10-day Healing Seminar

Every couple of months, Dr. Terry Shintani (author of The Good Carb Revolution and Eat More, Weight Less) does a Healing Seminar for people in Honolulu, Hawaii. Approximately 30 people typically register for each program. They show up on a Saturday, the first day of their program, for a 12-hour long day of cooking demonstrations, lectures, chi gong, and whole foods meals. Since they have medical conditions, they are all medically monitored. The next 9 days of the program are not quite as intense, but they do have more lectures and we consistently prepare meals for them. For the most part, these people have been eating a standard American diet for their entire lives, and in many cases, it shows. Seminar after seminar, the participants are dealing with obesity, auto-immune disorders, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, arthritis, and diabetes, including other lifestyle related diseases. They somewhat go into shock with everything they are being taught, and despite this, they are courageous and persevere, but not without some humor (where's the pizza? where's the salt, sugar, pork, shrimp, beef?!!). They were all very curious about what quinoa was. Why did it have those snake-like tails in it? What was it? HOW DO YOU SAY THAT AGAIN? HOW IS IT SPELLED!!!! Last night when I cooked for them, they were on day 5 of their program, and some of them had already lost 10 pounds, their blood sugar levels dropped by half. They were starting to come around, and their taste buds actually coming back to life after years of being bombarded with overdoses of sugar, salt, and other additives. By the end of the 10 days, for many of them, their lives have been altered forever, equipped with the knowledge of how to prevent many common illnesses and to maintain strong health with the power of food.