Carrot juice literally changed my life. For that I have to thank Norman Walker, "The Carrot Juice Man".

The year was 1985, just before my 30th birthday. For the first 30 years of my life, I had been weak and sickly, constantly falling sick and visiting the doctors every two to four weeks.

I was having endless bouts of flu and what the doctors called "URTI" or "upper respiratory tract inflammation" - meaning I was unwell but not sick enough to get medical leave from work.

The bigger, more constant problem, was my sinus. My nose was always either blocked or runny.

I had grown up with this problem and lived with it for 30 years. It was normal for me, normal to sneeze at every opportunity, normal to breathe through my mouth because my nostrils were blocked. I never thought that my condition could be cured.

Food Cure

Norman Walker told me that it could.

He wrote in his book, Raw Vegetable Juices, that food was the cause of all health problems, and food was also the cure.

His solution was simple. It consisted of two parts - and I must emphasise the importance of both parts because many people who know my story tend to remember only the first, yet the second is probably the more important:

1. Drink plenty of raw vegetable juices, particularly carrot juice.
2. Stop taking milk and milk products, refined flour products, and meat.

I tried it and it worked. I stopped taking milk and dairy foods, I reduced drastically my intake of meat and refined grains, I started eating brown rice, wholemeal bread and wholemeal pasta.

I began drinking large amounts of carrot juice, 4 to 6 glasses a day - until my palms turned orange. Walker had assured in his book that this was "natural" - a result of toxins being discharged through the skin. So I wasn't too worried.

But many of my friends were. They asked if I was drinking too much carrot juice. My reaction was this: If I was drinking 4 to 6 cans of Coco Cola each day, no one would ask a single question, no one would be worried.

Intellectual reasoning aside, however, I had the best possible reason for ignoring the concerns of my friends: I was getting better. My sneezing and runny nose was subsidising. By the fourth month, it had subsided more than 90 percent.

I stopped getting the flu and URTI. And so I stopped going to the doctors (except, briefly, for another problem which I will tell you about shortly). I stopped taking antibiotics, anti-histimines, pain killers and other medication.

That was in 1985. I have not gone back to the doctors and their medicines ever since.

Discharge

Not all was well, however.

I soon developed a rash that proved exceptionally persistent. Every evening, the rash would arise around the abdomen and inner thighs.

Walker had written about "toxin discharge". He had warned about a "healing crisis" - when other symptoms start to appear as a result of the body cleansing itself of toxins. Still, I got a bit worried because the rash simply would not go away. It lasted several months.

I consulted my doctor, who referred me to a skin specialist. The skin specialist scratched his head! He did not seem to understand what was going on, he did not know what to do. That really made me lose faith in the medical profession.

I went back to my doctor and he was kind - and open minded - enough to suggest that I consult a Chinese sinseh (practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine).

The sinseh, at least, did not scratch his head. He made general statements about me having "poor blood circulation" and being "weak". However, he made these statements with full confidence. At least he seemed to know what was going on.

But this is another story which I will tell more about another time. Back to Norman Walker...

His own life story was quite remarkable. Around the age of 50, he developed severe cirrhosis (hardening) of the liver and nearly died. He fasted on pure (I think distilled) water and, by the third day, was almost fully recovered.

That led him to a diet of mainly salads and fruits with lots of carrot and other vegetable and fruit juices. He went on to live well beyond 100 - different reports say he died at the age of 106, 108 or 117.

And of course, many people have testified that they have been helped - some had their lives saved! - by the yeachings of Norman Walker.

Flaws

But as I read and studied more about natural health, I realised that there were some serious flaws in Walker's teachings.

First, he ignores the fact that everyone is different and has different needs. Instead, he tells everyone to drink lots of carrot juice and to eat as much raw vegetables as possible. While some people may benefit from his recommendations, others may actually find their conditions worsening.

Second, it is not natural. It is not natural to need an electrical juicer and / or blender before you can eat and drink!

Third, a diet of raw vegetables and fruits is very weakening in the long term - unless certain counter measures are taken.

Some people balance a raw foods diet with cooked meat - they eat steaks with salads. Some eat raw liver. Others spend long hours in the sun. And so on.

Also, many of the people who benefitted from a raw foods diet had previously eaten lots of meat. I was one of them. I grew up hardly eating any vegetables. My standard family meal was rice with pork, chicken, eggs, fish... For people like us, salads and fruits balance our past.

Even then, a raw foods diet is helpful more as a temporary cleansing measure, for a few months to a few years, depending on your condition. It is not advisable as a long-term lifestyle.

The more I study about diet and health, the more I am convinced that cooked food is the most appropriate for humans. So do proceed very carefully with the advice of Norman Walker and other raw foodists such as Bernard Jensen, Leslie Kenton and Jay Kordich.

I have benefitted greatly from Walker's recommendations to drink carrot juice and eat plenty of salads. And so I am grateful.

I also believe that some other people could benefit from his teachings just as I did. This is why I highlight Norman Walker even though I no longer agree with his teachings.

I have moved on and returned to a diet of mainly cooked food - cooked grains, vegetables, beans and bean products plus some fish and seafood (both raw and cooked).

If you are currently on a raw foods diet, I recommend that you also move on.