Wigmore Diet Health Article

Definition

The Wigmore diet is named for its creator, Ann Wigmore. She devised a nutritional system called the Living Foods Program, based on a combination of wheatgrass juice, live sprouts, and fresh raw foods. It is thought that this dietary regimen, which is sometimes called raw nutrition, detoxifies and rebuilds the body. Persons following the Wigmore diet also avoid using denatured processed commercial foods or anything containing chemicals, especially pesticides. Although the Wigmore diet is essentially a vegetarian diet, its distinctive feature is its emphasis on eating foods in their uncooked state.

Origins

The Wigmore diet was developed during the 1960s by Ann Wigmore, a woman who was born in Eastern Europe in 1909 and emigrated to the United States after World War I. She credited her grandmother with teaching her natural healing methods. She did not, however, use this folk wisdom immediately but returned to it after years of ill health that included colitis, headaches, and arthritis. When she finally learned that she had cancer, she returned to her grandmother's healing methods in order to regain her health.

After testing the results of a diet based on sprouts and wheat grass juice in her own life, she wanted others to benefit from what she had learned. Ann Wigmore founded the Hippocrates Health Institute in Boston in 1963, which still teaches her methods of self-healing through a live-foods diet. Although Ann Wigmore died in a fire in 1993, her diet still attracts new followers. In recent years, the Hippocrates Institute has opened branches in southern California and Florida.

Benefits

The Wigmore diet is based on the assumption that the high levels of living enzymes in fresh raw foods, particularly wheat grass juice and fresh sprouts, provide the body with substances needed to detoxify and regenerate it. In addition to increased vitality and a strengthened immune system, the Wigmore regimen is thought to help individuals overcome some serious diseases, including arthritis, digestive tract problems, allergies, and even cancer.