimulants: Tobacco, drugs, coffee, tea, alcohol, sugar, chocolate and cola drinks. All of these whip the tired nerves, so people who use these stimulants can never have complete rest and relaxation be-cause their nerves are always in an excited “on” condition!{14}

Such constant activity is literally hard on the nerves. Many people are, to a great extent because of their diets, “nervous wrecks”. The danger of our overly active modern lifestyle is that we are so busy being busy that our bodies are in a constant state of exhaustion. Not only are we over stimulating ourselves, but we are also heavily addicted to sleep aids just to ‘calm’ the body down enough to essentially knock ourselves out. If it’s not seda-tives it’s mood enhancing drugs that force you to ‘chill’. Then there’s always the reliable drinking alcohol until you pass out. None of these approaches are good for either the body or the soul and all have secondary side effects. Even our ‘vacations’ tend to be so jam packed that we need a vacation from our vacation just to recover.

In a New York Times Magazine article titled “Insomnia - Overview”{15}, they state:

About 20% or more of older American adults use some form of sleep aid, includ-ing prescription or over-the-counter drugs or alcohol. Many use such aids every night. Over-the-counter or nonprescription medications make use of the drowsiness caused by some common medications. Prescription drugs used specifically for im-proving sleeping are called sedative hypnotics. These drugs include benzodiazepines and non-benzodiazepines.

Sedative hypnotics carry risks for withdrawal, dependency, and rebound insomnia. The chance of risk for these problems varies among different drugs.

Unfortunately, most of these drugs leave patients feeling drowsy the next day and may not be very effective in providing restful sleep. Side effects include:

• Daytime sleepiness• Cognitive impairment• Dizziness• Drunken movements• Blurred vision• Dry mouth and throat{16}

Something is seriously wrong with this picture. How did we ever become a society that had to have a stimulant to ‘wake up’, a drug such as alcohol to ‘calm down’ and yet an-other drug to ‘rest and recover’ at night? The fact is that “you may drug yourself into un-consciousness, but you cannot drug yourself into a restful, normal, healthy and satisfying


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sleep.”{17}

One of the profound benefits of fasting, when various drugs and chemicals are let go of, is that the body can actually reach a true state of being cleansed. In the process people ac-tually start to get real rest, and rest where nerves and other tissues can actually recharge and recover. Essential, too, is to engage in recreation—the process of re-creating. Going on a real vacation comes to mind.

(Shown here one picture was from 1965 and one from 1990. The first was from the Internet which shows the south side of Sanibel island. Of the second, I have no idea—perhaps a timed exposure off a tripod.)

When I was young my parents would take me to white sand beach of Sanibel Island on the west coast of Florida. It didn’t take long before the salt air and the warm sun made all the stresses of life seem like they were a million miles away. That was true rest and relaxation.

Too, as an adult, when I lived in south Florida, I would take my dogs and we would go to Hutchinson Is-land. These are what I would qualify as truly restful occasions. Dr. Bragg offers excellent advise:

Plan, plot and follow through so your days have time for rest, recreation, exercise and a good night’s sleep. You can’t get a good night’s sleep if you overload your stomach and nervous sys-tem! Your body will have a good night’s sleep if you have some vigorous, out-of-door exercise as a brisk 2-3 mile walk, garden work, etc. It’s also vital to nourish your body with healthy foods and distilled water. Let it have plenty of fresh air, quiet and gentle sunlight. Have a balanced program of exercise and repose. Let Mother Nature do the rest. Treat yourself as if you were a fine, purebred race horse and, as surely as it will win prizes, so will you!{18}

Dr. Bragg is so right.

Good PostureI can still hear one of my teachers back in elementary school saying “Stand up straight” or “Don’t slouch: It makes you look lazy.”

I’m sure part of the reason that sergeants in the military require solders to stand at atten-tion—shoulders straight, chest out, stomachs in—is that it gets one to focus. At the same time, after my mother’s hip replacement surgery, and as osteoporosis continued to de-velop—again a dietary issue—she would be more and more bent over. The more hunched over she was the more her ability to think diminished.


