"Natural" (plant-based) Health Solutions

Good question. I tried to look into exactly what steps are used to make cherry juice concentrate, and I ended up looking at a bunch of youtube videos that don't actually answer the question despite having names like "How to make tart cherry juice."Of course, the claims of the medical benefits of drinking the stuff are all over the internet. A couple of things we do know about the stuff is that it is full of sugar and is as high in calories as any glass of soda. That's enough reason for me to leave that stuff alone.

JAR mentioned on the thread about changing phones and carriers (Message 1) that he recently had a severe vertigo attack that left him lying on the bathroom floor. I want to ask him how long he's had such spells and if he happens to know if it's a particular disease and if he's found any remedies and all that, since I mentioned on this thread (in Message 132 and Message 136) the disease of the inner ear called Meniere's that also causes vertigo attacks and can be quite debilitating. I don't recall your mentioning this before and wonder if you'd describe it here. I now know five people who get vertigo attacks, all men for some reason and all in their sixties and seventies. These attacks are not all the same disease. I know of three that have Meniere's and one who has something else he doesn't know the name of that is more or less manageable with a nausea medication. They are all horrible interferences with normal living but the nonMeniere's versions seem to be more manageable than Meniere's.I mentioned on this thread that my brother found a woman who claims to have cured her own Meniere's mostly with diet and supplements and wrote a book about it titled "Meniere's Whisperer." so he's been trying her regime. He thinks it's helping, has cut down on the frequency of the dizzy spells and their duration, but it's always hard to judge those things since no two episodes are alike anyway.Thanks for any input.

I looked up Vertigo also after reading jars post. Its not easy to treat and jar is not one to explore natural solutions...he will trust his medical doctors...but hopefully science will find a way to help

I'm not looking for any particular kind of treatment, I'd be interested in what his doctors tell him and if anything works at all. My impression is that doctors don't know much about any of it, and the woman's "natural" regime was the only hopeful information I've ever seen. Unfortunately it's not working consistently enough, yet anyway, to be something I'd recommend. In any case it's a treatment specifically for Meniere's and there are many causes of dizziness besides that.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It looks as if though Vestibular Rehabilitation is the best natural approach to vertigo. It works by retraining the brain to adapt to the balance problems. This link provides an overview of the many possible causes and solutions for vertigo.Thanks for showing the Texan some love, Faith.

At least for Meniere's, it isn't a vestibular problem so retraining won't work in that case. There's another disease that can be helped by rapidly shaking the head to rearrange calcium crystals that cause the dizziness by somehow getting displaced. That isn't the situation with Meniere's either. Fluid pressure in the ear is the usual diagnosis in Meniere's but now an association with the herpes virus and chickenpox is also suspected. Of course jar hasn't yet said if he knows what disease he has.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You live with it.

You don't have to explain it of course, but I'd really like to know WHAT it is you are living with, what doctors tell you it is. Many of the people who have some version of a vertigo disease give up a lot of their lives to it, have to stop driving, give up jobs, stop going out in public. It's far from easy to just live with it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Sorry but I don't talk about such things. That to me is as utterly silly as "Natural" (plant-based) Health Solutions.If they have issue talk to a doctor; avoid the religious nutjobs and natural plant crazies.

Faith said:

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She had been a vegetarian before all this and dairy had been a big part of her diet. She didn't completely get rid of meat, had some organic chicken, also organic eggs.

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Granny Magada then said:

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That makes no sense. If she was vegetarian, she could hardly have been eating chicken.

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Then the very next immediate quote of Faith, by Granny Magada was:

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Vitamin D, exercise, and replaced all cleaning products with "green" products,

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Granny Magada responded:

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How much vitamin D? In what form? How often?

