Gerson therapy – Is it possible to heal your body with an alternative treatment like this? Read our gerson therapy blog post to find out.
To put it bluntly, modern medicine and it’s Westernized philosophy has brought conventional methods of treatment for chronic degenerative diseases to the point where we have accepted them as the best thing for us.
We have actually accepted that, once diagnosed, we will forever be sick.
Our doctors have a spectrum of treatments available for prescribing, and they diligently do so.
Prescription drugs are being dished out hand over fist without question and although conventional methods of healing do not work we have continued to trust our doctors despite their track record.
This can be compared to the Milgram Experiment, which set out to measure the willingness of people, like you and me, to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform certain acts conflicting with the personal conscience.
What this experiment proved is that we will continue to obey instructions as long as we trust the source who is relaying the information, regardless of whether we agree with the effects or not.
For example, cancer patients will continue to allow themselves exposure to radiation and chemo regardless of the well documented, potentially fatal consequences. In fact, cancer patients are relieved that they will now be receiving chemo because it creates hope.
We live in a society where we blindly accept what we are being told about our health, because we trust our doctors. Fortunately many are waking up to the possibility that our doctors are not helping us, but unfortunately we have still not bought into the fact that prevention is better than cure.
What Corporations Won’t Admit
As we have moved through the ages, one thing has remained consistent.
Profit takes priority over pretty much anything else.
In the food industry, this is evident through the everyday products we find on our shelves.
Genetically modified and processed foods have entered our homes without much resistance.
There are no more seasons in our supermarkets and we can get whatever we need – all year long!
Everything is perfectly packaged and marketed as “fresh from the farm”, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Today, when you are eating a tomato, it looks like a tomato and tastes like one too.
But is it really a tomato?
In reality, it’s something that merely represents the idea of a tomato and it has been genetically modified.
And so it is has come that most of our products do not actually contain the nutritional value of organically grown produce.
Even the meat we ingest is laced with growth hormone, steroids and several other compounds which are not supposed to form part of the human diet.
The truth is that corporations have focused on profit, and produce which packages and transport easier.
This inevitably caused the extinction of many species of fruit and vegetables which were commonly available in the early part of the last to mid-century.
A Spoon Full Of Sugar
Our doctors are prescribing more medication than ever before. We receive a “pill for every ill” with doctors wrote nearly 5 billion prescriptions in 2013 in the U.S alone.
The statistics are staggering!
More than 70% of U.S citizens use prescription drugs daily with no real long-term plans to eventually give it up.
This is ironic, considering that Western medicine apparently bases its diagnoses on the philosophy of Hippocrates of Cos, an ancient and wise physician, who was acutely aware of the emphasis that should be placed on ones diet.
In today’s artificial environment, you will be hard pressed to find a doctor who prescribes a change in diet as a means of treatment when diagnosing chronic disease.
Unfortunately, good health makes good sense, not good dollars.
Nutritional Solution
Most diseases, however, stem from poor nutrition.
Changing the diet in order to provide the body’s natural healing mechanism with enough nutrients to perform optimally will reverse many chronic symptoms.
It also allows the body to perform its natural ability of healing from the inside out. 
Gerson therapy is a system of healing developed by Dr. Max Gerson.
It involves the use supplements, juicing, and a diet specifically designed to boost the immune system.
Gerson therapy helps to cleanse the body, while naturally stimulating the metabolism.
The main focus is to restore the body’s natural healing mechanism.
Our bodies have the innate capacity for healing itself, or we would die from infection of the most insignificant
little scratches, for example.
Gerson therapy has recognized this and focuses on enhancing this ability.
What Exactly Is Gerson Therapy?
Gerson therapy, to be more exact, is a metabolic therapy for chronic degenerative diseases. It is entirely organic, vegetarian, high in vitamins, minerals, enzymes and micro-nutrients, all while being extremely low in sodium, fats, and proteins.
We continually ingest fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, and other chemical contaminants through our food and water.
Gerson therapy is applied in an attempt to remove these toxins from the body.
It is also geared to strengthen the body’s natural defenses and to prevent disease in its totality.
When the body’s immune system is fully functional, chronic degenerative diseases are virtually impossible to gain foothold!
What’s more – Gerson therapy has the ability to completely eliminate the normal human body’s need for any form of synthesized medicine!
There is little in the realm of advanced disease that Gerson therapy does not address.
What Does It Involve?
Fresh organic nutrient is the only supplement the human body truly requires to perform normally.
Gerson therapy follows a strict low-salt, low-fat, organic vegetarian diet with produce that has not been exposed to any chemicals.
Juice of about twenty pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables each day is important as it allows for the extraction of the much-needed nutrients without ingesting the fiber.
A food processor is not the same as juicing as you cannot consume the same volume of nutrient due to fiber.
One glass of juice is consumed hourly, up to 13 times per day.
Raw and cooked food is also generously consumed.
In addition, patients undergoing strict Gerson therapy as a treatment for cancer and other conditions must take up to 5 coffee enemas each day.
