He also ate larger and larger quantities of gra ins, nuts and avocados, although I had warned him 
of specific quantity limits on rich foods. Most sadly, he returned to enjoying spaghetti with lots of cheese grated on top. W ithin 
months of leaving my care his paralysis and weakness returned, except that unfortunately for him, he still retained the ability to 
assimilate food and maintain his body weight. Ironically, the only ultimate benefit of his fasting with me was to permit him to 
suffer a far longer existence in a wheelchair without wasting away and e scaping into death. I would be failing my readers if I did not explain why Jake became ill in the first place. Jake had started what grew to beco me a 
very successful chain of spaghetti restaurants with a unique noodles and sauces made to his own formu la. He ate a lot of his own 
spaghetti over the years, and had been reared in a good Italian family with lots of other kinds of rich food. Jake had a repu tation for 
being able to outeat everybody in terms of quantity and in the amount of time spent eating. In childhood, this ability had made his 
Italian mother very happy because it showed appreciation for her great culinary skill. Secondly, Jake the adult was still at his core, Jake the spoiled brat child, with a bad, unregulated temper. He was in the h abit of 
dumping his temper on other people whether they needed a helping of his angry emotions or not. A lot of people in his employ and 
in his extended family tiptoed around Jake, always careful of triggering his wrath. At my place as Jake began to get we ll he began 
to use his increased energy and much stronger voice to demonstrate his poor character. At meal times Jake would bang the tabl e 
with a fork hard enough to leave dents in the wood table top while yelling for more, complaining loudly about the lac k of rich 
sauces and other culinary delights he craved. This was a character problem that Jake could not seem to overcome, even with a lot 
of intervention from the local minister on his behalf and my counseling. Jake was a Catholic who went to church regul arly, but 
acted like a Christian only while he was in church. On some level Jake knew that he was not treating others fairly, but he wo uld 
not change his habitual responses. His negative thoughts and actions interfered with his digestive capacity to the ex tent that his 
gluttonous eating habits produced illness, a vegetative paralyzing illness, but not death. To me this seems almost a form of karmic 
justice. It is common for people who have been very ill for extended periods of time to realize what a won derful gift life is and arrive at 
a willingness to do almost anything to have a second chance at doing ‘life" right. Some succeed with their second chance and some 
don’t. If they don"t succeed in changing their life and relationships, they frequently relap se. Luigi Cornaro’s left the world his story of sickness and rejuvenation. His little book may be the world’s first alternative h ealing 
text. It is a classic example of the value of abstentousness. Had Jake taken this story to heart he would have total ly recovered. Cornaro was a sixteenth century Venetian nobleman. He, like Jake the spaghetti baron, was near death at the young age of fort y. (Jake was also in his early 40s when he broke down.) Cornaro’s many doctors were unable to cure him. Finally he sa w a doctor 
who understood the principles of natural healing. This wise physician determined that this illness was caused by a mismatch 
between Cornaro’s limited digestive capacity and the excessive amount of food he was eating. So Cornaro was put on a diet  of 
only 12 ounces of solid food and fourteen ounces of liquid a day. Any twelve ounces of any solids he wanted and any fourteen 
ounces of liquid. It could be meat and wine, salad or orange juice, no matter. Cornaro soon regained his health and he continued to follow the diet until the age of 78. His health was so outstanding durin g 
this period that people who were much younger in terms of years were unable to keep up with him. At 78 his friends, worried 
about how thin he was (doesn’t it always seem that it is your so -called friends who always ruin a natural cure) persuaded him to 
increase his daily ration by two ounces a day. His delicate and weak digestive system, which had operated perfectly for many 
years, was unable to deal with the additional two ounces, and he became very ill after a very short period of over eating. Worse, his recent indulgence had even further damaged the organs of digestion and to survive Cornaro had to cut his daily rat ion 
to eight ounces of solid food and eleven of liquids. On this reduced dietary he again regained his health and lived to be 100. Cornaro wrote four books on the value of abstinence or "sober living" as he called it, writing the last and perhaps the most 
intere sting at 96 years of age. Had my patient Jake been able to confine his food intake to the level of his body’s ability to dige st, 
he might still be walking and enjoying life. But try as I might I could not make him understand. Perhaps he enjoys doing pena nce 
in his wheel chair more than he would enjoy health and life. Tissue Losses at Death By Starvation*  
 Fat 97% 
Muscles  31 
Blood  27 
Liver  54 
Spleen  67 
Pancreas  17 
Skin 21 
Intestines  18 
Kidneys  26 
Lungs  18 
Testes  40 
Heart  3 
Brain and Spinal Cord  3 
Nerves  3 
Bone  14 
 
 
* From Keys, Ancel, Joseph Brozek , Austin Henchel, Olaf Mickelson and Henry L. Taylor, (1950)  The Biology of Human Starvation. Two Vols. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Starvation  
    It is true that ethical medical doctors use the least -risky procedure they are allowed to use. But this does not mean there are no 
risks to allopathic treatment. The medical doctor justifies taking the risks by saying that the risk/reward ratio is the best possible. Any sick person is already at risk. Life comes with only one guarantee: that none of us gets out of it alive. Compared to the risks of allopathic medicine, fasting is a far safer method of treating disease. The oft -repeated scare stories  
medical doctors and their allies circulate about fasting are not true, and it is important to remember that none of these peo ple 
portraying fasting as evil and dangerous have ever fasted themselves –I"ll put money on that one. Or, on the slim possibility t hat 
someone telling fasting horror stories did actually not eat for 24 hours (probably because some accident or acute illness pre vented 
them), they had a terrible experience because they didn’t understand the process, were highly toxic, and were scared to death the 
whole time. Or worse yet they fasted for a short period with an "open mind" –a very dangerous state in which to approach anything new. I 
have found through considerable experience with people professing to have open minds that the expression "I’m open minded" 
usually means that someone has already made up their mind and new data just passes straight through their open mind –in one ear 
and out the other. Or sometimes, the phrase "open mind" means a person that does not believe any information ha s reality and is 
entirely unable to make up their mind. The most commonly leveled criticism of fasting is that in its efforts to survive self -imposed starvation the body metabolizes 
vital tissue, not just fat, and therefore, fasting is damaging, potent ially fatally damaging. People who tell you this will also tell you 
that fasters have destroyed their heart muscle or ruined their nervous system permanently. But this kind of damage happen onl y 
when a person starves to death or starves to a point very clo se to death, not when someone fasts. There is a huge difference between fasting and starvation. Someone starving is usually eating, but eating poorly and 
inadequately, eating scraps of whatever is available such as sugar, white flour, rancid grease, s hoe leather, or even dirt. Frequently 
a starving person is forced to exercise a great deal as they struggle to survive and additionally is highly apprehensive. Or someone 
starving to death is confined to a small space, may become severely dehydrated too an d is in terror. Fear is very damaging to the 
digestive process, and to the body in general; fear speeds up the destruction of vital tissue. People starve when trekking va st 
distances through wastelands without food to eat, they starved in concentration cam ps, buried in mind disasters, they starve during 
famines and starve while being tortured in prisons. Until water fasting goes on past the point where all fatty tissues and all abnormal deposits have been burned for fuel and 
recycled for the nutritiona l elements they contain, vital muscle tissues and organs are not consumed. And as long as the body 
contains sufficient nutritional reserves, vital organs and essential tissues are rebuilt and maintained. In fact the body has  a great 
deal of intelligence th at we don’t give it credit for. It knows exactly which cells are essential to survival, which ones are not. The 
body knows which cells are abnormal deposits, and it goes to work to metabolize them first. For example, the body recognizes 
arthritic deposits,  cysts, fibroids, and tumors as offensive parts of the landscape, and obligingly uses them for foods in preference 
to anything else. A starving (not fasting) body also knows precisely in what order of priority body cells should be metaboliz ed to 
minimize r isk of death or permanent disability. After a starving body has reached skeletal condition, or where some small amount of fat remains but nutritional reserves 
(vitamins and minerals) are exhausted and there is insufficient nourishment forthcoming, the body begins to consume nutrient -rich 
muscle and organ tissue in a last -ditch effort to stay alive. Under these dire circumstances, the least essential muscles and organs 
from the standpoint of survival are metabolized first. For example, muscles in the arm s and legs would be consumed early in the 
process, the heart muscle used only toward the very end. The very last part of the body to be metabolized when one is starvin g and 
as has come very close to death would be the brain and the nervous system. Starvation begins where fasting ends, which is when real hunger begins. If the return of hunger is ignored whenever it takes 
place, whether it is in 30, 60, or 90 days depending upon body weight and type of fast, at that point exactly, not a day befo re, 
starv ation begins very slowly. Usually it takes a considerable period of time after that before death occurs. It is important to n ote 
that this discussion applies only to the abstention from food, not water. Death takes place very quickly in the absence of wa ter. The chart on the previous page shows numerically the phenomenal ability of the body to protect the most essential tissues of the 
body right up to the time of death. If a person fasted for 30 days, the average time it takes for the return of hunger i n a person that 
is not overweight, and then ignored the return of hunger, and continued to abstain from food –if the person could avoid forced 
exercise, keep warm, and had enough hydration, it could take as much as an additional 20 to 60 days to die of star vation! At death 
the body would have experienced losses of 40 to 60 percent of its starting body weight. (Ancel Keys et al, 1950) A emaciated 
person can not afford to lose nearly as much weight as an obese person, and death under conditions of starvation w ill occur earlier. In all cases of starvation the brain, nerves, heart, lungs, kidneys and liver remain largely intact and functional to the ver y end. During a fast, it is almost impossible to damage essential organs, unless of course the person creates th e damage by fears about the 
process, or by internalizing the fears of others. If those fears are present, the fast should not be attempted. Weight Loss By Fasting  
    Loss of weight indicates, almost guarantees, that detoxification and healing is occurrin g. I can’t stress this too much. Of all the 
things I find my patients seem to misunderstand or forget after being told, it is that they can’t heal in a rapid manner with out 
getting smaller. This reality is especially hard for the family and friends of some one who is fasting, who will say, "You’re looking 
terrible dear, so thin. Your skin is hanging on your bones. You’re not eating enough protein or nutrient food to be healthy a nd you 
must eat more or you’re going to develop serious deficiencies. You don’t h ave any energy, you must be getting sicker. You’re 
doing the wrong thing, obviously. You have less energy and look worse every day. Go and see a doctor before it is too late." To 
succeed with friends like this, a faster has to be a mighty self -determined p erson with a powerful ability to disagree with others. Medical personnel claim that rapid weight loss often causes dangerous deficiencies; these deficiencies force the person to 
overeat and regain even more weight afterward. This is largely untrue, tho ugh there is one true aspect to it: a fasted, detoxified 
body becomes a much more efficient digester and assimilator, extracting a lot more nutrition from the same amount food is use d to 
eat. If, after extended fasting a person returns to eating the same n umber of calories as they did before; they will gain weight even 
more rapidly than before they stated fasting. When fasting for weight loss, the only way to keep the weight off is to greatly  reform 
the diet; to go on, and stay on, a diet made up largely of  non-starchy, watery fruits and vegetables, limited quantities of cooked 
food, and very limited amounts of highly concentrated food sources like cereals and cooked legumes. Unless, of course, after 
fasting, one’s lifestyle involves much very hard physical labor or exercise. I’ve had a few obese fasters become quite angry with 
me for this reason; they hoped to get thin through fasting and after the fast, to resume overeating with complete irresponsib ility as 
