Auckland health researcher and mentor Jason Shon Bennett threw his asthma puffer away more than 20 years ago and opted for the ''good life''. Now he's in demand internationally to share his health secrets. Sue Fea found out Bennett holds nothing back.
If Kiwi health guru Jason Shon Bennett's wholefood diet regime doesn't make you squirm then wait for his graphic portrayal of the huge importance of bowel motions.
But there's no denying that the guy is walking, bouncing, full-of-vitality proof that what he's advocating works.
Born two months premature, Aucklander Bennett was ''your classic sick kid, teen and adult'', plagued by asthma, hay fever, allergies and eczema.
''I was receiving 16 shots of Ventolin a day and steroid injections. It had kicked in real bad by the time I was 5. I had low immunity, caught every bug that was going around and suffered from bowel problems and fatigue.''
''I was told by doctors I was incurable, to take Ventolin and go home. Then one day, aged 20, I had a wake-up call. I started reading, researching and experimenting with my health.''
It was before the days of the internet and Bennett read every library book on health, diet, lifestyle, fasting, bowel health and genetic expression (how genes express and form cells in the gut) and studied the lifestyle of centenarians around the world.
''Before that I had no education about this. I was a musician, a bum basically. I didn't know that [breakfast cereal] was causing my asthma.''
''I started getting well, and then I got really well, and people started asking me why I was so well. I went from constipation to three bowel motions a day. My asthma, skin conditions and hay fever were all totally cured within five years.
''I haven't been sick or caught any bugs since then and I've been off all medications for more than 20 years.''
Bennett worked in health-food stores and kept researching, and began writing his first book in 2006. Eat Less, Live Long - a guide to what Bennett terms ''regular intelligent fasting''- is to be released early next year.
He strongly recommends against fasting until people are passing three good bowel motions a day, which can take about three months to achieve.
Even then fasting should only be for one day a week to give the gut and liver a good rest.
''If you have a broken leg, you don't keep walking on it. When animals are sick you see them rest from eating,'' Bennett says.
''If the filter in your car is dirty or full you change it. Our filter is our liver and most people over 50 have overworked, pickled, sick livers.
''We see animals going [passing motions] all the time. When your bowel is clean, your immunity is strong and your genetic expression is good. Most people's bowels are polarised by sugar, rich processed foods and processed meats.''
The unhealthier you are the harder it is to fast and some people enter a ''healing crisis'': ''It's whether you've got the gumption to get through it,'' Bennett says.
''Eighty-five percent of your immunity is in your gut and immunity runs the respiratory system. We're designed to run on veges. Fibre runs our digestive systems.''
Bennett says initially he turned down requests to advise doctors and naturopaths: ''I said, 'No, I'll write a book and you can buy it'.''
It wasn't until he got ''mobbed in the street'' in his Ellerslie neighbourhood in 2009, after agreeing to hold a community health seminar, that his wife Tracey convinced him he had to start helping people.
He started out with 14 people around the dining-room table at home, all incorporating a radical change in diet, and one day a week fasting, drinking only fresh vegetable juices.
The results were astounding. One person lost 30kg and others were cured of everything from skin to mental health conditions, he says.
''Brain proteins are made in the gut. If you get the gut, which is your engine room, and the liver right, then everything falls into place. We've seen amazing results with people suffering from things like depression.''
Now in his mid-40s, Bennett is in his fifth year of travelling around New Zealand and Australia taking seminars and has been invited to Canada in March, and will possibly tour the United States.
He's regularly advising doctors, pharmacists, naturopaths and nutritionists and has recently just completed a New Zealand speaking tour, promoting a healthy lifestyle and his programme, ''the life plan''.
His philosophy is purely common sense, based on a plant-based wholefood diet of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, wholegrains and legumes.
Gluten, fat, salt and sugar are strictly off limits, as are coffee and alcohol. Don't get him started on alcohol.
''Most New Zealanders class two drinks a night as 'moderate drinking', when in fact it's one drink a week,'' he says.
Bennett gave up drinking at 18, before introducing his regime: ''I woke up in a pile of vomit and realised I only drank because everyone else did it. I was being a sheep.''
He says every time alcohol hits the liver, it must produce acetaldehyde.
''We create it [acetaldehyde] every time we drink. It's listed by the World Health Organisation as being as toxic as cigarette smoke, nuclear grade plutonium and aluminium. It's enormously toxic. Yet $1.3 billion is spent on booze a year in New Zealand supermarkets.''
Bennett says food, cigarettes, alcohol, stress and lack of sleep are causing 25,000 needless deaths around the world every day.
New Zealand women are ''under-slept by six or six and a-half hours a night'' and all the latest research points to this lack of sleep being behind an increasing incidence of bowel cancer, heart disease and breast cancer.
''Routine is very important. Every creature on Earth has a good routine, even the stars, but we're losing that with technology and other distractions. I coach people to be in bed at 9pm and see great results.''
In fact, Bennett will back your grandmother up all the way. His catchcries are ''eat your fruit and vegetables, get to bed early, don't drink alcohol and get regular exercise''.
''By the time we're 70 most of us are falling apart. We're getting sicker earlier, not in our 70s and 80s, but now in our 30s and 40s. Every year major diseases like cancer grow and the age of patients is dropping.''
Researchers are now saying 90% to 95% of modern diseases, such as cancer and diabetes, are not genetic.
''The World Health Organisation has confirmed that 90% of breast cancer is not genetic. That can be very emotive for people, but I hold nothing back.''
Diabetes has grown by more than 1000% in 25 years and 29% of deaths are caused by cancer now, compared with 7% in the 1970s.
He even has government departments showing interest.
''They know that if they don't do something countries will be bankrupt in 10 to 20 years. Two-thirds of everyone over 65 will be unwell, so it's a serious economic issue coming.''
The New Zealand Treasury spent $13 billion on ill-health during 2011, Bennett says.
''Half the world will be elderly by 2050 and the other half will be sick. The rest will be kids. There's going to be a huge burden on the taxpayer and the economy if we don't fix this problem.''