BULGARIAN
INTERVIEW
FREQUENTLY
ASKED QUESTIONS
Interview of Walter Last by
Mariana of www.nanocom-bg.com in April 2008
Mariana: For several years now you are popular in
1. Tell us something more about yourself?
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Apart from outdoors activity, including
gardening, my main healing method for myself and later also for others was a
diet that was mainly fresh and raw. I also begun to experiment with other
natural healing methods and gradually developed a system that was effective
for self-healing without the need for experts or expensive remedies or
procedures. However most people do not trust their own abilities and want
experts to tell them exactly what to do and what to take. I realized that
this does not work well or only temporarily because the natural base, the
healthy lifestyle, is not developed and then the same or other health
problems will sooner or later come back.
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2. So much care and love for people is felt in everything you write, how
did you succeed to remain “yourself” in the present commercial
world?
I did not succeed remaining myself in the present
commercial world. When I immigrated to
3. Bulgaria is a former communist country and a lot of information was
covered up, not much of a choice was left to us. Today we face the other
extreme – so much information that the unprepared consumer is confused
and finds it difficult to orientate himself. Adding to this the advertisements
with which he is bombarded every day, the Bulgarian is really very confused.
What advice would you give to a person who is not sufficiently informed but
searches for reliable information?
Adopt a lifestyle that is as natural as possible, and
in regard to nutrition comes close to what kind of food farmers and peasants
ate in former centuries. When in doubt simply ask yourself which of several
possibilities is more natural. On the Internet or in books look for information
on natural living and healing, on the principles of Nature Cure, rather than on
specific advice about supplements, remedies and technical solutions. Ask old
people how their mothers and grandmothers used to prepare and conserve food or
treat health problems in the family. Find books and other writings about
traditional healing methods, read about the work of Petar Deanov at http://www.bratstvoto.net/vehadi/index_en.html.
4. Is this a problem for us as Bulgarians only or is it so on a world
scale?
This is a problem all over the world wherever
traditional ways of living in harmony with nature have been abandoned.
5. Do you believe that the healthy way of life education should start at
school?
No, that would make the situation even worse. In my
article Is Most Disease Caused by the Medical System? I show
that indeed most of our present diseases are caused by our medical system and
by the wrong messages spread by health authorities. These same people would
also (and are already) deciding what is being taught in school. Children would
only be told the same messages that caused the chronic diseases in our society,
and also how good and effective medical drugs are and how ineffective and
dangerous natural treatments are. Conventional nutritionists only represent the
medical associations and health authorities, not what natural therapists
believe in. Health education in schools is only good when the whole system
changes in the way to what Rudolf Steiner started with the Waldorf Schools, and
when naturopaths can teach about health. At present it is best if children
learn from their parents by example.
6. Your recommendations turn upside down in our brains the thinking laid
down over many years that contemporary medicine is the one that cures our
health problems. However, today more and more people are convinced that in fact
they are not curing but simply keeping patients chronically sick. In your
practice you have certainly met the irony of your colleagues and patients. How
is a naturopath or a nutritionist supposed to win the battle with conventional medicine
and the medications to which all are so accustomed to? What would you say about
this issue?
In most westernized countries naturopaths and natural
therapists are greatly restricted in what they can say and do. If they step out
of line they are being threatened by health authorities and may be dragged
before courts and end up in jail. It is similar to how dissenters were treated
under communist rule. As soon as an effective natural method becomes widely
known it will be banned. Natural therapists try to protect themselves by
keeping quiet and not sticking their necks out.
Therefore there is no battle between drug medicine and
natural therapy because natural therapy is completely suppressed. There is only
an indirect confrontation in that more and more people start believing in
natural methods and using them, and health authorities are becoming more alert
in suppressing them. Our only opportunity is that we still have some freedom of
information and can write books and articles, but in public there is no
discussion between drug medicine and natural therapy about which methods are
best.
However, this conflict is not between individual
practitioners of conventional and natural medicine. Many conventional doctors
would like to use more natural methods but are obstructed in this by the
treatment guidelines that they must follow to have insurance cover, to remain
registered and to get paid by the government. Instead medical experts with
close ties to the drug industry advise the government on health policies, and
in this way the drug companies can use government health agencies to suppress
natural medicine.