before, without weight gain. People also fear  weight loss during fasting because they fear becoming anorexic or bulimic. They won’t! A person who abstains 
from eating for the purpose of improving their health, in order to prevent or treat illness, or even one who fasts for weight  loss will 
not develo p an eating disorder. Eating disorders mean eating compulsively because of a distorted body image. Anorexics and 
bulimics have obsessions with the thinner -is-better school of thought. The anorexic looks at their emaciated frame in the mirror 
and thinks the y are fat! This is the distorted perception of a very insecure person badly in need of therapy. A bulimic, on the other 
hand stuffs themselves, usually with bad food, and then purges it by vomiting, or with laxatives. Anorexics and bulimics are not 
acceler ating the healing potential of their bodies; these are life threatening conditions. Fasters are genuinely trying to enhance t heir 
survival potential. Occasionally a neurotic individual with a pre -existing eating disorder will become obsessed with fast ing and colon cleansing as 
a justification to legitimize their compulsion. During my career while monitoring hundreds of fasters, I’ve known two of thes e. I 
discourage them from fasting or colon cleansing, and refuse to assist them, because they carry the practices to absurd extremes, 
and contribute to bad press about natural medicine by ending up in the emergency ward of a hospital with an intravenous feedi ng 
tube in their arm. Cases Beyond The Remedy Of Fasting  
    Occasionally, very ill people have a l iver that has become so degenerated it cannot sustain the burden of detoxification. This 
organ is as vital to survival as the brain, heart and lungs. We can get along with only one kidney, we can live with no splee n, with 
no gallbladder, with only small pa rts of the stomach and intestines, but we can not survive without a liver for more than a day or 
so. The liver is the most active organ in the body during detoxification. To reach an understanding of detoxification, it hel ps to 
know just what the liver doe s for us on an ongoing basis. The liver is a powerful chemical filter where blood is refined and purified. The liver passes this cleansed blood out through  the 
superior vena cava, directly to the heart. The blood is then pumped into general and system ic circulation, where it reaches all parts 
of the body, delivering nutrition and oxygen at a cellular level. On its return flow, a large proportion of the depleted bloo d is 
collected by the gastric, splenic and superior and inferior mesenteric veins that c onverge to form the large portal vein which enters 
the liver. Thus a massive flow of waste from all the cells of the body is constantly flowing into the liver. The huge hepatic  artery 
also enters the liver to supply oxygen and nutrients with which to susta in the liver cells themselves. The liver is constantly at work refining the blood. It is synthesizing, purifying, renovating, washing, filtering, separating , and 
detoxifying. It works day and night without stopping. Many toxins are broken down by enzymes and their component parts ar e 
efficiently reused in various parts of the body. Some impurities are filtered out and held back from the general circulation. These 
debris are collected and stored in the gall bladder, which is a little sack appended to the liver. After a meal, the conte nts of the gall 
bladder (bile) are discharged into the duodenum, the upper part of the small intestine just beyond the stomach. This bile als o 
contains digestive enzymes produced by the liver that permit the breakdown of fatty foods in the small intestine. Sometimes a large flow of bile finds its way into the stomach by pressure or is sucked into the stomach by vomiting. Excessiv e 
biliary secretion and excretion can also result from overeating, which overcrowds the area. Sometimes colonics or massage ca n 
also stimulate a massive flow of bile. Extremely bitter and irritating, when bile gets into the stomach the person either vom its or 
wishes they could. And after vomiting and experiencing the taste of bile, wishes they hadn’t. When no food at all ente rs the system, the blood keeps right on passing through the liver/filter just as it does when we are eating. When the liver does not have to take care of toxins generated by the current food intake, each passage through the liver resu lts in a 
cleaner blood  stream, with the debris decreasing in quantity, viscosity, and toxicity, until the blood becomes normalized. During 
fasting, debris from the gall bladder still pass through the small intestine and into the large intestine. However, if the bo wels do not 
move the toxins in the bile are reabsorbed into the blood stream and get recirculated in an endless loop. This toxic recycling makes 
a faster feel just terrible, like they had a flu or worse! The bowels rarely move while fasting. During fasting only enem as or colonics permit elimination from the large intestine. If 
done effectively and frequently, enemas will greatly add to the well being and comfort of the faster. Many times when a faste r 
seems to be retracing or experiencing a sudden onset of acute disc omfort or symptoms, these can be almost immediately relieved 
by an enema or colonic. A person with major liver degeneration inevitably dies, with or without fasting, with or without traditional medicine. Significantly impaired kidney function can also  bring about this same result. Mercifully, death while fasting is usually 
accomplished relatively free of pain, clear of mind and with dignity. That often can not be said of death in a hospital. Ther e are 
much worse experiences than death. Fasting is not a cure -all. There are some conditions that are beyond the ability of the body to heal. Ultimately, old age gets us 
all. Dr. Linda Hazzard, one of the greats of natural hygiene, who practiced Osteopathic medicine in the 1920s, had a useful way of  
categorizing conditions that respond well to fasting. These she labeled "acute conditions," and "chronic degenerative conditio ns." A third classification, "chronic conditions with organic damage," does not respond to fasting. Acute conditions, are usually 
inflammations or infections with irritated tissue, with swelling, redness, and often copious secretions of mucous and pus, suc h as 
colds, flu, a first time case of pneumonia, inflamed joints as in the early stages of arthritis, etc. These acute conditions usually 
remedy in one to three weeks of fasting. Acute conditions are excellent candidates for self -doctoring. Chronic degenerative 
conditions are more serious and the patient usually requires supervision. These include conditions such as cancer, aids, chro nic 
arthritis, chronic pneumonia, emphysema and asthma. Chronic degenerative conditions usually respond within a month to three 
months of fasting. The fasting should be broken up into two or three sessions if the condition has not been relieved in one s tint of 
supervised fasting. Each successive fast will produce some improvement and if a light, largely raw -food diet is adhered to between 
fasts the patient should not worsen and should be fairly comfortable between fastings. If there has been major func tional damage to an organ as a result of any of these degenerative conditions, healing will not be 
complete, or may be impossible. By organic damage, I mean that a vital part of the body has ceased to function due to some 
degenerative process, injury, or s urgery –so badly damaged that the cells that make up the organ can not be replaced. I once had a twenty five year old man come to my spa to die in peace because he had been through enough diagnostic 
procedures in three hospitals to know that his liver was beyond repair. He had been working on an apple farm in between terms at 
university when he was poisoned several times with insecticide from an aerial spray on the whole orchard. He absorbed so much  
insecticide that his liver incurred massive organic da mage. When he came to me his body had reached the point where it was incapable of digesting, and because of lack of liver function,  it 
was incapable of healing while fasting, a condition in which death is a certainty. He was a Buddhist, did not fear de ath and did not 
want to be kept alive in agony or in prolonged unconsciousness by any extraordinary means, nor did he want to die with tubes in 
every orifice. I was honored to be a supportive participant in his passing. He died fasting, in peace, and witho ut pain, with a clear 
mind that allowed him to consciously prepare for the experience. He was not in a state of denial or fear, and made no frantic  
attempts to escape the inevitable. He went quietly into that still dark night with a tranquil demeanor and a  slight smile. Fortunately, in my many years of practice I had the pleasure of seeing the majority of the people totally regain their health  or at 
least greatly improve it by means of the fasting and healing diets. Many cancer patients watched with ama zement as their tumors 
disappeared before their eyes, many arthritics regained their function, serious skin conditions such as psoriasis disappeared , mental 
conditions improved, addictions vanished, fatigue was replaced by energy, and fat dissolved reveali ng the hidden sculpture 
beneath. I will talk more about procedures and the particular reasons bodies develop specific conditions in later chapters. Social/Cultural/Psychological Obstacles To Fasting  
    Numerous attitudes make it difficult to fast or to p rovide moral support to friends or loved ones that are fasting. Many people 
harbor fears of losing weight because they think that if times were really tough, if there was a famine or they became ill an d lost a 
lot of weight they would have no reserves and would certainly perish. These people have no idea how much fat can be concealed 
on an even skinny body, nor of how slowly a skinny body loses weight while fasting. Substantial fat reserves are helpful as h eat-
retaining insulation in those rare accidents wh en someone is dropped into a cold ocean and must survive until the rescue boat 
arrives. Being fat might keep a person alive longer who is lost in the wilderness awaiting rescue with no supplies, no means of 
procuring food, and no means of keeping warm. On the other hand, fat people would have a far harder time walking out of the 
wilderness. And extensive fat deposits are merely fuel and do not contain extensive nutritional reserves. An obese person fas ting 
without significant nutritional supplementation wou ld begin starving long before they became really skinny. On the balance, 
carrying excess weight is a far greater liability than any potential pro -survival aspects it might have. There are other attitudes associated with weight loss that make it difficu lt for people to fast. People hold rather stereotypical 
notions about what constitutes an attractive person; usually it involves having some meat on ones bones. Hollywood and Hugh 
Hefner have both influenced the masses to think that women should have hourg lass figures with large, upthrust, firm breasts. Since 
breasts are almost all useless fatty tissue supporting some milk -producing glands that do not give a breast much volume except 
when engorged, most women fasters lose a good percentage of their breast m ass. If the fast is extensive, there should also develop 
an impressive showing of ribs and hip bones; these are not soft and cuddly. Husbands, lovers, parents, and friends frequently  point 
out that you don’t look good this way and exhort you to put on weig ht. Most people think pleasantly plump is healthy. Skinny men, especially those who had lost a lot of weight during an illness, are pressured by associates to put on weight to 
prove that they are healthy. I had a client who was formerly a college vars ity football player. Before his illness he had lifted 
weights and looked like a hunk. His family and friends liked to see him that way and justifiably so. Then he got seriously il l. On a 
long extended healing diet he lost a significant amount of weight and  seemed down right skinny, causing all who knew him well 
and cared about him to tempt him with all kinds of scrumptious delicacies from the best of kitchens. But this case was like L uigi 
Cornaro, a man who never again could look like a hunk. His "friends" made an absolutely necessary change in life style and 
appearance far more difficult than it was already. My client was torn between a desire to please others, and a desire to rega in and 
retain his health. This problem a sick person doesn’t need. If you  have the independence to consider following an alternative medical program in a culture that highly values conformity 
and agreement, you are also going to have to defend your own course of self -determined action based on the best available data 
that you h ave. But fasters are usually in fragile emotional condition, so I advise my clients who are subjected to this kind of 
pressure to beg their friends and associates to refrain from saying anything if they can’t support the course of action you h ave 
chosen. A fter this, if friends or relatives are still incapable of saying nothing (even non -verbally), it is important to exclude them 
from your life until you have accomplished your health goals, have regained some weight and have returned to eating a 
maintenance diet, rather than getting skinnier on a healing one. The very worst aspect of our culture’s eating programming is that people have been wrongfully taught that when ill they must 
eat to keep up their strength. Inherent in this recommendation is an unsta ted belief that when the body is weakened by a disease 
state, the weakness can somehow be overcome with food, and that the body needs this food to kill the virus, bacteria, or inva ding 
yeast, and uses the protein to heal or rebuild tissue. Sadly, the exact  opposite is the case. Disease organisms feed and multiply on 
the toxic waste products of misdigestion, and the body is unable to digest well when it is weak or ill.  
