‘There is nothing in medicine or a supplement that will benefit your health more than a good meal.’
by Nur Muhammad
MILWAUKEE—The Nation of Islam’s Ministry of Health and Human Services of Milwaukee’s Mosque No. 3 hosted a free community health workshop, “Reversing Diabetes and Other Autoimmune Disorders Naturally with Nutrition and Alternative Therapies,” on December 2, at the Atkinson Library.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website, Black people experience rates of poor health and disease in a range of health conditions, including diabetes, hypertension, obesity, asthma, and heart disease, when compared to their White counterparts. The life expectancy among Blacks is four years lower than that of Whites.
Milwaukee’s Ministry of Health’s Student Coordinator Carol Muhammad stated, “After looking at how drastic COVID-19 affected the community and finding that young children are being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, I thought that it would be a wonderful way to get together health care professionals who deal with natural ways of healing the body,” she said about the community event.
She continued, “I had worked as a nurse professionally for 25 years until 2004, when I began to homeschool my children. I invited Sister Shawntell as a speaker because she provides valuable information based on ‘How to Eat to Live.’ Our people do not know how to grocery shop. If you look at what they eat, it is not food at all.”
The workshop consisted of live and Zoom presentations from Will Allen of Growing Power, Dr. Jacqueline Muhammad, Shawntell Muhammad, and Victer Muhammad.
Will Allen is an expert farmer and presented on “Urban Farming: Growing Your Own Food.”
“I come from a family in South Carolina who has been farming for 400 years,” he said during his presentation. “Our whole purpose is bringing healthy food into the community, for folks that need healthy food. We have trained thousands of folks over the years on growing food, including Minister Farrakhan’s daughter, Betsy Jean,” he said, referring to the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam.
“The future of agriculture is not the old traditional way because of climate change; we’re going to have to learn how to grow indoors. This year has been the hottest ever on earth. Until things start reversing, we are going to have more storms, more heat, less water to be able to grow food.
We have to become very creative, growing food is very challenging. You have to have passion and perseverance and a love of growing food,” he continued.
Addressing a question regarding heirloom seeds versus conventional seeds, Mr. Allen responded: “Some heirloom seeds work out great. Today with all the airborne viruses, heirloom seeds don’t produce very well. Hybrid seeds are the better option, they are not genetically modified. Hybrids have protection against disease.”
Dr. Jacqueline Muhammad educated attendees on diabetes and pregnancy with her workshop, “Preventing Gestational Diabetes During Pregnancy.” She stated, “As a maternal-fetal medicine specialist and a farmer, I can tell you that pregnancy is very similar to farming.
Gestational diabetes is diabetes in pregnancy, there is no history of having diabetes. Diabetes is a metabolic disease in which the body cannot produce any or enough insulin or the body cannot use insulin that it produces and this causes elevated blood sugar in the blood.”
She continued, “We have a large preponderance of this disease in our community. Gestational diabetes increases the risk of neonatal hypoglycemia or low blood sugar in babies, and this can be critical for a newborn. I look at pregnancy as a stress test for diabetes because within pregnancy, there are specific hormones that affect a woman’s metabolism and insulin sensitivity, to make sure that babies can get the nutrients that they need.”
Growing your own food is a necessity for every disease, not just diabetes and pregnancy, but every disease starts with what we put in our mouths, Dr. Jaqueline Muhammad continued.
“Being able to control your own food is key. Having an environment that is suitable for exercise, getting the proper nutrients, having less environmental exposure with good air quality is essential.”
Shawntell Muhammad is a natural health advocate and student secretary for the Ministry of Health and Human Services in Chicago. She presented on “Environmental and Adverse Life Choices Contributes to Diabetes.” During Shawntell Muhammad’s presentation, she said, “Environmental impact on human health has been devastating.
The chemical atrazine is present in drinking water throughout the United States. This chemical has been linked to diabetes among other detrimental diseases. What makes this chemical so interesting is that it is found in all water including bottled water.”
She continued, “Air pollution specifically in sacrifice zones inhabited by lower income Black and Mexican people, have been directly linked to Type 2 diabetes. These communities have high vehicular traffic volume, numerous factories, and wildfires which all contribute to air pollution, causing an inordinate number of diabetes cases, among other debilitating diseases.”
“Food and drink products are major sources of diabetes. In the book, ‘How to Eat to Live,’ by the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he states that fried foods should not be eaten, as fried food shortens our lives. Fried food contributes to weight gain, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure all leads to diabetes. Eating non-organic food products increases the chances of the development of diabetes.
High fructose corn syrup and other harmful chemicals are found in conventional products that wreak havoc on our health. Growing our own food, fasting, eating one meal a day, and eating organic food greatly lessens our chances of developing diabetes,” Shawntell Muhammad shared.
Biomedical and agricultural research scientist Victer Muhammad presented on “Alternative Therapies vs. Traditional Medicine to Treat Diabetes.” “We have to get away from Western medicine, because according to the United States government and governments around the world, medicine and the malpractice, the mistakes, the misdiagnosis and just the chemical makeup of drugs itself cause more deaths in the United States and around the world, each year than all the diseases combined,” he said.
“There is nothing in medicine or a supplement that will benefit your health (more) than a good meal.”
Attendees enjoyed the presentations.
“It is crucial to emphasize the significance of the presentations,” Student M.G.T. Captain Melissa Muhammad said. “I believe it would be beneficial if more people could attend, considering the high prevalence of diabetes within our community.
As a teacher, I witnessed this firsthand, and I strongly believe that teaching people how to grow their own food and encouraging them to be mindful of what they consume can be truly advantageous.”
Joey Muhammad said, “I thought the event went very well, it was very informational and opened our eyes for all of us and hopefully it will help us see things more seriously. ‘How to Eat to Live’ was a prescription given to us by the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and it still stands today, as the best thing for us. Each one of the presentations impressed me with the knowledge base they have and how they delivered.”
