Adding complementary treatments to the whey cure helps to ensure that the elimination of toxins will be carried through properly. The whey cure causes wastes to emerge from deep within the tissues. This means that there will be an increased amount of toxins rising from the depths of the system and appearing at the various excretory organs to be filtered and eliminated by means of urine, stools, and sweat.
It is therefore extremely important that these wastes be able to exit the body, which is possible only if the excretory organs are functioning sufficiently. Very often, if someone has accumulated toxins and feels the need to get rid of them through a detoxifying cure, it is because the excretory organs have been unable to meet the demands made upon them by the individual’s normal intake and production of wastes. Will the cure suddenly give these organs the ability to meet these demands that much better?
The properties of whey will specifically stimulate the body’s eliminatory organs to work. But because the mass of wastes that need to be eliminated is much larger than usual, the organs may not be able to keep up. Using medicinal plants and increasing physical exercise are two of the supplemental techniques discussed in this chapter that can help maintain and stimulate the labor of the excretory organs. As wastes are released in greater quantities, the cure will engender various minor disorders known as healing crises, including headaches, fatigue, eczema, pimples, and even the temporary resurgence of former health problems.
These healing crises are the normal consequence of the increase in circulating toxins, and their intensity and duration are directly proportionate to how well or how poorly the excretory organs are functioning. By supporting the work of elimination with supplemental treatments, one can avoid overly violent healing crises and also be assured that the wastes are not merely changing location in the body but are genuinely clearing out.
MEDICINAL PLANTS
The health benefits of the whey cure come from the cleansing of the body that is achieved by whey’s stimulation of the system to eliminate wastes and toxins. For this reason, it has been common practice throughout history to use depurative (purifying) plants and herbs to reinforce the effects of the cure. There are several ways to benefit from the effects of medicinal plants. One method is to pasture the livestock whose milk provides the whey in fields that are rich in these plants; thus, the plants’ active principles will be contained in the whey.
Another option is to ingest the herbs directly in their many available forms. There are three plants that are commonly recommended as supplements to the whey cure: dandelions, artichokes, and nettles. Dandelion stimulates the production and elimination of bile and thereby the filtration of wastes and their evacuation out of the system, because bile is the fluid in which wastes are excreted.
Thanks to its hepatic action, dandelion acts as a gentle laxative, guaranteeing good intestinal elimination. Dandelion also activates the kidneys’ function of purifying the blood by increasing the volume of urine and wastes eliminated over the course of the day. Artichoke is excellent for draining the liver and the gallbladder; it is also a fine diuretic. It encourages the elimination of urea, cholesterol, and uric acid. Artichoke facilitates the excretion of toxins from the tissues by encouraging cellular exchanges through its stimulation of the circulatory system.
In addition to its diuretic and hepatic qualities, nettle has a tonic property that stimulates circulation and metabolism. Nettle is often used in treatments for rheumatism, eczema, gallstones, and kidney stones—diseases characterized by an accumulation of wastes. These three plants, or any other depurative plant you might choose, can be used as infusions, drops, tablets, and juices. While the last three do have the advantage of being practical, they do not lead, as do infusions, to the ingestion of a large volume of water.
A large intake of liquid is valuable because it supports the transport of toxins and stimulates diuresis by the pressure it places upon the kidneys. Dosage amounts for drops, tablets, and juices are provided in the manufacturer’s instructions. To make an infusion, add 50 grams of dried leaves (about a handful) for every liter of boiled water. Let the leaves steep for ten to fifteen minutes, strain, and drink over the course of the day. The depurative effect should be quite apparent: the frequency of urination, quantity of urine eliminated, and intestinal transit should all increase markedly. Individual systems will respond differently to the plants, so the dosage should be increased or decreased depending on the effect they produce. Taking medicinal plants in small doses over the course of the entire day stimulates the excretory organs repeatedly, and this, little by little, creates a new working rhythm for them, one that may well persist after the cure is over.
OXYGENATION
Stimulating the work of the excretory organs with whey and medicinal plants allows large quantities of wastes to be eliminated from the body. However, some wastes lie stagnant in the depths of the tissues for so long that they combine with other wastes to form agglomerations. Because of their large size, they cannot be eliminated naturally without first being broken down into smaller pieces. The degradation of large toxins into smaller toxins is performed by oxidation. In the presence of oxygen and thanks to enzymatic activity, the wastes are “burned.”
This combustion results in a fine ash that the body can easily carry to the excretory organs for elimination. For oxidation to take place successfully, enough oxygen must penetrate the deep tissues. Respiration, because of the sedentary lives most of us lead, generally brings very little oxygen into the body. Furthermore, this oxygen has a difficult time reaching deeper into the tissues, again because our fartoo-sedentary lifestyles do not encourage optimum cellular irrigation or exchange.
Physical activities that cause an intensification of the rate of respiration and the sensation of being out of breath will bring more oxygen into the tissues. Walking at a sustained pace, for example, or over uneven terrain will create this healthy oxygenation. Sports activities in general, as well as dancing and manual labor, such as sawing wood, mowing the lawn, and raking leaves, can also have the same result. The health spas where the whey cure was followed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were most often located in the country and in mountainous regions; long walks in the fresh air were an integral part of the cure.
PHYSICAL EXERCISE
The principal virtue of physical exercise during the whey cure is that it intensifies cellular exchanges and circulation, thereby triggering the movement of deeply embedded toxins toward the surface where they can be expelled. When muscles contract, they have a crushing effect on the surrounding tissues and organs that pushes out some of the bodily fluids and toxins they contain.
The action is similar to squeezing a sponge so that it will release the dirty water it contains. The repetition of these contractions engenders a kind of “agitation” in the tissues, which until this point have been only sluggishly irrigated, and releases numerous toxins into the blood where they will travel to the excretory organs.
Our tissues are often so poorly irrigated that descriptions such as “marsh” or “desert” are used in natural medicine to designate those regions of the body where capillary and lymphatic circulation are extremely deficient. Another benefit of exercise during the cure is, as we saw earlier, to encourage oxygenation of the deep tissues and therefore the combustion of the wastes they contain. This combustion is amplified during exercise by the simple fact that the body’s energetic needs are increased and this forces the system to burn the energetic substances stored in the tissues at a higher and more intense rate.
Physical exercise can also be beneficial to the body by relaxing the mind and the nervous system. In fact, breathlessness and muscular labor will quickly shift attention toward the body. Anxieties, obsessions, tensions, and bad feelings become blurred, at least momentarily, and the physical tensions, spasms, contractions, or blockages they engender disappear. The organs of the body can once more function freely without any disturbance to their activity or malfunctioning due to tensions and blockages of nervous origin.
Whatever physical activity is chosen (walking, biking, tennis, swimming, jogging, etc.), it should be performed according to the individual’s physical strengths and capabilities but must last long enough for its effects to reach the deeper regions of the body. It should also take place on a daily basis in order to truly reinforce the benefits of the cure.
OTHER MODALITIES
There are a great many other modalities that can be used as supplements to a whey cure, including hydrotherapy, sauna, massage, and foot reflexology. Each of these techniques will help the body release and eliminate the toxins that are responsible for ill health.