Our bodies know how to “prune” where is needed to make sure disease does not become overgrown and cause us problems!
I LOVE Ted Talks and this past winter I spent a lot of time riding my bike inside and listening to TED Talks. I came across Dr. Li this winter, and he has changed my ideas of what a Modern Day Kitchen Garden/Urban Potager should become if we want to heal our bodies. I need to make more room for the most important plants to help me battle the disease that afflicts my loved ones in my family. Our gardens are living medicine. They provide the food that we can nurture our bodies to fight disease, and they also can be a “haven” away from the stresses of life.
“Dr. William Li has spent decades researching and promoting an idea that sounds too good to be true: that many of the world’s diseases, ranging from cancer to diabetes to obesity, have a relatively simple solution. We just have to starve the cells that cause disease by inhibiting angiogenesis, the technical term for the growth of the new blood vessels that feed them….read more (here)
Our bodies know how to “prune” where is needed to make sure disease does not become overgrown and cause us problems!
Each person needs to learn about his research and listen to this man! His research is ground breaking and for those of us that grow organic food gives us even more validation that what we are doing is helping us and others!
He equips us with the “Science” to prevent disease not wait till it takes hold of our body…it empowers us to do something rather than wait to fight the disease! Understanding how your body battles disease is the first step in preventing diseases-don’t you think?
Dr. Li answering a question
What’s an emerging trend you think will shake up the health world?
“Understanding that food is the chemotherapy we take three times per day is a game changer. We are learning that Mother Nature has imbued many foods–fruits, vegetables, herbs, seafood, tea, coffee, even chocolate–with natural substances that can cut off the blood vessels that feed cancer and other diseases. Eating to starve cancer will pull the rug from under the cancer epidemic, and in a way that puts control in the hands of consumers, not doctors. Using foods that prevent angiogenesis is a strategy that can cut across socioeconomic, cultural, and geographic barriers.”
Please take a few minutes from your day to listen to his Ted Talk-he is BRILLIANT + he will encourage you to tear up your lawn and grow your organic disease-fighting foods. He has the “science” behind his words. He is not a quack and if you listen you can see how it can help you “prevent” disease! Yep, all we need to do is “grow” our medicine. It is all here on earth and our bodies naturally “prune” the blood vessels that cause disease. He uses the analogy of a “Tree” to describe how disease starts in our bodies. If you feed your bodies the right food; it takes care of disease. We all have microscopic cancer cells floating around in our bodies, but they never develop beyond that point because they are not able to develop “roots” or a blood supply.
I am not a doctor/scientist, so listen to his lecture and learn what foods you can grow right out your door to eat or starve disease! Today start learning how to “Eat to Beat” or for some ” Eat to Prevent” diseases. What you eat does matter. There is research right now that “rates” foods and scores them based on their ability to fight disease. Read more(here)
Tear up that yard + grow more of your medicine out your door! I did 15 years ago when I read about “angiogenesis” in an article. I did listen, and I believe many of the medicine we need can be grown right where we live. Surely you can fit a few of these plants into the landscape of your life. I have over the years + I believe the work to keep these foods growing on my small property keeps me in shape. Growing your food keeps your body healthy!
Palm Rae Urban Potager is going to have a MAKEOVER this year! My goal is to decide which of these disease-fighting antiangiogenic foods can be grown in my zone 5 garden + how can I best keep an antiangiogenic garden going so my body can prune disease daily.
I have been learning to grow and include more of these foods in my daily diet. Here is his list of vegetables that “scientific research” proves help us battle disease daily.
Listen to his TED TALK” (here)
read more about his organization (here)
A whole page devoted to EACH food that fights disease -) read about each one (here)
Make 2015 the year you start “growing” your own medicine right where you live!
Immunity Gardens 
Thanks for sharing this Robbie, I will definitely go and check out the links you shared…
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Oh, I hope you do listen to his Ted Talk-he is inspiring:-)
Make sure your kids listen to him too-he explains how food helps us keep healthy in a “simple” way…makes one appreciate the simple foods we can grow:-)
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Absolutely Robbie! A big part of why I am Vegan – notice that meat and diary are not on any of these lists? In fact I recently read that our bodies, unlike true carnivores, interpret meat as an intruder and it causes an inflammatory response. So interesting. Plant power all the way! You might be interested in someone else I ran across Dr. Mitchell Gaynor, an oncologist. He just wrote a book entitled The Gene Therapy Plan. I’ve watched a couple of his short videos and he discusses angiogenesis also. I love his short videos where he describes specific foods and their properties and how they affect your body and stop angiogenesis or prevent obesity like avocados, acai, cocoa nibs, etc. I will have to move to the tropics to grown some of these ha ha. I think Acai is something you could grow Robbie! I believe it is hardy to zone 5!
