Healing Cancer: How Your Emotions are Essential to Recovery
What would you do if you or a close loved one got the dreaded news…
…the “C-word”?
How would you handle it?
My 17-year old has already had enough exposure to failed cancer treatments and loss of loved ones that he’s already decided he would have no part of conventional therapy. He’d be happy to slosh down wheat grass juice, or even cardboard for that matter, if he thought it would nourish him back to health.
Raised on a healthy, whole foods high-green vegan diet since birth, he’s a strapping young man of 17. No scrawniness about him. He’s lean, muscular, and strong. He needs to be to get up at the crack of dawn to swim 3 or more miles every day then work out in the weight room.
He’s convinced he’s doing all the right things to protect himself from disease. Other than a broken arm about 4 years ago, he hasn’t been to a doctor since he was 7 after his brother jumped on his head in the swimming pool. When he complained of a headache several hours later, I took precautions to get a second opinion to be sure he didn’t have a hidden brain injury. He was fine.
And this is how it should be.
“C”is for Choices
We all make daily choices about what to eat, how to move, when to sleep and how to think and feel.
Yes, we do decide how to feel.
Not consciously necessarily, but it is a decision on some level.
Most people think feelings happen as a result of circumstances. Someone dies; we feel sad. A baby is born, and we feel happy.
I learned in freshman psychology class many years ago that there was really an A-B-C model at play:
- Activating event (stimulus) filtered through a
- Belief system (and subsequent thoughts) results in the
- Consequence (emotion).
A circumstance arises and our belief system triggers a thought about it, which triggers an emotion.
The emotion then sets off a cascade of physiologic and biochemical changes which leads to either healing or disease, depending on whether the emotion triggered is positive or negative.
So what does this have to do with cancer where this article started?
Healing the Emotions that Cause Cancer
My radio show guest, Timea Havas, believes feelings and emotions have everything to do with cancer. In fact, she was given up as incurable by the medical doctors 22 years ago when she was diagnosed with cancer, a rare blood disorder, and liver problems.
Did she give up and take on the death sentence they offered her?
NO.
She went on a mission to heal herself and what she discovered opened her eyes to a whole new world.
Can thought and feelings really create disease? And more importantly, can they help you to heal?
Decide for yourself.
Listen to the life-changing recordings of Part 1 and Part 2.
Having lost so many relatives and friends to cancer, I am so touched by the work Timea is doing. She’s worked with 108 cancer patients, many 4th stage and some with only weeks to live. 106 are cancer free. That blows away the success rate of conventional treatment.
The catch is, you need to be an active participant in your recovery with the emotional work Timea does. There’s no playing victim and allowing yourself to have your treatment dictated and just hoping for a positive outcome.
Listen to the archive, and then check out Part 2!
There are also not-to-be-missed additional resources for understanding natural cancer prevention and treatment here!
While I don’t believe it’s prudent to just deal with the emotions without also looking at the lifestyle and diet factors that contribute, I also think that just looking at the diet and lifestyle factors offers limited success.
An oncologist I admire, Dr. Lodi in Arizona, told me that his first appointment with a new patient is spent MOSTLY talking about the attitude shifts that are needed for a successful outcome.
With all these resources at our disposal, I feel hopeful that the current epidemic of cancer will turn around soon.
Tags: Cancer, cancer prevention, cancer treatment, emotional health, Timea Havas
Posted in Cancer, Cancer Nutrition, Vibrant Health
Arugula: Nature’s Viagra! Come-Hither Collard Wraps Raw Food Recipe
- by Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo
Many raw food recipes, such as the one below, are quick and easy to make, filling and support several body systems.
- Arugula is great for circulation and is nature’s Viagra.
- Sauerkraut is great for digestion.
- Broccoli sprouts are super for hormone balance, liver detox and cancer protection
- Collard greens are loaded with life-sustaining minerals.
The more healing and energy-providing food you put into your body, the more you may find you have some “extra energy” to burn off.
