Chris: We’re talking to author Sandy Powers today, author of Organic for Health. Thank you so much for being with us today, Sandy.

Sandy: Oh, I’m so happy to be here, Chris. Thank you.

Chris: Well, we’re just thrilled that you could join us today. We were hoping that you could share with our listeners how you came to write Organic for Health.

Sandy: Well, Chris, it began in the summer of 2005 when my diagnostic mammogram revealed a growth in the back of my breast close to the chest wall. The biopsy confirmed it was cancer. Now, my best option because of where the tumor was located was to have a mastectomy. The day before the surgery was scheduled my surgeon called to tell me that my pre-op tests came back and that my liver enzymes were seriously elevated. I didn’t know what liver enzymes were, but he then informed me that it tells you how healthy the liver is and that they were concerned that the cancer may have spread to my liver, so they wanted to run a series of tests. So my surgery was put on hold until the tests were run. It was how many things can you handle at one time? No one ever thinks they’re going to have breast cancer to begin with. It was never in my family. I mean, I didn’t know anybody who had breast cancer in my family. And liver problems, I never had any symptom of a liver problem. Well, the tests showed that the cancer had not spread to my liver. They thought it didn’t at the time. And they couldn’t come up with a reason for the elevated enzymes, but we couldn’t wait to have the cancer surgery any longer so we went ahead with it. After the mastectomy the doctor decided because of my unhealthy liver I was not a good candidate for the traditional follow-up treatment for cancer - the radiation, chemotherapy or the hormonal anti-estrogen therapy. Since there’s no cure for breast cancer and the traditional treatments were not available to me, I felt I had some serious problems here. So I went into research mode. I knew I had to find some kind of alternative treatment. I poured through hundreds of research studies, Chris, and read dozens of books. I had stacks and stacks of notes. I sifted through them and I devised a plan, a treatment plan. I became my own guinea pig. Well, you know, there’s nothing like having death look you in the eye, or the threat of it that gives you motivated. Nothing gets you motivated faster than your life might be on the line. I developed a five-step plan. Actually, this treatment plan works for not just breast cancer but it works for somebody who has heart problems, anything. It’s such a good plan, according to my oncologist, that everybody should go on it anyhow. And the first thing I did was I stopped all my multiple vitamin and mineral supplements. It was a shock to me, but after all the research, I had taken multiple vitamins for 30 years. When I read about the new research that was coming out, especially with vitamin A, vitamin E, zinc and selenium and how we’re overdosing on it, that was one of the first things I stopped. Then I switched to organic food and olive oil for all my cooking and baking. The third thing I did was increase my food intake of vitamin C. I found out that of all the antioxidants, vitamin C really is the most important because it defends the interior part of our cells against free radicals that cause diseases like cancer and heart disease. It also helps fight stress in our body. And you don’t take it through a multiple. You really should get it in food because all the antioxidants in a food work together, not just alone. So they boost the power of vitamin C. Then I went out every day into the sun for 15 minutes a day to get an intake of vitamin D. I had read that vitamin D not only was good to fight breast cancer and to fight the recurrence of breast cancer, but that it was good for people that had high cholesterol. It helped lower their triglycerides. I didn’t have high cholesterol, but that was an added bonus for anybody that does have a heart problem. And I made sure that I meditated daily. I had done such a tremendous amount of research. I did a year of research because every three months while I was undergoing this research I was doing they were testing my liver to see if it was healing. It wasn’t. It was not getting any better. And I spent this year, while they were doing the testing, I was doing my research. After I worked this out I told the doctors, “I’ll see you in six months.” What? I said, “I’ll see you in six months. I have an idea. I have my plan and I’m going to put it to work. I’ll come back and we’ll run a series of tests.” And that’s what I did, Chris. I stayed on this for six months and I went back for the series of tests. A couple weeks after I had my tests I went back to the doctor for the results. The results were amazing. My liver had healed. My overall cholesterol had dropped 40 points. My good cholesterol rose 40 points. And even my bad cholesterol dropped a few points. My cancer remained in remission and I felt better than I had ever felt. I thought, “Gees, this is amazing information.” I wanted to share it with people. So I wrote Organic for Health. So that’s a long way to tell you how I wrote Organic for Health, but that’s how I did it. It depends on your doctor. Let me put it this way. My internist was not encouraging me at all. He thought I was being foolish. “If anything,” he said, “It’s not going to do anything.” But my oncologist was very encouraging for me to do this because she told me that so many oncologists today believe that our food and the way our food is produced has such an impact on our health and that that probably will be the future of medicine, is what are you eating? Where’s it coming from? What are the antioxidants you’re gaining? Are you going out in the sun? It’s pretty much back to nature, I think.