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Why should emphasis be placed upon resisting the pull of gravity? This is very easy to explain. In the past, as long as your muscles were strong enough they held up your skeleton—with its many points and sections—in proper balance and free from strain or discomfort. Maybe now your muscles are losing the battle with gravity. Maybe you have now become prematurely older, heavier or inactivity has weakened your muscles just enough to cause you pain and an uncomfortable state of balance causing poor posture.{19}

Dr. Bragg has a point. As I first turned 60 I was starting to slouch. Since I’ve been ex-ercising and strengthening my muscles I’ve been standing up straighter. Too, back pain has all but disappeared. Taking two Aleve in the morning and two at night is not the solu-tion for back pain; exercise is. Nor is eating a Standard American Diet going to help your muscles. The toxins create weakened muscles and fill joints with painful crystals.

When I was much younger, back in the 1980’s, I had the opportunity to see a therapist. There really wasn’t anything wrong with me other than I suffered from terribly low self esteem. He did much to help me turn my life around. Part of his therapy was to get me involved with a teacher that taught the Alexander technique, a technique that Dr. Bragg whole heartedly endorses. For those not familiar with this process:

The Alexander Technique is a way of learning to move mindfully through life. The Alexander process shines a light on inefficient habits of movement and patterns of accumulated tension, which interferes with our innate ability to move easily and ac-cording to how we are designed. It’s a simple yet powerful approach that offers the opportunity to take charge of one’s own learning and healing process, because it’s not a series of passive treatments but an active exploration that changes the way one thinks and responds in activity. It produces a skill set that can be applied in ev-ery situation. Lessons leave one feeling lighter, freer, and more grounded.{20}

It’s a remarkably effective therapy and made me aware that my slouching habit at the time was damaging to more than my body. Learning how to actually stand up straight had an amazing effect on my life. My world changed because of this training and the therapy. I quit my job working in a dead end grocery store job and went to college which eventually lead to earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in Digital Design. It was while at college that I started studying nutrition in earnest.

Suffice it to say that structural issues are important. Posture is just one part of the equa-tion, but it’s an important part. Still, to have good posture requires much vital energy as well as a strong, well toned musculature. More than anything, posture is a reflection of what’s going on inside the body. My elementary school teacher was right, at least in con-cept. Your posture makes a huge difference.

The Human MindMark Twain was reported to have said, “Of all the things I’ve lost, I miss my mind the most.”{21} At least he was the first person to write this down. Having lived with a mother with Alzheimer’s disease for over five years, I don’t find this remark humorous. I do find it insightful, however. A man can endure many things but if he loses his mind he loses ev-erything.

Man … is composed of a trinity. The soul is the first man, the ego, the individual, the personality, which makes each of us unique. The mind is the second man, through which the soul or the first man is expressed; the soul’s only means of ex-pression. The body is the third man, the physical, visible part; the means by which the mind expresses; also its only means, and its only mode of contact with environ-ment. These three are one, just as the [Christian] Godhead (the Divine Force) is one, each making a part of this miracle called man.{22}


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The soul is mostly considered the immortal spiritual side of man. I’m not here to debate the subject. The mind is a hybrid somewhere between ethereal and physical, somehow connected to the soul and clearly connected to the body. The body makes it possible to live in a three dimensional world and provides sensory input to the brain. Still, as Dr. Bragg would point out, “Correct thinking is important for health.”{23} I would say it’s criti-cal. I’ve talked much about healthful lifestyle habits in this book. After thirty-plus years of research, I’m thoroughly convinced that I have spoken the truth and FINALLY got it all together. Still, it’s ultimately the mind that makes the decision of what you will or will not eat.

A person’s health can almost always be restored. It’s a matter of the volition to do so. Nevertheless, it takes an enormous amount of will and vital force to follow the principles discussed in this book. To be sure, most of us have to face some sort of a health crisis before we finally decide to make meaningful changes in our life.

In the case of Dr. Bragg, it was developing tuberculosis wherein he went to Switzerland where he was cured via a natural approach. At the age of 17 Jack LaLanne, a hard-core sugar and junk food addict, turned his life around after listening to a lecture by Dr. Bragg. At age 25 Jay Kordish was diagnosed with a life threatening disease and was cured through a regimen of fresh fruit and vegetable juices. As a follower of Dr. Bragg he went on to become the “Juiceman” and revolutionized the world of juicing. Joe Cross, an ex-tremely successful investment advisor, turned his life around after a 60-day juice fast after he realized that he was “fat, sick and nearly dead”—which went on to become his famous movie.