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I will check his book out and his short videos!
What about “paw paw” you can squeeze a few in on your property??? I am trying to find the space!
Our native “paw paw” is similar to tropical fruit:-)
But I bet you have some on your property-you are so wise about native plants!
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I would love to grow Paw Paw but we are just a bit too cold here. I could grow Papaya in my tropical garden! I just like to imagine having a tropical garden – I love my garden here and we’ll be here for a while. You should check out Lee Reich’s blog – he is an expert in growing fruit in zone 5. He grows Paw Paw, blueberries, cherries, figs, hardy kiwi (which I did plant), and even his own fresh ginger (which I want to do!), and more. I just moved my raspberries yesterday from out behind the greenhouse so I can tend to them this year – yum.
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🙂 we get pretty cold here but a man told me a few weeks ago he noticed paw paws in some woods in our city. It gives me hope that they will grow here. I have to find a shady spot for them for they do not like a lot of sun in the first year or two but later need full sun-crazy! We shall see if I can grow them here. I moved some blackberry bushes the other day and hope they take well in their new spot. I also put two plums, another pear, and another cherry in the garden this spring. I am all “fruited” in! Can’t stuff another one in the yard:-) My other cherry is on year 4 so in a few, I should see some cherries-fingers crossed!
I tried Kiwi vines but they just did not do much for me, but I have enough fruit to keep us happy and healthy:-)
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Lee Reich’s blog-heading over there now! thank you:-)
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I’m going to listen to the Ted talk as soon as I get my second cup of watered down coffee. Thanks for the information. Very enlightening. I don’t think pharma is going to solve our cancer problems. They are at the end of the line. This has to be solved before the cancer gets a foothold.Good for you for looking at it that way.
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Oh goody-you have inspired me to share again! I was wondering how to get this info out without sounding “boring” and “food preachy”….he is an inspiring speaker! He makes it simple and I do believe he has found some answers:-)
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Great share Robbie! This is how I have been living and eating for over two years now and the improvement in my health and energy means I would never willingly poison myself again. I was observing a woman in LAX who was in a wheel chair extremely obese and cheerfully ordering her husband about to bring her this that and the other whilst informing us all that she had diabetes. He purchased her several pastries coated thickly with sugar and two cans of coke while we waited forty minutes to board our plane. I was stunned that two plus two did not add up to four in her head.
You might also want to check out the various people who can be found on the ‘Food Matters’ web-site – all of them have been labelled as quacks at various times, but that is the way of the pharmacologically driven ‘scientific’ medicine world.
I think it is a process we go through learning to understand what foods are our own good medicine and what foods are our own poisons. While there are obvious culprits that affect us all – sugar, gmo’d ‘food’, our modern day altered wheat, hormone fed meats etc etc – it is also important to understand that it is not a ‘one size fits all’ diet regimen. Some need high protein, others need less. Some need meat in their diets and others are made ill by it. Some can eat nuts, others cannot. For each of us it is an individual lesson in self care and responsibility to educate ourselves and to understand our three food choices: health, neutral, poison.
There is also a school of thought that maintains the process of growing our own food is in and of itself a contributor to the health giving properties of the food – so you don’t have to grow the exotics, you just have to find the plants that are native to your region – hows that for making you think! xoxo
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Pauline!!!! You must be back in town:-) I was noticing the same thing when I was in the grocery store the other day-the stuff people put in their cart????they do not look healthy and they continue to shop in the middle aisles! Pollen tells us all to shop on the edges of the grocery store-makes sense:-)
It is hard to watch someone like that for you do feel sorry that they don’t get it + they just never “wise” up-so sad:-(
I have missed your thoughtful comments, wisdom + stories:-)
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Yes, I got home yesterday and went to bed really early. I slept for ten hours and only woke up because poor old Siddy had been quiet and still for as long as he possibly could! I realise I am just not built any more for these long haul flights!
I also meant to say how much I love your new lay out on the blog – the writing is so much easier to read now – my aging eyes struggled with the previous black background. 🙂
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awww:-) I can’t travel that well either for I don’t sleep in hotels or out of my home too well:-) short trips are okay, but for months or weeks a bit more difficult.
I can’t wait to head over and read about all your fun. Enjoyed all the pictures!!! You all looked so filled with joy and beauty-what fun:-)
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In fact, Pauline- I don’ t sleep well at my own home! I am a poor sleeper which is not a good thing when you travel. I am glad to read you are back all safe and home with your four legged children:-)
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This is fascinating, Robbie. Thanks for sharing it. I’m glad to see I eat most of these foods, guess I’m on the right track!
