HEALTH, DIET, NUTRITION AND WELLNESS: THINGS WE DON'T LIKE TO TALK ABOUT
by Bro. Fahim A. Knight-El
Peace: family and friends, I am always searching and looking for topics and issues that relates and impact the African American community (I found no topic more fitting than to discuss Health, Nutrition, Diet and Wellness). Some of my immediate family members and even close friends have had some serious health challenges and I can remember being in the hospital with a very close relative of mine during a major heart surgery and my daughter told me that her mom, which is my wife had posted a photo of this family member on Facebook. She was being transparent about this close relative health a little more than I wanted her to be, but she thought that by posting this particular health situation on social media, it would inform those in the black community of need to become more health conscious. It was her way of keeping people updated with this personal matter, it was a honorable thing to do, because many in the black community had personal relations with this brother and friend. I got that but I have always felt health was something personal and I still struggle with aspects of being transparent even with my wife and my family in this area.
I would be remised, if I did not briefly mention the loss of one of the greatest natural healers in the world named Dr. Sebi who was assassinated in a Honduras, Central America jail. Dr. Sebi was a homeopathic specialist who was a master of herbal science and natural medicine, he was accused in the State of New York of practicing medicine without a license and was indicted in a federal court. The allegations were that he had falsely cured patients of AIDS and stage four cancer by using herbal and natural treatments and therapies, which went against occidental medicine. Dr. Sebi demonstrated proof that indeed he had cured black people from various diseases and he was one of the few natural healers who took on the American Medical Association and the conglomerate pharmaceutical companies and won standing on the medicinal principles of herbal and natural healing. This past May 2016, Sebi who was 83 years of age and was reentering Honduras where he was a naturalized citizen (I do think Dr. Sebi had dual citizenship) and he had declared $27,000 USD, but he was arrested on charges of money laundering and placed in a depilated jail in a 'third world' country (poor food, poor living condition and plenty of prison corruption). Honduras officials had a previous charge on Dr. Sebi of so-called smuggling in $55,000 USD, which had been adjudicated, but they attempted to run these two cases concurrent. We do know this much Dr. Sebi the Natural Healer died in the custody of the Honduras Government. I think there was some foul play in Dr. Sebi's death the powers-that-be did not want people being cured and healed from cheaper natural therapies. We should call for President Barack Obama and the U.S. Justice Department and the State Department to open up an investigation into the Honduran Government and truly find out what happened to Dr. Sebi.
Now, before I delve into this topic on health, diet, nutrition and wellness let me say a few words to my African American brothers; brothers listen to your wives and get up and go get those annual physicals (we as black men must take better care of ourselves)--prostrate cancer (we should get regular PSA screenings) is killing us at a very high rate and, if you are over 50 years of age (black men hate to go to the doctor until we are almost dead) get a colonoscopy from a natural homeopathic doctor or specialist, because colon cancer is taking us out as well. To my beautiful Nubian Queens stay on us, because you need your husbands and your children need their fathers. If you do not know this by now many of us are walking a round having the silent killer high blood pressure (Hypertension), but you can cure yourselves with a vegan diet, exercising and making better life choices (brothers give up the smoking, alcohol, and the drugs lets start right there). Lets make commitment to changing our life styles, so that we can have life and life more abundantly. There is no room for big ego machoism and/or exercising male testosterone in this equation our health could be a matter of life and death.
I just wanted to thank those family members and friends who prayed for a family member of mine during the time of him being hospitalized and I still remain more than grateful for the outpouring of love. I am a very reflective type person, so I am constantly reflecting on every event that I am involved in, every person that I meet, every conversation that I have, every church sermon I hear, every movie I see, every text or phone call I receive and I keep a mental journal, because I am not that good in writing things down relative to recording my daily thoughts in a daily diary. My mother for years who lives in Northern New Jersey would call me every day and she would recite these long extended prayers and she would always ended with in the name of Jesus!!!!!!!!!. And trust me my momma can pray.
The medical team would come by each morning to make their daily rounds and they would say my family member, how are you doing today? and he would answer, Doc. I am prayed up. But during these hospital visitation I would make my rounds every day (LOL) and check on the other patients. There were a lot of sick people who were hospitalized and were suffering from heart disease, kidney disease, suffering from various types of cancers, lung disease, obesity, etc. Thus, I knew that we as black people were being plagued by these debilitating and killer diseases more than any other race. We meaning black people, we do not like to talk about the importance of good health and nutrition, but what we eat and consume is taking us to an early grave. Our mortality rate have negatively increased within last 30 years, which has negatively impacted our overall life expectancy rate.