    There’s an old saying about this: ‘feed a cold, starve a fever." Most people think th is saying means you should eat when you 
have a cold. What the saying really means is if you feed a cold then you will soon have to starve a fever. Protein foods espe cially 
are not digested by a diseased body, and as mentioned before, the waste products of protein indigestion are especially poisonous. That is all the body needs when it is already down, another load of poison which it can’t eliminate due to weakness and enerv ation. Weight loss is usually associated with illness, as it should be! In times  of acute illness an otherwise healthy body loses its 
appetite for food because it is pro -survival to stop eating. It is very hard to coax a sick animal to eat. Their bodies, not controlled 
by a mind full of complex learned responses and false ideas, autom atically know that fasting is nature’s method of healing. Contrary to popular understanding, digestion, assimilation, and elimination require the expenditure of considerable energy. T his 
fact may contradict the reader’s experience because everyone has beco me tired when they have worked a long time without eating, 
and then experienced the lift after eating. But an ill body cannot digest efficiently so instead of providing energy extracte d from 
foods, the body is further burdened by yet another load of toxic material produced by fermented and putrefied food. This adds 
insult to injury in a sick body that is already drowning in its own garbage. Worse, during illness most available vital force is already redirected into healing; it is not available for diges tion. It is important 
to allow a sick body to proceed with healing and not to obstruct the process with unnecessary digestion or suppress the sympt oms 
(which actually are the healing efforts) with drugs. If you have an acute illness, and you stop all food intake except for pure water 
and herb teas, and perhaps some vegetable broth, or dilute non -sweet juice, you have relieved your body of an immense effort. Instead of digesting, the body goes to work on catching up on healing. The body can and will almost i nevitably heal itself if the 
sick person will have faith in it, co -operate with the body’s efforts by allowing the symptoms of healing to exist, reduce or 
eliminate the intake of food to allow the body to marshal its energies, maintain a positive mental at titude and otherwise stay out of 
the way. Many people intensely dread missing even one meal. These folks usually are and have been so toxic that their bodies had been 
stashing uneliminated toxins in their fat for years. They are usually so addicted to  caffeine, cigarettes, alcohol, and so forth, that 
when they had fasted, even briefly, their bodies were forced to dip into highly -polluted fat reserves while simultaneously the body 
begins withdrawal. People like this who try to fast experience highly unp leasant symptoms including headache, irritability, 
inability to think or concentrate, blurred vision, profound fatigue, aches, etc. Most of these symptoms come from low blood s ugar, 
but combined with the toxins being released from fat and combined with goi ng through multiple addictive withdrawals, the 
discomforts are more than most people are willing to tolerate. Fasting on juice is much more realistic for cases like this. I t is little 
wonder that when a hygienist suggests a fast to improve health, this typ e of case asserts positively that fasting is quite impossible, 
they have tried it, it is absolutely terrible and know that they can’t do it. This rejection is partly due to a cultural expectation (one reinforced by western medicine) that all unpleasan t symptoms should 
be avoided or suppressed. To voluntarily experience unpleasant sensations such as those mentioned above is more than the 
ordinary timid person will subject themselves to, even in order to regain health. They will allow surgery, drugs with  violent and 
dangerous side effects, painful and invasive testing procedures and radiation –all unpleasant and sometimes extremely 
uncomfortable. These therapies are accepted because someone else with authority is doing it to them. And, they have been told  that 
it they don"t submit they will not ever feel better and probably will die in the near future. Also people think that they hav e no 
alternative, that the expert in front of them knows what is best, so they feel relieved to have been relieved of the resp onsibility for 
their own condition and its treatment. Preventative Fasting  
    During the years it takes for a body to degenerate enough to prompt a fast, the body has been storing up large quantities of 
unprocessed toxins in the cells, tissues, fat depos its, and organs. The body in its wisdom will always choose to temporarily deposit 
overwhelming amounts of toxins somewhere harmless rather than permit the blood supply to become polluted or to use secondary 
elimination routes. A body will use times when th e liver is less burdened to eliminate these stored toxic debris. The hygienists" 
paradigm asserts that the manifestation of symptoms or illness are all by themselves, absolute, unassailable proof that furth er 
storage of toxic wastes in the cells, tissues, fat deposits, and organs is not possible and that an effort toward elimination is 
absolutely necessary. Thus the first time a person fasts a great quantity of toxins will normally be released. Being the resi dent of a 
body when this is happening can be quit e uncomfortable. For this reason alone, preventative fasting is a very wise idea. Before the body becomes critically ill, clean up your reserve fuel supply (fat deposits) by burning off some accumulated fat that 
is rich in toxic deposits and then repl ace it with clean, non -toxic fat that you will make while eating sensibly. If you had but fasted 
prophylactically as a preventative or health -creating measure before you became seriously ill, the initial detoxification of your 
body could have been accompli shed far more comfortably, while you were healthy, while your vital force was high and while your 
body otherwise more able to deal with detoxification. Each time you fast, even if it is only one day, you allow your body to go through a partial detox, and each time it becomes easier 
and more comfortable than the last time. The body learns how to fast. Each time you fast it, your body slips into a cleansing  mode 
more quickly, and each time you fast you lighten the load of stored toxins. Perhaps you have already eliminated the caffeine your 
body had stored, which frequently causes severe headaches on withdrawal, not to mention fatigue. It certainly helps to have t his 
behind you before you go on to the elimination of other irritating substances. Many people  have gone through alcohol or tobacco 
withdrawal, and understand that it is very unpleasant, and also that it must be done in the pursuit of health. Why not withdr aw from 
the rest of the irritating and debilitating substances we take into our system on an ongoing basis, and why not grit your way 
through the eliminative process, withdraw, from food addictions such as sugar or salt, and from foods that you may be allergi c to 
like wheat, dairy products or eggs. It is very wise to invest in your own insuran ce plan by systematically detoxifying while you are still healthy. Plan it into your 
life, when it is convenient, such as once a week on Sunday, or even once a month on a quiet day. Take a few days of vacation,  go 
to a warm, beautiful place and devote part  or all of it to cleansing. Treat yourself by taking an annual trip to Hawaii, fasting at a 
hotel on the beach –do whatever it takes to motivate yourself. And consider this: vacations are enormously cheaper when you stay 
out of restaurants. If you have accustomed your body to 24 hour fasts, then you can work on 48 hour fasts, and over time work up to 72 hour fasts , 
all on a continuum. You may find it becoming increasingly comfortable, perhaps even pleasant, something you look forward to. Fasting a relatively detoxified body feels good, and people eventually really get into the clean, light, clear headed, perhap s 
spiritually aware state that goes along with it. By contrast, fasting when you are sick is much more difficult because your vitality or vital force is very low, you already have 
no energy, and probably have unpleasant symptoms that must be dealt with at the same time. There may be the added stress of 
being forced into a cleanse because you are too nauseous to eat. Most people l et their health go until they are forced into dealing 
with it; they are too busy living, so why bother. The truth is that our body does age, and over time becomes less able to deal with insults; the accumulated effect of insults and 
aging eventually l eads most of us to some serious degenerative illness. Normally this begins happening around age 50 if not 
sooner. Some of us that were gifted with good genes or what I call "a good start" may have reached the age of 60 or 75 or eve n 90 
without serious illn ess, but those people are few and far between. Why not tip the scales in your favor by preventing or staving off 
health problems with systematic detoxification at your own convenience. Climb into the drivers seat and start to take control and gain conf idence in your own ability to deal with your body, your own 
health, and your own life. When it gets right down to the bottom line, there is really only one thing in the world that is re ally yours, 
and that is your life. Take control and start managing it. The reward will be a more qualitative life. Chapter Four  
Colon Cleansing  
 
From The Hygienic Dictionary  
Autointoxication. [1] the accumulations on the bowel wall become a breeding ground for unhealthy bacterial life forms. The he avy 
mucus coating in the colon thickens and becomes a host for putrefaction. The blood capillaries to the colon begin to pick up the 
toxins, poisons and noxious debris as it seeps through the bowel wall. All tissues and organs of the body are now taking on t oxic 
substances. Here i s the beginning of true autointoxication on a physiological level. Bernard Jensen, Tissue Cleansing Through 
Bowel Management. [2] All maladies are due to the lack of certain food principles, such as mineral salts or vitamins, or to t he 
absence of the norma l defenses of the body, such as the natural protective flora. When this occurs, toxic bacteria invade the lower 
alimentary canal, and the poisons thus generated pollute the bloodstream and gradually deteriorate and destroy every tissue, gland 
and organ of the body. Sir Arbuthnot Lane. [3] The common cause of gastro -intestinal indigestion is enervation and overeating 
When food is not digested, it becomes a poison. Dr. John.H. Tllden, Impaired Health: Its Cause and Cure, 1921. [4] a clogging  up 
of the large i ntestine by a building up (on) the bowel wall to such an extent that feces can hardly pass through. autointoxication is a 
direct result of intestinal constipation. Faulty nutrition is a major underlying factor in constipation. The frequency or qua ntity of 
fecal elimination is not an indication of the lack of constipation in the bowel. Bernard Jensen, Tissue Cleansing Through Bow el 
Management. I am not a true believer in any single healing method or system. I find much truth in many schools and use a w ide variety of 
techniques. The word for my inclination is eclectic. The most effective medicine in my arsenal is water fasting followed closely in potency by other, less rigorous detoxifying di ets. Colon cleansing ranks next in healing power. In fact it is difficult to separate colon cleansing from fasting because detoxification 
programs should always be accompanied by colon cleansing. Further down the scale of efficatiousness comes dietary reform to 
eliminate allergic reactions and to present the body  with foods it is capable of digesting without creating toxemia. Last, and usually 
least in effectiveness in my arsenal, are orthotropic substances (in the form of little pills and capsules) commonly known as  
vitamins or food supplements. Interestingly , acceptance of these methods by my clients runs in exact opposition to their effectiveness. People prefer taking 
vitamins because they seem like the allopaths' pills, taking pills demands little or no responsibility for change. The least popular 
