Inner Raw.

[Guest guest]

The most interesting part of moving from SAD,

Standard Australian Diet, to RAW is, for me, the

psychological aspects.<br><br>The basic distinction we make is

between the inner and the outer.<br><br>Distinctions are

maintained by taboos, often unspoken. For instance, in

Austalia, raw food is regarded as disgusting, bad or mad.

And so those eating raw are disgusting, bad or mad.

Only a person with a strong ego can persist in the

face of this social storm. A person with a weak ego

will disintegrate.<br> <br>We are breaking the taboo,

and eating raw food. We are changing our inner while

the rest of society is rigidly maintaining the

distinction.<br><br>We are slowly becoming different people so we can

expect resistance.<br><br>Some describe this resistance

in purely physical terms. They say it is

detoxifying.<br><br>Some describe it in psychological terms. They say it

is paranoia, nervousness, irritability and mood

swings.<br><br>Some, interestingly, describe it in social terms. They

say Society has a financial interest in selling

processed food and in creating large scale

addiction.<br><br>I am more interested in the psychological aspect.

Most of us here are different to begin with. Some of

us are unbalanced and some of us are

gifted.<br><br>For the gifted, RAW can open up the inner life. It

can provide energy and sensitivity to the process of

individuation. RAW can help a gifted person realise their

potential.<br><br>The unbalanced are unable to assimilate the benefits

of RAW and so become more unbalanced.<br><br>For the

gifted, it is of benefit to share the story of their

personal growth and, apart from sheer information, that is

why this group is important.

[Guest guest]

Thanks Shortus for the kind words. I also respect

you and all the other regular posters on this group.

Even the occasional posters who pop in and out are

usually sincere in their desire to learn about why people

are into raw. I don't fully deserve as much praise as

some of you like Kauguy, OrionsDad, RawFoodRules etc

who are 100% or extremely close. I've been about 50%

for the last couple years and reading the posts keeps

me motivated and interested in the concepts. Plus

there's good tips on " alternative " health issues.When I

get in the right frame of mind, I'm going to up the

raw percentage.<br><br>Of the various psychological

categories you mentioned raw foodist fall into, I fall into

the one that says the reason we don't have more raw

foodists is due to capitalism or profit-motive of the food

(or fude) industry (I'm also completely pragmatic and

believe raw food is the most efficient way to solve most

health and many social ills).<br><br>The US dairy

industry and agrichemical industries (just 2 examples) are

huge industries with enormous finanical resources.

Dairy, for example, collect a percentage of gross sales

from all farmers to fund their propaganda campaign to

perpetuate the myth we need ever expanding amounts of milk

to maintain healthy bones. They can afford to pay

the worlds most expensive supermodels to put milk on

their lips in full page ads. Most American are

genuinely afraid what will happen if they don't drink milk

daily.<br><br>Agrichemical industry (and pharmaceutical among others) is

infiltrating our governmental agency FDA, Food & Drug

Administration (supposed to protect us), to push through

approval for synthetic growth hormone (this was approved

years ago, but is still banned in Europe and most of

the world), genetically modified crops and food and

the like. They do this a number of ways including

paybacks by hiring top officials into private industry

high-paying jobs, paying unrealistic " honorariums " or

speaking fees for officals to speak at industry

events,etc. The only difference between third-world and first

world corruption is the size of the bribes and the

creativeness of the methods used.<br>to be (or not to be)

continued...

