Dolphin Health and Education

Zucchini and Green Zebra Tomato Lasagne, Raw Food Real World

Dear Students, Graduates, Families, Friends and Guests:

The New Year has greeted Dolphin Health & Education with greater interest in the raw food lifestyle as evidenced by phone calls, website traffic, emails and walk-ins. This year's first of five Get Healthy Boot Camp courses started with a staggering and classroom bursting enrollment of 29 students! The past boot camps averaged 10-12 enrollees per course. The last boot camp for 2008 in December graduated 18 students. Fortunately, Dolphin was able to re-arranged and re-configured the classroom in late December 2008 to accommodate a maximum of 30 students with a new large LCD flat screen monitor instead of a projector and screen setup. Thanks for a God-send funds donated by a former boot camp graduate that made this possible!

Announcements:

1. Get ready! for the upcoming Nutritional Medicine seminar Saturday January 31, 2009 from 5:15 PM to 9 PM. This is the first time the concept of diet and nutrition as applied to healthcare is publicly discussed. The seminar topics include food and medicine, emerging trends in diet, nutrition, and lifestyle, clinical case studies, exercise concepts as applied to strength and fat loss, personal evidences, and question and answer forum. There will also be food samples contributed by my raw potluck hostess Joz and her team. This is an opportunity for you to share this information-packed seminar about why you are following the raw food lifestyle to your family, friends, and healthcare providers.

Date: Saturday 01/31/09

Time: 5:15 PM - 9:00 PM

Location: Medford Public Library Large Conference Room on Central Ave.

Advanced registration fee: $40 per person

At-the-door registration fee: $48 per person

For more information or to register, call 541-857-2678 or register online (advanced registration only) at Dolphin's Online Store. You can also send an email to info@dolphindoctor.org for questions.

2. Hallelujah Acres Health Minister Training has arrived on the West Coast! Held in February, there are 2 locations to choose from: Seattle, WA February 10-13 (Tuesday to Friday) or San Diego, CA February 24 to 27 (Tuesday to Friday). No longer will you require travel to Shelby, NC to take the Health Minister Training course! If you have not yet taken the Get Healthy Boot Camp or Get Healthy! Stay Balanced course as pre-requisite, you can still take the Health Minister Training course but have to attend the Tuesday session (Feb 10 or Feb 24), which is free when you enroll for the training. The benefits to becoming a Hallelujah Acres Health Minister are numerous:

Increased knowledge base in diet, nutrition and lifestyle.
Health Minister credentials.
Hallelujah Acres Health Minister Online Support.
Effective tools to teach your family, friends and community.
Be able to start your own health ministry in your area.
Public presentation tools downloaded from Hallelujah Acres HM page.
Attend the annual Health Minister Reunion for increased learning.

For more information about the Health Minister Training, go to www.hacres.com.

3. Keeping up with advanced technology, Dolphin is launching its first-ever Get Healthy Web Camp. This is a web-based live interactive webinar using the internet. Patterned after Dolphin's flagship Get Healthy Boot Camp, this 6-Week 12 hr intensive live webinar is primarily for out-of-town students who are unable to physically attend the Get Healthy Boot Camp in Medford, Oregon. Click Here for more information.

Topics covered in this newsletter:

1. Are you sick or is it detoxification?

2. What about grains?

Are you sick or is it detoxification?

Getting sick is drudgery! Why all this sludge coming out of my nose, throat and eyes? And all that annoying infectious cough? How long is this going to last? Is there any cure for this misery? The answer is a big NO!

I am convinced that the symptoms of sickness are a manifestation of what is known as detoxification or cleansing. No one has ever told me this concept before until I started following the Hallelujah Diet & Lifestyle nearly 5 years ago. With all those years of undergraduate and health professional education, I never came across the word detoxification as it applied to diet and lifestyle. The only reference to the word detoxification by the body as we know it in conventional healthcare relates to drugs and toxicity (as in drug addicts in detox centers being treated to get off the addiction to drugs and alcohol). Correct me if I am wrong!

When applied to natural health and lifestyle, the concept of detoxification opened up a whole new world for me. From what I have experienced and seen in the clinical setting and what I learned at Hallelujah Acres and their reference sources, I have come to the conclusion that symptoms of sickness such as colds and flu are under the big umbrella of detoxification or cleansing of the body. Steve Meyerowitz, in his book Juice Fasting & Detoxification, describes the cold as "merely a relief valve" to decongest the lungs and other body systems.

The longer a person is on a high alkaline nutrient-dense raw food diet and lifestyle, the less detoxification symptoms will be experienced. In the 4 and a half years following the raw food lifestyle, I have not had any cold symptoms or any sickness! I have experienced brief energy drops on occasions but I understand why (cleansing). So there is no surprise. Symptoms are a way our bodies communicate to us so that we know what is going on in the internal environment of the body. It is like having a "low oil" warning light on your automobile's dashboard. You take care of the oil problem and the warning light goes off. It is a simple concept but logical.

