The Book “Smoothies That Heal”
Presenter: Neal Howard
Guest: Valerie Ramdin
Guest Bio: Valerie Ramdin is the organizer of the Tucson Inflammatory Disease meet-up group. She has a master’s degree in inner-city education from Northeastern Illinois University and a Ph.D. in counseling. She has reversed her many symptoms of multiple sclerosis, including partial blindness and limb paralysis, and now jogs four miles a day. She is the author of SMOOTHIES THAT HEAL.
Segment Overview:
Valerie Ramdin talks about her book “Smoothies That Heal”. Recipes, lifestyle changes, and outlook on life are touched upon.
Transcription
Health Professional Radio
Neal Howard: Hello. You’re listening to Health Professional Radio. I’m your host, Neal Howard. Our guest is Valerie Ramdin. She is here today to discuss how a smoothie a day can keep stress and disease out of our daily lives. Valerie is the organiser of the Tucson inflammatory disease meet-up group. She’s also an author, the author of Smoothies That Heal, a book that includes recipes and healthy lifestyle changes revolving around raw fruit and vegetable smoothies. How are you doing today, Valerie?
Valerie Ramdin: I’m just great. How are you, Neal?
Neal: Great to have you here with us, and I’m looking forward to discussing your book, Smoothies That Heal. You were diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 20 years ago, and you did the normal thing. You went to the doctors. You were on medications, the exercises, and things weren’t getting as good as you wanted them to be. So you embarked on a journey of self-healing, and it led you to smoothies, correct?
Valerie: That’s true. That’s so true.
Neal: Could you tell us a little bit about your book, Smoothies That Heal?
Valerie: Sure. I was led to write Soothies That Heal … led to use smoothies for my healing because all of a sudden, I realised, after taking years and years of treatment for my multiple sclerosis, I decided I didn’t want to treat my multiple sclerosis. I wanted to recover from my multiple sclerosis. So I started researching people who had recovered from multiple sclerosis. And you know what? There are people out there, Neal, that have done that.
So I started looking at what they did, and that’s what I decided to do. I said, “I’m going to do what they did,” what the people that recovered from multiple sclerosis did. They ate a lot of white fish, a lot of herring, a lot of cod, a lot of mackerel, a lot of salmon and rice, and then they ate a lot of fresh raw fruits and vegetables. And that’s what I did.
Neal: Now, we hear a lot about supplements and things of that nature. It seems to me that using raw vegetable and fruit smoothies would eliminate some of these supplements, getting all your vitamins and minerals straight from the source. Is that correct, or am I mistaken in that assumption?
Valerie: You know what? Actually, that’s true. Because there’s a lot of nutrients in them, in raw fruits and vegetables. I myself, personally, did not go the route of throwing away my regular, very high quality multivitamin. So I do take – I still take a very high quality multivitamin. I do still take sublingual vitamin B complex for extra energy. So I do still believe in vitamins, and I use them regularly. I didn’t try to get rid of them. This is just reinforcement. The vegetables is reinforcement.
Neal: So you’re not a proponent of a replacement with smoothies to supplements, and possibly even regular medical treatment and attention, but as a complement or supplement to whatever it is you’re doing to keep yourself healthy in the first place, yeah?
Valerie: Exactly, exactly. As I had mentioned before, I personally stayed on my $4000-a-month drug for multiple sclerosis until the doctors asked me to please get off of it because there was no use for it – I didn’t need it anymore. I am all for staying with the medical profession. If they want you to stay on the drugs, fine. Whoever wants to get off the drug, I want them to be comfortable getting off the drug with their doctor’s recommendation.
Neal: Now, in your book, you’ve got recipes and healthy lifestyle change suggestions. You also talk in the book about smoothies, these fruit and vegetable smoothies reversing the effects of other diseases such as lupus, heart disease, cancer, and the other chronic inflammatory diseases. Now, are there specific fruits and vegetables, or are all fruits and vegetables fair game to be used as a healthy alternative or supplement to our daily health regimen?
Valerie: I think all fruits and vegetables are very good for you. However, some are even better. In the back of my book, Smoothies That Heal, I do talk about the benefits of each vegetable and fruit that I used in the smoothies. I write what each fruit and vegetable is good for. So that’s helpful in deciding which smoothie ingredients you want to use.
Neal: Lots and lots of health benefits. It seems that it can actually reverse some of the symptoms. And some of these symptoms can be pretty severe – partial blindness, limb paralysis, and things of that nature, with some of these diseases. Now, some of the other benefits, they are health benefits. Your book talks about some raw foods that can help increase testosterone levels in women. Could you expound on that a bit?
Valerie: Oh, yes. That’s terrific. There are some ingredients that can help. Well, actually, all of the anti-inflammatory ingredients are going to help you with increasing your movement. It’s going to help you with your activity. And that, therefore, increases your hormones and your testosterone. By exercising more, you stimulate your testosterone.
So if you’re unable to exercise, then you can’t have higher testosterone, if you stop moving altogether, you’re laying down or you’re sitting there all day, then you’re not going to have as high of a level of testosterone. And when I say testosterone, it’s not just a male hormone. Testosterone is also a female hormone that makes a woman want to have sex. That’s testosterone.
Neal: Is that right?
Valerie: It makes her want to have … yes, that’s so true. I know. [laughs] So, yes. So a woman wants to have testosterone too, because you want to want sex. You want to desire that, because that’s very healthy. You’re not going to desire it as much if you’re just not moving as much. A lot of times, you’re not moving as much because you have inflammation or discomfort. So when you decrease that, that helps you right away in moving around and stimulating your own testosterone, okay?
And then also, in these smoothies, if you look in my Smoothies That Heal, you can use soy milk. Soy milk is great for stimulating testosterone production. Also, you can use … peanut butter has a lot of good zinc in it. Almond butter has good zinc in it. And I say “good” because there’s a good amount of zinc in it. That’s going to help you with your testosterone, so those are some of the ingredients that are, for sure, going to stimulate your testosterone. You can also use the local raw honey. That can help stimulate testosterone production as well.
Neal: You have recovered from the symptoms of multiple sclerosis, right?
Valerie: Right. That is so true. I feel totally recovered from it. I have no problem with it. What’s even better is I have no fear of multiple sclerosis anymore. It was a tremendous fear. I had terrible thoughts of how I was going to survive, with my son watching me and seeing me limp around and seeing that I couldn’t go all the way up the stairs, and all kinds of problems. That would always plague me in my head, that something could happen, where that would happen.
I don’t have that problem anymore. I jump on the elliptical. I do my exercise. I don’t mind going 50 minutes at a time, 60 minutes at a time, two hours. I’m fine sweating. I like to sweat twice a day. I’m in a level I haven’t been in in years. So I feel terrific. I’m finished with that multiple sclerosis. That’s somebody else’s problem.
Neal: That is absolutely great, and very, very inspiring. You’ve been listening to Health Professional Radio. Our guest today has been Valerie Ramdin. She’s the organiser of the Tucson inflammatory disease meet-up group. She’s also an author, the author ofSmoothies That Heal. Her book is available at www.valerielynnramdin.net. It’s also available on Amazon. We’ve been talking today about how raw fruit and vegetable smoothies can actually reverse the symptoms of some of our diseases like MS, lupus, heart disease, cancer, and many of the other chronic inflammatory diseases. It’s been great having you here with us today, Valerie.
Valerie: Thanks so much. It’s been great being on your show.
Neal: I’m looking forward to speaking with you again to talk more about how smoothies can help keep us healthy.
Valerie: Okay. I’ll be there.
Neal: All right. Transcripts of this program are available at healthprofessionalradio.com.au.
