Hello Beverley, my name is Shamira Kassam.
I am a holistic healer and a Reiki master. I teach people how to heal themselves naturally using a variety of methods that combine healing for the mind and the body.
Growing up, medical doctors were rare, so our choices were to use whatever was at hand when we were sick to help the body heal itself. My mother was an intuitive healer. She would use common kitchen ingredients to help people get better… it was usually based on Ayurvedic (Indian) medicine – using Indian herbs, spices, fruits, and vegetables. Thus, it was natural for me to do the same.
Our ancestors didn’t know about science. They learned how to use food combinations through years of trial and error and passed this information down through generations. We eat certain foods in the Summer and others in the Winter because our ancestors knew the effects on their bodies. This knowledge still holds true to this day.
Foods work slowly and steadily over longer periods of time. Food is much better at prevention than cure. Herbs and spices act a little faster than food, but are still much slower than medicine for chronic cases. My motto is “prevention is easier and faster than cure”.
Over time, Western medicine became popular, so we went to medical doctors to help us fix our health issues. What I noticed was that while the medication worked fast, the side effects were often worse than the original ailment. Western Medicine does not give nutrition much importance. Its focus is on alleviating symptoms without always identifying the actual cause. What most of us don’t realize is that our bodies do the actual work of healing when we take medicine. Even Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, said, “Let food be thy medicine and thy medicine food”.
Medicine originally was extracted from plants, herbs, and spices. It was easy for the body to absorb with very few bad side effects. In our modern era, most medicines are created synthetically in laboratories so that they can be patented and profitable. Unfortunately, these synthetic versions affect the body strongly, creating secondary and sometimes very damaging side effects. In my opinion, medicine often acts to ease the symptoms of illnesses, which are not always the cause of the problem.
My journey into self-healing began in earnest in my late thirties. I was constantly exhausted, low in energy, and unable to function normally while running my own business. I had very high stress levels, a poor diet, and a lazy lifestyle due to working long hours. Over the years, I went to many doctors and specialists as it kept getting worse. Some days I could barely get out of bed after sleeping 10-12 hours; I was so tired. I was tested and diagnosed with multiple diagnoses such as: it was all in my head to chronic fatigue syndrome to sick building syndrome and treated accordingly. Nothing helped. The doctors really did not know what was wrong with me. All I knew was that I had no life anymore.
So, I started my quest to heal my ailment. Having studied biology, I knew the basics of how my body functioned, how my immune system and my digestive system worked.
In my quest for alternative solutions, I tried everything. I went to naturopaths, spiritual healers, energy healers, tried many holistic practices, meditations, visualizations, Chinese medicine, acupuncture, all sorts of herbs, lotions, and potions to get better. Some emptied my wallet. Others worked for a bit. I was very discouraged. I had changed my diet. I started to eat healthier. I tried to exercise despite the exhaustion. I learned how eating certain food combinations made me feel better. I studied how the liver and gallbladder interact and what caused health issues when they didn’t work well. I studied Reiki and energy healing, how to heal with herbs, foods, and spices, how to meditate, what foods helped me, and what foods harmed me. I learned how important the liver is to our health and how our gut is important to the immune system.
After nearly dying several times, my Chinese doctor suggested that I talk to my doctor and have my gallbladder tested for gallstones. I did. These revealed several large gallstones. At last, my search for a solution was at hand.
I was then given two choices: remove my gallbladder immediately with surgery, or die if it got blocked. Having suffered for over ten years and being uncomfortable with the idea of surgery, I tried to find alternatives.
I studied how native cultures healed their gallbladder issues from the South Americans, the Indians, and the Chinese, and the herbs they used. After three years of trial and error, a simple solution of natural foods dissolved the stones gradually,leaving me with a healthy liver and gallbladder. My success was measured by how I felt – from being in agony when eating very fatty, rich foods to being able to eat rich, fatty foods again, from exhaustion to feeling normal. I realized in the process that many people have had similar experiences with their own ailments for which doctors did not have a solution.
This journey helped me learn a lot about myself, my body, and how it functioned, and what I could do to help it function better. The more I learned, the happier I was to share it so that others could learn from my mistakes.
What does healing with food really mean?
What we eat is extremely important to our health. It is one of the most important building blocks. Every thirty days, new cells in our body are created based on what we ate the month before. If we eat healthy foods, our cells produce stronger, healthier cells. If we eat poorly, our cells become weaker. Over time, our diet determines our general health.
I discovered that most illnesses begin with our thoughts and emotions, which block the flow of our life energy in a particular area or organ, depending on the type of emotions. For example, in Chinese medicine, lung issues are related to sorrow, liver issues are related to anger, kidney issues to fear, lack of love to our heart, etc. Our diet and our lifestyle then add to this blockage, which, over time, puts our body in a state of dis-ease.
