Diet & Health – Yesterday & Today

Slide1

“What we eat now is firmly linked to risks associated with ill-health in the Western world in the 21st century.

It makes perfect sense that “radically changing your diet” is a must in today’s world. As well as dietary changes being a king hitter from the Heart Foundations, Diabetic Association, Cancer Council, Obesity Australia, and every other health authority. MS is no exception.”

Why ‘Radically Changing My Diet’ Was Not One Of My Steps To Health

“Fifty years ago, diet would not have been on the collective horizon, as a contributor to disease. Our diets in that time had been shaped by WW11. “Dig for Victory” was a wartime catchcry, and so the community tore up their flowerbeds and planted vegetables and fruit trees. The first six to eight years of my life we ate mainly vegetables and fruit, homegrown and tasty, and no pesticides. Wartime meat rationing was miserly, as was butter, and so my mother took our allowance in soup bones and made good quality stocks for casseroles with beans and vegetables. One egg a week per person did not go far, but this was supplemented with tinned powdered eggs. We ate a lot of fish, as this was not on ration. Bread was dense and salty (no talk of salt is bad for health back then), and even today I still miss the Hovis loaf, a small brown loaf of nuttiness and intensity, which my mother cut into lacy fine slices to eat with the vegetable casseroles.

I remember clearly the first and only times in my first eight years I ate a freshly boiled egg, the first time I had a piece of steak, the first time I ate a piece of chocolate, and an orange, which was a Christmas stocking treat. Rationing continued until I was sixteen, and so the nation continued to have a plain but reasonably healthy diet.  It goes without saying apart from the ubiquitous cup of tea, water was our drink of choice. In my family, we only drank alcohol on festive days, a sherry on Christmas morning or a whiskey with the Christmas cake or the occasional noggin on an evening out to the pub.

The English were used to home-grown produce, and by the 1960’s most folk still grew these in their back gardens or on small parcels of land called allotments. The seasons controlled our eating — for the average family there was no expensive imported out of season fruit or veggies.   Mind you, everyone had a chip saucepan! But for many postwar years, meat was not on the daily agenda for the average family – instead, egg and chips (one egg) or baked beans and chips became regular family meals. For my family, fish — as both parents were keen anglers — was the more frequent meal compared to our meat consumption.”

“It appears the British were at their healthiest in WW11.”

Today:  

“Kelly Turner’s Radical Remission research has demonstrated, the numero-uno on this list is “Radically changing your diet.” For many survivors of cancer or people managing chronic disease, diet is their first thought and action, and it is a proven life-changing step.” (Turner, Kelly. Radical Remission – Surviving Cancer Against All Odds. HarperCollins 2014)

“Professor George Jelinek, in his early sixties, runs and swims regularly and says he has never felt healthier. In 1999, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. This was a devastating blow for him, as he had watched his mother battle the disease for sixteen years, and when she could no longer take the pain or the dependence on others she took her own life. At the time of his diagnosis, he was the professor of Emergency Services at a leading hospital in Perth. He was 45 years old, and a family man with three children.

Immediately, he researched all he could on the disease and his findings led him to the work of American neurologist Roy Swank, who had published a paper in the Lancet 1990 “Effect of Low Saturated Fat Diet in Early and Late Cases of Multiple Sclerosis.” After many years of refining his findings on his seven-year recovery back to health, Professor George Jelinek wrote his first book Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis,” published in 2016, which features his seven-step program for recovery. This program is widely accepted as an excellent way to manage the disease. It has been tried and tested by many sufferers around the world who have found considerable benefits from living this lifestyle.”

One of key steps included: Changing your diet — ( Professor Jelinek also recommends the use of quality supplements like Omega-3 fatty acids and Vitamin D)

Excerpts from A Journey of Creative Healing-  Chapter 9:  The Elephant in the Room – Radically Changing Your Diet

 

Advertisement

How Open Are You to Possibilities?