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that is because you are “wise eliza”…tee hee…you are all knowing!!!!
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How you flatter me! 😉
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🙂 you deserve it!
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Awww… 🙂
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if you think about it-this is the way our parents ( and those before them) use to eat before all are ”
artifical” packaged foods:-)
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Humanity has certainly mucked up their food chain haven’t they! We were given simple food to nourish us and we turned it into McDonalds! May as well be eating stones for all the goodness that it gives us nutritionally and the byproduct of eating faux food is that our bodies can’t handle it and we end up saturating ourselves in toxic soup. Our bodies are amazing machines, fully capable of looking after themselves (on the most part) and as you so rightly pointed out, eating well is the answer. Growing our own food allows us to eat straight from the source, and so long as we are growing our food in healthy soil that contains the minerals that the plants can take up, we can only be living right when we eat it.
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“faux food” Brilliant Fran-your muses are at it again!
I love that:-) It should be a post! Faux Food-yep that sums it up:-) I was outside today looking at my neighbors with their “perfect” GRASS and none of them have food growing on their lots. I have the worst grass ( not much of it) on the block. I used some organic fertilizer for my grass. I know it will green up but as I looked at it , I thought-we need to change this “green carpet stuff” that just ruins our health. The spray trucks are at it again + yes, their grass is greener than mine-but I can eat more of my yard!
I put in 2 dwarf plums, 1 more pear, 1 more cherry, and ordered two paw paw trees. I am all squared away for eating the next decade!
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AND you can dry the fruit from your trees when you have a glut and eat it in winter. Any room for a hazelnut or two? They are small and hugely dense in nutrients 🙂
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I would love to have a hazelnut but I have every corner crammed-LOL-if I could I would have a nut tree! how big do they get??? see I am searching to see if I can squeeze on in!
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They are very small trees as nut trees go Robbie and can be kept at about 10 – 15ft tall. They are great for espalier and in the U.K. they actually copice them as they will grow back readily.
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hmmmmm…tempting-and I am thinking where to sneak one in!!!
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They espalier really well and you need 2 to pollinate but imagine having your own hazelnuts! I want lots of nut trees as “come the revolution” you can use them for making flour, a good substitute for animal milks, they are full of protein and healthy calories and can be used to substitute for meat in a pinch. You can also store them in their shells for a very long time. Pantry food in their own little jars 🙂
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I have to squeeze my Native American Paw Paw fruit trees in ( only tropical we have in North America). Iam researching…I have wanted a few nut trees they just get so large and we have telephone wires that run the edges of our property:-(
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Hazelnuts are short and can be coppiced (cut down and they will grow back) so I am guessing that they could be easily grown on a fence. They can be grown as a hedge!
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I have stuffed this yard to the brim-LOL:-) You are right, we all need to learn to grow food for the future is uncertain as to where some of it will come from. In the USA -California is having a lot of drought problems + we need to grow more food locally. It is crazy we don’t learn to grow more here and not ship it miles across state lines! Your acreage is amazing:-) Can’t wait to read your new site about your place!:-)
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By the way, hazelnuts are tough as old nails. There is a garden up the road that no-one looks after and it has hazelnut trees in it that survive with no water apart from what they get from the sky.
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That is my kind of edible plant!
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Mine too. They have to be tough as nails to live here. Camellias, rhododendrons, azaleas, kniffofia etc. All tough as old boots (and most of them poisonous to boot 😉 )
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🙂 part of my MAKEOVER this year-a plant has to prove it is worthy-tee hee!
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Hazelnuts would probably grow on your roof they are THAT worthy 😉 OH, you can use the wood for lots of things as well!
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funny you say that, I have a flat roof over the garage-LOL
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“BRING IT ON HAZELNUTS!” 😉
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🙂
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You know when I was a small girl, my grandfather purchased some property away from the city to put in an apple orchard and other plants. I have been thinking that maybe I need to pruchase a vacant plot of land and put in food trees! I am seriously thinking about it for it would be a great way to keep us all healthy and fed!
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Not a bad idea at all Ms Robbie and you could let people use a little patch of it to grow their own food in return for keeping an eye on yours. It would be especially valuable to plant nut trees as they truly are very valuable in the scheme of things 🙂
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now ya talking my dance:-) I am checking it out!
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Well, ya never know once I get done here , I may branch out which is a dream:-)
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Could be a really valuable exercise in community building 🙂
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🙂 spot on!
