The Humble Carrot

Shona and I first bonded over carrots. Yes, the humble carrot has bought me so much joy – and my friendship with Shona!

Upon finding out about my diagnosis, Shona gifted me a juicer – she left it in the porch and claimed she had ordered two by mistake. Her words were simple, yet life-changing: ‘nutrition is now your best friend.’ It really was. Is.

‘Read about carrots,’ she said. Carrots are rich in vitamins and beta-carotene – cell protecting goodness. And I’ve not looked back. Carrots changed my life. I firmly believe, along with reiki, that juicing carrots during chemotherapy significantly improved my energy and overall health while going through chemotherapy.

My husband, Dave, read countless medical journals about carrots and the chemical compound luteolin – a magical chemical inside carrots that has shown in lab studies to kill cancer cells. He researched, sourced, chopped, juiced crates of carrots for me. The green grocers thought we had a carrot business! I had a type of cancer that would not have responded to chemotherapy in 90% of cases. We gave it the kitchen sink though because my tumour was 7cm when we eventually found it. After six rounds of chemotherapy and pints and pints and pints of carrot juice (and reiki every week), I had no tumour left. Only 1 in 10 people would have experienced this result from chemotherapy, said my oncologist. He also said the word, remarkable a great deal too!

As my 7cm tumour started to shrink (very quickly) I would feel a burning pain. I asked my oncologist what that was, he told me its apoptosis – the cancer cells dying. I experienced the burning after chemotherapy, reiki and a large carrot juice.

Nutrition and holistic therapies are incredibly powerful and have always been important to me. But my diagnosis made me want to learn as much as I could about the healing properties of plants. To protect themselves as they grow, plants produce a defensive substance called Phytochemical.

This represents the colour of the plants and when consumed by us, this creates:

LYCOPENE🍓🍅🍉 Inhibition effect on formation of cancer cells;

BETA-CAROTENE🥕🍊🍋🍍Boost of the immune system;

LUTEIN🥦🥝🍏Strong antioxidant effect;

ANTHOCYANIN🍆Antioxidant aging prevention and protection of eyesight;

QUERCETIN🍐🍌e.g garlics helps the elimination of toxins from body.

Learn more and read the studies:

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/carrots - this article links to research and studies.

To contact Katie check her out here: www.loveofliteracy.co.uk katie@loveofliteracy.co.uk