Student Spotlight
May Engles, M.S.in Holistic Nutrition student
As a high school home economics teacher back in the mid-60s, May Engles loved teaching students how to cook, sew and manage their home life. Yet in her own life she also remembers shying away from what was then the “textbook” approach to cooking: that four basic food groups = SAD (Standard American Diet).
Sad could certainly describe her diagnosis, in 1983, of breast cancer – but May Engles doesn't see it that way. She calls it instead a healing crisis and a learning experience, as a catalyst to transforming her life choices.
Intuitively, I had always leaned toward food choices that emphasize fruit and vegetables," she recalls, "but I really didn’t know the half of it until I started fighting for my life. I felt that those old standard nutrition protocols just were not conducive to healing, and during my own healing journey I have learned a whole new world of information. I have learned from others who were eager to share their information – about nutritional healing with liquid chlorophyll, green super foods and other nutritional therapies – just as Clayton College teaches us how to inform and empower others, and just as my intention is always to further impart this important information.
A mastectomy revealed cancer in nine of the 16 lymph notes under her left arm; she now wishes her surgeon had not removed the cancerous lymph nodes because she knows that well-functioning lymph nodes are one key to health. She also knows that the human body was created with an innate ability to heal itself.
I took chemo drugs for almost three months, and decided that they were much more likely to kill me than the cancer itself." While May's surgeon tried to sound open-minded about her desire to incorporate alternative or complementary therapies, health records later revealed that her oncologist had characterized May's decision as 'irrational.' She delightfully acknowledges being what author Bernie Siegel, MD, describes as a ‘difficult’ patient.
My doctors could not address what might have caused my cancer. I felt it impossible to treat something if we couldn't 'pull up the roots.' I believe that the three causes of cancer are environmental toxicity, nutrition deficiency and stress.
If only he could see her now, cancer-free for 18 years!
May walked away from chemotherapy and all the other toxic drug therapies. Flaxseed oil found its way into her diet, along with red clover and other healing teas, daily exercise to stimulate her compromised lymphatic system, food combining, and a regimen whose role is to cleanse and rebuild. "I don't presume to tell anybody else how to battle cancer, but I do know for sure what works for me."
- Drinking herbal teas not only cleansed her blood stream, it greatly lifted her spirits. One of her favorites is Essiac tea.
- Maintaining the body’s pH-balance (acid to alkaline) enables detox pathways to flow. Disease thrives in an acidic environment, and cannot withstand an alkaline environment.
- Chlorophyll builds blood and oxygenates cells. Cancer cannot live in an oxygenated environment. Chlorophyll is a great scavenger of free radicals, the dangerous mutated cells that can re-form as malignant enemy cells.
- With a new nutritional plan, family support is essential. May’s husband and two preteen daughters all embraced their mother's modified food plan. The simpler logistics of preparing one type of meal, and the emotional support of sharing it together, were greater than the sum of each part. May fondly remembers their first macrobiotic Thanksgiving. Emphasizing the use of fresh, whole foods maximizes the delivery of Qi, or vital force, to the body.
- The Engels family learned that soy products can block blood vessel growth leading to tumors, while various enzymes aid with digestion and body repair. Some friendly enzymes can actually consume the outer coating of cancer cells, weakening them to assaults from the immune system.
- Once May enforced a 21-day exercise program, she formed a new habit and a lifelong commitment to walking. While most of us realize that our hearts pump tremendous amounts of blood throughout our bodies constantly, it is equally important to keep the relatively invisible lymphatic system cleansed and running smoothly. Dry body brushing and bouncing on a mini-trampoline are extra important if one’s lymphatic system has become compromised.
- Eliminated from her diet: bread, cheese, salt, refined sugar and other sweets, coffee and black tea, sodas, alcohol, processed foods, fried foods, excessive animal protein, and very hot or very cold foods.
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