Leo Schafer: A Lifelong Passion for Healing

Word has spread across the country and around the world of Leo Schafer's success in helping people heal with nourishing food, vitamins and minerals, herbal tinctures and natural healing techniques such as magnet therapy. At 81 years old, he's still active in running his own health food store, Schafer's Health Centre, in Unity, Sask. Always one for a challenge, he takes on cases doctors have dismissed as lost causes, and is particularly well known for helping people with cancer.

Unlike many people 20 years younger, Schafer isn't about to retire and hang up the "gone fishing" sign any time soon. How on earth does he manage it all? What keeps him going so strong?

It's quite simple, really. He loves helping people, he says. In his 37 years in the health food industry, he's helped hundreds of people who find him mostly by word of mouth find the road back to good health. He recalls one young girl, 13 at the time, who had developed a fever and black growth in her mouth. She'd gone to doctors who had tried to remove the growth, but it kept growing back. "The more they cut, the more it grew," says Schafer. He gave her a simple castor oil and olive oil poultice and some healing herbs. Now she's a happily married mom in her 30s, and the black growth is just a memory.

Schafer is no stranger to health hardships himself. Back in 1965 (he remembers the date exactly: July 18), the doctor told him he had prostate cancer and gave him only weeks to live. But instead of lying down and giving up, he decided to fight it with the help of his powerful natural allies: the fresh, healing juices of carrots, beets, celery and apples. He drank 160 ounces (one gallon) of juice every day for six months, and he's been cancer-free ever since. He now shares his knowledge of simple but powerful remedies with people who have similar health crises. "Anything and everything, you name it," he says of all the conditions that natural remedies can treat.

His love for health and healing people runs in the family, too. One son, Gary, is a naturopathic doctor, and his son-in-law, Pius (better known as Steve) Stang, also runs a health food store, Olds Health Foods and Massage Centre, in Olds, Alta.

At age 66, Stang is also going strong, with no plans to give up the family passion for health and healing. He says of his father-in-law: "When we get together, we share our experiences and talk about different products. If it's something he wants or I want, we share it with each other."

Sharing seems to play a big part in Schafer's life, whether it be health information or time with his growing family which includes six children, 18 grandchildren and six great grandchildren in the great outdoors together. A fulfilling career in natural health and a strong, vital family life: What a great combination for health and longevity!