Don Bennett - The Raw Food Diet Q&A

8/9/2019 Don Bennett - The Raw Food Diet Q&A

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Ten years of questions from seekersof improved health, and over 200

thoughtful answers from an insightfulhealth creation educator

Don Bennett, DAS

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R R aa w w FFoooodd DDiiee t t and other healthy habits

Your

Questions

nswered



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Layout and Design: KayLastima ConceptsCover Concept: KayLastima Designs

Copyright: © 2011 KayLastima Publishing Company

First Edition, August 2011

ISBN: #-####-####-#

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be

reproduced by any means, except for brief quotationsaccompanied by credit, without express written consent of

the author.



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Table of Contents

Dedication, Thanks, and a Warning ..................................... 1

What this book is based on................................................... 3Introduction ......................................................................... 4

A disclaimer worth reading .................................................. 6

Categories

1. Diet .................................................................................. 82. Carbs.............................................................................. 80

3. Fat .................................................................................. 82

4. Protein............................................................................ 85

5. Nutritional Supplementation ............................................94

6. Weight ......................................................................... 1307. Exercise and Physical Activity.........................................140

8. Sleep ............................................................................ 153

9. Sun and Sunshine ........................................................ 156

10. Water and Hydration .................................................. 158

11. Fasting ........................................................................ 164

12. Cravings...................................................................... 168

13. Disease........................................................................ 174

14. Conflicting Information.............................................. 200

15. Tips............................................................................. 233

16. Perspective.................................................................. 255

Closing thoughts from the author..................................... 301



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“Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to

her tribunal every fact, every opinion.”

– Thomas Jefferson



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Dedication

This book is dedicated to my Mom, who taught me to question

everything and to think for myself.

Thanks

I wish to express my gratitude to all those who’ve asked me these

great questions throughout the years; this book wouldn’t exist without

you.

WarningThis book contains some hard-hitting, honest, straightforward

information. You will not find any sugar-coated, sanitized, tell-’em-

what-they-want-to-hear answers. This book is for those who want to

raise their level of awareness, and know what’s really going on, and

how it affects their most valuable possession; their health.

Some of the answers you will read may go against what you’ve

thus far come to believe. Indeed, there are 32 pages of questions about

conflicting information, and you’ll likely see some differences in the

chapter on diet, and certainly in the chapter on nutritional

supplementation. But these are not “differences of opinion”. You’ll

find my answers to include a good deal of explanation. And if you

come across something that conflicts with what you’ve been taught,

seek out similarly detailed explanations. Yes, it’s a shame that

everyone isn’t playing from the same sheet of music, but whataccounts for this is free-will and different experiences, perspectives,

motivations, and human nature.

When it comes to information – especially information that can

have a profound impact on your health – I advise being an educated

consumer, so I hope you will take the time to explore this entire book.

Also, you’ll no doubt see some repetition as you read through myanswers; this is unavoidable because the answers to unrelatedquestions can often have certain things in common. But repetition can be a good thing, especially when it’s reinforcing something that ‘sgood to know, and something you want to remember.



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Foreword

When the author of a book asks someone to write a foreword, the person will no doubt come up with some nice things to say. But, to

my mind, it would be more useful to the readers of this marvelous book to hear things that people were moved to say about the authorand his work without being asked; things that truly came from theheart. So here are a few unsolicited comments from some of Don’scolleagues, clients, and other folks who appear to be very good judgesof character. – Judith Clark

“Don is one of the most intelligent health educators I have

ever met. He is very honest and extremely humble. It is rare tosee a person in this day and age go above and beyond the wayDon does in order to promote healthy living.” – GeorgeGaliounghi

“You honestly are my go-to guy for good, logical health info.” – Megan Elizabeth

“I really appreciate the information you give people, and I believe you have one of the most balanced voices in the rawfood movement.” – Alison Andrews

“Your views on health and fitness are so rational and well-communicated. You are really a breath of fresh air when itcomes to raw foodism and Natural Hygiene.” – Swayze Foster

“Amongst all my fruitarian friends, it is you who comes uptime and again as the 'voice of wisdom' amid all theconflicting info that goes on out there!” – Angie Bedson