Gerson Therapy Foods
The two most important aspects of the Gerson approach to healing are freshness and purity.
This is more than a diet. It is a lifestyle change.
All of the foods ingested must be fresh, organically or biologically grown, and consumed in their most natural form.
That being said, the list of foods to eat, or to avoid, is very specific.
The Gerson Therapy Food List
The foods below all form part of the recommended gerson therapy food list. (1)
A: Asparagus, apples, apricots, artichoke, arugula
B: Beets and tops, broccoli, brown sugar
C: Cabbage (red & leaves in smaller quantities– gas producing), carrots, cauliflower, celery knob or stalks, chards (all kinds), cherries, chicory, chives, cilantro, corn (ONLY if allowed by physician), currants, coriander
D: Dill
E: Eggplant, Endives, Escarole
F: Flax oil (organic, not high lignan), Fruit dried non-sulphured as raisins,Fruits fresh (except all berries and pineapple), Fennel
G: Garlic, Grapefruit, Grapes, Green beans
H: Honey
J: Juices, freshly pressed – as prescribed
K: Kale
L: Leeks, lemons, lettuce
M: Melons, mace, marjoram, mangoes
O: Oatmeal, onions, oranges
P: Parsley and parsley root, peaches, pears, peppers (green and red bell pepper), plums, potatoes
R: Radishes (not the leaves), raw fruit, rhubarb, rice brown (if allowed), romaine, rosemary, rye bread (unsalted, non-fat) 
S: Spices(small amounts only):allspice, anise, bay leaves, saffron, tarragon, thyme, sorrel, summer savoury, spinach (cooked only), squash, sweet potatoes, swiss chard, sage
T: Tangerines, tomatoes
V: Vegetables (except mushrooms, leaves of: carrots, radishes, spinach and mustard green), vinegar (wine or cider)
W: Watercress
Y: Yams, yogurt, non-fat, organic Horizon, Brown Cow, 7 Stars
Z: Zucchini
Gerson Therapy Foods To Avoid
A: Alcohol, animal fats, avocados 
B: Baking soda, berries, bicarbonate of soda in food, black tea and other non-herbal teas, bottled foods, butter
C: Cake, candy, canned foods, cheese, chocolat, cocoa, coconuts, coffee as a regular beverage, commercial beverages, cream and other dairy fats, cucumbers
E: Epson salts
F: Fluorine in toothpaste, frozen foods
H: Hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils
I: Ice cream
L: Legume-based food products
M: Manufactured (processed) foods, margarine or oil based spreads, mushrooms, mustard
N: Nut butters and any other source of dietary fats, nuts and seeds.
O: Olean, Olestra or other “fat substitutes, oils and fats, and any foods that contain them. This includes corn oil, olive oil, canola oil, vegetable oil except flaxseed oil, as specifically prescribed.
P: Pineapples, preserved food, protein powders or supplements (including barley or algae-based powders), proteins and high-protein foods3 (Bragg Amino)
R: Refined foods
S: Salt (table salt, sea salt, celery salt, vegetable salt, “lite salt”, salt substitutes, salted foods), smoked foods, sulfured foods, seafood, soy and soy products, spices (pepper, paprika, basil, oregano), raw spinach (allowed cooked only), sprouted alfalfa and other bean or seed sprouts,
T: Tamari, toothpaste (or gargle)
W: White flour, white sugar
For more on healthy eating, please read Lose Weight With Moringa Oleifera.
Gerson Cooking Method
Vegetables can be slowly cooked with a minimum of water, or even soup stock (1 tablespoonful), on low heat (just below boiling) until well done.
Fruits and vegetables are typically cooked over low heat 180 – 200ºF with very little water, for 1 to 1 and a quarter hours.
Dishes can also be baked in the oven for 45 to 60 minutes at 250º – 300ºF.
Either gas or electric ranges can be used.
Convection ovens are also fine, but a microwave oven should be avoided at all cost as they may affect chemical changes in the foods they cook. Microwaves makes food harder to assimilate.
Rule of thumb is – low and slow.
Gerson Diet And Juicing
The Gerson diet is very reliant on organic vegetarian and involves daily juicing.
Juicing is a process which extracts water and nutrients from produce and discards the indigestible fiber.
By excluding the fiber the digestive system doesn’t have to work as hard to break down the food and the nutrients are absorbed into the bloodstream quicker.
Juicing makes the nutrients more readily available to the body in much larger quantities than if you were to eat fruit and vegetables whole.
Freshly squeezed juices form part of the healing and detoxification program because fresh nutrients can restore the body’s mechanisms at a cellular level.
Carrot And Apple Juice
Ingredients:
For this recipe tart apples are preferred:
- Granny Smith McIntosh, Ida, Red Pippin and Gala
- Equal part carrots and apples (8-12 oz each)
- 3 large carrots = 1 large apple (roughly)
Wash apples, do not peel.