Come-Hither Collard Wraps
Ingredients:
- 1 collard green leaf
- big handful arugula
- small handful broccoli sprouts
- 2 tablespoons sauerkraut
- 2 tablespoons *creamy nut cheese or nacho uncheese
Looking for my delicious Creamy Nut Cheese and Nacho Uncheese recipes? Sign up for my newsletter and get access to these recipes and more every week! You’ll find the Nacho Uncheese recipe printed in the September 1st, 2011 – Volume 1, Issue 11 edition! My Creamy Nut Cheese recipe will be coming soon in a future newsletter.
Directions:
Lay out your collard leaf and fill with amazing and amour-inspiring ingredients! Essentially, you’ll want to layer your ingredients, roll them up tight, and cut into chunks. Watch video for details on how to roll:
Raw Food Recipe Variation
Hot Under the Collard Wraps
Same as above but add roasted hatch chili peppers!
Tags: arugula, Cancer, collard greens, collard wraps, digestion, raw food recipe, sex drive
Posted in Cancer Nutrition, Raw Food Recipes, Raw Foods, Raw Foods Diet, Vegan Diet
What Dangers Lurk Within Hospital Walls
I visited the hospital a few weeks ago. Not for me or any of my kids…fortunately. My brother in law was diagnosed with lung cancer late last year and has been in the hospital for over two months after complications as a result of surgery.
He opted for conventional treatment of his cancer, as most people do, rather than check out the alternatives offered by Dr. Thomas Lodi An Oasis of Healing, just an hour away from his home. He had his lung removed after a series of chemotherapy treatments to shrink the tumor.
Unfortunately for him, he developed an infection at the site of surgery and his remaining lung and almost died.
I’m thankful for the heroic measures modern medicine has developed to keep people alive in emergency situations. We are all grateful that my brother in law was resuscitated and put on life support.
While hospitals are good places to go for emergency life saving support, they are not so good at helping people restore their health. There’s a big difference.
There are 1.7 million cases of hospital infections every year, and 99,000 deaths that are related to these infections.
IV vitamin C has been shown in numerous studies to benefit people with cancer and infectious disease. Most people that spend time in the intensive care unit or have surgery get hooked up to an IV. Very few receive therapeutic doses of Vitamin C in their IV.
At some point, ICUpatients graduate from IV feeding to a feeding tube directly into their digestive tract.
I look at this as the ultimate opportunity to get some blended and juiced antioxidant rich green food into people who otherwise would reject it because it “tastes icky”. The hospital staff looks at it much differently. The first three ingredients in the most popular feeding tube mixes are corn syrup, casein (milk protein) and soy protein isolate. That’s a sure fire prescription for illness, if you ask me. Unfortunately they didn’t ask and when I voluntarily offered my opinion I was talked down to as if I were an ignorant street person who knows nothing about health and nutrition.
Not a single fresh raw vegetable is on the menu, save perhaps for the iceberg lettuce
Here’s the ingredient list for a popular hospital food called Jevity.
Water, Corn Maltodextrin, Corn Syrup Solids, Sodium & Calcium Caseinates, Soy Fiber, Soy Protein Isolate, Canola Oil, Corn Oil, Medium-Chain Triglycerides, Calcium Phosphate, Potassium Citrate, Magnesium Chloride, Soy Lecithin, Sodium Citrate, Ascorbic Acid, Choline Chloride, Magnesium Phosphate, Potassium Chloride, Carrageenan, Taurine, L-Carnitine, Zinc Sulfate, dl-Alpha-Tocopheryl Acetate, Ferrous Sulfate, Niacinamide, Calcium Pantothenate, Manganese Sulfate, Cupric Sulfate, Thiamine Chloride Hydrochloride, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin, Vitamin A Palmitate, Folic Acid, Biotin, Chromium Chloride, Sodium Molybdate, Potassium Iodide, Sodium Selenate, Phylloquinone, Cyanocobalamin, and Vitamin D3.
