Living Food for Health –
12 Natural Superfoods to Transform your Health

An extract from the book by Dr Gillian McKeith
Piatkus Books. 2000. Softback.
£6.99. ISBN 0-7499-2074-2

Parsley: Like a Multi-vitamin
     Nutritionally: the culinary multi-vitamin; a nutrient powerhouse. Contains high levels of beta carotene, vitamin B12, chlorophyll, calcium, more vitamin C than citrus fruits, and just about all other known nutrients.
     Physiologically: restores digestion, supports the liver, kidneys and adrenal glands, purifies blood and body fluids.
Benefits: helps body’s defensive mechanisms; chokes negative bacteria. A great immune booster.
     Parsley is just like an immune-enhancing multi-vitamin and mineral complex in green plant form. It is one of the most important herbs for providing vitamins to the body. Parsley is made up of proteins (20 per cent), flavonoids (maintain blood cell membranes, antioxidant helper), essential oils, iron, calcium, phosphorus, manganese, inositol, sulphur, vitamin K, beta carotene, and especially vitamin C.
     Parsley is a ‘warming’ food, pungent with a slightly bitter, salty flavour. It is moistening, nourishing and restoring. In addition to providing essential nutrients, it balances and stimulates the energy of organs, improving their ability to assimilate and utilise nutrients.
•    Parsley enriches the spleen and stomach, thus improving digestion.
•    It enriches the liver, thus nourishing the blood and body fluids.
•    It benefits the kidneys and uterus and has a beneficial effect on the adrenal glands.
     The high vitamin C, beta carotene, B12, chlorophyll and essential fatty acid content render parsley an extraordinary immunity enhancing food. If you want to boost your immune system, then parsley is the answer.

Valuable Nutrients
     Parsley contains particularly high levels of the following nutrients:
     Beta carotene It is an adequate source of beta carotene, which the body needs for the correct use of protein. This nutrient will benefit the liver and also protect the lungs and colon.
     Chlorophyll Parsley is abundant in chlorophyll, thus purifying and inhibiting the spread of bacteria, fungi and other organisms. When tested in laboratory research, chlorophyll from parsley showed slight anti-bacterial and anti-fungal activity. Thus, it may be used to enhance immune response and to relieve mucus congestion, sinusitis and other ‘damp’ conditions. A food which exhibits anti-bacterial activity can, therefore, aid digestive activity. Gastrointestinal organ function is not choked by negative organisms. Parsley may be used medicinally in cases of cystitis, since it has an anti-bacterial effect, and the ability to flush out waste. Chlorophyll, high in oxygen, also suppresses viruses and helps the lungs to discharge residues from environmental pollution.
     Vitamin B12 Parsley contains traces of B12 producing compounds. Such compounds are needed for the formation of red blood cells and normal cell growth, important for fertility pregnancy, immunity and the prevention of degenerative illness. The action of vitamin B12, however, is inhibited by birth control pills, antibiotics, intoxicants, stress, sluggish liver, and excess bacteria or parasites in the colon or digestive tracts. Parsley helps to counteract these inhibitors.
     Fluorine Fluorine is an important nutritional component abundantly found in parsley. Fluorine has an entirely different molecular structure from chemically-produced fluoride. Tooth decay results from a shortage of fluorine, not fluoride. It is the combination of calcium and fluorine which creates a very hard protective surface on teeth and bones. Fluorine also protects the body from infectious invasion, germs and viruses.
Essential Fatty Acids Parsley is also a source of alpha-linolenic acid, an important essential fatty acid that is too frequently deficient in today’s diets.

The Therapeutic Benefits
Digestion
Parsley is an excellent digestion restorative remedy. It promotes intestinal absorption, liver assimilation and storage. A vast majority of people today have weakened digestive function and impaired toxin elimination, Therefore, any extra help in that area is a welcome addition. Because of its high enzyme content, parsley benefits digestive activity and elimination. The parsley root in particular strengthens the spleen, and can, therefore, treat malabsorption, bad breath, weight loss, loose stools, anorexia and fatigue. It also improves the digestion of proteins and fats.
Liver
In the Manual of Pharmacology, physicians claimed that parsley is very effective in remedying liver disease. It enriches the liver and nourishes the blood. Parsley helps reduce liver congestion, clearing toxins and aiding rejuvenation. Stamina loss and low resistance to infection, point to a sluggish liver. This can manifest itself in blood deficiencies, fatigue, a pale complexion and poor nails, dizzy spells, anaemia and mineral depletion. In women, parsley improves oestrogen and nourishes and restores the blood of the uterus. Conditions like delayed menstruation, PMS, and the menopause (dry skin, irritability, depression and hair loss) can often improve.
Kidneys
Parsley is effective for nearly all kidney and urinary complaints. It improves kidney activity. Parsley is not a treatment for severe kidney inflammation, but it can help eliminate wastes from the blood and tissues of the kidneys. It prevents salt from being reabsorbed into the body tissues; thus parsley literally forces debris out of the kidneys, liver and bladder. It helps improve oedema and general water retention, fatigue and scanty or painful urination. It is an eliminant that I have even used in conjunction with complete nutritional programmes to aid the dissolving of gall stones and in cases of gout.
• Extracted with permission.