Chris: How difficult was this transition that you made to organic foods and to a healthier lifestyle?

Sandy: Well, it wasn’t as difficult as you might think. We always think we eat well, but I did eat vegetables. I never ate a whole lot of meat. And I ate grains. But my problem was I wasn’t eating the right kind. I didn’t realize that so much of my food was so impacted with toxins - pesticides and herbicides and hormones and antibiotics. And all this was working against me, especially the hormones because breast cancer, in particular, responds to hormones. So that’s why so many women that took hormonal treatments for osteoporosis ended up with breast cancer or problems like that, or heart problems. But I didn’t realize that my liver was working overtime trying to get these toxins out of my body. It affected my liver this way. The pesticides did, the antibiotics, the hormones, the herbicides. So I just switched my food from the traditional food, the way they were growing, to organics. I went to organic milk and organic meats. I started a step-by-step process but I completed it in a month. I would every day add something and see what I could find. I couldn’t always find the food but more and more grocery stores are carrying organics I had to do a lot of running around to find the good farm markets, to find a good organic grocery store. I shopped a lot online. But after a few months I could find the places where I could get organics, so it wasn’t that difficult.

Chris: Can you tell us a little bit about pesticide use and the effects on humans?

Sandy: What’s happening is that in our traditionally grown foods in the last 20 years, they’re grown by large agricultural businesses. And the idea of this purpose is yield. Greater yields yield greater profits. So the profit is the motivating theme here, what’s happening with these agricultural businesses, these large firms. It’s taken over all these independent farmers. So they are constantly planting and using pesticides and fertilizers to grow the plants because the soil has become so depleted that the food source has very little nutrients. The only way they can get them to grow is by putting more and more pesticides and more and more fertilizers on them. So not only was I eating foods that had all these pesticides and fertilizers in them, but they were really hollow foods. They didn’t have much nutritional value. The antioxidant levels and the immune boosters were practically gone. I discovered that these pesticides not only for adults - the Mayo Clinic lists a direct link with the pesticides that they use in growing foods to Parkinson’s Disease. I also discovered that I came across a study. I always call it the Seattle Study. It was a study done in Seattle, and I am originally from Seattle. It was at the University of Washington and they took two groups of kids, preschool kids. One group was fed conventional, traditionally grown foods that you buy in the grocery store. The other group was fed only organic foods. And they tested the urine of these children. They discovered that the children who were fed the traditionally grown foods - most of the foods that are grown and sold in the grocery stores - had six times the pesticide level than children who were eating organic foods. They also discovered that these pesticides were linked to malignancies in children and the malignancies were brain cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and leukemia. It is very scary. For more interviews on health, mind, body and spirit go to Michael Senoff’s

Sandy: Here’s the dirty dozen of conventional grown foods, and this is the dirty dozen they sell in the grocery store. If you do nothing else but buy organics for these twelve - and I’ve added thirteen, I call them the dirty thirteen - you will eliminate up to 90% of the pesticides that were in your diet that you absorbed. I am going to list them by the level of pesticides, starting with the one that has the highest, although they’re all very high. You have apples, peaches, sweet bell peppers - that’s green, red, yellow - pears, celery, potatoes, cherries, raspberries, grapes. Now, let me say something about the grapes. If the grapes are grown in this country, domestically, they’re not on this list. If they’re bought from Mexico or from out of the country, then they become one of the dirty thirteen. If you buy a domestic grape, like one that’s grown in California or something like that, you don’t have to worry. You can eat those grapes. Strawberries, spinach and nectarines. Then you add the thirteenth which is green beans. Green beans, believe it or not, they just absorb the pesticides. Some of us who like green beans, if you can’t find them fresh you can buy them organic in cans and frozen. It doesn’t make any difference. But if it’s a dirty fruit or vegetable it’s dirty whether it’s fresh, cooked, frozen or made into jams or jellies or whatever. So remember that. If you’re going to feed your children or yourself strawberry jam, make sure it’s organic. Strawberries absorb the pesticides and they are really, really dangerous.

Chris: So the apple juice? You’d still want to go organic on that?