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Roman Catholics apparently don't consider fish or chicken to be "meat". (I think there is a religious holiday they have where this definition of "meat" is very clear, if one wants to research, but I am wondering why I can't find enough interest to look into it YET myself. I have known of this issue for decades). It is pretty bull-crapish to me, but I despise Catholics massively on the meat issue (see bottom of my post for an example) which puts me in a small minority thus my opinion seems worthless.But there does seem to be something of a "flexitarian" version of vegetarianism that allows fish to be eaten.There are two kinds of vegetarians:1 Those who are vegetarian for health reasons.2 Those who are vegetarian for moral and/or spiritual reasons.There tends to be "flexitarian" type among both groups, but group number 1 can most easily be flexible (As health is the lone reason for a restrictive diet, in group 1, and since fish can help with certain deficiencies vegetarians suffer from, then it will be very advantageous to eat fish).I am only flexible on supplement issues (I have no choice but to take B-12 supplements from animal sources, because it seems that there is no plant based source for this vitally important vitamin). Otherwise I eat no meat, except I eat cheese which uses enzymes (from animals) to harden the product, though I have always planned on only getting vegetarian cheese eventually.I also find myself using Vitamin D 3 supplements, though I plan on looking more into D 2 which is from plant sources.I don't want to eat foods that cause animals to suffer (milk, cheese, and eggs do cause such suffering & killing, for various reasons, plus milk is fortified with vitamins that, I would think, come from killed-animal sources), and eventually I might stop eating milk and cheese unless it is vegetarian and from animals that are proven to be free of suffering. Same with eggs.Those who eat for health reasons, will easily find health reasons to eat "white meat".But the issue of chicken not being "meat" is a Catholic thing, and I think uniquely so.Now the separate issue.EXAMPLES OF ROMAN CATHOLIC (and Protestant) CULTURE CAUSING SURFFERING.
(One hardly knows where to begin)Example 1 was an example I just heard of today from a retired U.S. military service man (he is honest and doesn't make up stories).I was told that the Philippines used to have a military base (until a volcano went off in the 1990s and caused the base to be in an unsuitable location, which led to the lease expiring in 1999)in Subic Bay, which was very close to Olongapo (a "modern" city in the nation, which was on the other side of the bay) in Zambales.He was based there from 1979 to 1982, and the troops would always be running around in Olongapo.He went to an actual Pizza Hut and it had "Sweet and Sour Cat Pizza".Bad enough?It gets much worse.The cats were hung upside down by their feet, while in a skinned-alive (and screaming the whole time)state, AND kept moist for four hours, so the meat would taste "sweeter".He said that the meat marketplaces were full of upside down cats screaming in pain, the noise was constant and unavoidable to notice. The cats would have their eyes almost popping out and some would give up screaming out of shear exhaustion (only their mouths would be wide open while upside down).Evil to anybody but the very sick.EXAMPLE 2
(I just read about this in the New York Time this year)Christians in Indonesia like to eat dogs, and the method of slaughter is either clubbing (a timeless "Christian" practice of killing animals the world over, though the NYT didn't mention this fact) or strangulation.A Christian business owner, in Jakarta, pays $15 to purchase a dog, then has his employees club them to death, so he can sell the meat for $2 a pound, which makes it the cheapest meat.The article points out that even some Muslims eat dogs, though it is mostly Christians who do so.(Yes I do wish those two nations were still Hindu, as it seems to be a religion that has generally something of a "spirit" of consciousness - among followers - when it comes to issues of life, pain, and suffering. Though it depends on the time period as well as the place.)

Poor cats! That does seem primitive. Your opinion is never worthless. The better you attempt to express it the more your reason capacity will evolve. I think that your issue has more to do with the monopoly from Western European interpretations of Christianity vs the minority groups which you find fascinating.This topic is more focused on whether plant-based solutions are any more worthy than mainstream medicine. Personally, I suspect that Big Pharma is itself evil...though we have never discussed why.