7. More and more
people start to use natural treatmens but in Bulgaria there are no specialists
or naturopaths who may guide them, and people are afraid to apply
natural methods on their own. What would
you tell them?
It is unhelpful to believe that an expert knows more
about your body then you do. Become your own expert then you can make your own mistakes
and learn from them. That is how I learned. The main principles of Nature Cure
are cleaning the body with fresh raw food, restoring the natural bacteria in
the intestines, eliminating harmful microbes, finding access to fresh water,
clean air, sunshine, outdoors activity and a satisfying emotional life.
Everyone needs to become his or her own specialist in
self-healing. If there is no natural therapist or nature healer in your area
and you need specific advice, then search on the Internet for an answer. I have
a large website with information on natural living and self-healing on www.health-science-spirit.com,
and some of this information has also been translated into the Bulgarian
language and is available at www.nanocom-bg.com. If you read all this and
try to understand and apply it, then you will be able to overcome most diseases
and health problems without expert advice. Soon you will be able to teach the
experts.
8. A lot of people are probably asking
themselves why contemporary medicine is not using natural therapies which exist
already for centuries and have proven to be harmless and effective.
We live in a capitalist society where more money means
more power and greater status. As natural therapies are generally cheap and
effective, nobody makes much money from them. The ideal is to create a system
where most people buy your expensive products for the rest of their lives. The
pharmaceutical industry has accomplished this goal. We now live in a society
where most people have one or more chronic diseases and take expensive multiple
drugs for life. With all that money from chronically sick populations the drug
companies are now so powerful that health authorities have become their police
force, and the medical system is mainly a drug distribution network. A patient
who is cured is a patient lost to the system and provides no further income.
That is why natural therapies are such a mortal threat to the present
pharmaceutical-medical complex. The whole system would break down if sufficient
numbers of people would start healing themselves with natural methods.
9. The spreading of so many diseases in epidemic
proportions means just one thing – something in our contemporary world is
wrong. Practically today there are no healthy people, especially among those
living in large cities. According to you what are the main reasons for this?
The general reason for the epidemic spread of chronic diseases
is that we abandoned living in harmony with nature, and instead lead stressful
lives surrounded by a multitude of toxic chemicals. This is especially obvious
in our food production and healthcare, and has also polluted our water and air.
However, the explosive increase in modern chronic
diseases started 50 to 60 years ago with the widespread use of antibiotics.
Because these are commonly prescribed and used without fungicides and
probiotics, most people now have the wrong kinds of microbes in their
intestinal tract, and have been invaded by Candida and other microbes and
parasites. Instead of correcting this problem, sick people are just given more
toxic chemicals as drugs and so continue to deteriorate. Another main reason is
the widespread use of root canal fillings which create very toxic anaerobic
microbes. All this happens because our capitalist system makes it so very
profitable for the medical-pharmaceutical system to produce as many chronically
sick people as possible, while natural healing methods are discouraged because
they are not very profitable.
10. You are also a food consumer just like all of
us, and I want to ask you about this. The new technologies do not spare the
human body. Our food is extremely deficient in wholesome substances, and not
everybody can get healthy food, not everybody can get out of the polluted city
he lives in. How shall the person forced to live in such conditions save his
body?
Increasingly towns and cities have Saturday markets
where local growers of fruits, vegetables, eggs etc. sell their products, which
are usually better than those in shops. Sometimes also organically grown food
may be available.
Buy suitable seeds, such as alfalfa, lentils,
mungbeans, peas and chickpeas, and instead of cooking you can sprout them, then
you have always fresh food. You can also
grow wheatgrass in seed boxes behind a window or on a balcony, cut it in
salads, or make juice if you have a juicer, or add water and use a blender and
then strain it. I have written about these methods in my free Web book Healing Foods.