Our body is a finely tuned instrument. Its function is to ensure optimum health given the right tools. Imbalances due to extreme diets, unhealthy food, and toxic substances create consequences in the body, which it has to overcome and rebalance to function effectively again. If this does not happen, dis-ease occurs. It starts with allergies, skin rashes, headaches, tiredness, and the feeling that something is wrong with our body. If the cause is not addressed, then it progresses gradually to a chronic state.
Dis-ease is a warning sign from our body that most of us ignore or don’t understand. For example, it takes cancer over 10 years to develop and show up on a diagnostic tool. Along the way, there are subtle signs in and on the body indicating a dis-ease issue. When we ignore these subtle warnings, we end up in a chronic state. Then we go to our doctors for help to the best of their ability and knowledge. Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine can diagnose our health by simply looking at our eyes, our tongue, our skin, our pulse, and our excretions. Their diagnoses are very accurate as they have a history of over 3,000 years of trial and error.
By eating the right foods and food combinations, changing our lifestyle and mindset, we can all improve our health, reverse aging, and promote ease in the body. We can also reverse many diseases if caught in the early stages.
What can you suggest for people who have digestive health issues? For weight loss?
Digestive health issues are signs of an imbalance in our diet. Commercial farming with the heavy use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and genetically modified foods, and a lack of minerals and nutrients in the food, damages our gut health. We are faced with thousands of toxic chemicals that we breathe in, sleep on, live in, wear, consume, and use in our homes on a daily basis. All of these have to be processed by the liver and removed through our gut, our bladder, our lungs, and our skin. Add to that our extreme stress levels, and it is a disaster waiting to manifest. This toxic overload overwhelms the body’s ability to do its job efficiently, and dis-ease begins to rear its head, letting us know that it cannot cope.
Good digestive health starts with ingesting enough fiber in our diet. Fiber acts as a vacuum cleaner, sweeping our intestines of toxins and anything that our body does not need. We need water to flush out these toxic wastes. Vegetables that we used to eat in abundance, such as cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts, are very lacking in our daily Western diet. Most vegetables have fiber, are slightly alkaline, and help us bring our bodies into balance by nourishing the good bacteria in our gut. These days, we eat and drink fast foods that are extremely acidic, and these create a breeding ground for dis-ease in our gut.
Our liver is the next most important organ in our body, with over 500+ functions, most of which science is still not aware of. Everything we eat, breathe, drink, and feel is processed by the liver. It is the project manager of the body. Today, we live in a very stressful world. Chronic stress and anger are great ways to damage our liver. The good news is that given the right tools, the liver can regenerate itself. Foods that taste bitter to the tongue are usually very good for the liver, for example, bitter gourds, winter melon, endives, chicory, artichokes, asparagus, dandelion greens, etc.
Our digestive system functions best when what we eat is at room temperature or body temperature. So, a bowl of soup or warm water before a meal will help improve our digestion. Cold water, especially ice water, is very toxic to both the liver and the digestive system.
When the liver and gut function efficiently, weight loss happens naturally. When either is out of order, we tend to gain weight. So instead of dieting, it is much easier to strengthen the liver and improve gut health.
Our body is a closed system – when you give it nutritious food for its needs, it will be satisfied, make you feel full, and you will remain at the same weight. If you eat too much food, it has to be stored it and so you will gain weight. If you eat too little, it uses up the stored excess so you lose weight.
Warm soup warms up our digestive system so that it functions at its peak capacity. Our ancestors knew that.
If your diet does not give you the nutrition your body needs, you will get cravings for a particular food that has the mineral or nutrient it needs. For example, during the menstrual cycle, women are often low in magnesium, causing muscle cramps and a craving for chocolate. Eating chocolate gives the body the magnesium it needs.
How to prevent and heal allergies naturally through nutrition?
Allergies are a warning sign that the body is not at ease. Something is irritating the immune system, causing the immune system to turn on itself, hence the allergy. Again, the best solution is to help our digestive system, as that will allow it to heal itself. Some allergies can be helped with bee pollen daily or raw, unpasteurized honey. However, until the irritant is sorted out, allergies will continue to create problems.
Is there any spice or nutrient that can be used for high blood pressure?
High blood pressure, like diabetes, is generally a lifestyle dis-ease and they are interrelated. Both are caused by eating more than the body needs, so it has to store the excess, usually in the abdomen and the arteries. Our bodies were designed to eat just enough to function effectively, with occasional fasts to absorb any excess stored in them.
This excess storage causes constriction in the blood flow, like a twist in a garden hose that will cause the pressure to build. Our Western lifestyle encourages us to eat far more than our body need and to eat a lot more carbohydrates (bread, rice, starch, potatoes), which then have to be stored somewhere. Since our body is a closed system, it needs to store the excess food in the body away from the main organs until one day, it can re-use it. When we overeat all the time, the buildup of fat becomes excessive, preventing the organs from functioning effectively, causing dis-eases such as high blood pressure and diabetes.