“Thanks again for the help. You seem to be one of the fewdown to earth guys, not ruled by dogma, and out of the drama.It's sad that there is so much of that when looking foranswers.” – Jared Tavasolian

“Thank you Don. I appreciate how thorough your responsesalways are, and I value your opinion greatly, more so thanvirtually anyone else in this movement.” – Emily Nowell



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What this book is based on

The answers, comments, observations, and insights in this bookare based on the principles of Natural Hygiene, and on common

sense, logic, and much independent and considered thought. Natural Hygiene is that branch of biology which investigates andapplies the conditions upon which life and health depend, and themeans by which health is rebuilt and maintained when it has been lostor impaired; it is the study of "the science of health". (And it is the branch of biology that you hear very little about if anything, and withgood reason; restoring health through natural methods makes plentyof sense, but not plenty of dollars. In fact, it is at odds with other

areas of health that are very financially profitable.) Natural Hygiene may be further defined as being the science and

art of restoring and preserving health by those substances andinfluences that have a normal relation to life: food we’re designed toeat, sufficient nutrition, pure water, strong enough sunshine, rest,sleep, relaxation, appropriate amounts of physical activity, play,comfortable environment, and positive social relationships; it is thescientific application of the principles of Nature in the preservation

and restoration of health. Natural Hygiene covers the total needs ofhumans, and not merely a few of their requirements. It is neither a practice of medicine, a healing art, nor a system of therapeutics. Itoffers no cures, does not pretend to cure, and in fact strives to dispelthe popular notion of cures. Instead, Natural Hygiene emphasizes thatadherence to its principles, which are based on the Laws of Nature, permits the body to heal itself.

It should also be noted that there are no substitutes for some of the

above requirements, like sleep and physical activity, and this is lucky because we have a lot of control over things like sleep and exercise.But other requirements like sunshine (for D), vitamin B12, andnutritious food, may be hard to come by in our modern environmentfor various reasons. And when this is the case, this is when thescience and art of restoring and preserving health looks to “non-natural” practices in order to provide what we need for optimalhealth, and doing so is not a violation of healthful living; on thecontrary, it is allowing us to be as healthy as we can be in today’sunnatural environment… it comes under the heading of doing the

best we can under the circumstances.



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Introduction

When Dr. Seuss said, “Sometimes the questions are complicatedand the answers are simple” he wasn’t referring to questions relating

to heath. During my time counseling people in areas of healthrestoration, I’ve noticed that the vast majority of questions I’vereceived are about very basic things. And the answers are never short‘n sweet because I want people to have a thorough understanding ofthe things that affect their most valuable possession; their health.

In today’s culture, there are so many ways we can “go wrong”,which end up sapping our vitality and our ability to remain healthy forour entire lives. In the good ol’ days when there were no decisions to

make, and no one to take advantage of us for the sake of profit at theexpense of our health, if we got enough to eat and didn’t get eaten, welived a good life, in relatively good health. It was hard to “go wrong”.Today it’s so easy, it’s the norm.

But people are discovering that their health can be better than itis… a lot better! They just need the proper information and guidance.The problem is, as this “market” for health improvement grows, sodoes the misinformation, disinformation, confusing information,

conflicting information, and misleading information. And this results,hopefully, in lots of questions being asked. I say hopefully because ifyou’re following a program which contains some incorrect informationthat you’re unaware of, your future health may be affected by this. It’ssaid, it never hurts to ask, but it may hurt not to ask.

Incorrect information is inevitable; personal preferences, pre-conceived notions, individual biases, rigid philosophies, and profitmotives guarantee this is our reality. So even though no one likes tohear conflicting information, it’s good that you come across it becauseyou’re then aware that there’s incorrect information somewhere, andnow you’ve just got to find out if you’re following any of it.