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Well, he’s right on the money in terms of listing my favourite foods…to me, the simpler and fresher, the better!
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me too-Matt! Right off the plants:-)
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Thank you for this wonderful post Robbie. I really need to do some internal pruning! I will listen to that Ted talk soon–I love those. You’re such a champion for good health using natural preservation! ❤ ❤
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I have to admit- it did not happen over night it is a way of living + I am still working on growing more. I have a new purple asparagus bed, I am starting. I have heard from so many people that “fresh” asparagus is so good. I am learning to grow and eat new foods..it takes time + I am still learning. We do have so many choices as to how we want to live:-) I am not perfect- but have adapted to a new way to live on our city lot + sometimes you do feel a bit alone in the quest for better health..it helps to share with others, so I can learn how to do it better!
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I admire you so much Robbie. Is your husband on board with all the healthy ways of eating? That’s my problem–it is hard to do it on my own. I’m not the best at doing what’s right for me in the eating dept! But I know we all have to accept responsibility for ourselves!
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I grow all the food + he has bad habits, but he is learning that when it is my night to cook-well, you know the story:-) He is learning but they are hard to change + over the years he is doing a bit better. My kids all learned to eat healthy and they bug him about it all the time-lol:-) He is shamed into it often + yes, he eats more each year ,but it is so “HARD”-so I do understand:-)
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I have had a bountiful fruit harvest from my garden this year: apricots, nectarines, cranberries, blueberries, boysenberries, and now the apples and feijoas are ripening. My neighbour has given me lemons, tomatoes, courgettes and cucumbers from his garden. Other friends have given me peaches and plums, and walnuts. So much variety and freshness, and all from city gardens. I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t want to grow something, even a patch of parsley, that would benefit their own health and, perhaps, someone else’s health as well. In our NZ government-funded health system, if my neighbour gets diabetes or has kidney failure, he/she and I both end up paying for the disease through our tax dollars. An apple tree, a few potatoes, some lettuce plants; a great investment that could save thousands on a dialysis machine. 🙂
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Your home + neighborhood is the way we all need to live! We should all be trading between our yards + working to grow what we can on our block. I am the only growing food on my block. There may bea few people in the area but very few vegetable gardens. They have nice front yards filled with non-food plants, wall to wall carpet lawns and many non-native plants that do not help our local pollinators:-(
You live in paradise! I hope someday to have a yard just like yours filled with fruit. I have some fruits ( raspberries, apples, pears) but hope to have more in the next few years!
I am stiff today from gardening this past week + it is the “good stiff” the kind that lets you know you worked muscles that have been lazy all winter! So good to be outside and growing:-)
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There are lawns in my neighbourhood but most every property has some kind of food/fruit growing in it. We could all share a lot more than we do, but, as it is, I have hardly had to buy any fruit from the store for months. It’s been great. 🙂
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🙂 My kind of neighborhood! sharing:-)
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also-the variety of food youhave is amazing in NZ-you truly don’t need a grocery store! You “all” are the grocery store-tee hee:-) So neat:-)
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We have a good climate for growing most anything. Very spoiled.
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tee hee- I’ am glad you are spoiled for it keeps you healthy:-) I am learning what we can grow and eat here in our climate and there are a lot of choices:-) Just have to adjust, but you do lieve in paradise! A wonderland of food growing-year round! I love your Kiwi’s at my market!
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Fascinating stuff Robbie. At the end of the day ‘you are what you eat’ and we are lucky to be able to grow our own food. Right off to have lunch with some freshly picked salad leaves from the polytunnel!
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You are so right:-) YUM! You also have a beautiful place to wander after your lunch:-) Great way to live:-)
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Thanks for sharing Robbie, love Tedx too and this was very interesting, especially what he had to say about food synergy. There was an article on the news this week that researchers (no doubt well funded researchers!) found that 95% of the 25,000 foods sold in our shops are unhealthy. I was gobsmacked to hear this… gobsmacked to hear there are SO MANY food items. If you remove the fresh or unprocessed it pretty much means the rest are created, manufactured. It was no surprise to hear they are unhealthy! It simply hardened our resolve to grow our own as much as possible and confirmation we (and others like us) are on the right track – not that we really needed confirmation but sometimes we lack direction to growing into what we want to do in the future. Roger has two sisters who have just been operated on for bowel cancer, each not yet 60. One will be very open to changing diet and is pretty aware of the need for self-healing, the other not at all so I will be interested to see if she will make any changes – her husband has terminal prostate cancer and it’s very sad because they are both lovely, bright, intelligent people but great foodies which could be where this all started.