Remove core and seeds.
Slightly brush the carrots, do not scrub or peal.
Alternate carrots and apples in the juicer.
The juice should be consumed as soon as possible.
It may be kept for a maximum of 3 hours.
Green Juice
Ingredients:
- Mostly lettuce – preferably Romaine or Cos
- Escarole (1 – 2 leaves)
- Red leaf lettuce (3 – 4 leaves)
- Green leaf lettuce (3 – 4 leaves)
- Endive (1 -2 leaves)
- Romaine (2 – 3 leaves)
- Watercress ( up to 6 leaves )
- Red cabbage (2 – 3 leaves)
- Beet tops (2 – 3 leaves)
- Green pepper ( 1 small or a quarter of a larger pepper)
- Swiss chard (1 – 3 leaves)
- Red chard (1 – 3 leaves)
- 1 medium green apple
Wash thoroughly and put in spinner or shake to remove excess water.
Cut off bottom of stems of chard or any fibrous leaves.
Pass through your juicer accordingly.
Drink immediately.
Otherwise, try to consume within 20 minutes for optimal benefit and to avoid oxidation.
Hippocrates Soup
- 1 big or 2 small fresh organic leeks
- 1 pound fresh potato or several small ones
- 1 1/2 pounds fresh tomatoes
- 1 large onion or 2 small onions
- 1 small to medium celery knob or 3 – 4 stalks celery
- 1 small parsley root (if unavailable substitute with 3 – 4 sprigs of organic parsley)
Wash vegetables thoroughly, but do not peel.
Cook SLOWLY at low heat for 3 hours with a small amount of clean pure water.
Mash and eat.
Add small amounts of fresh organic parsley and fresh pressed raw organic garlic to taste.
Breakfast
Oatmeal
Ingredients:
- 1/2 Cup Organic Raw Oatmeal
- 1 Cup of Purified Water
- Fresh Fruit: raw organic grated apple, papaya, bananas, any fruit that is allowed
Or Soaked Dried Fruit: raisins, prunes, apricots (not too much, go light – high sugar content)
Bring the water to a boil in a non-toxic cookware pot.
Add freshly rolled oats, reduce heat and cook slowly for 15 minutes.
Stir occasionally.
Remove from heat, cover and let stand for a few minutes.
Serve with delicious fresh organic raw fruits or stir in some soaked dried fruits (sparingly).
Oatmeal breakfast
Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup (or up to 5 oz) organic raw oatmeal
- 1 cup (or up to 12 oz) purified water
- Fresh Fruit: raw organic grated apple, papaya, bananas
- Soaked Dried Fruit: raisins, prunes, apricots (no berries allowed)
Put rolled oats in a pot and cover with water.
Bring to boil, then simmer for about 6-8 minutes or until oats are at the desired consistency.
You may need to add more water as it is cooking.
Add your choice of toppings and serve.
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” – Hippocrates
Dr. Max Gerson
German born Max Gerson MD (1881 – 1959) remains the most censored doctor in the history of medicine.
He is considered the pioneer in metabolic therapy which focuses on detoxifying the body and boosting the immune system to maximum functionality.
In college, Dr.Gerson suffered from severe migraine headaches inherited from his mother.
As a means of treatment, he sometimes spent days in a darkened room to seek some relief.
Despite several attempts at discussing the problem with professors and lecturers, he was left frustrated.
Gerson would not accept the diagnoses that chronic conditions were incurable.
Gerson set out to help himself.
To his astonishment, after endless hours of research, he eventually stumbled upon an article in which described how a patient was cured of migraine headaches through a change of diet.
Gerson decided to embark on a diet of the most basic form.
This he did in an effort to isolate whether or not the problem had been diet related.
His first diet primarily consisted of apples as this source of food was so readily available in Germany.
After embarking on a diet of apples exclusively, his headaches disappeared.
He then slowly started adding foods to his diet and realized how quickly his body would react.
When his body rejected certain nutrients, it responded with a migraine.
Gerson eventually discovered that vegetarian foods were the ONLY source of nutrition which served his body optimally .
He set out to develop a migraine diet.
Dr. Gerson successfully treating migraines in this manner until one patient reported a remarkable improvement in skin tuberculosis.
This left Dr. Gerson perplexed as he could not correlate headaches with skin tuberculosis.
Unwilling to accept coincidence, Gerson eventually discovered through exhaustive testing that he had found a cure.
Gerson started treating other forms of TB and other certifiably incurable patients all over Germany.
Many people were cured. 
Patients formerly deemed incurable were restoring their quality of life through a changed diet.
These tests also revealed that many patients had other chronic conditions like asthma, blood pressure, kidney problems and many types of allergies which now marked noticeable improvement.
Dr. Gerson had discovered that the body’s natural healing mechanism had the ability to heal the worst diseases.
In the end, Gerson decided to part company with orthodox medicine. If you would like more information on Gerson Therapy, please visit the gerson therapy blog at The Gerson Institute.
References
