The Earth Diet: Healing Through Food

15 July 2015

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Categories: Featured Shows, Listen

Liana Werner-Gray heard a pop in her neck one day while at a concert with friends. It felt like a mini explosion. There was a lump on her neck. Over the next two weeks it got bigger and harder. It reached the size of a golf ball. She determined this was more than swollen glands and went to the hospital to get a biopsy. The result was that she had a precancerous tumor in her lymphatic system. The doctors gave her three options: to wait and see what happens; have it surgically removed; or try radiation to shrink it. She didn’t choose any of those options. She intuitively knew what she had to do! But first, here is her story.

Werner-Gray grew up in the outback of Australia where she lived with the indigenous people who valued the earth. This early background and natural lifestyle would stay with her–but first she had to make her own choices. When she was 17, she moved away from her parents and started making her own food choices. From the age 17 to 21, she ate processed junk food literally every day. Eventually, she started having very low energy, was gaining weight and felt confused. She knew she was on a downward spiral and told herself she had to stop eating all this junk food.

She promised herself every day for 5 years that she would stop. It turned out to be harder than she thought. She was addicted! Then, she got sick. Her wake-up call was a tumor in her neck!

She didn’t accept the options that the doctors gave her, she had her own plan. She intuitively knew that if she had created this tumor through her unhealthy lifestyle choices, she could heal it–she could treat herself with the power of nature. She made a commitment to eat healthy for one year and to fill her body with only nutritious foods. She remembered lying in bed shortly after her diagnosis and thinking:

Now I know what it feels like to have my health taken away from me. I can either get worse and die from this tumor, or I can completely heal and be free of it.

Over the next several weeks, her cravings for junk food lessened, although the cravings were not totally gone. During this time, to satisfy her cravings, she started creating her own healthy alternative recipes. She learned she could still enjoy the foods she loved like chocolate, hamburgers, pizza and chips. The difference was that she was making them her way–where they were packed with nutrition. Her diagnosis came in January and three months later, after filling her body with healthy and nutritional foods, the tumor was completely gone.

To hold herself accountable, she started blogging and decided for 365 days she would only eat healthy, nutrient-dense foods. Her blog was called The Earth Diet. She remembered the Aboriginals she knew as a child and how they rarely got sick and lived a long time. They only ate whole, organic foods from the earth. They were proof that our health does not have to decline as we get older. She learned that we have control over our well-being because we have control over our thoughts and actions. From there, she started teaching others about living a healthy lifestyle and leading workshops. She is now the founder and owner of The Earth Diet. She published her book The Earth Diet in October of 2014 and it is available here or on her website. Her book is a wonderful guide and contains many healthy and easy recipes to assist others in changing their diet and lifestyle. She also has a weekly radio show on Hay House Radio.