I could go on and on about what to watch out for in hospitals. ..and I will. And you can hear the whole thing on my two part blog talk radio show called 3-Life-Saving-Reasons-To-Stay-Out-Of-The-Hospital-Part-1
I even have a copy of an actual menu from a hospital here in Austin that I plan to divulge on the show.
Even if you can’t make it live, set aside some time afterward to listen to the recording, which will be available at the same location.
http://www.drritamarie.com/radio/2011/04/3-life-saving-reasons-to-stay-out-of-the-hospital-part-1/
Love, Health and Joy,
Dr. Ritamarie
References
2. Hemila H. Vitamin C supplementation and respiratory infections: a systematic review. Mil Med. 2004 Nov;169(11):920-5.
3. Gorton HC, Jarvis K. The effectiveness of vitamin C in preventing and relieving the symptoms of virus-induced respiratory infections. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 1999 Oct;22(8):530-3.
4. Hemila H, Douglas RM. Vitamin C and acute respiratory infections. Int J Tuberc Lung Dis. 1999 Sep;3(9):756-61.
5. Enstrom JE, Kanim LE, Klein MA. Vitamin C intake and mortality among a sample of the United States population. Epidemiology. 1992 May;3(3):194-202.
Tags: Cancer, chemotherapy treatments, dr thomas, Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, Dr. Thomas Lodi, green food, hospital food, hospital infections, hospital staff, infectious disease, lung cancer, Raw Foods, vitamin c
Posted in Cancer, Cancer Nutrition, Creating a Vibrant Life Radio, Raw and Living Foods, Raw Food Recipes, Raw Foods
Raw Foods Recipes: Quick and Easy Healthy Meals for BUSY People on the Run
3 Simple strategies for preparing healthy Meals EVEN when you’re SUPER BUSY
Last week I shared about how to fit exercise into your life…even if you’re super busy. I wrote an article about burst training and posted a video on You tube.
This week I’d like to share how to eat really well, even if you’re super busy. SO many people tell me they were doing well with eating whole fresh foods and felt really good when they were doing it, but then got busy and fell back into old habits.
There is NO NEED for this to happen once you learn HOW to make super delicious, nutrient dense foods even when you’re in a hurry.
Last week was super busy for me. I had several technology challenges, a couple of program deadlines, articles to write, guest appearances on telesummits, radio shows AND kids home on spring break. Add that to a new puppy that’s not quite house broken, a weeklong trip to prepare for, private clients and patients to talk to on the phone AND see in person and……
If you felt tired just reading my list…welcome to my life.
In spite of it all I managed to exercise every day…a couple of days less than 5 minutes combined burst sessions as I showed on last week’s posts…and to eat really WELL.
How did I do it?
I have developed tricks and techniques over the 26 years I have been following this “Fresh Green Living and Eating” life style. It didn’t happen overnight. I had my struggles in the beginning and would often fall back into the “grab a taco and run” mode. I usually felt the drop in my energy whenever I grabbed for a starchy meal on the run, even if it was organic and made with whole grain flour and natural sweeteners.
Today I’m going to share a little bit about my strategies …as much as I can in a short post, a few of the recipes I made this week…ones that took UNDER 5 MINUTES to fix, and then let you know how you can learn my strategies and recipes in DETAIL .
My Top 3 Strategies for Eating Well, Even When You’re SUPER BUSY!
1- Have Ingredients on hand.
This may seem overly simplistic, yet it needs to be stated. If you always have a variety of healthy choices on-hand, it’s easy to whip up a quick, healthy Gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar and trans-fat free meal in a matter of minutes.
Sometimes people object saying they don’t have time to go to the store several times a week to keep fresh ingredients on hand. Others argue that when they do stock up on fresh veggies, oft-times they spoil before they are eaten.
These are simply, I hate to be so blunt, excuses. Many of the green leafy veggies are hearty enough to keep around for over a week before they spoil. I’ve had kale that’s been forgotten in the back of the refrigerator for up to 10 days before I found it resurface and make a perfectly great smoothie, soup or salad.
Even if you can only shop once a week, you can keep a supply of fresh foods on hand to make most of the recipes I’ll share. Just be sure to have your staples on hand. I have a FREE gluten-free pantry stocking guide available on my website.