[Guest guest]

Fude (trademark of " rawfoodrules " ) industry and

agrichemical business keep the public in the dark on these

issues by use of coercive techniques; i.e. almost

unlimited source of funds to fight legal battles etc. Plus

there's so much consolidation of news media in this

country where the media is owned by corporate

conglomerates who don't want to risk having to fight costly

legal battles with other conglomerates. Take a look at

www.foxbghsuit.com if you want to see how one large agrichemical

company used it's legal/financial muscle to try and

coerce a large media company to get its news reporters

to change a story that was damaging to their

business. They wrecked these people financially, but were

unable to take their dignity. One of the reporters won a

battle in court, but the other parties who control the

media lied about the outcome in their news

programs!<br><br>My point is that there is hugh money to be made in

the processed food industry and that ever increasing

pool of money is used to ensure the growth of the

processed food industry and to convince the general

population they " need " processed food to be healthy. They're

not above using scare tactics which many of the

posters on this board can attest to by virtue of the

questions they're asked by typically clueless

cooked-fudists - " well, what do you drink in place of milk? " how

do you get enough protein, do you eat tofu? "

etc.<br><br>I don't think this is a conspiracy, rather I think

it is one of the less-desirable side-effects of

totally unrestrained capitalism. My concern is that our

political leaders are now too tainted by hugh corporate

campaign contributions and are content to turn a blind eye

to the costly destruction to health caused by

letting these interests carry out their profit-driven,

but socially unresponsible practices. It's easier for

politicians to talk about government subsidies for the

pharmaceutical companies' drugs to aleviate the symptoms caused

by these issues they refuse to address

head-on.<br><br>Whew, now I feel cynical. I'm not really, I think I'm

just using my common sense to see the stupidity we've

allowed to institutionalize itself into our society. I

guess I'm both frustrated and perplexed it isn't

obvious to larger segments of society.<br><br>Have a nice

day. Y'all come back to see us, now. Hear? ;-)

[Guest guest]

Sushi is illegal in Massachusetts. The FDA seeks

to ban raw-cheese imports. Vegans think they're

safe, but the processed-food industry wants to get rid

of all raw food, through gamma-ray irradiation. If

you think cooked fude is dead, wait til you taste

irradiated ex-raw food. <br><br>I knew you'd all get a rise

off the fish-tank idea. Don't be so sectarian. The

combination of processed-food industries, restaurants and

stove manufacturers, the medical and pharmaceutical

establishments, and the entire cancer indusry would vanish in a

raw-food world, and down deep they know it, however

unconsciously. Eventually having your own gardens will be

illegal (as pot is now), to protect you from the dangers

of raw food.<br><br>Being a vegan does you no good

if your veggies are dead, whether by cooking or

whatever other fiendish 'preservative' method the

fude-ists concoct. Cooked-veggie vegans are just as

unhealthy as other fude eaters. Its rawness, not veganism

per se, that confers the healthfulness.

[Guest guest]

I agree with you on the observation that the fude

industry is now pushing irradiated food as a problem

solver.<br><br>Compared to how many people are injured in ordinary

occurrences and accidents, sickened by bad or incorrect

prescriptions given them by doctors or hospitals, etc., it

seems odd to focus on the extremely tiny percentage of

people who get " sick " from raw foods. I'm sure if you

analyzed those cases, you'd find most had compromised

immune systems due to extremely bad health or lifestyle

or possibly medications they were taking.<br><br>The

smart person recognizes that bacteria and such are ever

present in our environment and can often be our friends.

It is futile to focus on eliminating them throught

antibacterial soaps and other disproportional steps aimed at

achieving " cleanliness " . And irraditing foods in the long

term will be detrimental to our

health.<br><br>Philosophically this is analagous to certain types of people who

spend all their time worrying about and trying to

change others' behaviors. THey don't realize this is a

time waster and progress only comes about by changing

from within - from your realm of influence. That's one

reason the " family values " debate that comes up in every

political election cycle is so ludicrous. If you're relying

on a political leader (substitute rock star or

sports celebrity, etc) to teach your children right from

wrong, you're trying to absolve your own responsibility

for teaching your family and taking charge of your

own life and destiny.<br><br>It's nice if the fude

industry truly cares about those few individuals sickened

by eating fresh food. But I suspect they're more

concerned about the losses they take when they miscaluclate

and their fresh produce occasionally spoils. I hope

they realize there's different markets out there and

many of us will pay a reasonable premium to be able to

attain wholesome, unadulterted foods. A few grocery

chains recognize this concept and I support them by

shopping there and buying their organic produce when

possible.