In Hawaii, there is a very significant word. That word is Makahiki. The definition of makahiki is as follows:
“A period of several months, which was celebrated each fall (Nov – Feb) in ancient Hawaii with athletic contests, religious rites, and payments of tribute to chiefs and during which all warfare was tabooed”.
Basically, this was the longest celebration ever. The Hawaiian’s then and all of us here now have so much to be thankful for. We live in a tropical paradise, we are surrounded by sun, cooling trade winds, soothing rains, majestic mountains, never ending waves, fertile soils, and incredible indigenous fruits and vegetables that are to die for.
In ancient Hawaiian times, Thanksgiving was a daily happening. There was always receiving and giving. Somehow, when the Pilgrims thrust their belief system on the Indians, they told them to celebrate Thanksgiving by slitting the throat of an innocent turkey and then cooking it and eating it.
Of course, back then, that turkey was not top heavy due to all the growth hormones shoved into it. Nor were the gravies, sauces, potatoes and stuffing’s loaded with MSG, GMOs, High Fructose Corn Syrup and Aspartame.
But still it was loaded with heaps of cholesterol and saturated fat, which no one then knew was associated with high risks of heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and other chronic diseases that now kill 1.3 million Americans a year.
Even now the American Dietetic Association has admitted that “vegetarian diets tend to be lower in saturated fat and cholesterol and have higher levels of dietary fiber, magnesium and potassium, vitamins C and E, folate, carotenoids, flavenoids, and other phytochemicals”.
So, this Thanksgiving, and/or Christmas why not take a walk on the wild side and give thanks by preparing a meal that is heart-healthy, compassionate, and friendly to all involved – one that is totally plant-based?
Although it has taken eons to achieve, the California and Hawaii legislatures recommended that their schools offer a daily vegetarian lunch option and many other states are also considering similar options.
Aside from the adverse health effects previously listed, consider this: mad cow disease comes from these naturally vegetarian cows forced to eat the remains of the dead, dying, diseased, decaying cows, road kill, poultry remains and genetically modified feeds.
What, you thought that these people that raise these animals to kill them would give them organic feed? No way! The cheaper the feed, the higher the profit.
So, back to the adverse health effects: turkeys are pumped full of antibiotics because they are always diseased due to the “caring” and “heartfelt” way they are made ready for slaughter.
Yet, with all those antibiotics pumped into them, we, the humans, are becoming more resistant to the antibiotic medicines we receive to ward off illnesses. Gee, could there be a connection here?
According to the CDC (Centers for Deceit Control and Procrastination), “resistant bacteria may be transferred to humans through the food supply or direct contact with animals”.
Likely, when you are treated with an antibiotic to which the bacteria is resistant, the antibiotic not only doesn’t work but it makes your illness worse and requires you to get yet another dose of another antibiotic. Nothing like all those synthetic chemicals to keep your immune system nice and strong.
To add insult to injury, upwards of 90% of poultry become infected with E.coli during slaughter, 39 – 75% of the poultry in grocery stores are still infected when you buy them despite the chlorine baths they undergo before leaving the slaughterhouse. And then 70 -90% are infected with campylobacter. Nothing like inviting the family over for food poisoning.
Now, if you think that these turkeys spend their lives in a cushy penthouse suite you are grossly mistaken. Would you believe that the 300 million turkeys killed each year spend their entire lives in large, cramped sheds so tight that they spend most of their time rubbing against each other with hardly any room to move?
Imagine, 25,000 birds crammed into a shed, barely any ventilation, and their eyes and lungs burned from the fumes of their nitrogen-enriched doo-doo. The good news – one in ten turkeys die on the factory floor.
Ok, so much for the health ramifications. What about the environmental effects?
Where do you think most of the 10 billion pounds of doo-doo dropped by the 7,300 factory farms in 33 states ends up?
Would you believe the streams and eventually the drinking water? And why?
Because of the water run-offs that leach into the water table from the piles of untreated manure from its use as a crop fertilizer. When you add in other factors, livestock as a whole accounts for 9% of the carbon dioxide derived from human-related activities and creates an even much larger share of greenhouse gases.
What does the future hold? How about going to 465 million tons of global meat production by 2050? And that’s more than double the 229 million tons of 2001. What’s more disturbing is that milk is estimated to go from 580 million tons to 1,043 million tons with most of the consumers being lactose intolerant. Who cares as long as it sells?
Did you know that there are manure “lagoons” that store untreated doo-doo that create enormous amounts of methane that contribute the most to global warming? So, cooling the earth is easy – reduce flesh consumption.