This translate to mean that my generation will not out live our parents and another very sad statistics is that our children will not out live us. Brother and sisters, we are in trouble and in a time of crisis. Many traditional black communities are located in Food Deserts, which means that there are very few good wholesome food markets where our people can purchase wholesome affordable foods that are non-Genetically Modified Organism (GMO), thus food that has not been genetically altered and chemically produced and treated with dangerous-poisonous pesticides. These type produced foods are highly toxic, but they make their way into the market place (often shipped to the poorest communities that fits a certain demographic). I am here to tell you and inform my community, that what we eat have long term and short term implications on our health. You should eat nothing but organic fruits and vegetables, and ask whether or not these produce are GMO grown, if so run the other way. Do not eat any fish that has been tagged farm raise this fish is very dangerous for your health, because it is toxic. Look to purchase salmon that is labled wild Alaskan caught and wild caught sardienes ( certain fish is high in Omega 3 oils and have been known to prevent certain cancers).
Black women are dying at an alarming rate from breast cancer and black man are dying equally at an alarming rate of heart disease and prostrate cancer. We have become an obese society overweight, not only are we consuming to much food, but the wrong types foods. Many of us are still eating pork, beef, chicken in which our poultry and cattle have been injected with artificial hormones and poisonous enzymes to fatten them up for the markets. We have been eating posinious animal flesh and fail to see the connection to heart disesase, diabetes, and cancers (all of this is interrelated); you cannot depend on the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and/or United States Department of Agriculature (USDA) to oversee and police the pharmaceutical and food industry thus this is ultimately about big money and capitalist interest and oftentimes the USDA is in cohorts with the big conglomerate food producers and growers. Your health in the United States plays out as a distance second to those who seek profit over insuring that the American people are getting high quality food.
I am tired of attending funerals of our people dying prematurely from these dreaded diseases, that have been created in the laboratory of the wickedly wise. Many of us have adopted this insane axiom that my whole family was raised off pork and my grandmother lived to be 100 years old eating pork but there are people in the Bible that lived to be 900 years old (so in comparison to the biblical truths your grandmamma lived a relatively short life). We are dying extremely to young. What are we eating fatty foods (that is high in calories and often low in nutritional value); here is a quick tip if you buy rice, sugar, flour, etc. if it is white in coloring it has been bleached and is automatically bad for you to eat; purchase organic brown staples and stay completely away from white anything--Organic Basmati whole grain rice, which is much better for you to eat.
I know some of us are shy about going to these Asian markets (please checking out the Indian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese grocers and Latinos markets--trust me start shopping with them, in particular go into their natural herbs and herbal product section (you will find an abundance of herbs medicinal spices--also African and Caribbean stores have good herbal sections as well) . They have food and medicinal herbs and products that have been used for healing for thousands of years--Royal Jelly and Tea Tree Oil, Golden Seal (what I call food medicines). When you see these international markets go in there and shop (some of them are better than health food stores and the pricing is much fairer than Whole Foods or Trader Joes).
The best remedy for common cold is ECHINACEA, Cinnamon root, Ginger, and organic lemon. If need something to keep you regulated there is a herbal remedy called CASCARA SAGRADA (take at night and position yourself by the bathroom in the morning) taking ex-lax and other drugs for constipation says that you are fully of sh... and you are poisoning your body. You should have at least three bowel movements per day these synthetic chemical drugs are negatively affecting our digestive tract and is the root cause of digestive system cancers (pancreatic cancers, colon cancer and rectum cancer). Now, what I really recommend in these cases are to eat more organic and non-GMO fruits and vegetables and get yourselves on a high fiber diet (unbleached whole wheat, beans, grains, raisins, dates, certain nuts and eat plenty of organic leafy vegetables that well create the roughage you need to properly help you digest your food and create better bowel movements (drink plenty of water).
I am your brother and I pleading with you to stop cooking and eating fried food today that grease only helps clog up our arteries and contributes to heart disease (you should use extra virgin olive oil because Hydrogenated oil contains trans fats and this is artery blocker and a killer). Your health is the most important thing in your life, it does not care about how much money you have without good health you have nothing. The Chinese taught us about ginger root (eleuthero ginger) every household should keep plenty of ginger (the healing principles are invaluable).
The United States has corrupted the balance of nature and disrupted the ecological system so much that the universe is starting to turn on man; the bees are becoming extinct and our crops are not being pollinated as they once were, because the use of pesticides have killed off the honey bees and now they have to import bees from other parts of the world and even have bee farms. Help me lord we are in trouble. The best honey is ORGANIC WILD COLLECTED RAW HONEY and another good sweetner is EGAGVE.