I have seen many cases of early-stage high blood pressure and diabetes disappear after a healthy weight loss.
Foods that are high in magnesium and potassium are excellent for lowering high blood pressure… celery, pistachios, chia seeds, broccoli, citrus fruits, lentils, bananas, etc.
Vegetable fiber is another natural way to reduce both high blood pressure and diabetes. Psyllium husk is excellent for this. It needs to be taken with lots of water to keep it soft as it flows through the intestines. This fiber vacuums the intestines and the arteries to clean them of excess fat and toxins. It also feeds the good bacteria, which break down our food and keep our immune system healthy. Fiber also slows the absorption of food in the digestive tract, slowing down the spikes of sugar after meals for diabetics. These spikes damage the pancreas over time. If one takes the psyllium husk an hour before a meal, it helps in losing weight and preventing sugar spikes.
Through my own research, I discovered that if one strengthens the liver with nourishing foods, it is then able to work more effectively and can heal the body naturally. This also applies to diabetes and high blood pressure.
What about ulcer and diabetes?
As mentioned above, diabetes can be reversed and eliminated in its early stages by healing the liver and losing weight. The more chronic the illness, the longer it takes to heal it until it gets to a point of no return.
An ulcer is basically a sore… where the protective lining of the body has been damaged, allowing acidic body fluids to seep in and create more damage. This is usually caused by poor diets, by excess stress, or both. Again, a warning by the body that something is causing it dis-ease. Depending on where the ulcer is located, it can be easily helped by placing a natural protective barrier between it and the underlying lining until it can heal itself.
A mouth ulcer can easily be fixed using a dab of cornstarch on it and replacing it as often as needed until the ulcer is healed. The cornstarch acts as a protective barrier, preventing the acids in the mouth from penetrating the lining of the mouth, allowing the body to heal the sore. With stomach or gut ulcers, drinking psyllium husk fiber half an hour before a meal in a glass of water, followed by a second glass of water, will coat the stomach and gut, allowing a protective barrier to form, preventing the digestive acids from corroding the lining further. Keep doing this until the body heals itself. Interestingly enough, curries seem to help with stomach and gut ulcers, yet doctors often recommend a bland, milk-based diet, which tends to make it worse.
For you, what is the healthiest spice, if there is one?
My personal preference is turmeric (curcuma). It is such a versatile spice. It is a natural antibiotic, anti-virus, anti-fungus,and a natural blood thinner. It can be used to preserve food, to heal wounds, sprains, and so on. Having said that, everything in moderation is good, anything in excess is dangerous in the body, and that includes turmeric. All spices and herbs have specific properties for healing. One needs to know which ones to use for what issues and during what season. The more varieties of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and spices we eat, the healthier we will be.
Any advice for people in this moment where the energy is strong and our body is experiencing different symptoms? (Like fatigue, appetite, or no appetite, etc.)
Go with the flow… as the solar and photon energies are very strong at this moment, our body has to adapt to them, and that takes a lot of energy. We need to listen to our body’s needs. Rest often when one is tired, especially during the day, eat high-quality nutritious food, especially fruits and vegetables when hungry, drink the best water you can get your hands on, light exercise, especially yoga or stretching, and meditate daily. Walk with bare feet on the ground as it helps to ground our energy with the Earth’s energy. Spend a lot of time in nature, especially around trees, and soak up the sun. Smile, laugh, and do things that make you happy.
What is the main reason people contact you for a consultation?
The main reason people contact me for a consultation is to learn how to improve their health, to return to a state of ease through energy healing, through healing with food and food supplements, using the right food combinations, healing their minds and bodies, and mostly to learn how to prevent dis-ease. Our mind and body are interconnected and need to be addressed together. One affects the other. I use many methods to help teach people how to help themselves physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so that they can heal themselves naturally.
Our body is an amazing miracle if we get out of the way and allow it to do what it does best, which is to heal itself. Its job is to keep healthy and work efficiently. Our lack of education about our own body’s needs causes us to harm it without realizing it through our lifestyle, our diet, and our thinking.
When one is unable to get quality nutrients one needs through food, sometimes we have to turn to good quality food supplements to help us. I often recommend a worldwide company that makes these high-quality supplements, which have been scientifically tested and proven to work well. They have a team of doctors, nutritionists, and naturopaths on board. We have used these supplements for over 10+ years and recommended them to many clients with excellent results.
How can people get in touch with you for a consultation?
The easiest way is by email at healingwithfood@substack.com. Then we can arrange a chat via Zoom, Facetime or Whatsapp.
My website https: //healingwithfood.substack.com/