Several years ago, I started to have dental problems from not eating enough greens, lack of chewing and whatever other reasons. I found that it was difficult to find a holistic dentist who would cooperate with me, agree to use less toxic materials and not making fun of my unusual requests. 

I went from dentist to dentist and I was left feeling rather frustrated. Years went by and my dental health was continuously declining.  The dentists offered me treatment plans that I was not comfortable with due to my beliefs.   You might think that I am too picky, when in fact I am a very patient patient!   I had lots of unanswered questions and I needed the answers not only for myself and my family, but for my readers and followers.  Finally I decided not to look for any non-traditional, already alternative doctor, but find a young, ambitious, well-educated dentist that loves his work and does his job well.  This is how 5 years ago I walked into the office of Dr. Jared Anderson, who has been my dentist since then.

First I was attracted to the fact that Dr. Anderson is a graduate of 2 prestigious dental schools in the United States.  Most of all, it appealed to me that Dr. Anderson loves his dentistry and his patients more than anything in the world and he cannot hide it.  His office is overflowing with the finest pieces of equipment.  He proudly informed me that he doesn’t use Amalgam fillings and uses only the best materials and procedures that he is aware of.  I was already experienced in how to irritate dentists with my never-ending queries.  With Dr. Anderson, I tried to keep my mouth shut even when it was wide open!  Dr. Anderson appeared to be a curious young man.  When I presented him with my book “Green for Life” he read it, asked many questions and was brave enough to try a green smoothie.  Another time, Dr. Anderson tried my jaw exerciser for himself and gave me feedback.  I lent him some documentaries from my library.  He especially liked “The Beautiful Truth” about Gerson Institute and the role Mercury fillings play in human health. 

I asked Dr. Anderson why he doesn’t have Mercury fillings removal listed among his services. He explained that American Dental Association doesn’t officially recognize these fillings as harmful and strongly discourages advertising of their removal. That is why I am writing about that.

If you need to remove Mercury fillings and live not far from Oregon I wholeheartedly recommend Dr. Anderson for this special task.  He has all the necessary skills and equipment for this procedure, including high volume suction and tooth isolation. Dr. Anderson’s phone is 541-488-5088.

You may also consider beginning to educate your own dentist by sharing your books and DVDs with them.  Keep in mind that at the dental school only 2 hours is given to studying nutrition.  I have even met dentists, who advised me that meat is good for teeth and sugar has nothing to do with cavities.  If the dental schools don’t have time to educate them, we can take the time to help our dentists understand nutrition better. 

Love, Victoria

During my recent visit in Moscow, a shocking episode occurred. I was surprised to hear from several women, that they will, "Never ever again color their hair!" My sister, Marina, explained to me that a few months ago, one tragic event made the headlines of every major paper and TV news channel. Apparently, a 31-year old school teacher applied a routine color treatment to her hair, as she had done for many years on a regular basis. Only this time, she has developed an allergic reaction, she felt burning and the skin on her skull quickly began to swell. The young woman attempted to wash the color off without any success. Her heart stopped in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. Official expertise concluded that the chemicals in the coloring treatment killed her. To the shock of the nation, this hair coloring treatment was very common and widely used. Here is this information in Russian. 

I so much appreciate that I was able to reverse my graying hair by regularly consuming green smoothies and never had to use any hair coloring.      

Love, Victoria

Dear Friends,
It is with great pleasure that I introduce to you one of my heroes and one of the best doctors in the United States: Dr. Thomas Lodi  from Mesa, Arizona. Dr. Lodi is an invaluable friend to many cancer patients.
Valya and I visited his outstanding healing center and did this interview with him. If you like what Dr. Lodi says, please don’t hesitate to support this brave man by leaving a comment and marking the "like" button. Feel free to pass this video to your lists and websites.

I resonate with Dr. Lodi’s work because I too trust the healing potential of the human body. Every time anyone asks me about healing cancer, I always recommend them to watch a documentary Healing Cancer from Inside Out by Mike Anderson. Several times I bought ten copies of this brilliant video and gave away to other people. On two occaisions I paid my close friends to watch it and I beleive their lives have been saved by it. You can order this video here.

Love, Victoria

Dear Friends,

We are so glad that you enjoyed our previous post with information about the outstanding benefits of pomegranates. Many of you asked exactly how to juice these miraculous fruits. Here is how we do it in my family. You may use any electric citrus juicer. We especially like the CitriStar we bought from Tribest.com because of its powerful motor. Since juicing pomegranates is a bit more complicated than juicing oranges, Valya and I made these photographs for you.

