Just for the record, I wasn’t sold on plant-based nutrition from the outset.
We briefly tried to go vegan early last year. It lasted a couple of weeks before we were back to grilled chicken and burgers.
My entry into the Esselstyn diet has honestly been one of necessity. I’m going down this road because if it will indeed reverse my heart disease, I might just get to see my grandchildren one day.
That said, however, I’m becoming more and more convinced of the value — dare I say necessity? — of plant-based nutrition in battling America’s most debilitating diseases. The modern American diet as we know it is a sure-shot killer, and more and more people are being taken from this earth by its slow and deadly precision.
This weekend I saw the documentary, Dying to Have Known by filmmaker Steve Kroschel (presently available on Netflix instant streaming). In this film, he specifically focuses on Gerson Therapy, an intense regimen of plant-based nutrition that is purported to CURE cancer. You read that right, by the way. Cure. Cancer.
In the film, Kroschel talks mostly with patients, all diagnosed with various forms of cancer, some given only months to live. In each case, they claim the cancer went into remission and hasn’t come back since.
The science behind the therapy lies with Dr. Max Gerson, who wrote about his first successes with cancer in the 1958 book, A Cancer Therapy: Results of Fifty Cases and the Cure of Advanced Cancer. The therapy aims to strengthen the liver, flooding the body with antioxidants and starving and dissolving the cancer cells.
The therapy and the man behind it are genuinely interesting. Dr. Gerson went before the senate in in July 1946, bringing with him five cancer patients healed with his plant-based therapy. He was shot down by the medical establishment, received very little press coverage, and after his death in 1959, we’re still hearing very little.
Unfortunately, however, Kroschel’s take on the subject isn’t very thorough. He often gets in the way of the storytelling, interjecting his own feelings, questions and reflections about the subject and avoiding some of its most basic facts. Other than knowing the source of the therapy and some of its success stories (in overview), I left wanting to know more about this therapy and what it’s about. My summary above is based on internet research, not what I learned in the film.
In short, the film is more personal essay than journalism; more reflection than reporting.
That said, however, I would still recommend seeing it. It’s important to hear stories from real people who have made changes in their lives for the better. In this case, the changes probably saved their lives outright.
I take the time to write these articles for you, my four faithful readers, because I genuinely want you and your families to flourish on this earth, unhindered by the toxicity and disease that plagues the citizens of this country.
Obesity is at an all-time high. For the first time in history, our children may live shorter lives than we live. Cancer is at an all-time high. Autism affects more children than ever. Obviously, something is wrong.
I don’t claim to have all the answers, and I certainly can’t say that spinach will save our country or our lives.
I can, however, say that it won’t hurt. And I can definitely say you’ll be healthier as a result. I’m living proof of that.
Check out Dying to Have Known. It’s just over and hour and can move slowly at times, but the knowledge gained within is worth your time…and your health…and just might spark your interest in learning more.
After receiving the first two of my six cardiac stents, my doctor told me about the copious amounts of plaque in my arteries.