I can hardly claim to be in the same league as these gentleman. I started taking my health very seriously after almost dying from a bleeding ulcer. According to Emmale I had no vital signs for close to 30 seconds and then miraculously ‘returned’—and maybe it was miraculous. (Whether I truly “died” is a still a matter of debate. Still, much changed after this life-altering event.) I could name many others who have had serious health crises and turned their life around via adopting a predominantly vegan lifestyle.

The one thing we’ve all had in common was the will and vital force to make changes hap-pen. Too, we’ve all had to educate ourselves to what true health is all about.

Still, the mind can be tricked by the body. The fungus Candida albicans can grow out of control in the body especially in the presence of copious quantities of sugar, and especially high fructose corn syrup. There are hundreds of symptoms of this fungus when it over grows, though this is outside the scope of this book. Suffice it to say that, for me, it trig-gered an intense craving for Keystone Light. The more I drank the more the fungus prolif-erated and the more it grew the more I drank. Moreover:

The “drug addict” is the extreme example of the body ruling the mind! Sadly this is why America and the world are over-populated with drug addicts! The body’s crav-ing for drugs is forcing the mind to command the body to commit crimes of violence for money so that it may satisfy the body with the drugs it craves! This is why the world is becoming crime riddled by drug addicts.

We maintain most of our bad habits simply because our minds are enslaved by our bodies. This applies also to alcohol, coffee, nicotine, sugar and other stimulants. The body rules by the false philosophy of “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die”. You don’t die tomorrow, but if you continue to live by this wrong philosophy, 5, 10, 20 years later you will burden your family, friends, and yourself with a sick, prematurely aged body that will torment you daily.{24}

More than anything else, however, the choice to live on a Standard American Diet is one of ignorance. It’s what our grandparents did. It’s what our parents did. It’s what we learned to do. Moreover, there are many very powerful corporate and political interests that are not interested in your health and well being. They would just as soon you ignore


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everything is this book and buy their poisonous products—and the more the better. Not that they will pay your medical bills when the inevitable disease that their products cause comes upon you. Still, at that point there are a plethora of drug companies out there ready to sell you their poisonous drugs to treat the symptoms that you experience as a result of your own bad dietary choices.

The decision to live a healthy lifestyle, to avoid sickness and disease altogether—and es-pecially the preventable conditions—is not an easy one to implement. The most important tool in this process is your mind and, more to the point, your highly educated mind. As Fox Mulder would say, the truth is out there. The question is: Will you act on that truth?

The key to health and wellness is, very simply, a 90%-95% vegan diet, avoiding poisoning your body with foods on the Standard American Diet and, most importantly, fasting. I’ve talked about three different kinds of fasting in this book but the most powerful form is one where only distilled water (with a little Bragg’s apple cider vinegar) is consumed. Under the heading of mental clarity, Dr. Bragg has much to say on this subject:

As the body cleanses and heals itself through fasting, keener mental concentra-tion and clearer spiritual perception develop. Remember, the brain is the physical instrument of the mind. As the mucus and toxic wastes are flushed from the brain cells, with it goes the worries and frustrations from your mind, it becomes free and clearer. You think more intelligently and logically. Your memory becomes sharp and keen. Your creative powers are soon expanded. You are able to face reality and yourself … and begin to view your problems objectively to find definite answers—and solutions!

The elimination of toxic wastes releases the mind from physical bondage. The free-dom from the bodily necessity of procuring, preparing, eating, digesting and assimi-lating food frees up and releases a tremendous amount of nervous energy which invigorates the mental and spiritual processes. You attain new levels of great tran-quility, serenity and peace of mind. You become spiritually perceptive and receptive and at one with the Infinite.{25}

This sounds pretty awesome to my way of thinking.

And so, with this section the conclusion of Dr. Bragg’s nine health practitioners: Sunshine, fresh air, pure water, healthy natural foods, fasting, exercise, rest, good posture—and the most important factor of all, the human mind.

part 6, chapter 58: the health continuum and …energyinmotionnow.com/radient-health/chapter...

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