Good tip #1: Choose smaller, dark red ripe pomegranates that yield slightly to the touch.  Cut pomegranate in half.

Good tip #2: Place a plate under the pomegranate to avoid staining your cutting board red forever and to save some extra juice.

When cut correctly, you will be greeted with a beautiful red star.

Begin to juice just like you would juice an orange.

When you get to the seeds hidden in the folds as shown in this picture, tilt the pomegranate so that the ream of the juicer is pointed towards each pocket of seeds.

You will see that is very easy to juice most of the seeds.

To collect every bit of the precious juice, you may grab the seeds and the pulp and squeeze them with your hand.

Freshly squeezed pomegranate juice is often tart in taste. In my family we like to juice an orange or two on top of the pomegranate.

This picture shows a juice made of two pomegranates and three oranges. I like to drink this cocktail every morning during the short pomegranate season

Enjoy!

Love, Victoria

Dear friends,  

After I described in my book 12 Steps to Raw Foods how my family sleeps on a hard surface, I received many questions about the particulars. Do I sleep on my back or on my side, do I sleep on a hard floor or a carpet, do I put down a blanket, do I use a pillow? Also, my readers share that they tried sleeping on a hard surface and felt pain and discomfort in the morning. They ask what they did wrong. In this article I would like to address all these inquiries.

If I am visiting a country with a warm climate or if I am in Oregon in the summer, I can sleep on a bare floor but only if it is a wooden floor. Of course, if I am staying in a house with a carpeted floor in my room, I sleep on the carpet. It might be hard to believe, but sleeping on a warm wooden surface creates the sweetest, most restful feeling I regret that many people would never have dared to experience. One of my favorite Greek philosophers is Diogenes. Do you remember this famous anecdote about him? Alexander the Great wanted to reward the philosopher for his wisdom, and offered to fulfill any wish he may have. Diogenes replied, “Please step aside, you are blocking the sun.” I read a book of his quotes several times. More than once, Diogenes shares how sleeping on the bare ground is the healthiest and most pleasant.

In another book of memoirs of renowned Russian doctors of the 19^th century, collected by Edward Radzinsky, with great interest I read that those doctors, when examining their patients, asked them on which side of the body they slept. For example, if they predominantly slept on the right side, the doctors concluded they had liver problems, and so on. This information resonated with me because I noticed that when I had arrhythmia, I could never sleep on my left side. I couldn’t even lie on my left side for more than one minute. Since my arrhythmia symptoms went away in 1994, I can sleep for hours on the left side without any discomfort. I suspect there are a lot of mysteries for us to understand about human sleep.

From all the information that I have gathered, I hypothesize that the human body knows which way of sleeping is the most therapeutic. For example, I think it is possible that a diabetic will sleep differently than an asthmatic. I do not claim that sleeping on a hard surface will cure any illnesses, but it could be somewhat helpful. You can also find that your sleeping position is different on a hard surface than on a soft mattress. I have also noticed that when I sleep on the floor, I first roll around for a few moments to find a particularly comfortable pose. This pose usually results in a very sweet and sound sleep. I enjoy watching animals getting ready to sleep, and I notice that both cats and dogs search for a comfortable position before they settle into sleep.

Some of my readers think that it is more uncomfortable for thinner people to sleep on a hard surface. From my observation this is not so. I know many people of a variety of different shapes that enjoy sleeping on a hard surface.

Most of the warm season I prefer to sleep outside on our wooden deck. In hot summer months I use two layers of a flannel sheet as my mattress. As seasons change and it becomes progressively colder, I begin to add layers of blankets to the floor every few weeks. By December when we have snow on our balcony, I move my bed inside, but lay the head of my bed right next to the open door. By this time I have four layers of thin blanket under me. It’s interesting that I always forget to remove the layers in the springtime when it warms up, and it happens every year, that I find myself tossing and turning, waking up not completely rested. Then I remove the blankets and regain my sound sleep.

I’m still attached to my pillow. Several of my friends do not use pillow, and claim that it’s even better, but I’m not there yet. However, my pillow is small and rather hard.

You might enjoy reading the hilarious account from Sergei and Valya about the time they tried to quit sleeping on a hard surface. Turn to our past newsletter here.

Sleep is the time that our body takes for healing. I wish for you to discover the happy benefits and pleasure of sleeping on the hard floor, and possibly kiss expensive soft mattresses goodbye.

Love, Victoria