What's the best Raw Diet?

[Guest guest]

Nora,

I greatly appreciate your comments, but this debate also shows a few things that

ARE worth addressing....

 

1) I'm finding that blood type is a substantial separator for diet types.

 

2) Every BODY is different and needs different foods, and thus a way to find

what will work best. A friend of mine here in WV (who was the only other raw

foodist I knew until last month - when she dropped it) encountered serious

physical difficulties after several years being 100% raw. She had been to many

raw authorities and taken many intelligent measures to see that she was doing

what was best for her. The crisis came when she attended a raw retreat facility

for 2 weeks where she was fed the natural hygiene diet in spite of showing

obvious and serious physical signs of bodily stress. I only mention this

because as an intelligent and conscientious person who took all possible steps

to find out what was right, she had problems that were getting worse and no one

could tell her what would make it better. In the end she trusted her body and

broke from the raw diet. I then gave her the book I had " Eat Right for your

(Blood) Type " and she found her symptoms described along with the foods to take

for medicine. (I didn't really know it was going to help her - I had originally

bought the book for someone else and hadn't read it myself)

 

3) The knowledge that individuals need to address their own diet needs is not

" what to do? " but " Where do I find out what to do? "

 

Some of the arguments in the discussion here today remind me of the newspaper

articles where Raw Food diets are attacked by cooking chefs with nothing more

than superficial knowledge. I agree the bible is a good source of spiritual

guidance and captivating storytelling, but in choosing a diet that is right

you'll get the best results if you check several reliable sources until you find

some agreement between them.

 

Ultimately I hope we will all work toward what is in the long-term best interest

for everyone/everything on the planet. Food is at the foundation of that and we

all do best to spread that realization. We can do that best if we can provide a

central, accessible and authoritative place for the best information (including

troubleshooting charts when we have questions.)

 

It's very exciting to be having this conversation because I feel like something

big is going to come of it. Thanks to all of you for your input, I hope mine

has been of some use to someone. Without question it is absolutely essential to

get the purest food grown under the best conditions and harvested at the best

time then prepared in the best way. Most of us on this list are already doing

that. If everyone did I'm certain that we would spend much less time arguing

about problems and more time creating joyful solutions.

 

Hope this helps.

 

If anyone wants to call and find out the name of the facility I discussed please

contact me off-list and I will provide it.

 

Nickolas Hein

Morgantown WV

-

Nora Lenz

RawSeattle

Monday, May 10, 2004 1:04 PM

Re: [RawSeattle] disturbing interview

 

 

This interview illustrates just how gullible, susceptible, fearful and

insecure we in the raw

food movement (for lack of a better name) are that we can so easily be made to

feel less than

confident about what we're doing.

 

Mark has a good point, it would be nice to know who the guy is talking about.

Are we to

believe that all raw food authors and leaders are hiding physical disabilities

like having

trouble walking, " B12 anemia " , etc.? Since he doesn't name names it seems

like that's what he

wants us to think. Personally, my favorite " leader " is Loren Lockman, not

only because what

he's doing works and has been demonstrated to work, but because I know he

walks the talk.

Maybe you've never met him, Shari. If you did I'm sure it would be as obvious

to you as it is

to me that he has no hidden physical disabilities. He's been raw and vegan

for 12 years. The

same goes for Robert Rust (15 years), Joyce Divic (7 years, I believe), Eric

Farris (3 1/2

years), and myself (3 1/2 years). We really ARE healthy, we're not faking it.

People who are

tempted to doubt whether a raw vegan diet is optimal for humans need only ask

what it is that

all five of us (among many others who are succeeding) have in common. There's

a right way to

be raw, and there are many, many wrong ways.

 

In order for me to give any credence even to this person's first-hand

experiences with his own

diet (forget the rest, there is no credence to be had), I'd have to know,

firstly, what he was

eating during the 5 years he was " raw vegan " ? It is well known and

acknowledged by everyone

who understands health that it is not enough to be raw and vegan. A person

can create real

difficulties for himself if mistakes are made, especially over that length of

time.

 

Secondly, has the protein horse not been beaten into China by now, for cryin'

out loud? There

are dozens of facts that can serve to ease our minds regarding protein. The

one I love to use

is the mother's milk analogy. I've yet to hear one comment from anyone that

even begins to

refute the obvious and logical good sense of it. Anyone who has the slightest

doubt that we

can get all the protein we need from vegan foods has a lot of learning and

UN-learning to do.

 

To make some of their points (which are usually centered around making us

fearful enough to

buy their supplements), some raw food leaders like to use the vegan studies

that have been

done that show vegans to be less than healthy. The vegan diet that is eaten

in ALL of these

studies is known to be disease-causing. Is it any wonder that there is

disease among people

who eat it? Here's an idea for a study: Find 1,000 people who eat like Loren

Lockman, Robert

Rust or I do, follow them around for 20 years and have them report all their

symptoms. If a

study like that was ever done, and showed that the subjects had problems that

could be related

exclusively to their diets (which would be darn near impossible), it might be

worth looking

at. Even then there would be SO much contrary information to consider that it

would be

impossible to indict their diets as the source of the problems.

 

I'm disappointed in Frederic for giving this person a forum from which to

plant seeds of doubt

in the minds of people who are struggling to discern truth from BS. This

article is so full

of the latter (including the nonsensical, undying B-12 concern), I couldn't

even begin to have

time to elucidate all the errors in its conclusions.

 

Thanks, Shari, for posting this so we could expose it for what it is!

 

Nora