Another possibility is to find several like-minded
people and form a Food-Coop (a cooperative). If there are enough members then
you can buy higher quality food items at lower prices, and also buy spirulina
powder and other health foods in bulk. In addition a group of individuals may
find some vacant land and establish a communal garden. Sometimes vacant land
may be leased for free from the city or town council.
In addition to food it is also important for city
living to get enough outdoors activity and sunshine. Find the opportunity to
walk barefoot on grass, work in a garden or walk in a park, and exercise in
unpolluted air or where pollution is reasonably low.
11. What is your opinion about the use of vitamins and minerals in the
form of supplements? Today is this a necessity or rather a sales trick of the
supplement producers? I am asking this question because a lot of people think
that these are “garbage” and to some extent they are right because
many low-quality products are offered. What is your opinion about this divided
view on vitamins?
There is no doubt that many individuals at present
develop deficiencies in vitamins and minerals. One important reason is the
unnatural and chemicalized nature of our food production which makes food deficient
in vitamins and trace minerals. Also to detoxify the many chemicals that we
ingest with medical drugs, food, water and air, we need higher amounts of
vitamins and minerals than with more natural living conditions. In addition a
stressful lifestyle requires more vitamins and minerals.
Another reason is the overgrowth of the intestinal
tracts with unhealthy bacteria and fungi due to the widespread use of
antibiotics and other drugs. This causes malabsorption
and deficiency of those nutrients that are more difficult to absorb.
The best solution would be if people use intestinal
sanitation to repopulate their intestinal tract with healthy lactobacteria, and
then use high-quality foods to obtain the needed vitamins and minerals. These
may include spirulina powder, kelp powder, lecithin, wheat grass or barley
grass as powder or even better as fresh juice.
Concentrated vitamin and mineral supplements as
tablets, capsules, powders or solutions can be helpful for those who have not
yet achieved good health, and some may take them just as a health insurance.
However, there can also be problems with supplements. The main problem with
vitamins is that most of them are synthetic and lacking beneficial co-factors
while mineral supplements often have an unsuitable composition. Generally
vitamin and mineral supplements are best absorbed if used as powders or crushed
and mixed with meals to create more natural conditions.
Supplements of B vitamins and vitamin C do not
normally cause problems, but the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K can be in
two different configurations, and only one is natural and beneficial. With
vitamin E if the label does not say what it is or it is d,l- then it is synthetic while natural vitamin E is
d-(alpha tocopherol or mixed tocopherols),
natural vitamin D is D3 while D2 is synthetic, and natural vitamin K is K1 or
Vitamin A is different in that it has naturally a cis-form and a trans-form. Synthetic vitamin A is all in
the trans-form, and high-dose supplements of it block the internal use of the cis-form, and this can cause various health problems
related to eyesight and malformations in pregnancy. Also increased rates of
death occurred in some clinical trials. None of these problems have been shown
with natural vitamin A which is best obtained from halibut liver oil capsules.
As far as I know all multivitamins have synthetic vitamin A, and many also have
synthetic vitamin E, D or K. Therefore I do not normally recommend multivitamin
tablets. Instead I prefer a B-complex, natural vitamin E, and halibut liver oil
capsules for vitamins A and D. Spirulina is an excellent supplement for many
vitamins and minerals, and especially for vitamin K and carotenes.
The main minerals deficiencies are with selenium, zinc
and magnesium. Therefore it is often helpful to add these until health is fully
restored. However, most multi-mineral supplements contain too much calcium and
iron, and not enough selenium, zinc and magnesium and are not suitable. For men
and after menopause iron supplements are usually harmful. If iron is needed and
one does not eat liver or meat, then spirulina is a good source, and vitamin C
may be added to meals to improve absorption.
12. I also want to ask you about feeding babies and small children. Most babies
are bottle-fed, what diet would you recommend their mothers to give them? And
one other much debated question with us – when shall fruit and vegetable
juices be added to babies’ feeding? Are the fresh juices from alkalizing
grasses recommended by you suitable for babies and from what age?