We, in the good ol’ USA, lead the world in the consumption of flesh products. We also lead the world in arthritis, cancer, diabetes, stroke and all kinds of other good stuff. Imagine what the possibilities could be if we cut back drastically. How then could we reduce factory farming? If we cut way back on poultry consumption there would be less birds to factory farm.
Let’s cut to the chase: turkeys are bred to gain large amounts of weight in a very short period of time. Like us, they suffer heart attacks, broken bones, disease and premature death. And if you think “range free” is a better option you are grossly mistaken. To qualify for “range free” all they have to do is open one door in a football field sized dormitory, let in a bit of light, and presto, The USDA says that’s “range free”.
Regardless of how they are raised they all end up at the same slaughterhouses, hung upside down by their legs, their throats slit, and then dumped into boiling water to de-feather them even if still fully conscious.
So, this Thanksgiving why not have all the fixings you usually have except substitute tofu for the turkey? Hear me out. If you slice the tofu in ¼ to ½ inch slices and fry it or bake it and then add some nutritional yeast to it and pour the gravy you would normally pour on the turkey, it will blow your mind as to how good it is.
Doing this will improve your physical health, your compassion, will help the planet and give that innocent turkey you would have eaten another day. It will then be a truly Happy Thanksgiving and a very Merry Christmas for your body, a turkey, and the planet.
Aloha!
To learn more about Hesh, listen to and read hundreds of health related radio shows and articles, and learn about how to stay healthy and reverse degenerative diseases through the use of organic sulfur crystals and other amazing superfoods, please visit www.healthtalkhawaii.com, or email me at [email protected] or call me at (808) 258-1177. Since going on the radio in 1981 these are the only products I began to sell because they work.
Oh yeah, going to www.asanediet.com will allow you to read various parts of my book – “A Sane Diet For An Insane World”, containing a wonderful comment by Mike Adams.
Just to put things in perspective, after I graduated from Weequahic High School and before going to Seton Hall University, I had a part-time job working for a butcher. I was the delivery guy and occasionally had to go to the slaughterhouse to pick up products for the store. Needless to say, I had no consciousness nor awareness, as change never came then despite the horrors I witnessed on an almost daily basis.
After graduating with a degree in accounting from Seton Hall, I eventually got married and moved to a town called Livingston. Livingston was basically a yuppie community where everyone was judged by the neighborhood they lived in and their income. To say it was a "plastic" community would be an understatement.
Livingston and the shallowness finally got to me. I told my wife I was fed up and wanted to move. She made it clear she had to be near her friends and New York City. I finally got my act together and split for Colorado.
I was living with a lady in Aspen at the end of 1974, when one day she said, " let's become vegetarians". I have no idea what possessed me to say it, but I said, "okay"! At that point I went to the freezer and took out about $100 worth of frozen, dead body parts and gave them to a welfare mother who lived behind us. Well, everything was great for about a week or so, and then the chick split with another guy.
So here I was, a vegetarian for a couple weeks, not really knowing what to do, how to cook, or basically how to prepare anything. For about a month, I was getting by on carrot sticks, celery sticks, and yogurt. Fortunately, when I went vegan in 1990, it was a simple and natural progression. Anyway, as I walked around Aspen town, I noticed a little vegetarian restaurant called, "The Little Kitchen".
Let me back up just a little bit. It was April of 1975, the snow was melting and the runoff of Ajax Mountain filled the streets full of knee-deep mud. Now, Aspen was great to ski in, but was a bummer to walk in when the snow was melting.
I was ready to call it quits and I needed a warmer place. I'll elaborate on that in a minute.
But right now, back to "The Little Kitchen". Knowing that I was going to leave Aspen and basically a new vegetarian, I needed help. So, I cruised into the restaurant and told them my plight and asked them if they would teach me how to cook. I told them in return I would wash dishes and empty their trash. They then asked me what I did for a living and I told them I was an accountant.
The owner said to me, "Let's make a deal. You do our tax return and we'll feed you as well". So for the next couple of weeks I was doing their tax return, washing their dishes, emptying the trash, and learning as much as I could.
But, like I said, the mud was getting to me. So I picked up a travel book written by a guy named Foder. The name of the book was, "Hawaii". Looking through the book I noticed that in Lahaina, on Maui, there was a little vegetarian restaurant called," Mr. Natural's". I decided right then and there that I would go to Lahaina and work at "Mr. Natural's." To make a long story short, that's exactly what happened.