prescript ion I can write is a monodiet of water for several weeks or a month. Yet this is my most powerful medicine. It is possible to resolve many health complaints without fasting, simply by cleansing the colon and regaining normal lower 
bowel function. Colo nics take little personal effort and are much easier to get people to accept than fasting. So I can fully 
understand how perfectly honest and ethical naturopaths have developed obsessions with colon cleansing. Some healers have 
loudly and repeatedly (and w rongly) proclaimed that constipation is the sole cause of disease, and thus, the only real cure for any 
illness is colon cleansing. Even though it is possible to have a lot of successes with the simple (though unpleasant to administer) technique of co lon 
cleansing, degenerated lower bowels are the only cause of disease. I prefer to use bowel cleansing as an adjunct to more comp lete 
healing programs. However, old classics of hygiene and even a few new books strongly make the case for colonics. Some of t hese 
books are entirely one -sided, single -cause single -cure approaches, and sound convincing to the layperson. For this reason, I think I 
should take a few paragraphs and explain why some otherwise well -intentioned health professionals have overly -advocate d 
colonics (and other practices as well). Most Diseases Cure Themselves  
    If you ask any honest medical doctor how they cure diseases, they will tell you that most acute disease conditions and a smal ler, 
though significant percentage (probably a majorit y) of chronic disease conditions are self -limiting and will, given time, get better 
all by themselves. So for most complaints, the honest allopathic doctor sees their job as giving comfort and easing the sever ity of 
the symptoms until a cure happens. This same scenario, when viewed from a hygienist's perspective, is that almost all acute and many chronic conditions are simpl y 
the body's attempt to handle a crisis of toxemia. For two reasons the current crisis will probably go away by itself. The pos itive 
reason is that the toxic overload will be resolved: the person changes their dietary habits or the stressor that temporarily lowered 
their vital force and produced enervation is removed, then digestion improves and the level of self -generated toxins is r educed. The 
negative reason for a complaint to "cure" itself is that the suffering person's vital force drops below the level that the sy mptom can 
be manifested and the complaint goes away because a new, more serious disease is developing. I view this  second possibility as highly undesirable because strong, healthy bodies possessing a high degree of vital force are 
able to eliminate toxins rather violently, frequently producing very uncomfortable symptoms that are not life -threatening. However, as the vital force drops, the body changes its routes of secondary elimination and begins using more centrally located 
vital organs and systems to dispose of toxemia. This degeneration producing less unpleasant symptoms, but in the long run, 
damages essential org ans and moves the person closer to their final disease. A young vigorous body possessing a large degree of vital force will almost always route surplus toxins through skin tissues a nd 
skin-like mucus membranes, producing repeated bouts of sinusitis, or  asthma, or colds, or a combination of all these. Each acute 
manifestation will "cure" itself by itself eventually. But eventually the body's vital force can no longer create these aggre ssive 
cleansing phenomena and the toxemia begins to go deeper. When th e allopathic doctor gets a patient complaining of sinusitis, they 
know they will eventually get a cure. The "cure" however, might well be a case of arthritis. This unfortunate reality tends to make young, idealistic physicians become rather disillusio ned about treating degenerative 
conditions because the end result of all their efforts is, in the end, death anyway. The best they can do is to alleviate suf fering and 
to a degree, prolong life. The worst they can do is to prolong suffering. Thus, the  physicians main job is to get the patient to be patient, to wait until the body corrects itself and stops manifesting the 
undesired symptom. Thus comes the prime rule of all humane medicine: first of all, do no harm! If the doctor simply refrains from 
making the body worse, it will probably get better by itself. But the patient, rarely resigned to quiet suffering, comes in dema nding 
fast relief, demanding a cure. In fact, if the patient were resigned to quiet suffering they would not consult a doctor. So i f the 
doctor wants to keep this patient and make a living they must do something. If that something the doctor must do does little or no 
harm and better yet, can also alleviate the symptoms, the doctor is practicing good medicine and will have a very high cure rate 
and be financially successful if they have a good bedside manner. This kind of doctor may be allopathic and/or "natural," may  use 
herbs or practice homeopathy. The story of Dr. Jennings, a very successful and famous or infamous (depending on  your viewpoint) physician, who practiced in 
Connecticut in the early 1800s exemplifies this type of approach. Dr. Jennings had his own unique medicines. Their composition was of his own devising, and were absolutely secret. He had 
pills and colored b itter drops of various sorts that were compounded himself in his own pharmacy. Dr. Jennings' patients generally 
recovered and had few or no complications. This must be viewed in contrast to the practices of his fellow doctors of that era , 
whose black bags were full of mercury and arsenic and strychnine, whose practices included obligatory bleeding. These techniques 
and medicines "worked" by poisoning the body or by reducing its blood supply and thus lowering its vital force, ending the bo dy's 
ability to man ifest the undesirable symptom. If the poor patient survived being victimized by their own physician, they were tough 
enough to survive both their disease and the doctor's cure. Typically, the sick had many, lengthy complications, long illness es, and 
many " setbacks" requiring many visits, earning the physician a great living. Dr. Jennings operated differently. He would prescribe one or two secret medicines from his black bag and instruct the patient  to 
stay in bed, get lots of rest, drink lots of water,  eat little and lightly, and continue taking the medicine until they were well. His cure 
rate was phenomenal. Demand they might, but Dr. Jennings would never reveal what was in his pills and vials. Finally at the e nd 
of his career, to instruct his fellow m an, Dr. Jennings confessed. His pills were made from flour dough, various bitter but harmless 
herbal substances, and a little sugar. His red and green and black tinctures, prescribed five or ten drips at a time mixed in  a glass of 
water several times daily , were only water and alcohol, some colorant and something bitter tasting, but harmless. Placebos in other 
words. Upon confessing, Dr. Jennings had to run for his life. I believe he ended up retiring on the western frontier, in Indiana. So me of 
his fo rmer patients were extremely angry because they had paid good money, top dollar for "real" medicines, but were given only 
flour and water. The fact that they got better didn't seem to count. If the physicians curative procedure suppresses the symptom and/or lowers the vital force with toxic drugs or surgery, (either 
result will often as not end the complaint) the allopathic doctor is practicing bad medicine. This doctor too will have a hig h cure 
rate and a good business (if they have an effective bedsi de manner) because their drugs really do make the current symptoms 
vanish very rapidly. Additionally, their practice harmonizes with a common but vicious dramatization of many people which goe s: 
when a body is malfunctioning, it is a bad body and needs to be punished. So lets punish it with poisons and if that don't work, lets 
really punish it by cutting out the offending part. However, if the physician can do something that will do no harm but raises the vital force and/or lowers the level of toxemia , 
this doctor will have a genuine cure rate higher than either of the two techniques. Why does raising the vital force help? Be cause it 
reduces enervation, improves the digestion, lowers the creation of new toxins and improves the function of the organs of 
elimination, also reducing the toxic overload that is causing the complaint. Techniques that temporarily and quickly rais e the vital force include homeopathy, chiropractic, vitamin therapy, massage, 
acupuncture and acupressure and many more spiritually oriented practices. Healers who use these approaches and have a good 
bedside manner can have a very good business, they can have an especially -profitable practice if they do nothing to lower the level 
of toxemia being currently generated. Their patients do experience prompt relief but must repeatedly take the remedy. This ma kes 
for satisfied customers and a repeat business. The best approach of all focuses on reducing the self -generated level of toxemia, cleansing to remove deposits of old toxemia, 
rebuilding the organs of elimination and digestion to prevent the formation of new toxemia, and then, to alleviate the curren t 
symptoms and make it easier for the patient to be patient while their body heals, the healer raises artificially and temporari ly the 
vital force with vitamins, massage, acupressure, etc. This wise and benevolent physician is going to have the highest cure r ate 
among those wise patients who will accept the prescription, but will not make as much money because the patients permanently 
get better and no longer need a physician. There's not nearly as much repeat business. Colonics are one of the best types o f medicine. They clean up deposits of old toxemia (though there are sure to be other deposits 
in the body's tissues colonics do not touch). Colon cleansing reduces the formation of new toxemia from putrefying fecal matt er 
(but dietary reform is necessary t o maximize this benefit). Most noticeable to the patient, a colonic immediately alleviates current 
symptoms by almost instantly reducing the current toxic load. A well -done enema or colonic is such a powerful technique that a 
single one will often make a s evere headache vanish, make an onsetting cold go away, end a bout of sinusitis, end an asthmatic 
attack, reduce the pain of acute arthritic inflammation, reduce or stop an allergic reaction. Enemas are also thrifty: they a re self -
administered and can preve nt most doctor's visits seeking relief for acute conditions. Diseases of the colon itself, including chronic constipation, colitis, diverteculitis, hemorrhoids, irritable bowel syndrome,  and 
mucous colitis, are often cured solely by an intensive series  of several dozen colonics given close together. Contrary to popular 
belief, many people think that if they have dysentery or other forms of loose stools that a colonic is the last thing they ne ed. Surprisingly, a series of colonics will eliminate many of these conditions as well. People with chronic diarrhea or loose stools are 
usually very badly constipated. This may seem a contradiction in terms but it will be explained shortly. A century ago there was much less scientific data about the functioning of the human body. Then it was easy for a hygienically -
oriented physician to come to believe that colonics were the single best medicine available. The doctor practicing nothing bu t 
colonics will have a very high rate of cure and a lot of very satisfied cl ients. Most importantly, this medicine will have done no 
harm. The Repugnant Bowel  
    I don't know why, but people of our culture have a deep -seated reluctance to relate to the colon or it's functions. People don't 
want to think about the colon or perso nally get involved with it by giving themselves enemas or colonics. They become deeply 
embarrassed at having someone else do it for them. People are also shy about farts, and most Americans have a hard time not 
smiling or reacting in some way when someone in their presence breaks wind, although the polite amongst us pretend that we 