I'm now an aspiring or beginning Whole Food Plant-Based "vegan" after listening to many You Tube presentations on the subject, and seeing some films, such as "What the Health" and "Forks over Knives" which is available on Netflix, and "Raw Food Documentary National Geographic Special." "Forks over Knives" is probably the most thorough presentation of the history of the move to plant-based eating, with the best documentation in nutritional studies.I've also listened to many of the presentations by Joel Fuhrman, though he is just one of many worth hearing, and although there is general agreement among them on the fundamental principle of eating plants over meat and dairy, either exclusively or predominantly, they are far from agreeing with each other on details, which I think gives it all more legitimacy.Fuhrman uses a system he gives the acronym GBOMBS, for Greens, Beans, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries and Seeds. John McDougall is the Starch Based Diet guy who argues that you need a staple starch and can't major in greens, putting grains, rice, potatoes at the head of his plan.They all claim dramatic improvement in health on their system and of course I believe them. Enough to be switching my own eating in that direction. Not for any scientific reason but just because I like potatoes I'm taking McDougall's starch-based system as a starting point, but I do particularly enjoy Fuhrman's presentations and find his GBOMBS formula very handy. There are also Esselstyn, and Campbell,who are the main subjects of "Forks over Knives," and many others, and I think they are all worth listening to There's even a panel discussion that includes them all together, where McDougall and Fuhrman "duke it out" as one audience member put it. They all quote studies and statistics.There are other films I suppose I'll eventually watch, such as "Earthlings" which I understand is the most horrifying of the presentaitons of how animals are raised by Agribusiness, though "What the Health" was horrifying enough for me. I'm interested in the health benefits of emphasizing plants over animal foods, and the animal rights groups that are responsible for a lot of the switch to veganism weren't part of my interest at first. But I have to say they've made their case only too well and I think we should all know a lot more about these things. However, the human health aspect is still the main issue even with their revelations. If anyone watches "What the Health" I hope it makes you thoroughly sick to see what the meat industry is doing to a black neighborhood.However, again, it is the scientific evidence of how meat and dairy are not good for our health that is most persuasive to me. This is presented most compellingly in "Forks over Knives" (I haven't yet seen the whole National Geographic video yet though, and there are others I also plan to see eventually) but all of the presentations have some scientific support to offer on that subject.I was an Atkins diet fan for so long it took me some time to come over to the idea of giving up all meat and dairy and I went through stages of holding on to some percentage of it before I got here. And I'm not entirely "here" yet either although I'm hoping to try as total a plant-based system as I can manage to put together for some period of time before I have another meal with meat or an egg.FAKE VEGANISM
There is a veganism that is basically junk food, and a guy who has a video to explain how to start a plant-based diet calls it that. He doesn't give his name but I found his video very helpful as he organizes the Whole Food Plant Based diet for beginners, in his case starting with the McDougall starchy foods.I also watched Oprah's program on how she got some of her staff to sign up for a week on a vegan diet, which did have some interesting information, particularly about the meat industry, but I was appalled at the foods they considered to be vegan, which is what they advised their people to eat, and fed them too. Yes, junk food. Fake pizza, fake cheese, fake hot dogs. What a travesty. There's a whole wall of this kind of stuff at a Whole Foods market shown in the video. Processed food. Isn't the point to avoid processed foods as much as meat and dairy? I wonder what unhealthy stuff 's on the labels too, that wasn't mentioned.Why is it necessary to imitate our normal diet anyway? I've been finding the honest diet to be quite attractive once I've sorted through the various versions of it. Good tasty foods and enough variety to allow you your own preferences within the basic program.Imitation foods never work in my experience. I've always avoided "fat free" foods like the plague because they taste terrible. I'd rather give up cheese altogether than eat fake cheese. I'm glad to see that people on Whole Food veganism replace the high fat salad dressings of our normal diet with creative combinations of totally different whole plant foods, some simply restricting the amount of the usual oils, some using whole food fats like nuts and avocados, but some going totally oil-free. (Some of the diets eliminate oil altogether but most of them restrict it stringently at least.)The "real" whole foods plant-based diet is made up of "honest" foods, honest greens, honest potatoes, honest legumes, honest nuts and seeds, and so on, no fakes.Anyway, I'm very taken with this movement and had to share it. See how much I love you?===============================
abe: The "National Geographic Special" film doesn't seem to have anything to do with National Geographic that I can see, or about Raw Food either. It's about a program attended by eight very sick and mostly obese people for 28 days of nothing but vegetable juices. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : Various corrections plus the ABEEdited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Just be cearful with veganism, there are some vitamins like B12 and others that are not found in plants. A multivitamin now and again should help with that even though they are mostly ingredients for expensive urine.

Thanks. All the health gurus advise taking vitamin B12.Sounds like you've tried veganism yourself?It's too early for me to worry about the effects of a strict veganism anyway, since just getting to that point isn't going to happen right away. I've done a few days in a row *almost* without any meat or dairy or oil but not completely (some olive oil on the salad, a Tbs of butter to coat the roasted potatoes). My problem at the moment is that although I've been working up to it for some time, adding and dropping foods in that direction, I decided to do the total vegan thing very recently so I still have some meat and dairy in the fridge. I considered throwing it out but changed my mind, I'm going to eat it all first and then start on the total vegan thing. I do intend to give it a good try. I'm convinced but I still have to test it for myself. I could end up "veganish" in the end by continuing with some animal products though much fewer. At 75 and overweight I'd be only too happy if it worked for me the way so many others say it has for them. Anecdotes galore of course which would only attract the usual scorn so I probably won't post any.USING UP YOGURT
I enjoyed this so much I have to post it. You can make a cold yogurt soup this way, and make it with three different main ingredients, the rest being identical. Or just drink it. This morning I made it with a cucumber:In a blender:
Yogurt
Cucumber
---or cooked red beets (a beautiful pink drink),
---or avocado
A small piece of onion to taste
Dill weed to taste
Salt
BlendEdited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

HI Faith So are you getting rid of vegetable oils as well? I'm not sure it's so healthy to completely remove all fat from your diet. I'd keep the olive oil on your salad (though I am, of course, not a nutritionist).