2- Make things in advance as much as possible.
With as little as 15 minutes a week, on a weekend or day off from work, you can pre-make a few dips, sauces and spreads that make creating healthy “fast food” a snap. We teach all about that in our class Quick and Easy Healthy “Fast Food”. For those times when you run-out of fresh veggies, once you learn the art of making delicious bread, chips and crackers in your food dehydrator, you can make a month’s supply with less than a half hour a month time investment. We have some free resources about dehydrated comfort foods on the web as well
3- Be adventurous. Think veggie and green at each meal. Think filling.
It can be as simple as a handful of carrot sticks, celery or a red bell pepper eaten out of hand with or without a dip. What’s a good wrapper in the veggie world and what can I fill it with. The “filling” is just that. The veggies alone are not calorically dense enough to “fill you” so you need a filling. I usually turn to avocado, nuts or seeds as the filling and have all sorts of recipes for combining them with herbs and vegetables to make delicious and nutrient dense fillings.
My Meal in a Hurry Recipes
Cheesy Italian Tomato Slices
Ingredients
Several tomatoes (depends on how hungry you are and how many you’re feeding)
- 1 recipe creamy nut cheese
- Dried basil
- Garlic powder
- Kelp powder (optional, adds to the mineral content)
- Sea salt, unrefined
Directions:
- Slice tomatoes about ¼ inch thick and place on a plate
- Spoon enough nut cheese on top to cover
- Sprinkle with basil, garlic powder, kelp and salt.
- Enjoy….heavenly!
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Creamy Nut Cheese
Ingredients
- 1 cup raw nuts**, your choice. My preference is ½ macadamia nuts and ½ cashews.
- ½ cup pure water
- Juice of ½ – 1 lemon, depending on size and to taste
- ½ teaspoon sea salt, unrefined
Directions
Blend all ingredients until creamy and smooth, adjusting water, lemon and salt to taste and desired consistency
**Seeds can be substituted for all or some of the nuts. The macadamia and cashews are white and make the cheese look like ricotta cheese. Pine nuts can be substituted, except they are VERY expensive. Hemp seeds are a good choice. Almonds and Brazil nuts are tasty, and make the cheese more brownish gray than while.
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Green Avocado Wraps
Ingredients
- 1-2 large green leaves per person – romaine and collards seem to work best
- A small handful of spring mix or shredded cabbage, lettuce or other greens per person
- A small handful of sprouts per person
- A few spoonfuls sauerkraut per person (optional, adds to the flavor and nutrition)
- ½ avocado per person
- 1 tablespoon seeds per person – hemp, pumpkin, sunflower or ground sesame (optional, for texture)
Directions
- Lay leaf on cutting board. Top with greens, sprouts, sauerkraut if using
- Slice avocado and lay on top of the greens
- Sprinkle with seeds
- Roll up leaf to cover the filling and eat with your hands like a sandwich.
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Wilted Arugula Salad
Arugula is one of nature’s best sources of nitric oxide, a potent circulation enhancer…nature’s Viagra and blood pressure lowering green. Here’s a tasty way to enjoy it. This can be a no cleanup meal if you get the arugula in one of those big plastic containers.
Ingredients
- 1 container pre-washed arugula
- ½ teaspoon sale
- 2 tablespoons lemon or lime juice
- Your choice of seasonings
- Creamy nut cheese (optional)
Directions
- Rinse arugula if desired
- Sprinkle with salt
- Massage well with hands to wilt it.
- Add lemon
- Continue to massage until the arugula has shrunk to half or less of its original volume
- Add seasonings to taste. I love curry powder, Italian seasoning and Mexican seasoning (not all together…choose 1 and try them all eventually!!)
- Add nut cheese and massage in or stir well for a creamy and more filling salad.
There you have it. These are actual meals I eat on a fairly regular basis. Sometimes I use spinach instead of or in addition to the arugula
My YouTube video Dr. Ritamarie’s Raw Food Recipe for “Sautéed” Spinach…Fast Food without Cleanup demonstrates the massage technique in action using spinach.