Sandy: Yeah, especially the apple juice because children love apple juice. And you know something? Organic foods are expensive, okay? People think, “Oh, look, I can’t buy those juice boxes that are organic because they cost so much more.” But actually if you buy the large bottle of organic apple juice it’s cheaper than buying a carton of juice boxes. Now, it’s not as convenient because you have to pour it into a glass. But it’s actually cheaper. So you’re not only shopping wisely, which I call strategic shopping, but you’re giving yourself and your children the best apple juice you can, that’s free of pesticides and any additives. If you just pour it in a glass. When I was growing up, that’s how we drank all our juices, in a glass. If you can afford to buy the organic apple juice in a box, that’s fine. But if you can’t there are ways you can switch over to organic without breaking the bank. One of them is buying the larger quantities of the juice because they will be cheaper in the long run rather than individual boxes. Organic apple juice does not have any added sugar to it. I always water down my organic orange juice. Orange juice to me is a little strong. I add water to that when I drink it. If you drink and eat enough fruit you can water your juice down. It won’t hurt. It will go further and it’s pretty concentrated. When you have organic foods they don’t add anything else to it. So even if you add a little bit of water to it and you water it down a little bit, you’re probably still getting more apple juice than you did in a conventional box because they have all sorts of stuff in that.

Chris: So, Sandy, you also talk about antioxidants in your book. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Sandy: Yes. We hear a lot about antioxidants and how good they are for us, but most of us don’t even know what they are. They are natural compounds in plants which contain certain vitamins and minerals that protect the cells in your body against the effects of free radicals. Now, somebody’s always heard free radicals and they talk about free radicals. What free radicals are are chemical reactions that change the cell. It makes the cell unable to fight against certain invaders, I call them. They cause diseases. These free radicals start to multiply in your cells and they cause diseases like cancer and heart disease. Unfortunately antioxidants can’t always protect the cells. Some cells can escape from free radicals. But what you want to do is always keep an intake of antioxidants to fight as many free radicals as possible. Now, you have certain vitamins and minerals that are called antioxidants. You have beta carotene, lycopene, vitamin E, selenium. These protect the outside of the cell. The most important antioxidant that you can possibly take in is vitamin C because that protects the inside of the cell. Vitamin C must be taken daily because your body cannot produce it nor can it store it. The most important way to get your antioxidants is through food. Whenever I talk about this I’m talking about a food source. If I say a supplement, it’s only one of three supplements that I’ll mention and that will be vitamin C, vitamin D and calcium. Everything else I say you must take through a food source. Antioxidants must work together in order to give you the protection you need. So when you’re eating a food it doesn’t just have one antioxidant in. It usually has several. And they’re all coming together. Harvard did a big study on that and discovered that they put women on vitamin C and vitamin E to see how it would protect their heart. They put them on a pill. They alternated. They took the C every day and then every other day they took the A and the E. It did not help them with protecting them from heart disease. But when they did the other group and they gave them actual food sources that contained A and E and vitamin C, they did have protection. So there is a big difference between taking a pill and eating the food. You have to remember that vitamins and minerals are manufactured by the vitamin industry who is usually owned by the pharmaceutical companies. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry. I call today “vitamania.” People are just crazy about they have to take all these vitamins without realizing that these vitamins can be doing you more harm than good. They have come out with several really important studies in the last couple of years about these harmful effects of vitamins. The Journal of the American Medical Association suggested that the daily vitamin supplements taken by millions of people could be increasing the risk of death. Beta carotene, vitamin A and vitamin E increase your mortality rate. Now, this is in supplements now, not food. Taking it in your multi- vitamin pill. Vitamin A may increase your death rate by 16%, vitamin E by 4% and beta carotene by 7%.

Chris: That’s going to be a surprise to a lot of people.

Sandy: It will be. And, in fact, they can go the Journal of the American Medical Association, type it in their computer and look under vitamin supplements, the dangers. In the Annals of Internal Medicine, they conducted a study on vitamin E, another study, and they said that the daily intake of vitamin E in amounts of 400 IU or more - and that’s what usually is contained in a multiple vitamin pill - for more than one year showed an increase in the risk of death. They suggested - the researchers - that sellers should consider removing vitamin preparations that contain 400 IUs of vitamin E or more from the stores. Of course, that’s a suggestion. That’s not law. But anybody can find this evidence either in the back of my book or they can just type in, “The dangers of vitamin supplements.” They will see all sorts of recent, really good research on this. For more interviews with the world’s top health and medical experts, go to Michael Senoff’s

Chris: So, Sandy, I think too another problem with vitamin supplements is a lot of times people take them and they just figure, “Well, I don’t really need to eat well because I’ve got my vitamin.”

