In Hawaii, when someone is loaded with excess mucus, or sinusitis, or headaches, or stuffiness, or a runny nose, or postnasal drip, it’s called “hanabata.” In other words, congestion.
Normally, when a person goes to the doctor to complain about this condition, they usually say, “Doctor, I’m experiencing severe stuffiness and I really need to do something to alleviate it.” In Hawaii, where almost everyone speaks “pidgin”, which is the combining of a person’s native tongue and the perverting of the English language, it would come out as, “How fo’ get rid hanabata?”
No matter how it is said, it’s all about excess mucus production that’s driving us nuts and making our lives miserable.
Despite this major distraction, mucus is a natural and normal secretion of the body. In usual small amounts it lubricates and protects the delicate mucous membranes wherever they are found throughout the body.
If, however this mucus accumulates or is piled on excessively, this condition of excess mucus interferes with the normal action of the tissues or organs affected. It can affect the ears, stomach, intestinal tract, fallopian tubes, or any other mucous membrane-lined part of the body.
And what do the, if you’ll pardon the expression, doctors do? They give antibiotics. That may sound great, but unfortunately antibiotics do not work because any bacterial infection is a result of internal congestion or inflammation caused by the excess mucus condition.
To fix the problem, you have to fix the excessive mucus, which antibiotics do not address.
The basic problem, as in most cases, is an extremely unbalanced diet, loaded with the ingestion of refined, devitalized carbohydrates, such as white bread, white rice, or sugar. Even the best, unrefined whole wheat bread, if consumed in excess, will tend to create an increase in mucus production. If these foods are not more than compensated for by a high intake of fresh vegetables, the acidic and mucus-forming nature of the beast predominates.
If this condition in present in infants and young kids, it usually because of their ingestion of mostly starches and very little vegetables, which causes chronic or recurrent colds and earaches.
Then, of course, milk and other dairy products have to be looked at because of their well-known mucus-forming qualities. But, it’s hard to determine if their mucus-forming characteristics are due to a simple excess, or their abnormal and adulterated state of being pasteurized, homogenized, and containing many toxic chemicals, pesticides, hormones, digestive enzyme deficiency, or a true allergy.
As with all things, people respond quite differently to dairy products in their diet. Some can adapt easily without adversity, while others can only tolerate a small amount before experiencing major “hanabata”. Interesting enough, studies have showed more tolerance to goat’s milk versus cow’s milk.
Orientals, whether they believe it or not, are sensitive to dairy products, with up to 85 percent of adults lacking the digestive enzyme lactase necessary to digest lactose, the sugar found in dairy.
The most common food allergies that produce “hanabata” are wheat, yeast, eggs, and dairy products. But, literally any food can present a problem.
Aside from diet, another major cause of “hanabata” comes from those under the classification of “irritants”. This can include fumes, smoke, foreign objects, chemicals, drugs, spicy foods, salt, pepper, alcohol, and even poor food combinations. Any factor that irritates a mucous membrane will stimulate excess mucus secretion. Even an imbalance in the digestive system is a common finding with excess mucus secretion.
Once the digestive organs become inflamed, proper digestion is impossible. If the inflammation reaches the state where toxins can seep through the irritated and/or thinned mucosa, the stage is set for systemic disease. And if the organs of elimination are not working efficiently, or are overburdened by this toxic and irritant excess, “hanabata” blues will develop.
So, lack of exercise and poor circulation work together to cause local and systemic congestion, which sets the stage for local accumulation of normal toxic products of metabolism, leading to irritation and ultimately mucus formation.
So, in the initial stages of this condition, wherever its location, it is best to first eliminate foods most frequently associated with excess mucus production – wheat, yeast, dairy, eggs, refined carbohydrates, sugar, alcohol, coffee, tea, salt, pepper, strong spices, junk foods, and tobacco for at least 1 to 2 months, or until progress allows for their experimental addition once again. And if it comes back, eliminate them form the diet entirely.
Various elimination regimens are effective with “hanabata” conditions throughout the body, whereas some areas respond better to one or another particular juice or vegetable. Citrus fruits, like grapefruit or lemon, are very useful in some mucus conditions, as they are emanative and help break up congestion. Where citrus is known to cause unpleasant symptoms, like sour stomach, or rash, etc., do not use them.
One of the best, well suited, avenues for mucus congestion is apple juice or an apple mono diet. Yes, that means only eating apples (organic, if can) and drinking apple juice (fresh juiced the best). Apples are eliminative, easy of the stomach, and usually cause no problems.
Fresh juiced vegetables, like carrot or carrot beet, is usually handled well. Adding a bit of ginger is good and if the taste is a little heavy, add some apples to the juice as it will sweeten it up and make it more tolerable. This works a bit slower that straight apple, but is very gentle and pleasant. Not only are vegetable juice eliminative, but act to nourish and rebuild tissues. Whatever you do, try to stay as organic as possible.
