Vegetarians vs. Meat Eating

People keep mentioning Gerson therapy to me.  Below are my reasons for not being interested in doing this right now.

The short reason: 

I don't like vegetable juice.  It gives me a headache.  Gerson Therapy consists of twelve large glasses of fresh vegetable juice (from a juicer — ever try and clean out a juicer afterwards?) and five coffee enemas a day.  I don't want to spend my life doing nothing but this all day long. 

The long reason:

I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all diet for curing cancer.  While Gerson may work for some people, for others it is possibly even harmful.  Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez is a top alternate cancer specialist in New York who successfully treats all types of cancers using a spectrum of diets from strict vegetarian to primarily heavy meat.  Mercola did a great, very long interview with him, which you can see here:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/04/23/dr-nicholas-gonzalez-on-alternative-cancer-treatments.aspx

I've been looking at a blog from a woman who also has myeloma, and she did the Gerson therapy for two years, and did not have a very easy time of it.  She then switched to doing Gonzalez' treatment and diet, and is much happier and making better progress physically.  She has this to say about Dr. Gonzalez' diet theory: 

"About six months into the Gerson Therapy, I read Suzanne Somers' book "Knockout - Interviews with Doctors who are Curing Cancer".  The largest chapter in the book was dedicated to an interview with Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez, a doctor in New York who uses nutritional therapies to treat cancer. 

A couple things stuck out to me when I read the interview.  The first thing I noticed was how effective his treatment is when compared to both the Gerson Therapy and conventional medicine.  Most of Dr. Gonzalez'  patients have incurable cancer and have been sent home to die by their oncologists.  Once on the Gonzalez therapy, the majority of these patients  are outliving the expectations set by their oncologists by several decades.  The second thing I noticed is that he requires that his myeloma patients eat red meat. [emphasis mine] I found this disturbing since I was eating a fruit and vegetable diet and Dr. Gonzalez' efficacy rates are much higher than Dr. Gerson's were.  I was immediately concerned that I was on the wrong therapy."

This is a link to her story, she describes her experiences on the Gonzales therapy quite eloquently.  (I'm sort of trying to keep my posts free of excessive links, but it can be nearly impossible sometimes!  We live in the information age, indeed.)

http://curingmyeloma.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html

And . . .

Nora Gedgaudas, the author of Primal Body/Primal Mind and a gorgeously healthy advocate of the ketogenic diet, had this to say to me personally in an e-mail when I asked her about Gerson vs. Ketogenic diet for cancer:

". . . cleansing/detoxifying approach (probably good in the early stages of any cancer therapy), rich in phytonutrients and antioxidants. --But it simply cannot serve to rebuild the body nor supply critical fat-soluble nutrients and active methylators to support long term effective ketosis, liver support and nourishment. This helps explain why raw food vegan diets have so many initial benefits---and are such a disaster long-term. The ORIGINAL Gerson approach, BTW, actually used raw liver as a part of it's program...which Charlotte Gerson has since eliminated--erroneously opting for the purely vegan-thing and clearly not understanding what her father was really trying to do (note, too, that the Gerson method was much more effective as a therapy under Max Gerson's more considered approach than his daughter, Charlotte's). Fat soluble nutrients--particularly preformed animal-source vitamin A--MUST play a vital role in recovery."

I've researched both paths, and when I read Nora's book everything in me just said yes, this is what I need to be doing.  When I read Charlotte Gerson's book I couldn't wait to put it away and never have to think about that again.  The thought of endless juicing (not to mention coffee enemas all day long!) just doesn't sound like the healing path I need to be on right now.  I actually do coffee enemas already, but only twice a week, and Gonzalez also utilizes them.  But not all day long.

So I am giving this ketogenic diet a good six month trial starting in a couple of weeks.  I intend to starve those little cancer cells of their food (glucose) by following this proven diet for cancer eradication, even if it does contain the supposedly evil (to the Gerson-ites) red meat and high fat.  I'd much rather have bacon and eggs for breakfast than a big glass of veg juice, that's for sure.  Wish me luck and I'll report back here what my experiences are with it.  (And the next person to mention Gerson Therapy to me, I'm just going to say "read my blog post" in response!)

I seem totally incapable of making short posts here.  Perhaps I should start putting an abstract at the top!