So, I'm working at "Mr. Natural's" and learning everything I can about my new dietary lifestyle - it was great. Every afternoon we would close for lunch at about 1 PM and go to the Sheraton Hotel in Ka'anapali and play volleyball, while somebody stayed behind to prepare dinner.
Since I was the new guy, and didn't really know how to cook, I never thought that I would be asked to stay behind to cook dinner. Well, one afternoon, that's exactly what happened; it was my turn. That posed a problem for me because I was at the point where I finally knew how to boil water.
I was desperate, clueless and basically up the creek without a paddle. Fortunately, there was a friend of mine sitting in the gazebo at the restaurant and I asked him if he knew how to cook. He said the only thing he knew how to cook was enchiladas. He said that his enchiladas were bean-less and dairy-less. I told him that I had no idea what an enchilada was or what he was talking about, but I needed him to show me because it was my turn to do the evening meal.
Well, the guys came back from playing volleyball and I'm asked what was for dinner. I told them enchiladas; the owner wasn't thrilled. I told him that mine were bean-less and dairy-less. When he tried the enchilada he said it was incredible. Being the humble guy that I was, I smiled and said, "You expected anything less"? It apparently was so good that it was the only item on the menu that we served twice a week. In fact, after about a week, we were selling five dozen every night we had them on the menu and people would walk around Lahaina broadcasting, 'enchilada's at "Natural's" tonight'. I never had to cook anything else.
A year later the restaurant closed, and somehow I gravitated to a little health food store in Wailuku. I never told anyone I was an accountant and basically relegated myself to being the truck driver. The guys who were running the health food store had friends in similar businesses and farms on many of the islands. I told them that if they could organize and form one company they could probably lock in the State. That's when they found out I was an accountant and "Down to Earth" was born. "Down to Earth" became the largest natural food store chain in the islands, and I was their Chief Financial Officer and co-manager of their biggest store for 13 years.
In 1981, I started to do a weekly radio show to try and expose people to a vegetarian diet and get them away from killing innocent creatures. I still do that show today. I pay for my own airtime and have no sponsors to not compromise my honesty. One bit of a hassle was the fact that I was forced to get a Masters Degree in Nutrition to shut up all the MD's that would call in asking for my credentials.
My doing this radio show enabled me, through endless research, to see the corruption that existed within the big food industries, the big pharmaceutical companies, the biotech industries and the government agencies. This information, unconscionable as it is, enabled me to realize how broken our health system is. This will be covered more in depth in the Introduction and throughout the book and when you finish the book you will see this clearly and it will hopefully inspire you to make changes.
I left Down to Earth in 1989, got nationally certified as a sports injury massage therapist and started traveling the world with a bunch of guys that were making a martial arts movie. After doing that for about four years I finally made it back to Honolulu and got a job as a massage therapist at the Honolulu Club, one of Hawaii's premier fitness clubs. It was there I met the love of my life who I have been with since 1998. She made me an offer I couldn't refuse. She said," If you want to be with me you've got to stop working on naked women". So, I went back into accounting and was the Chief Financial Officer of a large construction company for many years.
Going back to my Newark days when I was an infant, I had no idea what a "chicken" or "egg" or "fish" or "pig" or "cow" was. My dietary blueprint was thrust upon me by my parents as theirs was thrust upon them by their parents. It was by the grace of God that I was able to put things in their proper perspective and improve my health and elevate my consciousness.
The road that I started walking down in 1975 has finally led me to the point of writing my book, “A Sane Diet For An Insane World”. Hopefully, the information contained herein will be enlightening, motivating, and inspiring to encourage you to make different choices. Doing what we do out of conditioning is not always the best course to follow. I am hoping that by the grace of the many friends and personalities I have encountered along my path, you will have a better perspective of what road is the best road for you to travel on, not only for your health but your consciousness as well.
Last but not least: after being vaccinated as a kid I developed asthma, which plagued me all of my life. In 2007 I got exposed to the organic sulfur crystals, which got rid of my asthma in 3 days and has not come back in over 10 years. That, being the tip of the iceberg, has helped people reverse stage 4 cancers, autism, joint pain, blood pressure problems, migraine headaches, erectile dysfunction, gingivitis, and more. Also, because of the detoxification effects by the release of oxygen that permeates and heals all the cells in the body, it removes parasites, radiation, fluoride, free radicals, and all the other crap that is thrust upon us in the environment by Big Business.
For more, please view www.healthtalkhawaii.com and www.asanediet.com.
Namaste!