Sandy: They believe now that’s what caused my liver problem. It was overdosing, taking these multiple vitamins every day. It goes to your liver and your liver cannot process too much vitamin A or beta carotene. It’s harmful for it and that’s what was happening to me. I think - well, I don’t have to worry about taking vitamins now - I just had my vitamin pill or I don’t have to worry about eating that salad, I just had my vitamin pill. It’s very easy to get into that mindset. Vitamin pills do not bring health. Now, I don’t say all supplements should not be taken, but they should be taken in conjunction with a very good diet and the only three that I would recommend is vitamin C, vitamin D and calcium. Try to get as much vitamin D as you can by going outside into the sun for 15-20 minutes a day without sunscreen. But if you can’t make it all the item, I’ll occasionally take vitamin D. And especially for women so that when they take calcium it’s absorbed to prevent any bone disease. But back to our antioxidants, it’s hard to remember if you say potatoes have beta carotene, tomatoes have lycopene, vitamin E - the best thing to do is think of color when you’re thinking about antioxidants. You think red, blue, yellow, orange and purple. You think about those colors and then you look at your fruits and vegetables. You buy color. You buy blueberries, you buy cranberries. Blueberries, blue. Cranberries, red. Blackberries, well blackberries are black but you can think of them as purple if you want to. Strawberries, red. Oranges, walnuts, potatoes, apples, cherries, plums and tomatoes. Think color. You’ll be getting all the antioxidants you need.

Chris: So the more colorful the more healthy it’s going to be.

Sandy: That’s right. If it’s a darker color, the more colorful, the healthier and the more antioxidants it contains.

Chris: You also mentioned in your book the healing powers of meditation. How does this help people stay healthy?

Sandy: That’s probably one of the most important things that anyone can do for their health, for their well being, and for the clarity of mind - besides getting a very good diet - is meditation. Meditation helps reduce stress in your body. Now, everybody needs a little bit of stress. A little bit of stress makes us productive. But when we get a lot of stress, whether you realize you have it or not, when you have a lot of stress and it stores up in your body it’s dangerous. It makes you sick. Your immune system is depleted because it’s fighting this stress. The easiest way to really reduce the stress without worrying about taking pills or anything is to meditate. Now, I do TM - transcendental meditation. It not only helps with your blood pressure - I don’t have high blood pressure - but if you did, tests show that it does lower your blood pressure. It lets your body heal, no matter what’s wrong. Even if you don’t know there’s something wrong it lets your body heal. In fact, one of the alternative treatments that the cancer society recommends is meditation. But I’ve been meditating for years. Now, I’m not saying that meditation is going to prevent any stress in your life or any disease. I know some people think that all diseases are caused by stress. But you can’t always control stress. You can’t control if you’re child’s sick. If they get sick it’s going to be stressful. You can’t control everything in life. If somebody dies or when your parents die, these are very stressful conditions. You can’t have control over all the facets of life, but you can control over how you can handle this. When I was diagnosed with both breast cancer and liver problems, I have to tell you, I was overwhelmed. I was very fortunate that I had learned how to meditate years before, because it really helped. It really helped me through very tough times, and it helps me now. I learned how to meditate when I lived in Seattle and I took a TM course, transcendental meditation. But at that time it was very reasonably priced. It was less than $200. They went through the whole process. My husband called them my guru. He was my teacher who taught me to go through the meditation process. But meditation has become very expensive now. I mean, what cost me less than $200 when learned runs about $2,500 now. So you don’t need to go to transcendental meditation class or to the Y. You can learn how to meditate on your own. In my book I tell you the steps that you take, and that’s how I meditate. I just wrote exactly in the book how I meditate. But there are other books on the market that can tell you how to meditate and why you should meditate. I think my method is probably the easiest to pick up and do because it’s what I’ve been doing for 30 years. I just tell you how I do it and how you can do it. And, you know, when you first do it, Chris, you maybe won’t feel as relaxed. You’ll say, “Gees, this isn’t working.” It takes several weeks. Let’s face it. You didn’t get this stressed in a couple days so you’re not going to get rid of all your stress in a couple days by meditation. But you keep at it and I always say, “Meditation is a healer of the mind and organic food is a healer of the body.” So if you put these two things together you’re going to feel great.

