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• Study and learn by heart the basic rules for food
preparation
described in, "Preparing Food and Juices-The Basic Rules".
• If you are a Gerson patient, newly embarked on the full
intensive therapy, you need to limit your food intake to the
basic recipes for the first three months and eat no dairy
products for the first six to 10 weeks.
• After three months, you may introduce some variety by
using
different salads, dressings and vegetable courses.
• The "Special Soup or Hippocrates Soup" and the baked
potato
are essential parts of the healing diet and must not be
omitted.
If you are not ill but wish to improve your health and
well-being by
switching to the Gerson lifestyle, you may of course enjoy
the recipes
freely. Please use the slow, low heat, waterless or
minimum-water
cooking method, in order to preserve precious nutrients.
Preparing Food and Juices-The Basic Rules
Assuming that your kitchen is now fully equipped for your healing
Gerson routine, and that you have banished from your home
all
forbidden foods and substances, the moment has come to find
out
about
the all-important task of food preparation. The rules are
simple,
but
they must be observed faithfully to secure the best results.
All food must be organic and as fresh as possible. Ideally, we should
be able to gather fresh, living food from our own organic
gardens;
unfortunately, this is not an ideal world and we must
compromise. The
next best thing is to shop frequently for salad and leaf
vegetables in
smallish amounts so there is no need to keep them for any
length of
time. Apples, pears, oranges and root vegetables can be
stored for a
while without significant loss of quality.
The two most important basic rules of food preparation are the
following:
• All foods must be prepared with great care in order to
preserve
nutrients as much as possible. Cooking must be slow, using
low heat;
high temperatures alter nutrients in vegetables and cause
them to be
less easily absorbed. Vegetables should not be
peeled-valuable
nutrients
are contained in or immediately underneath their skins-and
only washed
or well scrubbed. Except for potatoes, corn and whole
beets,
which have
to be boiled in sufficient water, vegetables are
cooked with
the minimum
of water or soup stock (see "Special Soup
or Hippocrates
Soup,") or on a
bed of sliced onions and tomatoes,
which release enough
moisture to keep
the vegetables from burning.
Remember that oxidation, with
loss of
nutrients, sets in as soon as
you cut into a vegetable or
fruit; only
start chopping when you are
ready to cook.
• Food must be tasty, varied and enjoyable to make up for
being very
different from the so-called normal Western diet. Variety
helps to
stimulate appetite. It also supplies a wide range of
minerals and trace
elements needed by the body to heal. Remember the importance
of
eye appeal!
Salads in particular can be made truly tempting by mixing
green leaves with
chopped tomatoes and multicolored peppers,
adding radishes and a smattering of chives.
A small vase of flowers on the dining table can work wonders in
making
the meal taste even better.
The Gerson diet strikes a fine balance between raw and cooked
foods.
The ample main meals may suggest to some patients that
much
of their food is cooked, but this is not the case. Meals
begin
with huge helpings of raw salad and end with raw
fruit, and the daily
ration of 13 glasses of freshly made
juice
is as raw as can be.
Cooked foods are necessary. Dr. Gerson's experience showed that
patients do not digest well
if given only raw foods along with the
juices.
In fact, cooked foods provide additional variety and enable
patients to eat more than they would on an exclusively raw
diet.
They also supply soft bulk, which promotes the
digestion of the raw
foods and juices.
The most popular item on the list of cooked foods is the "Special
Soup or
Hippocrates Soup" that helps to detoxify the kidneys and is
highly comforting, especially in cold weather. All cooked
foods serve
as a kind of "blotting paper" in the stomach,
helping to deal with the
constant intake of large amounts of
juice. Even so, cooked foods
only account for some 3 to 4
pounds of the patient's daily
consumption, while raw foods,
mostly made into juices, represent
some 17 pounds!
THE ALL-IMPORTANT JUICES
Only four kinds of juice are used in the treatment of all
categories of
patients, except for a few minor exceptions.
The basic juices are:
• Apple/carrot juice
• Carrot-only juice
• Green juice
• Orange juice
Occasionally, for special cases, a different juice may have
to be
substituted.
For example, diabetics receive grapefruit juice instead of
orange juice, since grapefruit contains less sugar;
sometimes a fruit
juice, such as
apple juice, is given to patients with collagen diseases
who
should
not drink citrus juice.
Apple/Carrot Juice
Use approximately 8 ounces each of carrots and apples. Wash
and
brush (do not peel), grind to a pulp and place in a
cloth supplied with
the press-type juicer to press.
Serve and drink immediately.
Carrot-Only Juice
Use approximately 10-12 ounces of carrots. Wash and brush
(do not peel), grind to a pulp and place in a cloth supplied
with the
press-type juicer to press.
Serve and drink immediately.
Green Juice
Use romaine, red leaf lettuce, endive, escarole, two to
three leaves of
red cabbage, young inner beet tops, Swiss
chard, a quarter of a small
green pepper and watercress.
Add one medium apple when grinding. Procure as many of these
materials as possible.
If some of the above items are not available, do not use
substitutes,
such as spinach or celery. Grind the material
to a pulp and place in a
cloth for pressing. This juice must
be drunk immediately since it's
enzymes die quickly.
Orange (or Grapefruit) Juice
Use only a reamer-type juicer-electric or hand operated.
Do
not squeeze the peel of the fruit. The aromatic oils
contained
in the skin are harmful
and would interfere with the treatment.
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