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iEat Green Researches the Best Cancer Curing Diets; Sign Up for the Thanksgiving Feast for the Needy; Interviews Farmer Lucy Marston from the Hawthorne Valley Biodynamic CSA Farm

UnknownHi Everyone,

What do you do when a person you love is given a terminal diagnosis of cancer? The first thing I did, was hit the computer. I started looking up all of the different options out there, from new medicines, to target therapies, to experimental trials. I asked the doctors lots of questions. For a variety of reasons, my loved one was not a candidate for any of them. So what do you do? Give up hope? You can either accept the diagnosis, do nothing, and choose to make your remaining days as full and meaningful as possible, or you can try the only option they are offering you, chemo therapy, and hope it buys you a little extra time, even though you know it will make you as sick as a dog. It’s a tough choice, but that seems like the only option. However, there is one choice that western medicine doesn’t offer, and that is to take matters into your own hands, and use food as medicine. You can either find an alternative doctor or naturopath to work with, or you can follow one of the myriad diets available on the internet. None of the diets guarantee they will heal you, but there are stories after stories of those who were cured, and it at least gives you some hope. Figuring out which diet best fights your type of cancer, and sorting through all of the sites on the internet can be overwhelming. There are many diets that claim they can cure cancer, and yet many of them have contradictory belief systems.    A raw, plant based diet comes up consistently as the most common and successful cancer diet out there, yet there are subtle differences even amongst them. Some recommend juicing, some recommend blended salads, and some warn against juicing. Juicing allows one to ingest many nutrients into the body at one time, yet when you juice, you are by-passing the first stage of digestion, which is the mouth. When we chew our foods well, and it has the chance to mix with our saliva, we are aiding in the digestive process, which allows the nutrients to be absorbed into our bodies. Another diet that has had much success over the years is a macrobiotic diet, which is the opposite of a raw foods diet. Macrobiotics promotes lots of cooked vegetables, seaweeds, fermented foods, pickled foods and brown rice, and doesn’t encourage lots of raw foods.images-1

So what is a person to do? I don’t think anyone really knows until they are faced with the situation. It can be very confusing. The decision to do nothing, or to choose chemo, or to try to heal yourself with food, is a very personal one, and one that the cancer patient has to make on their own. On one hand, if you think you don’t have a lot of time to live, you might want the freedom to go out and eat all of the unhealthy foods you love, and enjoy yourself.  On the other hand, you don’t want to give up, and you want to believe that you can turn this diagnosis around, and beat the odds. As a family member, observing from the outside, I think the most important thing that I can do, is to support and embrace whatever decision that my loved one ultimately makes, and to pour on the love. Of course, there is no question, that should they choose to heal themselves with food, my chef services are by their side!

I am getting ready for my 21st year of bringing community together for a great cause, creating a Thanksgiving Feast for the Needy. Every year, I partner with the River Fund NY, and join their mobile food pantry at Rufus King Park in Jamaica, Queens, to serve a homemade, delicious traditional Thanksgiving Feast to those in need (including a vegetarian option, of course!). A huge part of this event, is our winter coat and clothing drive. There are IMG_0776many ways you can get involved. You can sign up to volunteer for the washing, prepping and cooking, you can donate a turkey (preferably cooked, but raw is OK too), you can donate money directly to the River Fund NY ( a 501c3 org., mention Thanksgiving event) and you can help us collect coats, and other winter clothing items to distribute to those in need. To drop off coats, email me at; Bhavani@iEatGreen.com ; To sign up to volunteer, click here;

This week, on the Progressive Radio Network, I will be interviewing Lucy Marston, the farmer responsible for growing all of the food that makes up the 300 CSA shares from the 400 acre Hawthorne Valley Biodynamic Farm. What is biodynamics? Some people call it organic on steroids! I call it “super organic”! Please join me on Thursday, and find out from Lucy, what makes biodynamics so great, and how she manages to grow enough food for 300 families, an on site farm store and 5 weekly farmers markets in NYC. Unknown-1 images-1

Remember, my show is recorded live, every Thursday, from 10-11 am, EST.  To tune in, navigate to PRN.fm and click the “Listen Live” button on the left. Also try downloading the PRN mobile app, and take the station with you wherever you go! If you want to call in during the show with any questions for me or my guest, the call in number is 888-874-4888.

If you can’t tune in at that time, you can listen to the show in the PRN archives, or on my website, or through iTunes.  Please “like” iEat Green’s Facebook page and feel free to rate the show and leave comments on iTunes and on my website. Thank you all for your support.

With love and gratitude,

Bhavani

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