didn't notice. Comedians usually succeed in getting a laugh out of an audience when they come up with a fart or make referenc e to 
some other bowel function. People don't react th e same way to urinary functions or discharges, although these also may have an 
unpleasant odor and originate from the same "private" area. When I first mention to clients that they need a minimum of 12 colonics or many more enemas than 12 during a fas ting or 
cleansing program they are inevitably shocked. To most it seems that no one in their right mind would recommend such a 
treatment, and that I must certainly be motivated by greed or some kind of a psychological quirk. Then I routinely show them 
reproductions of X -rays of the large intestine showing obvious loss of normal structure and function resulting from a combination 
of constipation, the effects of gravity, poor abdominal muscle tone, emotional stress, and poor diet. In the average colon mo re than 
50% of the hastrum (muscles that impel fecal matter through the organ) are dysfunctional due to loss of tone caused by impact ion 
of fecal matter and/or constriction of the large intestine secondary to stress (holding muscular tension in the abdominal ar ea) and 
straining during bowel movement. The average person also has a prolapsed (sagging) transverse colon, and a distorted misplaced ascending and descending colon. I 
took a course in colon therapy before purchasing my first colonic machine. The chiropr actor teaching the class required all of his 
patients scheduled for colonics to take a barium enema followed by an X -ray of their large intestine prior to having colonics and 
then make subsequent X -rays after each series of 12 colonics. Most of his patient s experienced so much immediate relief they 
voluntarily took at least four complete series, or 48 colonics, before their X -rays began to look normal in terms of structure. It also 
took about the same number, 48 colonics, for the patients to notice a signif icant improvement in the function of the colon. In 
reviewing over 10,000 X -rays taken at his clinic prior to starting colonics, the chiropractor had seen only two normal colon X -rays 
and these were from farm boys who grew up eating simple foods from the ga rden and doing lots of hard work. The X -rays showed that it took a minimum of 12 colon treatments to bring about a minimal but observable change in the structure 
of the colon in the desired direction, and for the patient to begin to notice that bowel func tion was improving, plus the  fact that 
they started to feel better. From my point of view the most amazing part of this whole experience was that the chiropractor did not recommend any dietary 
changes whatsoever. His patients were achieving great succes s from colonics alone. I had thought dietary changes would be 
necessary to avoid having the same dismal bowel condition return. I still think colonics are far more effective if people are  on a 
cleansing diet too. However, I was delighted to see the potenti al for helping people through colonics. For me, the most interesting part of this colonic school was that I personally was required to have my own barium enema and X -
ray. I was privately certain that mine would look normal, because after all, I had bee n on a raw food diet for six years, and done 
considerable amount of fasting, all of which was reputed to repair a civilized colon. Much to my surprise my colon looked jus t as 
mangled and dysfunctional as everyone else's', only somewhat worse because it had  a loop in the descending colon similar to a 
cursive letter "e" which doctors call a volvulus. Surgeons like to cut volvululii out because they frequently cause bowel 
obstructions. It seemed quite unfair. All those other people with lousy looking colons ha d been eating the average American diet 
their whole life, but I had been so ‘pure!' On further reflection I remembered that I had a tendency toward constipation all through my childhood and young adulthood, 
and that during my two pregnancies the press ure of the fetus on an already constipated bowel had made it worse resulting in the 
distorted structure seen in the X -ray. This experience made it very clear that fasting, cleansing diets, and corrected diet would not 
reverse damage already done. Proper di et and fasting would however, prevent the condition of the colon from getting any worse 
than it already was. I then realized that I had just purchased the very tool I needed to correct my own colon, and I was eager to get home to get 
started on it. I had previously thought that I was just going to use this machine for my patients, because they had been asking for 
this kind of an adjunct to my services for some time. I ended up giving myself over a hundred colonics at the rate of three a  week 
over many months. I then out of curiosity had another barium enema and X -ray to validate my results. Sure enough the picture 
showed a colon that looked far more ‘normal' with no vulvulus. That little "e" had disappeared. What Is Constipation? Most people think they are not constipated because they have a bowel movement almost every day, accomplished without 
straining. I have even had clients tell me that they have a bowel movement once a week, and they are quite certain that they are not 
constipated. The most su rprising thing to novice fasters is that repeated enemas or colonics during fasting begins to release many 
pounds of undeniably real, old, caked fecal matter and/or huge mucus strings. The first -time faster can hardly believe these were 
present. These old fecal deposits do not come out the first time one has enemas or necessarily the fifth time. And all of them will 
not be removed by the tenth enema. But over the course of extended fasting or a long spell of light raw food eating with repe ated 
daily enemas,  amazing changes do begin to occur. It seems that no one who has eaten a civilized diet has escaped the formation of 
caked deposits lining the colon's walls, interfering with its function. This material does not respond to laxatives or casual ly 
administere d enemas. Anyone who has not actually seen (and smelled) what comes out of an "average" apparently healthy person during colonics will 
really believe it could happen or can accurately imagine it. Often there are dark black lumpy strings, lumps, or grav el, evil 
smelling discs shaped like sculpted hemispheres similar to the pockets lining the wall of the colon itself. These discs are r ock-hard 
and may come out looking like long black braids. There may also be long tangled strings of gray/brown mucous, she ets and flakes 
of mucous, and worse yet, an occasional worm (tape worm) or many smaller ones. Once confronted however, it is not hard to 
imagine how these fecal rocks and other obnoxious debris interfere with the proper function of the colon. They make the  colon's 
wall rigid and interfere with peristalsis thus leading to further problems with constipation, and interfere with adsorption o f 
nutrients. Our modern diet is by its "de -"nature, very constipating. In the trenches of the First World War, cheese was given the name 
‘chokem ass' because the soldiers eating this as a part of their daily ration developed severe constipation. Eaten by itself or with 
other whole foods, moderate amounts of cheese may not produce health problems in people who are capable of digesting dairy 
products. But cheese when combined with white flour becomes especially constipating. White bread or most white -flour crackers 
contain a lot of gluten, a very sticky wheat protein that makes the bread bind together and raise well. But whi te flour is lacking the 
bran, where most of the fiber is located. And many other processed foods are missing their fiber. In an earlier chapter I briefly showed how digestion works by following food from the mouth to the large intestine. To fully 
grasp  why becoming constipated is almost a certainty in our civilization a few more details are required. Food leaving the small 
intestine is called chyme, a semi -liquid mixture of fiber, undigested bits, indigestible bits, and the remains of digestive enzymes. Chyme is propelled through the large intestine by muscular contractions. The large intestine operates on what I dub the "chew  
chew train" principle, where the most recent meal you ate enters the large intestine as the caboose (the last car of a train)  and helps 
to push out the train engine (the car at the front that toots), which in a healthy colon should represent the meal eaten perh aps 
twelve hours earlier. The muscles in the colon only contract when they are stretched, so it is the volume of the fecal m atter 
stretching the large intestine that triggers the muscles to push the waste material along toward the rectum and anus. Eating food lacking fiber greatly reduces the volume of the chyme and slows peristalsis. But moving through fast or slow, the  
colon still keeps on doing another of its jobs, which is to transfer the water in the chime back into the bloodstream, reducin g 
dehydration. So the longer chime remains in the colon, the dryer and harder and stickier it gets. That's why once arrived at the "end 
of the tracks" fecal matter should be evacuated in a timely manner before it gets to dry and too hard to be moved easily. Som e 
constipated people do have a bowel movement every day but are evacuating the meal eaten many days or even a week previously. Most hygienists believe that when the colon becomes lined with hardened fecal matter it is permanently and by the very 
definition of the word itself, constipated. This type of constipation is not perceived as an uncomfortable or overly full fee ling o r a 
desire to have a bowel movement that won't pass. But it has insidious effects. Usually constipation delays transit time, incr easing 
the adsorption of toxins generated from misdigestion of food; by coating and locking up significant portions of colon it  also 
reduces the adsorption of certain minerals and electrolytes. Sometimes, extremely constipated people have almost constant runny bowels because the colon has become so thickly and 
impenetrably lined with old fecal matter that it no longer removes  much moisture. This condition is often misinterpreted as 
diarrhea. The large intestine's most important task is to transfer water -soluble minerals from digested food to the blood. When a 
significant part of the colon's surface becomes coated with impermea ble dried rigid fecal matter or mucus it can no longer 
assimilate effectively and the body begins to experience partial mineral starvation in the presence of plenty. It is my obser vation 
from dozens of cases that when the colon has been effectively cleanse d the person has a tendency to gain weight while eating 
amounts of food that before only maintained body weight, while people who could not gain weight or who were wasting away 
despite eating heavily begin to gain. And problems like soft fingernails, bone loss around teeth or porous bones tend to improve. The history of my own constipation, though it especially relates to a very rustic childhood, is typical of many people. I was  also 
raised on a very constipating diet which consisted largely of processed cheese and crackers. Mine was accelerated by shyne ss, 
amplified by lack of comfortable facilities. I spent my early years on the Canadian prairies, where everybody had an outhouse. The fancy modern versions are frequently 
seen on construction sites. These are chemical toilets, quiet different than th e ones I was raised with because somebody or 
something mysteriously comes along, empties them and installs toilet paper. The ones I'm familiar with quickly developed a ba d-
smelling steaming mound in the center --or it was winter when the outhouse was so col d that everything froze almost before it hit 
the ground in the hole below. (And my rear end seemed to almost freeze to the seat!) The toilet paper was usually an out of s eason 
issue of Eatons mail order catalogue with crisp glossy paper. Perhaps it is a pe culiarity of the north country, but at night there are 
always monsters lurking along the path to the outhouse, and darkness comes early and stays late. When nature called and it was daylight, and there was no blizzard outside, the outhouse received a visit from me.
