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Direct link to this episode: http://www.unity.fm/episode/MainStreetVegan_041316
We’ve talked a great deal on the Main Street Vegan Show about food: healthy food, delicious food, different kinds of food from the vast and abundant plant kingdom. However, there’s another side to the eating equation: not eating — something most people in Western cultures have lost sight of these days. Today’s episode is a thoughtful look at fasting — abstention from food, complete physiologic rest — first as a means of spiritual connection, then as what’s been called “the royal road to healing” and “nature’s operating table,” the medically supervised fast to maintain or regain health.
First on the show, we have a return visit from Esosa E., actress, author, and blogger, who practices periodic fasting as part of her Christian faith. She details spiritual fasting, how this works in her life, and its history in Christianity and other faiths as a means of deepening one’s prayer life and bringing them closer to the Higher Power of their conception. As a reading reference, she mentions at the end of her interview the works of Gabriel Cousins, an MD, Jewish rabbi, and vegan. Dr. Cousens includes fasting as one of the “six foundation for the spiritual life and the awakening of kundalini” in his book, Spiritual Nutrition. Charles M. Murphy’s The Spirituality of Fasting: Rediscovering a Christian Practice looks at fasting from a Roman Catholic perspective.
A tidbit from Esosa: “Fasting doesn’t always have to do with abstaining from food: you can fast from distraction. I do a social media fast periodically.”
To learn more about Esosa and her work:
Health blog: http://www.rawgirltoxicworld.com
Acting site: http://www.esosae.com
Twitter: @EsosaE
In the second segment, we enjoy a return visit from the man whom I do believe has elicited the most positive comments of any guest ever, Frank Sabatino, DC, Ph.D, director of the soon-to-open health retreat and fasting center, Ocean Jade Health Retreat, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Florida. Dr. Sabatino, whose Ph.D in neuroendocrinology is from the Baylor University School of Medicine, has been a health-promoting physician, a member of the International Association of Hygienic Physicians, and a supervisor of water-only fasts for nearly forty years. He introduces the history and philosophy of Natural Hygiene and supervised water-only fasting, in tandem with rest, as nature’s way of allowing the body to regenerate and heal.
Dr. Sabatino discusses what water-only fasting is, the difference between water fasting and juice fasting, what happens during a water fast and what the faster can expect, the benefits of and contraindications to water fasting, how long to fast, how to break a fast, and some of the exciting new research in this area. (An excellent book on the subject is Fasting and Eating for Health, by Joel Fuhrman, MD.) Today in the U.S., there are only two institutions for medically supervised water-only fasting. One is True North Health in Santa Rosa, California (run by well-known vegan clinicians Alan Goldhamer, DC, and Michael Klaper, MD) and Dr. Sabatino’s about-to-open center, Ocean Jade Health Retreat in South Florida.
To learn more about Dr. Sabatino and Ocean Jade:
Website: www.oceanjaderetreat.com
Facebook: Ocean Jade Health Retreat
Blast from the past! If you enjoyed Dr. Frank Sabatino on today’s program, check out his earlier visit talking about health in every aspect: http://www.unity.fm/episode/MainStreetVegan_082212. And Esosa’s earlier appearance, talking about healing acne, a high-raw diet, and her leading role on An African City (known as Sex and the City for Africa), http://www.unity.fm/episode/MainStreetVegan_011316.