Our video class Quick and Easy healthy “Fast Food” shows all these techniques in detail and includes a recipe booklet with recipes, photos and guidelines for preparing and creating your own recipes.
I look forward to hearing your feedback.
Please comment below and share your favorite healthy “fast food” recipe.
Love, Health and Joy,
Dr. Ritamarie
Tags: bone strengthening foods, cancer and diet, DrRitamarie, Gluten Free Diet, Gluten Free recipes, healthy fast food, loscalzo, meals for busy people, nut cheese recipe, nutrient dense foods, osteoporosis diet, quick meals, raw food Austin, raw food classes, raw foods recipes, vegan diet
Posted in Cancer Nutrition, Gluten Free Diet, Gluten Free recipes, Raw and Living Foods, Raw Food Recipes, Raw Foods, Raw Foods classes, Vegan Diet
Boosting Your Nutrition and Protect Your Health with Brussels Sprouts
Lately I’veave been craving Brussels sprouts. The odd part is I’ve never really liked Brussels sprouts.
It all started one evening when my husband was out and I decided to surprise him with one of his favorite vegetables – Brussels sprouts.
A friend had said her favorite way to make them was roasted. I’d never eaten or made roasted Brussels sprouts but I figured I’d give it a try. The recipe I made is HERE
I took one of the Brussels sprouts out to see if it was done. I bit into it thinking I would take a bite then spit it out because as I said before, I have never liked Brussels sprouts. I took a bit and really liked it.
I ended up eating half of them before Scott even came home
Since then I’ve made the recipe several times. I would go so far as to say I’ve been craving them. Given my new found fascination with Brussels sprouts I decided to do some research to determine exactly what my body is telling me it needs.
What I discovered is that Brussels sprouts are an incredibly nutritious vegetable that offer protection from cardiovascular diseases as well as colon and prostate cancers.
So here’s the scoop about the nutritional benefits of Brussels sprouts.
- Exceptionally rich in protein, dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.
- Good source of vitamin A, a potent antioxidant and mucous membrane re-builder which offers protection against lung and oral cavity cancers.
- Good source of B-complex
- Excellent source of vitamin C.
- An excellent source of vitamin-K, essential for bone health and protecting your brain from neuronal damage.
- Rich in minerals like copper, calcium, potassium, iron, manganese and phosphorus.
- High in a fiber which binds with bile acids in your digestive tract to allow them to be more easily excreted and thus lower cholesterol.
- Improves the stability of DNA inside your white blood cells by blocking the activity of sulphotransferase enzymes.
- Contains more glucosinolate content than any other cruciferous vegetable. Glucosinolates are important cancer-protective phytonutrients.
- Abundant source of flavonoid anti-oxidants like thiocyanates, indoles, lutein, zeaxanthin, sulforaphane and isothiocyanates. These phytochemicals have been shown to offer protection from prostate, colon, prostate and endometrial cancers.
- Good source of Di-indolyl-methane (DIM), a metabolite of indole-3-carbinol has been found to be an effective immune modulator, anti-bacterial and anti-viral and keeps estrogen metabolites in the right ratio.
- Contain a glucoside called sinigrin which helps protect from colon cancers by destroying pre-cancerous cells.
- A good source of zeaxanthin, an important carotenoid that’s selectively absorbed into the macula in the eyes and helps prevent retinal damage, “age related macular degeneration disease” (ARMD), in the elderly.
Wow. No wonder I started craving Brussels Sprouts. They are loaded with vitamins, minerals and cancer protective chemicals. I’m not clear what exactly my body has been craving, but I do know that I plan to continue to honor the craving.
Give Brussels sprouts another chance. I did and for that I am very grateful.
Love, Health and Joy,
Dr. Ritamarie
Tags: antioxidants, brussels sprouts, Cancer, gluten free foods, Raw Foods
Posted in Cancer Nutrition, Raw and Living Foods