Every effort should be made to breastfeed babies for
as long as possible, preferably to one year of age or even longer. It is
especially important for premature babies to get breast milk at least for
several weeks, even if the milk is not from the baby’s own mother. If
breast milk is not available then next best is fresh non-pasteurized
goats’ or sheep’s milk; if that is not possible then try diluted
non-pasteurized cows’ milk. Try to avoid A1 milk (from Friesian black and
white cows) which is linked to allergies and type-1 diabetes, instead use A2
milk. If you cannot get fresh milk then use goats’ milk pasteurized or
powdered, best with other additions such as wheat grass juice and almond milk.
Avoid conventional formula or soy milk.
For bottle-feeding babies, I regard fresh diluted
cereal grass juice a much better alternative to soymilk or cows’ milk
formula, and a good addition to any other animal milk. If there is not enough
breast milk it may also be added very early. Wheat grass juice may be preferred
to other grass juices because of its sweetness, but it will also be fine
blended with the juice from other grasses.
To match it more closely to mother's milk, it may be
diluted with 50-100% water, and 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and a
teaspoon of lecithin per liter mixed with it. After a few weeks I would also
start adding drops of cod liver oil and raw egg yolk (organic or free-range).
Also almond milk is good for supplementing insufficient breast milk. Juices of
vegetables and non-acid fruits may be slowly added after about 3 months.
However, these are no fixed rules and you can try to see what suits the baby. I
would not add any wheat or other gluten foods during the first year and very
little thereafter.
The first milk or colostrum helps to develop the
immune system. If this is not available from the mother try to buy colostrum as
a health food.
Early cutting of the umbilical cord as now commonly
practiced deprives the baby of much of its normal supply of blood and many
babies develop anemia, respiratory distress and learning difficulties. Most at
risk are premature babies. The correct way is to wait until the cord has
stopped pulsating and hold the baby low until then.
A caesarean section should be considered only as a
last resort. Normally the baby is inoculated with the bacteria for a healthy
intestinal flora when going through the birth canal and also later with the
breast milk. If the mother is suspected to have Candida or after a caesarean
birth, and especially with following bottle-feeding, the baby needs to be given
a range of the normal lactobacteria through supplements. Also about twice as
many babies die after elective caesareans than after natural births.
13. What is your opinion about soybean food? Today it becomes more and
more widespread as dietary food and baby food.
Traditionally in Asian countries soy foods have not
been used as they are in the West, instead soy was traditionally fermented, and
in this way it is healthy. There are many anti-nutrients in soy products,
especially inhibitors of protein-digesting enzymes, phytates
that bind minerals and make them unavailable for absorption and substances that
interfere with our hormones and agglutinate or clump the blood. Commercial
soymilk either has been highly heated to produce soy-protein extract with
denatured proteins or it is made of whole soybeans and then is full of these
anti-nutrients. Both are not good. Increasingly the beans may also have been genetically
changed with unknown consequences. To make soymilk in a healthier way see the
Recipe section in Healing
Foods. Some recommended traditionally fermented soy products are the
various varieties of Miso, some types of Tamari sauce
and Natto. Tofu is not normally fermented but not as
harmful as conventional soy products, and occasional use should be harmless.
14. Do your recommendations about cleaning the body with various means
include energy massage for example? Energy massage methods for detoxification
appeared in
Nature Cure or Natural Medicine has a long tradition
of detoxifying the body with periods of fasting and cleansing. Fasting is a
period of restricted food intake, and cleansing is the removal of waste
products from the body as a result of fasting or special procedures. The
combination of fasting and cleansing is a very effective healing method. It
helps in overcoming chronic diseases and rejuvenating an aging body. It also
ensures continued health and minimizes the risk of a disabling disease later in
life. For some fasting and cleansing methods see www.health-science-spirit.com/HF1-3.html and www.health-science-spirit.com/basiccleanse.html. Energy massage methods and
other detoxification methods will be helpful in addition but I would not rely
on them on their own.
In former centuries cleansing was the most important
natural healing method, consisting mainly of the removal of accumulated
metabolic waste products from the body. In more recent times this increasingly
included removal of ingested chemicals. However now I regard intestinal
sanitation with associated antimicrobial therapy as the most important basic
healing method, with removal of wastes and toxins still necessary but coming in
second place.