When_to_Be_Your_Own_Doctor.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        He also ate larger and larger quantities of gra ins, nuts and avocados, although I had warned him 
of specific quantity limits on rich foods. Most sadly, he returned to enjoying spaghetti with lots of cheese grated on top. W ithin 
months of leaving my care his paralysis and weakness returned, except that unfortunately for him, he still retained the ability to 
assimilate food and maintain his body weight. Ironically, the only ultimate benefit of his fasting with me was to permit him to 
suffer a far longer existence in a wheelchair without wasting away and e scaping into death. I would be failing my readers if I did not explain why Jake became ill in the first place. Jake had started what grew to beco me a 
very successful chain of spaghetti restaurants with a unique noodles and sauces made to his own formu la. He ate a lot of his own 
spaghetti over the years, and had been reared in a good Italian family with lots of other kinds of rich food. Jake had a repu tation for 
being able to outeat everybody in terms of quantity and in the amount of time spent eating. In childhood, this ability had made his 
Italian mother very happy because it showed appreciation for her great culinary skill. Secondly, Jake the adult was still at his core, Jake the spoiled brat child, with a bad, unregulated temper. He was in the h abit of 
dumping his temper on other people whether they needed a helping of his angry emotions or not. A lot of people in his employ and 
in his extended family tiptoed around Jake, always careful of triggering his wrath. At my place as Jake began to get we ll he began 
to use his increased energy and much stronger voice to demonstrate his poor character. At meal times Jake would bang the tabl e 
with a fork hard enough to leave dents in the wood table top while yelling for more, complaining loudly about the lac k of rich 
sauces and other culinary delights he craved. This was a character problem that Jake could not seem to overcome, even with a lot 
of intervention from the local minister on his behalf and my counseling. Jake was a Catholic who went to church regul arly, but 
acted like a Christian only while he was in church. On some level Jake knew that he was not treating others fairly, but he wo uld 
not change his habitual responses. His negative thoughts and actions interfered with his digestive capacity to the ex tent that his 
gluttonous eating habits produced illness, a vegetative paralyzing illness, but not death. To me this seems almost a form of karmic 
justice. It is common for people who have been very ill for extended periods of time to realize what a won derful gift life is and arrive at 
a willingness to do almost anything to have a second chance at doing ‘life" right. Some succeed with their second chance and some 
don’t. If they don"t succeed in changing their life and relationships, they frequently relap se. Luigi Cornaro’s left the world his story of sickness and rejuvenation. His little book may be the world’s first alternative h ealing 
text. It is a classic example of the value of abstentousness. Had Jake taken this story to heart he would have total ly recovered. Cornaro was a sixteenth century Venetian nobleman. He, like Jake the spaghetti baron, was near death at the young age of fort y. (Jake was also in his early 40s when he broke down. ) Cornaro’s many doctors were unable to cure him. Finally he sa w a doctor 
who understood the principles of natural healing. This wise physician determined that this illness was caused by a mismatch 
between Cornaro’s limited digestive capacity and the excessive amount of food he was eating. So Cornaro was put on a diet  of 
only 12 ounces of solid food and fourteen ounces of liquid a day. Any twelve ounces of any solids he wanted and any fourteen 
ounces of liquid. It could be meat and wine, salad or orange juice, no matter. Cornaro soon regained his health and he continued to follow the diet until the age of 78. His health was so outstanding durin g 
this period that people who were much younger in terms of years were unable to keep up with him. At 78 his friends, worried 
about how thin he was (doesn’t it always seem that it is your so -called friends who always ruin a natural cure) persuaded him to 
increase his daily ration by two ounces a day. His delicate and weak digestive system, which had operated perfectly for many 
years, was unable to deal with the additional two ounces, and he became very ill after a very short period of over eating. Worse, his recent indulgence had even further damaged the organs of digestion and to survive Cornaro had to cut his daily rat ion 
to eight ounces of solid food and eleven of liquids. On this reduced dietary he again regained his health and lived to be 100. Cornaro wrote four books on the value of abstinence or "sober living" as he called it, writing the last and perhaps the most 
intere sting at 96 years of age. Had my patient Jake been able to confine his food intake to the level of his body’s ability to dige st, 
he might still be walking and enjoying life. But try as I might I could not make him understand. Perhaps he enjoys doing pena nce 
in his wheel chair more than he would enjoy health and life. Tissue Losses at Death By Starvation*  
 Fat 97% 
Muscles  31 
Blood  27 
Liver  54 
Spleen  67 
Pancreas  17 
Skin 21 
Intestines  18 
Kidneys  26 
Lungs  18 
Testes  40 
Heart  3 
Brain and Spinal Cord  3 
Nerves  3 
Bone  14 
 
 
* From Keys, Ancel, Joseph Brozek, Austin Henchel, Olaf Mickelson and Henry L. Taylor, (1950)  The Biology of Human Starvation. Two Vols. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Starvation  
    It is true that ethical medical doctors use the least -risky procedure they are allowed to use. But this does not mean there are no 
risks to allopathic treatment. The medical doctor justifies taking the risks by saying that the risk/reward ratio is the best possible. Any sick person is already at risk. Life comes with only one guarantee: that none of us gets out of it alive. Compared to the risks of allopathic medicine, fasting is a far safer method of treating disease. The oft -repeated scare stories  
medical doctors and their allies circulate about fasting are not true, and it is important to remember that none of these peo ple 
portraying fasting as evil and dangerous have ever fasted themselves –I"ll put money on that one. Or, on the slim possibility t hat 
someone telling fasting horror stories did actually not eat for 24 hours (probably because some accident or acute illness pre vented 
them), they had a terrible experience because they didn’t understand the process, were highly toxic, and were scared to death the 
whole time. Or worse yet they fasted for a short period with an "open mind" –a very dangerous state in which to approach anything new. I 
have found through considerable experience with people professing to have open minds that the expression "I’m open minded" 
usually means that someone has already made up their mind and new data just passes straight through their open mind –in one ear 
and out the other. Or sometimes, the phrase "open mind" means a person that does not believe any information ha s reality and is 
entirely unable to make up their mind. The most commonly leveled criticism of fasting is that in its efforts to survive self -imposed starvation the body metabolizes 
vital tissue, not just fat, and therefore, fasting is damaging, potent ially fatally damaging. People who tell you this will also tell you 
that fasters have destroyed their heart muscle or ruined their nervous system permanently. But this kind of damage happen onl y 
when a person starves to death or starves to a point very clo se to death, not when someone fasts. There is a huge difference between fasting and starvation. Someone starving is usually eating, but eating poorly and 
inadequately, eating scraps of whatever is available such as sugar, white flour, rancid grease, s hoe leather, or even dirt. Frequently 
a starving person is forced to exercise a great deal as they struggle to survive and additionally is highly apprehensive. Or someone 
starving to death is confined to a small space, may become severely dehydrated too an d is in terror. Fear is very damaging to the 
digestive process, and to the body in general; fear speeds up the destruction of vital tissue. People starve when trekking va st 
distances through wastelands without food to eat, they starved in concentration cam ps, buried in mind disasters, they starve during 
famines and starve while being tortured in prisons. Until water fasting goes on past the point where all fatty tissues and all abnormal deposits have been burned for fuel and 
recycled for the nutritiona l elements they contain, vital muscle tissues and organs are not consumed. And as long as the body 
contains sufficient nutritional reserves, vital organs and essential tissues are rebuilt and maintained. In fact the body has  a great 
deal of intelligence th at we don’t give it credit for. It knows exactly which cells are essential to survival, which ones are not. The 
body knows which cells are abnormal deposits, and it goes to work to metabolize them first. For example, the body recognizes 
arthritic deposits,  cysts, fibroids, and tumors as offensive parts of the landscape, and obligingly uses them for foods in preference 
to anything else. A starving (not fasting) body also knows precisely in what order of priority body cells should be metaboliz ed to 
minimize r isk of death or permanent disability. After a starving body has reached skeletal condition, or where some small amount of fat remains but nutritional reserves 
(vitamins and minerals) are exhausted and there is insufficient nourishment forthcoming, the body begins to consume nutrient -rich 
muscle and organ tissue in a last -ditch effort to stay alive. Under these dire circumstances, the least essential muscles and organs 
from the standpoint of survival are metabolized first. For example, muscles in the arm s and legs would be consumed early in the 
process, the heart muscle used only toward the very end. The very last part of the body to be metabolized when one is starvin g and 
as has come very close to death would be the brain and the nervous system. Starvation begins where fasting ends, which is when real hunger begins. If the return of hunger is ignored whenever it takes 
place, whether it is in 30, 60, or 90 days depending upon body weight and type of fast, at that point exactly, not a day befo re, 
starv ation begins very slowly. Usually it takes a considerable period of time after that before death occurs. It is important to n ote 
that this discussion applies only to the abstention from food, not water. Death takes place very quickly in the absence of wa ter. The chart on the previous page shows numerically the phenomenal ability of the body to protect the most essential tissues of the 
body right up to the time of death. If a person fasted for 30 days, the average time it takes for the return of hunger i n a person that 
is not overweight, and then ignored the return of hunger, and continued to abstain from food –if the person could avoid forced 
exercise, keep warm, and had enough hydration, it could take as much as an additional 20 to 60 days to die of star vation. At death 
the body would have experienced losses of 40 to 60 percent of its starting body weight. (Ancel Keys et al, 1950) A emaciated 
person can not afford to lose nearly as much weight as an obese person, and death under conditions of starvation w ill occur earlier. In all cases of starvation the brain, nerves, heart, lungs, kidneys and liver remain largely intact and functional to the ver y end. During a fast, it is almost impossible to damage essential organs, unless of course the person creates th e damage by fears about the 
process, or by internalizing the fears of others. If those fears are present, the fast should not be attempted. Weight Loss By Fasting  
    Loss of weight indicates, almost guarantees, that detoxification and healing is occurrin g. I can’t stress this too much. Of all the 
things I find my patients seem to misunderstand or forget after being told, it is that they can’t heal in a rapid manner with out 
getting smaller. This reality is especially hard for the family and friends of some one who is fasting, who will say, "You’re looking 
terrible dear, so thin. Your skin is hanging on your bones. You’re not eating enough protein or nutrient food to be healthy a nd you 
must eat more or you’re going to develop serious deficiencies. You don’t h ave any energy, you must be getting sicker. You’re 
doing the wrong thing, obviously. You have less energy and look worse every day. Go and see a doctor before it is too late. " To 
succeed with friends like this, a faster has to be a mighty self -determined p erson with a powerful ability to disagree with others. Medical personnel claim that rapid weight loss often causes dangerous deficiencies; these deficiencies force the person to 
overeat and regain even more weight afterward. This is largely untrue, tho ugh there is one true aspect to it: a fasted, detoxified 
body becomes a much more efficient digester and assimilator, extracting a lot more nutrition from the same amount food is use d to 
