General Guidelines for Health - Nenah Sylver, PhD - Rife Frequency Therapy Healing Specialist and Author

General Guidelines for Health

#1: Dietary Support
Most of us are taught that deficiencies in vitamins and minerals cause disease—for instance, a popular example is that a lack of Vitamin C causes scurvy. But most illness due to nutritional deficiency is much more ambiguous. People will experience many symptoms and suffer a lot of systemic breakdown before getting to the point of having a recognizable disease from the lack of one vitamin.

Allopathically-trained (Western medical) doctors are not taught to correlate people’s aches, pains, allergies, digestive disturbances, obesity, and even arthritis and cancer with malnutrition, but practitioners trained in the holistic arts can be helpful in determining what is wrong. All naturopaths, some herbalists, and a few chiropractors are quite knowledgeable about nutrition. Below is a general guideline of what foods to eat and not eat.

                             YES:

• Fresh vegetables, organic if possible. Pesticides and herbicides can contribute in a major way to cancer, disorders of the nervous system, Environmental Illness, allergies, and other degenerative diseases.
  

• Fresh fruits, organic if possible (see above). Not suggested for the insulin-resistant or very ill. Please check with your health practitioner.
  

• Nuts, legumes and seeds, organic if possible (see above). Soaking helps make nuts more digestible, and sprouting everything provides many valuable enzymes.
  

• Meat, poultry and fish, organic if possible. Factory farmed animals contain dangerous antibiotics and hormones. Farm raised fish (not caught in the ocean) are fed antibiotics unless the grower specifies otherwise.
  

• Dairy products, organic if possible and preferably raw, or at least not homogenized. Non-organic milk is full of antibiotics and hormones. Pasteurization destroys all the life-giving enzymes and nutrients from the milk. Homogenization splits up the fat molecules, which in their artificially altered state become problematic to the body. The United States is the only country that uses recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) or Bovine Somatotropin (BST). Buy either foreign, or organic domestic cheeses. Not suggested for those intolerant of dairy.
  

• Eggs—organic (and/or free range) if possible. Non-organic eggs are produced under similar factory farming conditions as non-organic, non-free-range chickens. They lack the nutritional value of organic eggs and are loaded with chemicals and hormones.
  

• Unprocessed fats, cold-pressed (processed without solvents or heat). The body needs fats. They lubricate the tissues, provide essential nutrients, help satiate hunger, and assist with vital metabolic functions. Virgin nolive and unrefined coconut oils are excellent choices. Flax oil is okay if it's fresh, but not everyone can convert the essential fatty acids in flax oil into their more useable form. Do not overheat oils, and do not heat flaxseed oil at all.
  

• If you choose to eat grains, make sure they are unrefined (whole), and organic if possible (see above). Refined grains have most of the nutrients removed. People who are ill, have digestive disorders, any form of thyroid malfunction are strongly urged to avoid grains that contain gluten—wheat, rye, barley, spelt and triticale.
  

Here is a general guideline of those foods and other non-food items that are not wise to eat, particularly when sick:

                      NO:

• No white sugar, refined sugar syrups (such as corn or rice syrup), or chemical sweeteners such as Aspartame (which is very unsafe). (Some people whose health problems are not too severe can tolerate small amounts of natural sweeteners such as maple syrup, rice syrup, date sugar, or fruit juice.)
  

• No preservatives or chemicals of any kind. This includes MSG (monosodium glutamate), which is a poison and negatively affects brain function.
  

• No alcohol or cigarettes. Some people can tolerate coffee in moderation, but be aware that coffee is a drug and contains caffeine. It puts an enormous strain on the adrenal glands.
  

• No hydrogenated (saturated) fats. They are created by manipulating the fat molecules so they clump together, which completely alters their chemistry and produces toxic substances in the system.
  

No one food plan will work for everyone. Each person has a distinct metabolism, genetic heritage, likes, dislikes, and lives under different environmental conditions with varying abilities to handle stress Thus we must approach diet as an individual matter. Someone with compromised immune function will require a diet different from what a healthy person can eat. Even the same person will need different nutrition when sick than when well.

Whatever your food plan, it is important to enjoy what you are eating rather than rigidly adhering to a diet. I have seen people become as ill from the rigidity of their attitudes as from the junk food they ingest. If you are feeling reasonably stress-free and have been generally careful with your nutrition, eating junk once in a while won't hurt you.


#2: Balancing Blood Sugar Levels
Refined carbohydrates and sugars are created by isolating one aspect of a food from its whole matrix. For instance, white wheat flour is created by removing the nutritious bran and germ from the wheat berry, leaving only the starchy endosperm. Sugar is manufactured from sugar cane. The plant is crushed and boiled, and from the mineral-rich, dark liquid sap a white powder is extracted. We pay a price for eating foods so far removed from their context in nature. The fiber, which in unrefined carbohydrates normally slows down the absorption of the sugars across the intestinal wall, is absent in manufactured foods. This means that with nothing to buffer the sugar in the intestine, the sugar rushes into the bloodstream all at once. This overworks the sugar regulating mechanism, especially in people whose pancreas is already stressed and who may be genetically inclined toward diabetes or hypoglycemia. Processed carbohydrates have existed only in the last eyeblink of human evolution. Our bodies were never meant to handle the high levels of instant sugar and carbohydrate that comprises such a large portion of modern diets.

In blood sugar disorders, sugar is the addiction. The antidote is steady, assimilable amounts of high-quality, complete protein. This means red meat, poultry, fish, and eggs. Protein, which cannot be broken down rapidly by the digestive tract, provides energy in stable, steady amounts over a long period of time. Many small meals of animal protein and vegetables, with minimal amounts of grain, beans, nuts, and fruit, are customarily used by people with both diabetes and hypoglycemia. This diet works. It eliminates the strain on the digestive organs, the pancreas, and other glands of the body.

Someone with a blood sugar disorder is certain to be missing some vital nutrients; otherwise, there wouldn’t be such an imbalance in the body. Supplementation is highly recommended to help the body recoup the nutrients that it has been missing. Many people with blood sugar disorders require extra Vitamin B-3 (in its niacin, rather than niacinimide form), as well as extra chromium. A visit to a holistic health care practitioner who takes nutrition seriously is recommended.


#3: Cleansing and Detoxification
People unfamiliar with holistic health methods may feel uncomfortable with the idea that the body needs to be "cleansed," because they fear that this implies it is dirty. But cleansing is a natural process (and in no way are aspersions cast on the body). It gives the digestive organs a chance to rest. When the body takes a break from the task of digesting, transforming and assimilating food, the glands and other tissues have the opportunity to get rid of metabolic waste and other debris, and then repair and rebuild. Our ancestors had regular opportunities to cleanse, during times of enforced fasting due to a scarcity of food.

Any infection or imbalance in the system produces debris—from the microorganisms that the body has fought and the waste materials released by the body itself in the process of healing. Broth, light soups, fresh squeezed vegetable (not fruit) juices, and steamed vegetables will all to varying degrees give your system the rest it needs and deserves. See a holistic health practitioner for help with a more stringent fasting program, for information on cleaning your digestive tract with herbs and colonics, and for advice on general nutrition.


In conclusion: You are the most important person in your life. Don’t neglect your emotional or physical health. The kinder you are to yourself, the better you will be able to set appropriate boundaries with other people. But boundaries do more than set limits; they help us define our needs and who we are. Once we know, we can more easily relax and enjoy ourselves—and each other.

For more information on health, read the other essays on this site and
see The Rife Handbook of Frequency Therapy by this author.