After this cleansing period is finished, the back-to-normal has to be done with baby steps. The beginning is raw foods, with fruits and vegetable, and plenty of juices. The first grains to add should be quinoa, buckwheat, brown rice, and millet. If you are going to reintroduce dairy, do it with what came from the goat.
The bottom line is to reintroduce foods slowly. If congestion happens, you will know what food produced it and you should eliminate it completely from your diet.
Now you know, “how fo’ get rid hanabata”.
Aloha!
I have been doing a weekly radio show in Honolulu since 1981 called “Health Talk”. In 2007 I was “forced” to get a Masters degree in Nutrition because of all the doctors that would call in asking for my credentials. They do not call in anymore. Going to www.healthtalkhawaii.com enables you, among other things, to listen to the shows. I am an activist. In addition to espousing an organic vegan diet for optimum health, I am strongly opposed to GMOs, vaccines, processed foods, MSG, aspartame, fluoridation and everything else that the pimps (Big Pharma, Monsanto and the large food companies) and the hookers (the doctors, the government agencies, the public health officials, and the mainstream media) thrust upon us, the tricks.
After being vaccinated with the DTP vaccine as a child I developed asthma. After taking the organic sulfur crystals (they are harvested from the pine trees in Louisiana) in November of 2008 for 10 days my asthma reversed and has not come back over 4 years later, 18 cases, so far, of autism have been reversed, as has cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, osteoarthritis, joint pain, astigmatism, gum disease, increased sexual activity, heavy metal and radiation elimination, parasite elimination, free radicals elimination, faster athletic recovery time, increased blood circulation, reduced inflammation, resistance to getting the flu, reduction of wrinkles, allergy reduction, reduced PMS and monthly period pain, nausea, migraines and so much more. And it’s only possible because of the oxygen it releases that floods the cells of the body. The sulfur, as proven by the University of Southampton in England, enables the body to produce vitamin B12 and the essential amino acids. You can find out more about this incredible nutrient also on my website – www.healthtalkhawaii.com -.
My book, “a Sane Diet For An Insane World”, has been published. It can be viewed at www.asanediet.com.
HESH GOLDSTEIN, MSNUTRI
“Health Talk” Moderator, K-108 Radio
P.O. Box 240783
Honolulu, Hawaii 96824-0783
(808) 258-1177
www.healthtalkhawaii.com
www.asanediet.com
[email protected]
Just to put things in perspective, after I graduated from Weequahic High School and before going to Seton Hall University, I had a part-time job working for a butcher. I was the delivery guy and occasionally had to go to the slaughterhouse to pick up products for the store. Needless to say, I had no consciousness nor awareness, as change never came then despite the horrors I witnessed on an almost daily basis.
After graduating with a degree in accounting from Seton Hall, I eventually got married and moved to a town called Livingston. Livingston was basically a yuppie community where everyone was judged by the neighborhood they lived in and their income. To say it was a "plastic" community would be an understatement.
Livingston and the shallowness finally got to me. I told my wife I was fed up and wanted to move. She made it clear she had to be near her friends and New York City. I finally got my act together and split for Colorado.
I was living with a lady in Aspen at the end of 1974, when one day she said, " let's become vegetarians". I have no idea what possessed me to say it, but I said, "okay"! At that point I went to the freezer and took out about $100 worth of frozen, dead body parts and gave them to a welfare mother who lived behind us. Well, everything was great for about a week or so, and then the chick split with another guy.
So here I was, a vegetarian for a couple weeks, not really knowing what to do, how to cook, or basically how to prepare anything. For about a month, I was getting by on carrot sticks, celery sticks, and yogurt. Fortunately, when I went vegan in 1990, it was a simple and natural progression. Anyway, as I walked around Aspen town, I noticed a little vegetarian restaurant called, "The Little Kitchen".
Let me back up just a little bit. It was April of 1975, the snow was melting and the runoff of Ajax Mountain filled the streets full of knee-deep mud. Now, Aspen was great to ski in, but was a bummer to walk in when the snow was melting.
I was ready to call it quits and I needed a warmer place. I'll elaborate on that in a minute.
But right now, back to "The Little Kitchen". Knowing that I was going to leave Aspen and basically a new vegetarian, I needed help. So, I cruised into the restaurant and told them my plight and asked them if they would teach me how to cook. I told them in return I would wash dishes and empty their trash. They then asked me what I did for a living and I told them I was an accountant.
The owner said to me, "Let's make a deal. You do our tax return and we'll feed you as well". So for the next couple of weeks I was doing their tax return, washing their dishes, emptying the trash, and learning as much as I could.
