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Find a healthy meal

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After years of battling with high blood pressure using prescription medication, local business owner and cook Cliff Lee turned to an unconventional kind of therapy to treat his heart disease.

"My blood pressure was 150 over 150, and I was on a medication for about six years," he said. "I found several cookbooks to go over and one of them mentioned about this, kind of a food-based therapy, so I followed that at home ... this particular one is called Ger-son Therapy."

Developed by Dr. Max Gerson in the 1920's, Ger-son Therapy involves drinking massive amounts of organic fruit and vegetable juices to flood the body with nutrients to naturally treat a wide variety of diseases, according to the Gerson Institute.

"The Gerson Therapy is a powerful, natural treatment that boosts your body's own immune system to heal cancer, arthritis, heart disease, allergies and many other degenerative diseases," the institute says.

Lee admitted that this seemed too good to be true, but eventually decided to give the program a try, at least for a little while.

"It sounded like a hoax also, but I was intrigued ... so I followed it," he said. "Guess how long it took for me to go back to normal in terms of my blood pressure. Five days. I wasn't even following the gerson therapy totally, just a small portion ... basically a vegan diet."

Since his success using the Gerson Therapy system, Lee is on a mission to teach others in the area about how they could lose weight and get healthy through changing to a mostly organic vegan diet as he did.

According to a Washington State Department of Health (DOH) study, as of 2007, Mason County has an obesity rate of about 29 percent, the ninth most obese county in Washington State. The study correlated this high rate of obesity with levels of exercise and diet, as well as other factors, like income, race and education levels.

The DOH study also showed that high levels of obesity statewide are associated with high levels of heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, stroke and asthma.

"Mason County is one of the worst, and so the question is now, what do we eat, what should we not eat and why?" Lee said. "I was prediabetes, that's gone, arthritis is gone, allergies, pretty much gone."

Lee started a discussion group that meets the second to last Wednesday of every month to discuss vegan recipes and strategies to eat well and stay healthy at Lee's restaurant, "Oh Pho!" He welcomes anyone interested in attending to show up at their next meeting on Aug. 18.

"It's had a low turnout so far but I think at some point we really want to open it up, so everybody can come," he said.



Copyright 2010 Shelton-Mason County Journal, Shelton, Washington. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from SmallTownPapers, Inc.

© 2010 Shelton-Mason County Journal Shelton, Washington. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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