Wise Woman Ezine with herbalist Susun Weed
December 2009
Volume 9 Number 12


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Wisdom Keeper...
Optimum Nutrition
by Susun Weed

Review by Jan Calloway-Baxter

 


Optimum Nutrition
or
A tablespoon
of herbal vinegar a day keeps the allopathic physician away.


3 CD set by Susun Weed
Green Nations Gathering 1996
Review by Jan Calloway Baxter

 

This CD, recorded at the Green Nation’s Gathering in 1996, like all of Susun’s talks, is crammed with information about nutrition and other assorted subjects.

If you need a course in the basics of digestive physiology, need to know why it’s ideal to cook your vegetables but not your meat, how to balance your habit of coffee-drinking with a more nourishing habit, why mucus is our friend, or what diet is really the best for stopping a Candida overgrowth, this recording is for you.Indigene Art Forms If you are a vegetarian, vegan, or raw food enthusiast, you should probably take heed of this information to be sure of your decision about how to eat.

I learned a lot from the discussion of digestion, not least of all that herbalists and healers should have a basic physiology course in order to know the results of the suggestions they make to clients. While I did know that the process of digestion begins in the mouth with mastication and a couple of digestive enzymes (who are specialists at digesting sugars and starches which move in and out of cell walls very easily), I did NOT know how much more difficult it is to break down the cell walls of plants than to break down the cell membranes of animal products. That cell wall can’t be broken by your teeth, which are not sharp like the teeth of true herbivores. And if you don’t taste what you put in your mouth—for example by taking herbs in pills or capsules—then your liver doesn’t get the information to send out the specific enzymes needed to digest that particular food. And it isn’t digested. That explains the six inch sludge of vitamin and mineral supplements found when septic tanks are cleaned, Susun comments.

How can you improve your digestion other than by tasting your food? Susun has several suggestions. You can bring up the amount of hydrochloric acid in your stomach. Unfortunately, hydrochloric acid, critical for our nourishment, decreases naturally as we age. We don’t know why, although Susun says she suspects chlorinated water. But we can bring it back up to snuff. One easy way is to eat a dandelion leaf or two before your meal, perhaps in your salad. That’s also a very good way to get some wild food everyday, which Susun mentions later in her talk, and I will, too. I prefer a glass of dandelion wine as an aperitif (or rather an appetizer since it should be consumed before eating), but dandelion vinegar, maybe a tablespoon in my salad dressing, will also do the trick. If all else fails, take 10 or so drops of dandelion tincture before eating. And don’t worry that drinking during a meal will dilute the hydrochloric acid in your stomach. Susun explains that it just ain’t so.

Susun knows a lot about the liver. All herbalists seem to. Why? Because the liver is so important to our lives. The liver produces the enzymes which deal with our food in the small intestine. This is where the absorption of the nutrition into our bloodstreams begins. So the longer food stays in contact with your intestinal wall, the more nutrition you can extract from it. This is one of the reasons that juicing is a bad idea, according to Susun. Juicing does not break down the cell wall, so what you get is the intra-cellular fluids. The nutrition is behind the cell wall and is thrown out. And juice doesn’t hang around for long in our digestive systems, so any nutrition that did make it out with the juice wouldn’t have time to be absorbed anyway. Susun’s claim that one cooked carrot has more nutrition than one glass of carrot juice is really a show stopper for me, since a glass of carrot juice probably contains at least 20 carrots. Sounds like a greedy way to eat.

Much more information about the liver and duodenum is given in this recording, where you can learn about all the 400 types of bacterial flora living in our small intestines and how to revive them since so many things wipe them out (birth control pills, antibiotics, goldenseal, food preservatives).

Other interesting information concerns receptor sights on cells where they secure the nutrients each cell needs. Susun posits that these receptor sights were originally keyed to fit the nutrients and the energetic vibrations of wild food. The duplicate and even triplicate keys we now eat sometimes cause problems with these cell receptor sights—just like a duplicate key in your front door lock.Indigene Art Forms Hybridized foods grown with chemical pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers are far away from those original wild foods that our cells expect. Susun suggests eating some kind of wild food every day, preferably first thing in the morning. That’s where the dandelion wine comes in. Well, maybe not first thing in the morning. Maybe a few leaves of chickweed, lamb’s quarters, or any wild food. In winter, if you’re short of wild weeds, you can chew pine needles; just spit them out after you’ve extracted the juices. This gives our cells a good beginning to the day.

I’ve hit only a few of the high spots in this review. Susun’s discussion of vitamin and mineral complexes is of vital importance to everyone today, especially those of us trying to be sure we get enough minerals to increase our bones’ flexibility and resist the ubiquitous “calcium tablet” mentality. And the end of this tape brought tears to my eyes as Susun spoke about how her goal was to remember that the earth “is what I live from. Protect the Earth. Not Health Food Stores.”

So, I’ll take two glasses of dandelion wine per day, please, and a tablespoon or two of herbal vinegar in my chicken soup. Add an herbal infusion, and ahhhhhhhhh. Optimum nutrition.


Curious about this topic? Add this three CD set to your collection.

Review by Jan Calloway-Baxter

 

 

Optimum Nutrition the Wise Woman Way- 3 CD set

"Susun Weed at Green Nations Gathering 1996"
Simple secrets of optium nutrition, beyond rules, beyond heroics. How find, choose, prepare, and consume nutrient-dense foods that build vitality, joy, and superior health. Follow digestion from start to finish, encounter the mysterious cell wall, and marvel at the microbes that feed you. Health-negative effects of vitamin/mineral supplements, problems with sprouts and juices, long-term difficulties caused by low fat, vegan, macrobiotic, and raw food diets.

Time: CD1/71:09 min. & CD2/73:56 min. & CD3/60:56 min
Price: $30.00 plus shipping

Order Optimum Nutrition the Wise Woman Way set in our Bookshop

 

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INDEX  | HEALING WISE  | BODY & SOUL  | WISE WOMAN WISDOM | EMPOWER YOURSELF
COOKING for LOVE  |  THE GODDESS SPEAKS  | GRANDMOTHER GAIA  |  FEATURED LINKS