Chris: Sandy, so you also have a wonderful assortment of recipes in Organic for Health. Do you have any favorites yourself?

Sandy: This is my pride and joy. You know, believe it or not, Chris, I can’t believe how many times I forget to talk about my recipes in the book. I took my old recipes that I had - I wrote a cookbook many years ago. It’s out of print now but I took those recipes and I went through and thought, “Oh my goodness, how did I eat back then?” I took so many of them and I made it more healthy. My very, very favorite in this is jasmenic rice with spinach. That’s my very favorite. It’s with olive oil, sweet onion, mixed vegetables, organic spinach, jasmenic rice and chicken broth. I love it. That’s my favorite. But I like most of them. And the thing is, most of these recipes have been tested over and over again with me, my husband, my grandchildren - they have eaten everything in this. I use them as my test space too. They like just about all the bakery goods and the bread, but when it comes to some of the side dishes and vegetables, they may eat them if they can’t really tell what they are. But most of the things pass their taste buds. Another good recipe in here is called my pineapple carrot cake. This recipe is just great. In most of these recipes I use olive oil because olive oil’s so very, very healthy. In fact, the heart institute, the heart association now recommends that you take two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil every day for heart health. Two tablespoons every day for heart health. So these recipes, even though they have sugar and everything like that, I always say they have the olive oil, they have the organic eggs, the cinnamon, the carrots, the pineapple - and pineapple’s so good for you - the organic walnuts. I mean, walnuts are so wonderful because of the omega-3s that they contain. They’re so healthy for you. The recipes have a lot of health and they taste good. And pineapple carrot cake is my favorite. You don’t need any frosting on this either. Just it’s so good just to eat like it is. And also, I’ll go back again to my recipes. I have meat in my books. I think meat’s very important. I think that you don’t sit down and eat a 12 ounce steak but a little bit of meat in your diet is very important because it’s so important for protein. Meat protein is far superior to vegetable protein. Meat protein is important for cellular growth and DNA production. Remember, we’re always making DNA. If we’re making cells we’re making DNA. So it’s important to get your meat. And the recipes are all like beef stew and fajitas, which are very good for you, and pork and vegetables over rice. I do have the glazed pork roast but what you want to do is save it to use then later for your pork and vegetables. I have shrimp jambalaya and several chicken recipes. Chicken’s always good for you. But you need meat. I am a firm believer that you have to have a well balanced diet. A well balanced diet includes a little bit of everything, and that includes meat. One thing is you have to be careful. It’s like everything else. It’s moderation. When you say, “Meat’s very bad for you, you can’t eat it,” well, no. That’s not true. It’s how much meat you eat. When I first got cancer I bought cancer cookbooks. Every cancer cookbook but one had meat recipes in it because they realize how important meat is for your immune system, how important it is for cellular growth, how important it is because of protein. You should have meat three or four times a week. Not every day. Three or four times a week. It’s really best to have it in a recipe like beef stew because you don’t want to have more than the size of a deck of cards. Whether it’s chicken or red meat. Three or four times a week. Go three times a week without it. You can alternate every other and have just vegetables. But you need meat and you need it at least three or four times a week. And that, I found, was stressed in most of the cancer research that I had done. Of course, you always have some cancer researchers that are very strict vegetarians. You get that side of it, too. But most of the research said that meat is important in the diet. I am working on another book. The tentative name of it is From the Rooftop. What I’ve done is I’ve done so much research and I’ve taken some of this research on health and I’ve written amusing little anecdotes, stories and articles so that it’s fun to read but it also gives you some good insight in how to keep your health in good straights, how to keep your immune system up and how you do this. When I have the victory garden, for example, I go back to when victory gardens were popular during World War II and I bring it up to the present. So they’re becoming very popular again, you know, Chris. And right now I said I have a call from the rooftop. That’s what I’m working on right now.

Chris: Well, I just want to thank you so much for spending the afternoon with us, Sandy. If people want to get in touch with you, how do they get in touch with you?

Sandy: They can either go to my website www.OrganicForHealthSite.com. My email is sdepour@comcast.net. That’s sdepour@comcast.net. If you’ve got a question, you just want to tell me something, I’ll answer it.

Chris: Wonderful. Well, thanks again for the very enlightening and helpful information. We look forward to talking with you again soon.

Sandy: Oh, I look forward to talking to you again, Chris.

Chris: All right.

Sandy: Thank you.

Chris: Thank you.