New Vegetarian Mag, Winter 2000: Psychological Benefits of Raw Food Veganism

[Guest guest]

The Psychological Benefits of Raw Food Veganism

By Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH, published in New Vegetarian & Natural

Health magazine Winter 2001

 

When people ask me what are the psychological benefits of veganism

they often want a packaged answer of statistics and authoritarian

opinions. The answer, however, is much more self-evaluating,

holistic and wider ranging. People become what they eat. What they

eat not only affects their behaviour, but how they eat portrays

their values, beliefs, and attitudes.

 

By veganism I mean not eating or using any kind of animal products.

I'm sure many of you will recall Gandhi saying, " The health of a

nation is reflected in the way it treats its animals. " Statistically

veganism is the better option from a health point of view, but in a

live fast-die hard society, why should it be a better psychological

option?

 

Penny rang me up and asked if I helped people with bulimia and how

long would it take to be treated. When I said around six sessions

she asked why other therapists were talking about her staying in

therapy for at least a year. I told her I could not comment, but I

would say that I worked with feeding her mind via hypnosis and

feeding her body with what it craved.

 

Alongside restructuring her memories of horrific child abuse during

hypnotic sessions we also made a pact that she would do things

differently for a while. All meat, chocolate, tea, coffee and sweet

drinks were removed from her diet. She was then to go raw over a

period of a month, eating no cooked food, and she was to eat 90 per

cent fruit, sprouts, vegetables, salads and around 10 per cent nuts

all day long.

 

We reprogrammed her mind via hypnosis so her hands and stomach

started to work differently and together. Busy fingers carefully

selected only the very best, freshest nutritional material to put

into her gut via her mouth - that was their job. They rejected most

of the products they picked up in the supermarket until the choicest

was located.

 

Penny stopped vomiting immediately, put on no weight, which was one

of her worst fears, and was ready to begin to find a way to start

liking herself and examine the way she treated her body, mind,

choice of partners, between following her passion of salsa dancing.

 

Bulimics think they want more food and they do. When they go raw in

a well balanced dietary way their brains are more likely to get the

messages that they are full because the messengers in the food have

not been damaged by heating or processing. Raw food vegans eat small

amounts all day long at spaced intervals and it is perfectly suited

to helping people who have had eating disorders. They do not have to

eat big meals, are continually drip fed nutrition, and satisfy their

cravings

 

Roger had spent several years in prison after being prosecuted for

fraud in equities dealing. He said that all his colleagues were

doing it but he had been the unlucky one who had been caught. Prison

had been a terrible shock for him with the drugs, rape and constant

violence. He had lost everything.

 

He was looking for himself, he told me on his release. Everyone on

the outside had moved on and he did not have the money to move in

that social set anymore. In examining his life he wondered how he

could eradicate the nightmares of violence he had encountered for

years in prison. In hypnosis the answers that his unconscious mind

kept coming up with was to spend his life trying to dissolve

violence. When I challenged him, when he was awake, about the

violence against animals he said he had never seen it that way

before. " But I do not want to be a crusader, " he said, " I only want

to change my life. "

 

The next week when I saw him he was very angry with me for giving

him something extra to think about besides his own problems. If the

violence against animals was not such a big issue, I asked, why was

he so angry? Many therapists do not challenge their clients for fear

of loss of income - not me. I don't mind if my clients have an

intense dislike of me as long as they are doing the work.

 

I never saw Roger again but I got a postcard from somewhere very

tropical about a year later where he was teaching water skiing

saying, " Don't smoke, Don't drink, Don't eat meat or fish, and

definitely Don't like therapists. Having a great time. "

 

Some vegans, of course, suffer from psychological disturbances such

as depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia. There is currently no

scientific evidence to say that they are less or more likely to be

immune from these disorders. But what I can tell you, from my own

observations, is that raw food vegans generally have a more stable

psychology because they are not exposed to processed sugars, food

additives, heat processed fats, denatured starches, and excessive

caffeine and tannin.

 

Depression has many causes, including physical, psychological and

social but for the majority of people it is to do with lifestyle.

When people get into psychological trouble, instead of talking it

out, they present themselves to a doctor who gets out a bag of

pills. Drug companies make a fortune out of ignoring the real causes

of many so-called depressions and it multiplies from being a folie a

(accent on a) deux to becoming a mass hallucination. In an ever

faster world, people want a quick fix.

 

Physical and psychological health must be based on a foundation of

taking care of our nutritional, physical and social needs. If you

put poor quality food into your mouth then you have less chance of

becoming, staying being well. Some vegans, as well as meat eaters,

often do not take care of their nutritional needs and end up eating

junk food. In order for a person to have energy which helps them to

feel good, the food they eat needs to be quickly metabolised so the

body can get on with its usual business of repair and renewal, and

that can only mean raw. Nature knows how to feed us far better than

some overweight executive of a food manufacturer stuffing old crops

in a box and then covering it in ice.

 

Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food (Hippocrates)

 

Our psychological make-up is also based as much on our philosophy of

life as on physiology. If we look at ourselves from time to time we

find that it's time to change the way we think. It naturally follows

that if the whole of our lives are less full of violence of every

kind then we will find inner calm more easily. Just watch children

who watch violent television programmes and see how they emulate

what they see. Many vegans believe that if they murder something to

eat it then they are eating its misery.

 

Veganism can never be only about health, statistics, the latest

research or ecology, because it is a journey that a person travels

that sets them apart from the majority. The spiritual adjustments

that go along with the readjustment of values, beliefs, and

attitudes have nothing to do with the new religion of science - they

are purely existential.

 

We must all travel our own journey whatever that leads us too.

Everyone's spiritual path to enlightenment is different from

another's. I hope in choosing your path, you have found your portion

of Nirvana.