eat. If, after extended fasting a person returns to eating the same n umber of calories as they did before; they will gain weight even 
more rapidly than before they stated fasting. When fasting for weight loss, the only way to keep the weight off is to greatly  reform 
the diet; to go on, and stay on, a diet made up largely of  non-starchy, watery fruits and vegetables, limited quantities of cooked 
food, and very limited amounts of highly concentrated food sources like cereals and cooked legumes. Unless, of course, after 
fasting, one’s lifestyle involves much very hard physical labor or exercise. I’ve had a few obese fasters become quite angry with 
me for this reason; they hoped to get thin through fasting and after the fast, to resume overeating with complete irresponsib ility as 
before, without weight gain. People also fear  weight loss during fasting because they fear becoming anorexic or bulimic. They won’t. A person who abstains 
from eating for the purpose of improving their health, in order to prevent or treat illness, or even one who fasts for weight  loss will 
not develo p an eating disorder. Eating disorders mean eating compulsively because of a distorted body image. Anorexics and 
bulimics have obsessions with the thinner -is-better school of thought. The anorexic looks at their emaciated frame in the mirror 
and thinks the y are fat. This is the distorted perception of a very insecure person badly in need of therapy. A bulimic, on the other 
hand stuffs themselves, usually with bad food, and then purges it by vomiting, or with laxatives. Anorexics and bulimics are not 
acceler ating the healing potential of their bodies; these are life threatening conditions. Fasters are genuinely trying to enhance t heir 
survival potential. Occasionally a neurotic individual with a pre -existing eating disorder will become obsessed with fast ing and colon cleansing as 
a justification to legitimize their compulsion. During my career while monitoring hundreds of fasters, I’ve known two of thes e. I 
discourage them from fasting or colon cleansing, and refuse to assist them, because they carry the practices to absurd extremes, 
and contribute to bad press about natural medicine by ending up in the emergency ward of a hospital with an intravenous feedi ng 
tube in their arm. Cases Beyond The Remedy Of Fasting  
    Occasionally, very ill people have a l iver that has become so degenerated it cannot sustain the burden of detoxification. This 
organ is as vital to survival as the brain, heart and lungs. We can get along with only one kidney, we can live with no splee n, with 
no gallbladder, with only small pa rts of the stomach and intestines, but we can not survive without a liver for more than a day or 
so. The liver is the most active organ in the body during detoxification. To reach an understanding of detoxification, it hel ps to 
know just what the liver doe s for us on an ongoing basis. The liver is a powerful chemical filter where blood is refined and purified. The liver passes this cleansed blood out through  the 
superior vena cava, directly to the heart. The blood is then pumped into general and system ic circulation, where it reaches all parts 
of the body, delivering nutrition and oxygen at a cellular level. On its return flow, a large proportion of the depleted bloo d is 
collected by the gastric, splenic and superior and inferior mesenteric veins that c onverge to form the large portal vein which enters 
the liver. Thus a massive flow of waste from all the cells of the body is constantly flowing into the liver. The huge hepatic  artery 
also enters the liver to supply oxygen and nutrients with which to susta in the liver cells themselves. The liver is constantly at work refining the blood. It is synthesizing, purifying, renovating, washing, filtering, separating, and 
detoxifying. It works day and night without stopping. Many toxins are broken down by enzymes and their component parts ar e 
efficiently reused in various parts of the body. Some impurities are filtered out and held back from the general circulation. These 
debris are collected and stored in the gall bladder, which is a little sack appended to the liver. After a meal, the conte nts of the gall 
bladder (bile) are discharged into the duodenum, the upper part of the small intestine just beyond the stomach. This bile als o 
contains digestive enzymes produced by the liver that permit the breakdown of fatty foods in the small intestine. Sometimes a large flow of bile finds its way into the stomach by pressure or is sucked into the stomach by vomiting. Excessiv e 
biliary secretion and excretion can also result from overeating, which overcrowds the area. Sometimes colonics or massage ca n 
also stimulate a massive flow of bile. Extremely bitter and irritating, when bile gets into the stomach the person either vom its or 
wishes they could. And after vomiting and experiencing the taste of bile, wishes they hadn’t. When no food at all ente rs the system, the blood keeps right on passing through the liver/filter just as it does when we are eating. When the liver does not have to take care of toxins generated by the current food intake, each passage through the liver resu lts in a 
cleaner blood  stream, with the debris decreasing in quantity, viscosity, and toxicity, until the blood becomes normalized. During 
fasting, debris from the gall bladder still pass through the small intestine and into the large intestine. However, if the bo wels do not 
move the toxins in the bile are reabsorbed into the blood stream and get recirculated in an endless loop. This toxic recycling makes 
a faster feel just terrible, like they had a flu or worse. The bowels rarely move while fasting. During fasting only enem as or colonics permit elimination from the large intestine. If 
done effectively and frequently, enemas will greatly add to the well being and comfort of the faster. Many times when a faste r 
seems to be retracing or experiencing a sudden onset of acute disc omfort or symptoms, these can be almost immediately relieved 
by an enema or colonic. A person with major liver degeneration inevitably dies, with or without fasting, with or without traditional medicine. Significantly impaired kidney function can also  bring about this same result. Mercifully, death while fasting is usually 
accomplished relatively free of pain, clear of mind and with dignity. That often can not be said of death in a hospital. Ther e are 
much worse experiences than death. Fasting is not a cure -all. There are some conditions that are beyond the ability of the body to heal. Ultimately, old age gets us 
all. Dr. Linda Hazzard, one of the greats of natural hygiene, who practiced Osteopathic medicine in the 1920s, had a useful way of  
categorizing conditions that respond well to fasting. These she labeled "acute conditions," and "chronic degenerative conditio ns. " A third classification, "chronic conditions with organic damage," does not respond to fasting. Acute conditions, are usually 
inflammations or infections with irritated tissue, with swelling, redness, and often copious secretions of mucous and pus, suc h as 
colds, flu, a first time case of pneumonia, inflamed joints as in the early stages of arthritis, etc. These acute conditions usually 
remedy in one to three weeks of fasting. Acute conditions are excellent candidates for self -doctoring. Chronic degenerative 
conditions are more serious and the patient usually requires supervision. These include conditions such as cancer, aids, chro nic 
arthritis, chronic pneumonia, emphysema and asthma. Chronic degenerative conditions usually respond within a month to three 
months of fasting. The fasting should be broken up into two or three sessions if the condition has not been relieved in one s tint of 
supervised fasting. Each successive fast will produce some improvement and if a light, largely raw -food diet is adhered to between 
fasts the patient should not worsen and should be fairly comfortable between fastings. If there has been major func tional damage to an organ as a result of any of these degenerative conditions, healing will not be 
complete, or may be impossible. By organic damage, I mean that a vital part of the body has ceased to function due to some 
degenerative process, injury, or s urgery –so badly damaged that the cells that make up the organ can not be replaced. I once had a twenty five year old man come to my spa to die in peace because he had been through enough diagnostic 
procedures in three hospitals to know that his liver was beyond repair. He had been working on an apple farm in between terms at 
university when he was poisoned several times with insecticide from an aerial spray on the whole orchard. He absorbed so much  
insecticide that his liver incurred massive organic da mage. When he came to me his body had reached the point where it was incapable of digesting, and because of lack of liver function,  it 
was incapable of healing while fasting, a condition in which death is a certainty. He was a Buddhist, did not fear de ath and did not 
want to be kept alive in agony or in prolonged unconsciousness by any extraordinary means, nor did he want to die with tubes in 
every orifice. I was honored to be a supportive participant in his passing. He died fasting, in peace, and witho ut pain, with a clear 
mind that allowed him to consciously prepare for the experience. He was not in a state of denial or fear, and made no frantic  
attempts to escape the inevitable. He went quietly into that still dark night with a tranquil demeanor and a  slight smile. Fortunately, in my many years of practice I had the pleasure of seeing the majority of the people totally regain their health  or at 
least greatly improve it by means of the fasting and healing diets. Many cancer patients watched with ama zement as their tumors 
disappeared before their eyes, many arthritics regained their function, serious skin conditions such as psoriasis disappeared, mental 
conditions improved, addictions vanished, fatigue was replaced by energy, and fat dissolved reveali ng the hidden sculpture 
beneath. I will talk more about procedures and the particular reasons bodies develop specific conditions in later chapters. Social/Cultural/Psychological Obstacles To Fasting  
    Numerous attitudes make it difficult to fast or to p rovide moral support to friends or loved ones that are fasting. Many people 
harbor fears of losing weight because they think that if times were really tough, if there was a famine or they became ill an d lost a 
lot of weight they would have no reserves and would certainly perish. These people have no idea how much fat can be concealed 
on an even skinny body, nor of how slowly a skinny body loses weight while fasting. Substantial fat reserves are helpful as h eat-
retaining insulation in those rare accidents wh en someone is dropped into a cold ocean and must survive until the rescue boat 
arrives. Being fat might keep a person alive longer who is lost in the wilderness awaiting rescue with no supplies, no means of 
procuring food, and no means of keeping warm. On the other hand, fat people would have a far harder time walking out of the 
wilderness. And extensive fat deposits are merely fuel and do not contain extensive nutritional reserves. An obese person fas ting 
without significant nutritional supplementation wou ld begin starving long before they became really skinny. On the balance, 
carrying excess weight is a far greater liability than any potential pro -survival aspects it might have. There are other attitudes associated with weight loss that make it difficu lt for people to fast. People hold rather stereotypical 
notions about what constitutes an attractive person; usually it involves having some meat on ones bones. Hollywood and Hugh 
Hefner have both influenced the masses to think that women should have hourg lass figures with large, upthrust, firm breasts. Since 
breasts are almost all useless fatty tissue supporting some milk -producing glands that do not give a breast much volume except 
when engorged, most women fasters lose a good percentage of their breast m ass. If the fast is extensive, there should also develop 
an impressive showing of ribs and hip bones; these are not soft and cuddly. Husbands, lovers, parents, and friends frequently  point 
out that you don’t look good this way and exhort you to put on weig ht. Most people think pleasantly plump is healthy. Skinny men, especially those who had lost a lot of weight during an illness, are pressured by associates to put on weight to 
prove that they are healthy. I had a client who was formerly a college vars ity football player. Before his illness he had lifted 
weights and looked like a hunk. His family and friends liked to see him that way and justifiably so. Then he got seriously il l. On a 
long extended healing diet he lost a significant amount of weight and  seemed down right skinny, causing all who knew him well 
and cared about him to tempt him with all kinds of scrumptious delicacies from the best of kitchens. But this case was like L uigi 
Cornaro, a man who never again could look like a hunk. His "friends" made an absolutely necessary change in life style and 
appearance far more difficult than it was already. My client was torn between a desire to please others, and a desire to rega in and 