Dr. Ted Morter, in his book Health & Wellness, states that "recurring colds" are signs that the human body is doing what is normal to take care of itself. The fluid is transporting the toxins out of the internal environment of the body. It is "housekeeping". This is old news! Over a hundred years ago, E.G. White wrote these words in her book, The Ministry of Healing, "Disease is an effort of nature to free the system from conditions that result from a violation of the laws of health. In case of sickness, the cause should be ascertained. Unhealthful conditions should be changed, wrong habits corrected. Then nature is to be assisted in her effort to expel impurities and to re-establish right conditions in the system." What do you think she was referring to in regards to "impurities"? That's right, it is what we know as detoxification! She was way ahead of her time!

If we ignore the body's warning systems such as the symptoms of colds by drying it up with an anti-histamine, then we should expect to have recurring colds and productive coughs throughout our lifetime. Other warning signals include (general body aches and pains, fever, fatigue or low energy, dry skin, allergies, skin rash, and etc.). You can see why this concept can lead to confusion because we in the medical profession treat the symptoms, not the cause. With regards to being infectious when nursing a cold, do we have to worry about exposure to others? Dr. Baroody who wrote the book Alkalize or Die mentions about a woman who sat across him with symptoms of severe cold. The woman was concerned about being contagious. Dr. Baroody responded by saying, "Not unless the person you come into contact with is also too acidic".

While viruses and bacteria are all around us, these organisms are opportunists and magnify symptoms, which are in the context or umbrella of detoxification. These organisms are not the cause of the symptoms. With bacterial or viral infection, the body has more to clean or detoxify, that is why the symptoms are more intense. Increased acid conditions in the the human body sets the stage for detoxification or cleansing to occur.

What about grains?

We have been brought up to eat a wholesome breakfast consisting of oatmeal or cereal along some fruit and doused with milk, right! Is there anything wrong with this picture? Common sense tells us this is a healthy breakfast, right? Well, this is the time to reconsider that this common sense is questionable. This breakfast protocol is predominantly acid forming! Now pile on more acid foods such as breakfast links, eggs, cheese, and continue with this protocol the rest of your life and you will likely end up with osteoporosis!

Grains, with a few exceptions, are acid forming. That means, by the time the food has been metabolized by the body, an acid ash residue remains that has to be neutralized by your alkaline storage. No wonder I have seen so many severely osteoporotic patients that have a so-called healthy breakfast. A quick food survey confirms this impression and reinforced by the saliva and urine pH tests.

Dr. Baroody in his book, Alkalize or Die, rates all foods in an alkaline/acid scale from 0.5 to 7.5 with 4.0 rated as neutral. Oats are rated at 2.5, buckwheat at 2.5, brown rice at 2.5, whole wheat at 2.0, and barley at 3.0, all of which are acid. White rice is 1.5 and bleached wheat is 1.0. That is why it makes sense to me as a clinician to see even vegan vegetarians at risk for osteoporosis and other chronic degenerative conditions because of the intake of predominantly acid forming foods. It is interesting to note that consuming predominantly acid forming foods leads to obesity and difficulty in weight loss! Check it out for yourself. This is not rocket science!

Does that mean grains are bad for us? It is interesting to note that amaranth, millet and quinoa have a rating of 4.5 (alkaline) than the grains listed above. It would be prudent to consume these grains in our diet instead of relying on the media that oatmeal is good for us. Yes oatmeal is good for us because of the fiber, but at the expense of losing calcium from our bones! But what about the phytonutrients in the oats? I am not going to completely exclude oats from the diet, but it will not be a predominant food for breakfast if I wish to remain at a high alkaline edge. This can be a subject for debate.

Here's an experiment you can try as a way to prove how acid forming grains are with the above exceptions noted. Eliminate acid forming grains from your diet for 2-3 weeks (assuming you have vegetables and fruits in the diet) and observe what happens to your clogged sinuses, energy level, and overall well-being minus the withdrawal and detox symptoms.

On the other hand, vegetables and fruits, with a few exceptions, are alkaline forming foods. There is a hierarchy in plant-based foods. Ranked at the top are the alkaline forming foods (vegetables and fruits) and at the bottom are the acid forming foods (grains). All others can be considered somewhere between. Aside from plant-based foods, all animal products are extremely acid forming. That is why there is simply no argument there!

Dr. Morter, in his book, Health & Wellness states that we are alkaline by design, and acid in function. What does that mean? It means if we just simply function, we will get into an acid state. It also means that if we ate predominantly alkaline forming foods, our acid state by function will not get out of control. High acid conditions in our bodies lead to internal toxicity paving the way for disease to set in.

Here is something interesting with regards to grains that Dr. Morter talks about in his book, Health & Wellness. Grains are acid forming but become alkaline forming when sprouted! So let's use sprouts more and we will see the increased health benefits of grains in our diet!

Topic for next newsletter:

1. Diabetes

As always, I strive to provide you with information that I believe is the key to ultimate health. Health is earned (Dr. Joel Fuhrman). Sickness is by default.

Blessings,

Miven Donato, PT, DC, Health Minister