4pm CT, Saturday, 27 December 2014, 90.1 FM KKFI, Kansas City, MO, kkfi.org, "Mother Bey," Kansas City Spiritual Leader

Food Fight! Waging Love ! 

kkfi.org  90.1 FM Kansas City, MO Community Radio Program

Helen Torrence Bey,

“Mother Bey”

Kansas City Spiritual Leader:

 84 years young “How to Live” and “What to Eat”

• 4-5pm CT,  Saturday, December 27^th , 2014  
• KKFI, 90.1 FM, kkfi.org, Kansas City, MO  
• On-air call-in number 816 931 5534

“I am here to express the divine essence of life, what we can give to our bodies to make it a more perfect temple. To give out to the world love, peace, truth and justice for a better world...that’s heaven.”

Helen Torrence Bey, “Mother Bey,” is a spiritual leader living in Bonner Springs, having grown up in Kansas City, KS. She was born in Serepta, Louisiana, right across the border from Arkansas and deeply influenced by her maternal grandfather, Isiah Lewis.

“Mother Bey” is a retired social worker, community activist, long time Kansas resident, (KCKS) ,and  business owner. She founded and ran a group home for children for 11 years.  She also founded and ran several business including a beauty shop and restaurant.  She is a Divine Minister of the Morris Science Temple, and a long time KC Black United Front Member. 

Born in the middle of the 19^th century, Mother Bey says, her maternal grandfather, Isiah Lewis,  took himself and his mother out of slavery when he was 13. “He just took her hand and walked off the plantation,” starting his own farm where he worked all his life, until he died at 104, she says. He was never ill; he didn’t even wear glasses. The doctor said his heart just gave out. At 104, says Mother Bey, he still had all his own teeth and had never been in a hospital or on medication. He was a medicinal healer, she shares. Mother Bey remembers going down home to visit him when she was about 14, and they walked three miles from the train station to his farm; he was about 94 at that time, she estimates. 

Says “Mother Bey,” “I am no better than anyone else and no one  is better than I. She doesn’t like titles and emphasizes that you have to be humble and that it isn’t about her; “it’s the God in her.” “Mother Bey” continues:

 “We come to Earth to express God; this body is a vehicle for God. We need to take care of ourselves, body, mind and spirit, so God can have a better residence and can work through us here on Earth. ..This is the only thing that is going to heal this world..tapping into the divine knowledge in us, right now, not after we die.” 

As a child, growing up in Kansas City, Kansas, she suffered upper respiratory problems and had her tonsils out. In 1960 she read a friend’s Prevention Magazine and started a quest for a healthy lifestyle and eating.  Now she walks regularly, dabbles in weight lifting and always eats greens, al dente, kale, collards, mustard's and turnips. Sometimes she breaks the stems off and makes a green smoothie with them. She tries to eat as close to raw as she can. 

She loves beans, lentils and brown rice. While she acknowledges being raised on white rice, she shared that white rice has been processed to actually take the nutrients out of it so she eats brown rice. She particularly loves pinto, navy, white, northern, and lima beans and she strives to eat them fresh and shells them herself like her family did when she was a child. “A lot of people don’t know about that, she says.” She doesn’t eat canned food or white potatoes which are just starch without nutrients she says. She recommends eating sweet potatoes which are good for you. She recommends baking them and not using sugar. 

Finally, she eats fish that are wild caught, but not a lot because of the mercury content. She doesn’t eat farm raised fish because of the antibiotics and processed and unhealthy food substances they feed the fish. She eats some turkey occasionally and doesn’t eat out; a lot of that restaurant food has a lot of salt she says which contributes to high blood pressure. She also eats a lot of salads and fresh vegetables. 

“Mother Bey” concludes by sharing that it is crucial that human beings give some thought to their purpose in life and that figuring this out and nurturing it will lead us to a lot of other things:

 “There was a purpose in our coming to earth and it is important that we give some time and thought to who we are and what our purpose is. Everything in nature gives something…the trees… are giving something as well as receiving. Why are we different?  We are not here just to soak up. We are here to give back. As a higher form of life, it is even more important that we give back. When we figure this out, this world will be a heaven.”

Food Fight! Waging Love! Community Radio Program

In Memory of  Charity Mahouna Hicks, Detroit Global Peace, Human Rights and Environmental Leader
"This is about waging love; we love ourselves, we love our children, we love the earth, we love all of life. So This is not a protest this is actually an act of waging love. The love we are talking about is the love of life not the love of death."  ----Charity Mahouna Hicks