15. Smoking is a huge problem in our country. People start smoking at a
very young age; the number of smokers is enormous. It can be said that every
second Bulgarian is a smoker. It is very difficult to quit using willpower, for
many people this is simply impossible. What would you recommend?
Smoking, as any other addiction, is linked to the
release of the brain chemical dopamine. Dopamine is released when we feel
stimulated. This stimulation may be from nicotine or caffeine or alcohol or
drugs or loud music or orgasms or dangerous activities. It makes us feel more
alive. People who are chronically stressed as from information overload,
problems at work, relationship problems, Candida, allergies, poor nutrition,
noise and electromagnetic pollution and so forth have weak adrenal glands and
need a strong stimulant to get going and feel alive. The body becomes used to a
specific stimulant that is frequently used, and when it is not used anymore
then we experience a period of feeling lifeless and lethargic. When trying to
give up a specific addiction many avoid this feeling by becoming addicted to
something else.
The main requirement for giving up smoking is a strong
commitment to do so. Depending on the degree of addiction there are several possibilities.
Often smoking is done in certain situations, either at work or when drinking
alcohol with friends, and these situations need to be avoided for instance by
doing the withdrawal at the start of a long holiday, and then going camping or
finding other interesting activities.
In addition it helps beforehand to gradually reduce
the number of cigarettes by about 10% every 2 weeks or 5% a week. This requires
strong discipline by only providing access to a predetermined number of
cigarettes per day.
Other helpful measures are taking B-vitamin
supplements, specifically niacinamide (formerly nicotinamide,
up to 3 x 500 mg), intestinal sanitation, and a high fluid intake, strong
emotional support, especially from a relationship partner, long periods of hugging
or Karezza, and meditation.
16. Another major problem of our nation is obesity, people growing fat; it
is difficult to resist the temptation in the store, it is similar as with
smoking, here also the will is not always strong enough to quit. Is there an
easier way?
The modern obesity epidemic started in the
1980’s when the
Grains and sweeteners stimulate the appetite and cause
overeating while after eating fatty food one is not hungry for a long time.
Also a diet high in protein helps us not to feel hungry. The best breakfast for
weightloss is based on legumes, such as lentil soup, or peas or chickpeas.
Another strategy is to drink some time before most meals a large glass of water
with either a teaspoon of spirulina powder or psyllium hulls mixed into it.
To lose weight a diet based on vegetables, especially green
ones, is better than a diet based on fruits. But very helpful are lemon juice
or cider vinegar before or with meals, vitamin and mineral supplements or a
diet high in these nutrients, also fish oils and freshly ground linseed,
intestinal sanitation and, as for smoking, strong emotional support from a
partner.
17. Which precautions would you recommend for those of us who try to keep
good health but live in the city and have no access to organic food or food
without harmful chemicals? What is good to be done and what should be avoided?
Inform yourself to get a basic understanding of
natural ways of living and healing. Make an effort to find like-minded people
and share information, books and equipment: start a food co-op, learn and
practice natural healing methods with each other (e.g. massage, reflexology),
start a communal garden, buy a water ionizer or good water filter together for
drinking and cooking water; do yoga or other exercises together.
The main principles to get and stay healthy are:
Intestinal sanitation, antimicrobial therapy, and a
cleansing period on raw foods once a year, learn to meditate, practice positive
thinking: expect your body to become and remain healthy and fit, find
fulfillment and joy in your life.
Use mainly fresh vegetables and fruit, raw fats and
proteins such as non-pasteurized cheeses, goat’s or sheep milk yoghurt,
raw butter, raw egg yolk, extra virgin olive oil, fresh ground linseed, fish
oils, spirulina, legumes, rye or spelt sourdough bread, sprouted seeds, wheat
grass or barley grass juice. Minimize conventional baking products, breakfast
cereals, sweeteners, highly processed food and chemical additives as well as
drugs of any kind.
On behalf of our Bulgarian readers I thank you for your time and for
your exceptionally interesting answers. I wish you health and long years of
success in finding the truth for human health! Thank you!