But, like I said, the mud was getting to me. So I picked up a travel book written by a guy named Foder. The name of the book was, "Hawaii". Looking through the book I noticed that in Lahaina, on Maui, there was a little vegetarian restaurant called," Mr. Natural's". I decided right then and there that I would go to Lahaina and work at "Mr. Natural's." To make a long story short, that's exactly what happened.
So, I'm working at "Mr. Natural's" and learning everything I can about my new dietary lifestyle - it was great. Every afternoon we would close for lunch at about 1 PM and go to the Sheraton Hotel in Ka'anapali and play volleyball, while somebody stayed behind to prepare dinner.
Since I was the new guy, and didn't really know how to cook, I never thought that I would be asked to stay behind to cook dinner. Well, one afternoon, that's exactly what happened; it was my turn. That posed a problem for me because I was at the point where I finally knew how to boil water.
I was desperate, clueless and basically up the creek without a paddle. Fortunately, there was a friend of mine sitting in the gazebo at the restaurant and I asked him if he knew how to cook. He said the only thing he knew how to cook was enchiladas. He said that his enchiladas were bean-less and dairy-less. I told him that I had no idea what an enchilada was or what he was talking about, but I needed him to show me because it was my turn to do the evening meal.
Well, the guys came back from playing volleyball and I'm asked what was for dinner. I told them enchiladas; the owner wasn't thrilled. I told him that mine were bean-less and dairy-less. When he tried the enchilada he said it was incredible. Being the humble guy that I was, I smiled and said, "You expected anything less"? It apparently was so good that it was the only item on the menu that we served twice a week. In fact, after about a week, we were selling five dozen every night we had them on the menu and people would walk around Lahaina broadcasting, 'enchilada's at "Natural's" tonight'. I never had to cook anything else.
A year later the restaurant closed, and somehow I gravitated to a little health food store in Wailuku. I never told anyone I was an accountant and basically relegated myself to being the truck driver. The guys who were running the health food store had friends in similar businesses and farms on many of the islands. I told them that if they could organize and form one company they could probably lock in the State. That's when they found out I was an accountant and "Down to Earth" was born. "Down to Earth" became the largest natural food store chain in the islands, and I was their Chief Financial Officer and co-manager of their biggest store for 13 years.
In 1981, I started to do a weekly radio show to try and expose people to a vegetarian diet and get them away from killing innocent creatures. I still do that show today. I pay for my own airtime and have no sponsors to not compromise my honesty. One bit of a hassle was the fact that I was forced to get a Masters Degree in Nutrition to shut up all the MD's that would call in asking for my credentials.
My doing this radio show enabled me, through endless research, to see the corruption that existed within the big food industries, the big pharmaceutical companies, the biotech industries and the government agencies. This information, unconscionable as it is, enabled me to realize how broken our health system is. This will be covered more in depth in the Introduction and throughout the book and when you finish the book you will see this clearly and it will hopefully inspire you to make changes.
I left Down to Earth in 1989, got nationally certified as a sports injury massage therapist and started traveling the world with a bunch of guys that were making a martial arts movie. After doing that for about four years I finally made it back to Honolulu and got a job as a massage therapist at the Honolulu Club, one of Hawaii's premier fitness clubs. It was there I met the love of my life who I have been with since 1998. She made me an offer I couldn't refuse. She said," If you want to be with me you've got to stop working on naked women". So, I went back into accounting and was the Chief Financial Officer of a large construction company for many years.
Going back to my Newark days when I was an infant, I had no idea what a "chicken" or "egg" or "fish" or "pig" or "cow" was. My dietary blueprint was thrust upon me by my parents as theirs was thrust upon them by their parents. It was by the grace of God that I was able to put things in their proper perspective and improve my health and elevate my consciousness.
The road that I started walking down in 1975 has finally led me to the point of writing my book, “A Sane Diet For An Insane World”. Hopefully, the information contained herein will be enlightening, motivating, and inspiring to encourage you to make different choices. Doing what we do out of conditioning is not always the best course to follow. I am hoping that by the grace of the many friends and personalities I have encountered along my path, you will have a better perspective of what road is the best road for you to travel on, not only for your health but your consciousness as well.
Last but not least: after being vaccinated as a kid I developed asthma, which plagued me all of my life. In 2007 I got exposed to the organic sulfur crystals, which got rid of my asthma in 3 days and has not come back in over 10 years. That, being the tip of the iceberg, has helped people reverse stage 4 cancers, autism, joint pain, blood pressure problems, migraine headaches, erectile dysfunction, gingivitis, and more. Also, because of the detoxification effects by the release of oxygen that permeates and heals all the cells in the body, it removes parasites, radiation, fluoride, free radicals, and all the other crap that is thrust upon us in the environment by Big Business.
For more, please view www.healthtalkhawaii.com and www.asanediet.com.
Namaste!