Brothers and Sisters find you a good Homeopathic practitioner who practice alternative medicine. The next thing is to invest in a good juicer and/or blender that you can start taking organic carrots, organic celery, organic apples and wheat grass in blend wholesome drinks and stop sugar drinks today and you will see immediately weight lost because often diseses all feed off sugar in your system. When my daughter was an infant, she would be whining and would be having a difficult time going to sleep there is a natural soothing tea called catnip tea (very natural and it works like a sedative). You should never give your babies formula or cow milk--the best milk for your babies is the breast milk that God has giving to you as mothers (no substitutes nursing your babies) the nipple suckling even helps heal the woman's womb after child's birth, if you eat a vegan and/or vegetarian diet your babies will never be sick with colds, colliclky, and high fevers. Stop feeding and giving your babies this poisonous formula and we do not know whats in those manufactured cans. It is a damn shame that in some counties and socities in Europe the woman is giving two years of maternity leave in order to tend to her needs and baby needs--this is a very humane gesture and in the United States our women get six to eight weeks this is not enough time for the woman to bond with her baby.
Aloe Vera plant it has many medicinal usages (you can drink certain type Alea Vera or used it as a healing cream and moisturizer a lot of good medical principles in this plant), Shea Butter if you have rashes and skin problems such as eczema it works miracles. But often it you are experiencing skin and rash disorders you probably have way to much acidic food intake and you definitely are not consuming enough distilled water (the best water is pure well water from the country or from some uncontaminated water mountainous stream). Our bodies is over 75 percent water; you must drink plenty of water.
Black children having Attention Defecit Disorder (ADD), Down Syndrome, Autism, etc. (these conditions are correlated to the food our children are eating, which often is fast food and cookware where we are preparing the food in aluminum cookware--throw them pots out today (the aluminum gets into your food and it is poisonous). What our children eat not only affects behavior but it impacts I.Q. and intelligence. I know this is going to take some aback, but you should never allow your children to be inoculated and vaccinated; some may say this is ridicules, if you think so just Google search the Tuskegee Experiment and start reading about the Tuskegee Expeiment in which the United States Government was behind thousands of black men be giving Syphillis and allowed to go back to the black community to contaminate their woman with venereal disease (STD). I called it genocide. Just recently from the highest levels of government in the State of Michigan that systematically allowed private and municipal entities to supply the people of Flint, Michigan with poisonous lead based water; our people were allowed to consume deadly carcinogen and contaminated drinking water so don't tell me what the government will not do.
Every kitchen should have some of the basic herbs such as rosemary, sage, garlic, cayenee pepper, organic onions and of the most powerful herbs that should be used in the kitchen is Turmeric (it has a lot of medicinal principles) and very next thing you should do is throw all your salt in the trash, I do not care if its Sea Salt or what ever type salt all salt is extremely bad for your health. But those that got to have that salt taste try Braggs (liquid Aminos All Purpose Seasoning). I am sorry to inform you brothers and sisters all meat products are dangerous (and in this day and time it is ill-advised to continue eating flesh and continue expecting good results in which this is contributing to our community dying of preventable illiness and diseases, because we have contracted heart disease, diabetes and cancer (most of these aliments can be preventable and controlled by proper diet and nutrion); moreover, we can end some of this today by just changing how we eat (also we should fast three days out of each month).
They load our communities up with fastfood restaurants (it only means fast death), Mc Donald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Cookout, Churches Chicken,Wendys, Dominos, Papa Johns, Zaxby's, Chick-fil-A, and you wonder why your children are getting their menstrual periods at seven and eight years old and are growing breast at seven, it is because of the hormone and enzyme injected food that you are giving them (we are sentencing our children to an early death) and many of them are obese. Mommas and daddys it is time to get back into the kitchen and start cooking and preparing your own foods. Thus, get your mouths out of the enemies kitchens and by not cooking anymore we are sentencing our family to a death sentence, we can beat cancer diabetes, kidney disease, heart disease, hypertension, etc., and any other chronic diseases.
Fahim A. Knight-El Chief Researcher for KEEPING IT REAL THINK TANK located in Durham, NC; our mission is to inform African Americans and all people of goodwill, of the pending dangers that lie ahead; as well as decode the symbolism and reinterpreted the hidden meanings behind those who operate as invisible forces, but covertly rules the world. We are of the belief that an enlightened world will be better prepared to throw off the shackles of ignorance and not be willing participants for the slaughter. Our MOTTO is speaking truth to power. Fahim A. Knight-El can be reached at fahimknight@yahoo.com.
Stay Awake Until We Meet Again
Fahim A. Knight-El