Interviewer: Today, the Gerson Therapy is used for what sort of ailments? Is it still a wide variety of conditions?
Charlotte Gerson: Virtually any chronic, degenerative disease you can mention. There may be five . . . three, five that don't respond well. But virtually all the others, they do, and there's something like 1500.
Interviewer: Mm. So what is the basic principle of the therapy? How does somebody get started? I assume it maybe differs depending on which condition they have, but what are some of the things that you start with then?
Charlotte Gerson:It's not different depending on their condition.
Interviewer: Okay.
Charlotte Gerson: Generally, it's fair to say that before disease can happen, you have to defeat the body's natural healing mechanisms. Dr. Gerson felt that in every person there's a healing mechanism. You cut yourself, it heals. Or you burn yourself and the burn heals. Or you have a cold or a flu, and it heals, right? Unless and until the body is weakened to the point where it can no longer heal, then the healing mechanisms are weakened, damaged, and defeated. Then you can't heal anymore. Now, that's chronic disease. But they're all similar.
It doesn't matter whether the disease affects your eye, or your brain, or your knee, or your kidneys, or your pancreas. It doesn't matter. It's all defeating the original, basic, healing mechanism that's normal and in-built in every human being. And until you damage and defeat it . . . in other words, what you're doing, and what the average people, the public, are doing, they're not nourishing it. Because the so-called American diet is unfortunately very unhealthy. There's no living substances. They're dead. They are frozen, and pickled, and preserved, and canned, and dead. And then they're chemicalized and the foods are pesticide'd, fungicide'd and treated with all kinds of things. And then they're further damaged by heat and there is really nothing that can properly and correctly restore, rebuild, and keep that healing mechanism going. These are body cells, they need nourishment . . .
Interviewer: Mm-hmm.
Charlotte Gerson: . . . but the right nourishment. Fresh, living, organic fruits, vegetables, and nutrients, vitamins, minerals, and enzymes that are correct for the human body.