Shopping for Carrots

My mother and I went out today to shop for carrots for her raw carrot juice regimen. Since there is a newly opened SM supermarket near our area (Marikina), we decided to do our grocery there.

SM supermarket and it's malls is known in the Philippines as a one-stop shop. The owner, Henry Sy has introduced the concept of supermalls to our Filipino culture. I have always shopped or done my grocery shopping at SM, until I moved to my house here in Rizal. I started grocery shopping at Shopwise Cubao for the last four years because it was more convenient for us to get a ride going home.

Now since there is an SM mall in Marikina, we decided to shop for carrots there today. SM has always kept their quality standards with their fresh produce and I have never complained about their products until now.

But all this changed because of SM Markina. I was so disappointed with their produce section, particularly the carrots. Unlike with Shopwise where the carrots are laid out in trays and I can choose them, at SM they were all prepacked. The carrots came in threes or twos and whats more disappointing is that they try to hide the rotten ones with the good ones. Or they hide the flaws under the price tags.

For the first time, SM and Henry Sy has failed me. There are three produce brands or farms in every produce section of SM and all of the carrots they had were bad. It made me wish that we just travelled the extra thirty minutes going to shopwise Cubao. At least there, I could pick the all the good carrots. It seems that it will take time before I will go back to SM Marikina to do my grocery shopping again.

Guyabano and it's Healing properties

My brother recently found out on the net that guyabano or soursop has anti-cancer properties. I checked some articles online and have found quite a number of them explaining the anticancer properties of guyabano. But again, as with any natural remedy, there has been no scientific findings to back up the claim.

In my other posts and blogs, I have written that the hospitals and doctors will not recommend any alternative or natural remedy. One of the reasons for this is that they will not earn anything from the big pharmaceutical giants that rake in big bucks from chemical drugs.

This money making issue makes doctors deny the fact that these natural remedies are better than chemical drugs. Chemotherapy drugs are highly toxic and in fact they are part of the regulated drugs worldwide. If taken in incorrect doses, these drugs can in fact do more harm than good.

One of the problems that I am facing right now with all this hype about guyabano is that the fruit is getting scarce in the market. I have to go to two different supermarkets, then wet markets in order to find some guyabano. But I don't mind. Because if this helps poor farmers whose fruit all went to waste before I will be more than happy to buy guyabano even if it means that prices for the fruit have skyrocketed.

So my mothers' regimen includes a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice (limonene? Lemonine?), raw carrot juice and guyabano. And she is much stronger and less sickly than when she was using chemo drugs that made her look like a zombie.

Fighting Cancer Naturally

My mother was diagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma in December of 2007. Since then we have tried chemotherapy with two different oncologists from St. Luke's and the tumors doubled in size with each bout of chemotherapy.

Now we are trying to use natural methods in fighting her disease: raw carrot juice, guyabano (Soursop) and orange juice. I have never heard of anyone dying from eating natural food, so we have given this a shot. It's been a month since we started this regimen and I can happily write down that she has fewer "down" episodes and is much stronger than when she was undergoing chemotherapy.

I don't know about doctors and their reluctance for people to try natural remedies. Well, the pharmaceutical industry is indeed a lucrative business and I doubt if any doctor or hospital in that matter will prescribe guyabano for cancer.

Raw Carrot Juice for Cancer

My mother has started her regimen of raw carrot juice over a month ago. I can say that it is very effective as a immune booster because she rarely gets sick now. But we are realistic that such diets have its limitations.

I am also not too confident with my mothers' oncologist. We have already changed doctors twice because the first doctor did not know what protocol he could start my mother with. We had three rounds of chemotherapy with him and my mother's tumors doubled in size.

So we changed doctors. The second doctor reviewed my mothers' case and gave me a list of treatments that we could choose from, each one she explained was as effective as the other.

So we had six rounds of treatment with her. After six months, my mothers' tumors are now four times bigger than they were in December of 2007 when she was first diagnosed with hepatocellular cancer. The doctor informed us that we chose the wrong protocol that's why the chemotherapy was not working. She insisted that if we chose the one that costs P1M per session, the tumor would not be as active.

Looking back, I am aghast at the way this doctor implied that it was OUR fault because we could not afford the treatment. My mother had to ask for charity from PCSO in order to get those six months of treatment paid for. We are not as rich as she thinks we are, we had to scrape all our savings just to make it from one month to the next in terms of my mothers' medical treatments in one of the most expensive hospitals here in the Philippines.

We are now trying alternative treatments for her cancer, from her own choice. She knows all the money spent on her medication failed and she does not want us to spend more on treatments that will not work. I pity those who are very, very poor and will encounter doctors such as the ones that we have encountered. So if this natural diet works, I will teach the same regimen to cancer patients who will listen and willing to try it out.

Natural Remedies for Cancer

I am starting this blog for my mother who has liver cancer or hepatocellular cancer. We started the raw food diet regimen for her since her chemotherapy sessions are making her tumors larger and has already metastasized.

Her diet now includes raw carrots and freshly squeezed fruit juices. The book was given to me by a friend whose father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Her father is now cancer free, thanks to this raw food diet.

We have started on this diet for just a month now, and I am happy to report that my mother is much stronger than when she was undergoing chemo. I would like to promote this type of diet to other cancer patients, as I recount my sad experiences with doctors.