How I Overcame My Juvenile Diabetes Naturally
by Sergei Boutenko
When I was ten years old I learned that I had juvenile diabetes, and would have to give myself insulin shots until the day I die. I was only ten years old, so I did not get scared or panic. I had no idea how serious juvenile diabetes was. My mother, on the other hand, understood the doctor’s every word and started to cry.
Our doctor made it very clear to my mother and me that I had to go on insulin immediately. My mother’s intuition however told her that insulin was not the answer to my problems. The argument that followed ended with the doctor threatening to call social services and us running out of the hospital and driving away, hoping to never come back.
In the next two weeks I learned a tremendous amount about diabetes. One of the first things my mother did after the doctor appointment was go to Barnes & Noble to buy $200 worth of medical books. She was determined to find an alternative way of treating diabetes. She started reading books eighteen hours every day.
Most of the medical books only told us what our doctor told us—“you must go on insulin right away.” Meanwhile we bought a blood sugar testing machine and I started poking my fingers six times a day to keep track of my blood sugar.
When my mom realized she was not going to find the information she was looking for in the medical books, she threw them all away and decided to search on her own.
To find the truth one needs to be daring. My mother began to approach healthy looking people on the streets of Denver, Colorado, asking if they knew anything about juvenile diabetes. The most common reaction to her strange questions was a weird look or an apology. But my mom kept at it. One morning while standing in line at her bank, she asked a healthy looking lady in front of her if she knew any alternative ways of treating diabetes. At first the lady looked at my mom very strangely and then replied “No . . . but I healed my colon cancer fifteen years ago.” This woman’s name was Elizabeth and she had the answer we were looking for. Elizabeth told us that most health problems were caused by poor eating habits. She was sure that if she could heal her cancer by simply changing her diet, it would be quite possible to heal diabetes.
Mom went back to the bookstore this time to buy alternative medicine books. Then one day I came home from school and realized that our kitchen looked a lot different than when I had left for school. The stove was covered up with a four-inch thick cutting board, there was a huge bowl of fruit on the table, and my microwave oven was in the garbage. What the heck was going on? When I opened the refrigerator, I noticed that all our junky normal food was gone!
At this point I started to panic! It took my mom a while to finally get me to listen to her. She explained that she had discovered something that could heal diabetes without insulin. She told me that everyone in our family was going on a diet. This diet consisted mainly of raw fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and berries. Shocked, I replied that I would much rather inject myself full of insulin and lose my kidneys than eat some crazy Raw Food Diet!
Eventually my mom convinced me to try eating this way for two weeks and decide if liked the changes. Those two weeks were the hardest, longest and most difficult of my life. Time went by so slowly that it almost seemed like years could have gone by faster.
I was craving pizza, French fries, and ice cream every single second I was awake, and when I fell asleep, I would dream of cakes, truffles, and SNICKERS.
I had a cleansing reaction to my new way of eating right away. Every morning I had a terrible migraine headache, I was weak, and my mouth was producing a smell that can only be described as rotten. After my two-week commitment, surprisingly, I decided to stay on raw foods for a month. Despite my unbearable hunger for something other then energy soup and leafy vegetables, I started feeling better. My diabetic symptoms started to disappear. I started losing extra weight, and my blood sugar levels were not as high anymore.
After I finished my month commitment I decided to go for two months. By this point my cooked food cravings had, for the most part, dispersed. My symptoms had completely disappeared and my weight continued to drop. I was not the only one who was benefiting from this diet. My sister’s asthma slowly disappeared, my mother’s heart problems were slowly but surely going away, and my father’s hyper-thyroid was healing itself without the need of any kind of surgery.
When my two-month goal was reached I had a talk with my family and came to the conclusion to keep eating raw foods. Slowly, as the years passed, all signs of my diabetes went away. And I started benefiting in ways I never thought possible. My grades in school started improving tremendously. I was no longer a “D” student but an “A&B” student. Eventually I dropped out and began home schooling, finishing two grades in one year. Now, at age sixteen, I am finishing up my first year at our local community college in Ashland.
My energy and fitness ability also improved from raw foods. Before I began eating raw, I could not even run a half a mile. I was always tired and depressed.
Now after seven years of staying 100% raw, I am able to run 12 miles up hill in an hour and a half and not ever lose my breath. I can snowboard for twelve hours, (six hours in the day and six hours at night) and still have enough energy to go for a long distance run. My self-esteem has increased to the point where I never feel depressed but in fact I am happy no matter what happens.
Thanks to raw foods I have become a freer person. After about my second year of eating live foods, I began to open up spiritually. Many of my fears that held me back from learning vanished. I noticed I was constantly radiating joyous light. I learned about such things as intuition, karma, and meditation. I learned how to listen to my inner voice and to permanently rid myself of the feeling of boredom. Living became a pleasure to me. My family and I now travel from place to place sharing our story with other people. We have helped hundreds of people just by letting them know that there are alternative ways of healing the human body. The food that we serve at our workshops has evolved from simple fruits and vegetables into beautiful gourmet raw food. We are now able to make dishes such as mock tuna, crackers, and, yes, even chocolate cakes.
Raw food has helped me overcome an illness, but more importantly it has helped me become a happier person. I believe that being happy is the most important thing in life. A person can be wealthy, socially respected, and have perfect health, but if that person is not able to find happiness, living becomes a chore. All the things he owns do not mean anything; a person who is unhappy is miserable all throughout life. On the other hand a person who is happy does not need a huge house or an expensive car, as he will be grateful for anything that comes his way. Whether he is on top of a beautiful mountain or in an ugly prison cell, he will always be able to look at life with a smile.
I am so extremely glad that I got turned on the path of living foods through an illness, otherwise I would never had learned all the things I know now.
Sergei Boutenko came from Russia to the United States with his family when he was a child. The whole family has been involved in the raw foods lifestyle for seven years and each has a dramatic personal story of healing as a result of this diet. Sergei is now 16 years old and attends college in Ashland, Oregon. He and his family will be presenting at the Raw and Living Foods Festival 2001, in Portland this June.