I saw a post recently that dumbed down someone’s healing from multiple sclerosis. Several people posted to the effect that the person had been misdiagnosed and the assumption being that his beliefs in being ‘healed’ had no real foundation.
 IMG_4972When I was a young bride in the early ’60’s and a new mother I had episodes of muscle weakness, paralysis, impaired vision, headaches and painful nerve twitching for nearly five years.  This was put down to severe morning sickness, having two babies close together – exhaustion and in pregnancy  – the babies’ lying on the nerve’.  50 years ago there was no MRI, so sophisticated tools for diagnosing MS save a rubber mallet and a pin.  They basically went on the past history and presenting symptoms.  When I was diagnosed my random symptoms like pendulum waves created the perfect event for the first and second opinions of what they called back then ‘aggressive’ MS and that I would be wheelchair bound within a very short time.
But I recovered – full health – and have been in remission for 54 years.  Yes, of course, it could have been a misdiagnosis – but consider that at the time it was extremely difficult to diagnose with the tools available to neurologists.  They would have needed to have the strongest evidence to support their diagnosis.
Nevertheless, to me, it does not matter whether I had had a series of small strokes (as a medical friend later hypothesized) or MS. Simply  I was extremely sick.  Back then there also was no drugs, no medication to help.  Instead, I listened to my intuition and through rest, mediation and focusing a daily creative practice I came back to full health.  The only possible indicator that I had a severe illness is in my feet -peripheral neuropathy – a result of damage to nerves (or could it be simply old age?!)
The point here is what the heck does a label of a disease matter? People do recover from 18053023catastrophic illnesses, life-threatening illnesses. Read Radical Remission by Kelly Turner – visit the Radical Remission Project  FB page or website to see authenticated stories of people healing. In March I received the privilege of being Radical Remission’s Healing Story of the month – amazing being alongside so many who have returned to wellness.
Over the years I tried to tell my story to people who suffered MS but their eyes glazed over, ‘yes, but …..’ so I stopped until I could prove the steps that I had taken ticked all of the scientific boxes only then did I write my story  ‘A Journey of Creative Healing.’  Naturally, I would love you to read it,  but more importantly I want to ask – how open are you to possibilities, or still open after disappointment and disappointment in learning to live with the disease?
 I know the disease is wretched but please don’t close down to possibilities.  My story, like virtually all the stories in the Radical Remission Project records, was no ‘pick up your bed and walk’ miracle, it took time, resilience, focus and a powerful belief that I would recover from whatever ailed me.

The Radical Remission Project

Dr-Kelly-Turner-PhD-Radical-Remission-1
Dr Kelly A. Turner

While I was researching and writing my latest book ‘A Journey of Creative Healing,’ I read  the New York Times best selling book ‘Radical Remission – Surviving Cancer against all Odds.’  The author is Dr Kelly A Turner, a researcher and psychotherapist who specializes in integrative oncology.   While Kelly was studying for her Phd she was shocked that no one was investigating cases of  unexpected survivor’s of advanced cancer,  so this became her purpose to research and identify common factors of these survivor’s cures – which she refers to as radical remissions.  The book summarises her decade of research, her thousand interviews of patients and finally identifies the nine key factors that can improve people’s chance’s of remission.

I was thrilled and amazed that most of my steps to recovery from MS mirrored those of these cancer survivor factors.

As with all the other health professionals work I feature in my book ‘A Journey of Creative Healing,’ I sought Dr Turner’s permission to use material attributed to her work. She is also the founder of the The Radical Remission Project that is dedicated to continuing research and creating a community for survivors, patients, guests, and health professionals and the Project’s mission is to collect and verify survivor stories so that these in turn may help others.  Although not a cancer survivor I was asked to document my healing from MS, over half a century ago, to add to their data.

Imagine my delight today  to find that I am The Radical Remission Healing Story of the Month.  (March 2018).

I acknowledge that some sickness is more immediately life threatening than others but I still see that sickness has the same commonality whatever diagnostic label you give it. Looking at the enormous contribution of Kelly Turner’s work and my singular, but no less effective, anecdotal story of recovery, it appears the predominant common denominators of improving your chances of  recovery to wellness are: Taking control of your health, listening and acting upon your intuition, releasing suppressed emotions, embracing social support, deepening your spiritual awareness and having a strong reason for living.

There are other factors in Kelly’s book – you need to read it – and yes in my case, the  vital icing-on-the-cake factor was to consistently put my  focus on doing something that gave me joy  – – a Daily Creative Project.