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Oh Wendy- it makes me feel so good when I find a “wise woman” like you listening to his lecture and hearing the message- I forgot-“Food synergy” in his lecture..yep, with the teas and how alone they were not as powerful but “mixed” they were much more potent-crazy:-) There is something to all this + I am learning every day. I listened to a lecture by Pollan and he said “shop the outside of your supermarket-forget all the stuff in the middle” + ” if a food has more than 3 ingredients you should question it”-really wise words. I do find, I never go to the center of the grocery store where all the “processed” foods are on all the shelves. I am not perfect, but I sure notice the difference-if I do eat more of the “wrong” foods, I pay the price:-(
I need to become more organized with my food growing. Not worry about trying to grow everything-but to grow the things that we really need to eat:-)
I rode the river today + when I got home after a long ride-I used your soap! It is amazing:-)
I feel we all get lazy and having a grocery food store filled with every food you could imagine just means we don’t need to plan or think about it….I find planning and thinking makes me a better eater + once you eat it fresh-well, you never can be satisfied by the store bought veggies and fruits!
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Oh, we certainly aren’t perfect either Robbie! We do live in the days of everything being available and some of it is very yummy lol…I often have trouble passing a bakery! We do better than alot but certainly aren’t puritans 🙂
It’s hard for mothers who are working to not rely heavily on the convenience of everything, the diets of kids nowadays are horror stories for their futures but it’s just the “norm”
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🙂 so true about young families, I remember those days and how hard they were to do it all:-)
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Yeah, me too 🙂
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Thanks also for the page on his site, brilliant!
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I was studying that tonight + it really is a great resource. They do update the site + it is so great he is getting the word out!
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also-it is good you are helping them learn about these foods…You live in such an amazing climate for food growing! I wish our winters were not so harsh since it gets long in the winter. I miss fresh greens-locally in the middle of winter!:-)
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We are very fortunate with our weather Robbie. I have bookmarked this page so I can keep referring to it to see what else we can grow/improve 🙂
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Me too + my garden is having a MAKEOVER this summer:-)
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We’ve been having to explain to caretakers and family members how our daughter eats. No, she doesn’t need cheerios. Or goldfish. Or rice cereal. Please don’t take a baby who loves green beans and asparagus and sardines and chicken and banana and all things real (except avocado) and get her hooked on processed fat and flour. She only has two teeth but will cheerfully gnaw on an apple and spit out crackers.
Teaching new caretakers our philosophy on food takes a lot of repetition. They’re not used to a baby’s lunch being scrambled eggs mixed with mushrooms and onions and peppers. (Maybe they’re not used to being envious of “baby food”!)
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you are so right:-) Why do we have to defend eating “real” food + growing “real food”…it is crazy. You are so smart to start early and teach your little one how to appreciate good food. I feel my kids are all aware of what they eat matters. My husband is another story-he still is difficult. I just have to be patient ( all these years!), but my kids bug him about it when they visit:-)
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This is fascinating! I can definitely eat more blueberries, garlic, artichokes, and chocolate – not all at the same time, though!
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LOL-too funny:-) But so true!
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Great post Robbie, I am going to follow your links. We grow some of the foods listed organically at home, raspberries and strawberries Apples and kale especially. I have read that non organic Strawberries and lettuce bought in the supermarket are the two highest chemical laden foods. Why would you want to put that in your mouth? Let alone have it riding around inside your stomach ect…. But for some folk being able to grow enough foods organically is not an option and buying it is so expensive.
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You are so right about store bought lettuce and strawberries:-) I can usually get “organic” lettuce in the store( but I enjoy my garden lettuce best) if we don’t have any in our garden. If I try to purchase enough “organic” berries ( blue berries, strawberries or black berries) for us to snack on throughout the week-it means no money for other foods-LOL. Those are SO EXPENSIVE here in the USA. I froze many from my garden last year + we enjoyed them throughout the winter. I just put them in my yogurt and “yum.” Now I can pass by those expensive “organic” berries:-) Still working on my blueberries for the bunnies keep eating them to the ground ( the branches in winter). I did cover them all this past winter, so that should help:-)
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I buy a lot of organic vegetables and fruit. I’m pretty solid on the chocolate and wine so I should live forever. 🙂
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ditto! I have to admit, I am “pretty solid on the chocolate and wine”-only way to live! But my wine is dark red + my chocolate is dark-tee hee:-) but on occasion, I cheat with milk chocolate! A girl has gotta have fun-LOL
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Eat food, not phood!!! That’s my motto! Thx for passing along the TED tip, too! Happy growing this season!!!
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Amen sister! Good to see you in better spirits today:-) Each day the sun heals:-)
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