retain his health. This problem a sick person doesn’t need. If you  have the independence to consider following an alternative medical program in a culture that highly values conformity 
and agreement, you are also going to have to defend your own course of self -determined action based on the best available data 
that you h ave. But fasters are usually in fragile emotional condition, so I advise my clients who are subjected to this kind of 
pressure to beg their friends and associates to refrain from saying anything if they can’t support the course of action you h ave 
chosen. A fter this, if friends or relatives are still incapable of saying nothing (even non -verbally), it is important to exclude them 
from your life until you have accomplished your health goals, have regained some weight and have returned to eating a 
maintenance diet, rather than getting skinnier on a healing one. The very worst aspect of our culture’s eating programming is that people have been wrongfully taught that when ill they must 
eat to keep up their strength. Inherent in this recommendation is an unsta ted belief that when the body is weakened by a disease 
state, the weakness can somehow be overcome with food, and that the body needs this food to kill the virus, bacteria, or inva ding 
yeast, and uses the protein to heal or rebuild tissue. Sadly, the exact  opposite is the case. Disease organisms feed and multiply on 
the toxic waste products of misdigestion, and the body is unable to digest well when it is weak or ill. There’s an old saying about this: ‘feed a cold, starve a fever. " Most people think th is saying means you should eat when you 
have a cold. What the saying really means is if you feed a cold then you will soon have to starve a fever. Protein foods espe cially 
are not digested by a diseased body, and as mentioned before, the waste products of protein indigestion are especially poisonous. That is all the body needs when it is already down, another load of poison which it can’t eliminate due to weakness and enerv ation. Weight loss is usually associated with illness, as it should be. In times  of acute illness an otherwise healthy body loses its 
appetite for food because it is pro -survival to stop eating. It is very hard to coax a sick animal to eat. Their bodies, not controlled 
by a mind full of complex learned responses and false ideas, autom atically know that fasting is nature’s method of healing. Contrary to popular understanding, digestion, assimilation, and elimination require the expenditure of considerable energy. T his 
fact may contradict the reader’s experience because everyone has beco me tired when they have worked a long time without eating, 
and then experienced the lift after eating. But an ill body cannot digest efficiently so instead of providing energy extracte d from 
foods, the body is further burdened by yet another load of toxic material produced by fermented and putrefied food. This adds 
insult to injury in a sick body that is already drowning in its own garbage. Worse, during illness most available vital force is already redirected into healing; it is not available for diges tion. It is important 
to allow a sick body to proceed with healing and not to obstruct the process with unnecessary digestion or suppress the sympt oms 
(which actually are the healing efforts) with drugs. If you have an acute illness, and you stop all food intake except for pure water 
and herb teas, and perhaps some vegetable broth, or dilute non -sweet juice, you have relieved your body of an immense effort. Instead of digesting, the body goes to work on catching up on healing. The body can and will almost i nevitably heal itself if the 
sick person will have faith in it, co -operate with the body’s efforts by allowing the symptoms of healing to exist, reduce or 
eliminate the intake of food to allow the body to marshal its energies, maintain a positive mental at titude and otherwise stay out of 
the way. Many people intensely dread missing even one meal. These folks usually are and have been so toxic that their bodies had been 
stashing uneliminated toxins in their fat for years. They are usually so addicted to  caffeine, cigarettes, alcohol, and so forth, that 
when they had fasted, even briefly, their bodies were forced to dip into highly -polluted fat reserves while simultaneously the body 
begins withdrawal. People like this who try to fast experience highly unp leasant symptoms including headache, irritability, 
inability to think or concentrate, blurred vision, profound fatigue, aches, etc. Most of these symptoms come from low blood s ugar, 
but combined with the toxins being released from fat and combined with goi ng through multiple addictive withdrawals, the 
discomforts are more than most people are willing to tolerate. Fasting on juice is much more realistic for cases like this. I t is little 
wonder that when a hygienist suggests a fast to improve health, this typ e of case asserts positively that fasting is quite impossible, 
they have tried it, it is absolutely terrible and know that they can’t do it. This rejection is partly due to a cultural expectation (one reinforced by western medicine) that all unpleasan t symptoms should 
be avoided or suppressed. To voluntarily experience unpleasant sensations such as those mentioned above is more than the 
ordinary timid person will subject themselves to, even in order to regain health. They will allow surgery, drugs with  violent and 
dangerous side effects, painful and invasive testing procedures and radiation –all unpleasant and sometimes extremely 
uncomfortable. These therapies are accepted because someone else with authority is doing it to them. And, they have been told  that 
it they don"t submit they will not ever feel better and probably will die in the near future. Also people think that they hav e no 
alternative, that the expert in front of them knows what is best, so they feel relieved to have been relieved of the resp onsibility for 
their own condition and its treatment. Preventative Fasting  
    During the years it takes for a body to degenerate enough to prompt a fast, the body has been storing up large quantities of 
unprocessed toxins in the cells, tissues, fat depos its, and organs. The body in its wisdom will always choose to temporarily deposit 
overwhelming amounts of toxins somewhere harmless rather than permit the blood supply to become polluted or to use secondary 
elimination routes. A body will use times when th e liver is less burdened to eliminate these stored toxic debris. The hygienists" 
paradigm asserts that the manifestation of symptoms or illness are all by themselves, absolute, unassailable proof that furth er 
storage of toxic wastes in the cells, tissues, fat deposits, and organs is not possible and that an effort toward elimination is 
absolutely necessary. Thus the first time a person fasts a great quantity of toxins will normally be released. Being the resi dent of a 
body when this is happening can be quit e uncomfortable. For this reason alone, preventative fasting is a very wise idea. Before the body becomes critically ill, clean up your reserve fuel supply (fat deposits) by burning off some accumulated fat that 
is rich in toxic deposits and then repl ace it with clean, non -toxic fat that you will make while eating sensibly. If you had but fasted 
prophylactically as a preventative or health -creating measure before you became seriously ill, the initial detoxification of your 
body could have been accompli shed far more comfortably, while you were healthy, while your vital force was high and while your 
body otherwise more able to deal with detoxification. Each time you fast, even if it is only one day, you allow your body to go through a partial detox, and each time it becomes easier 
and more comfortable than the last time. The body learns how to fast. Each time you fast it, your body slips into a cleansing  mode 
more quickly, and each time you fast you lighten the load of stored toxins. Perhaps you have already eliminated the caffeine your 
body had stored, which frequently causes severe headaches on withdrawal, not to mention fatigue. It certainly helps to have t his 
behind you before you go on to the elimination of other irritating substances. Many people  have gone through alcohol or tobacco 
withdrawal, and understand that it is very unpleasant, and also that it must be done in the pursuit of health. Why not withdr aw from 
the rest of the irritating and debilitating substances we take into our system on an ongoing basis, and why not grit your way 
through the eliminative process, withdraw, from food addictions such as sugar or salt, and from foods that you may be allergi c to 
like wheat, dairy products or eggs. It is very wise to invest in your own insuran ce plan by systematically detoxifying while you are still healthy. Plan it into your 
life, when it is convenient, such as once a week on Sunday, or even once a month on a quiet day. Take a few days of vacation,  go 
to a warm, beautiful place and devote part  or all of it to cleansing. Treat yourself by taking an annual trip to Hawaii, fasting at a 
hotel on the beach –do whatever it takes to motivate yourself. And consider this: vacations are enormously cheaper when you stay 
out of restaurants. If you have accustomed your body to 24 hour fasts, then you can work on 48 hour fasts, and over time work up to 72 hour fasts, 
all on a continuum. You may find it becoming increasingly comfortable, perhaps even pleasant, something you look forward to. Fasting a relatively detoxified body feels good, and people eventually really get into the clean, light, clear headed, perhap s 
spiritually aware state that goes along with it. By contrast, fasting when you are sick is much more difficult because your vitality or vital force is very low, you already have 
no energy, and probably have unpleasant symptoms that must be dealt with at the same time. There may be the added stress of 
being forced into a cleanse because you are too nauseous to eat. Most people l et their health go until they are forced into dealing 
with it; they are too busy living, so why bother. The truth is that our body does age, and over time becomes less able to deal with insults; the accumulated effect of insults and 
aging eventually l eads most of us to some serious degenerative illness. Normally this begins happening around age 50 if not 
sooner. Some of us that were gifted with good genes or what I call "a good start" may have reached the age of 60 or 75 or eve n 90 
without serious illn ess, but those people are few and far between. Why not tip the scales in your favor by preventing or staving off 
health problems with systematic detoxification at your own convenience. Climb into the drivers seat and start to take control and gain conf idence in your own ability to deal with your body, your own 
health, and your own life. When it gets right down to the bottom line, there is really only one thing in the world that is re ally yours, 
and that is your life. Take control and start managing it. The reward will be a more qualitative life. Chapter Four  
Colon Cleansing  
 
From The Hygienic Dictionary  
Autointoxication. [1] the accumulations on the bowel wall become a breeding ground for unhealthy bacterial life forms. The he avy 
mucus coating in the colon thickens and becomes a host for putrefaction. The blood capillaries to the colon begin to pick up the 
toxins, poisons and noxious debris as it seeps through the bowel wall. All tissues and organs of the body are now taking on t oxic 
substances. Here i s the beginning of true autointoxication on a physiological level. Bernard Jensen, Tissue Cleansing Through 
Bowel Management. [2] All maladies are due to the lack of certain food principles, such as mineral salts or vitamins, or to t he 
absence of the norma l defenses of the body, such as the natural protective flora. When this occurs, toxic bacteria invade the lower 
alimentary canal, and the poisons thus generated pollute the bloodstream and gradually deteriorate and destroy every tissue, gland 
and organ of the body. Sir Arbuthnot Lane. [3] The common cause of gastro -intestinal indigestion is enervation and overeating 
When food is not digested, it becomes a poison.
The author warned Jake about specific quantity limits on rich foods, but he ignored them and continued to overindulge.
Why did the author's patient, Jake, eventually return to eating large quantities of food, including spaghetti with cheese?
He became severely ill and had to reduce his food intake to eight ounces of solid food and 11 ounces of liquid per day.
What was the outcome for Luigi Cornaro, who was advised to increase his daily food intake by his friends and family?
Starvation involves a lack of water, whereas fasting only involves the absence of food.
What is the main difference between starvation and fasting, according to the author?
The author believes that these methods are less effective and more likely to cause harm, and instead recommends natural approaches like fasting, diet, and cleansing.
What is the author's opinion on the effectiveness of vitamins and other supplements in treating illnesses?
The author emphasizes the importance of taking control of one's own health and not relying solely on medical professionals or others for guidance.
What is the author's stance on the importance of self-determination and independence in one's health journey?