At a very early age, I became aware that some adults didn’t knowwhat they were talking about, even though they sure sounded likethey did. As a teenager I could ask two adults the same, very objectivequestion and get two answers that were polar opposites. Each adult

seemed very confident and 100% sure of their answer. So I developeda fervent desire for the truth at a very young age, and became a“seeker of truth” before ever hearing the term. I learned to ask what people were basing their answers on, and I was shocked to find that,



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often, it was nothing more than an opinion that sounded like a fact.Opinions are fine when talking about a movie or music or what colorto paint the dining room, but there is no room for them when dealingwith something that should be based on physiology, biochemistry,anatomy, and reality. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but

everyone is not entitled to their own facts, myself included. So thereason why you’ll rarely hear me express something as an opinion is because I’m not interested in my opinion… not when dealing withsomething that should be based on facts.

If you’ve heard from a good number of health educators, you’ll nodoubt notice that, as you read through the answers in this book, you’llhear some unique explanations along with some interesting insights.I’m of the opinion that it’s important to know where an educator is“coming from” so you can give an appropriate amount of weight towhat you’re hearing. Many heath educators learned what they sharewith the public from somebody else. And this is fine if what they’velearned was correct. But if there was any incorrect information inwhat their mentor/teacher taught, that gets passed down along with allthe accurate information, with the student accepting it all, and then inturn, teaching it to others. Hopefully along the way, they discover any

inaccurate data, and make the appropriate adjustments to theirrecommendations and teachings, but sometimes they don’t becomeaware of it, and sometimes they do but nothing changes.

I feel very fortunate that I didn’t know that there was a body ofmaterial to study when I began trying to figure out how human beingsare supposed to live. So I ended up using the only tools I had in mytoolbox: common sense, logic, and lots of independent thought. As I became aware of the arguments put forth by pro- and anti-animal

eaters, I was able to take their facts and give them considered thought, being very careful to not allow any personal preferences I may havehad to color my judgment… I wasn’t interested in hearing what I’drather believe, I wanted to know the truth because that was the onlything that would ultimately be in my best interest. So I came to eat anall-raw fruit and leafy greens diet on my own, and with appropriateresearch, figured out all the other requirements of robust health.

As you read through the questions I’ve received from folks like

you, know that I’ve given my answers very careful consideration.And if you’re wondering why some of my answers differ from otherhealth educators, it’s simply that we all have different perspectives.

often, it was nothing more than an opinion that sounded like a fact.Opinions are fine when talking about a movie or music or what colorto paint the dining room, but there is no room for them when dealingwith something that should be based on physiology, biochemistry,anatomy, and reality. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but

everyone is not entitled to their own facts, myself included. So thereason why you’ll rarely hear me express something as an opinion is because I’m not interested in my opinion… not when dealing withsomething that should be based on facts.

If you’ve heard from a good number of health educators, you’ll nodoubt notice that, as you read through the answers in this book, you’llhear some unique explanations along with some interesting insights.I’m of the opinion that it’s important to know where an educator is

“coming from” so you can give an appropriate amount of weight towhat you’re hearing. Many heath educators learned what they sharewith the public from somebody else. And this is fine if what they’velearned was correct. But if there was any incorrect information inwhat their mentor/teacher taught, that gets passed down along with allthe accurate information, with the student accepting it all, and then inturn, teaching it to others. Hopefully along the way, they discover anyinaccurate data, and make the appropriate adjustments to theirrecommendations and teachings, but sometimes they don’t becomeaware of it, and sometimes they do but nothing changes.

I feel very fortunate that I didn’t know that there was a body ofmaterial to study when I began trying to figure out how human beingsare supposed to live. So I ended up using the only tools I had in mytoolbox: common sense, logic, and lots of independent thought. As I became aware of the arguments put forth by pro- and anti-animal

eaters, I was able to take their facts and give them considered thought, being very careful to not allow any personal preferences I may havehad to color my judgment… I wasn’t interested in hearing what I’drather believe, I wanted to know the truth because that was the onlything that would ultimately be in my best interest. So I came to eat anall-raw fruit based diet on my own, and with appropriate research,figured out all the other requirements of robust health.

As you read through the questions I’ve received from folks like

you, know that I’ve given my answers very careful consideration.And if you’re wondering why some of my answers differ from otherhealth educators, it’s simply that we have different perspectives,educations, motivations, and personality traits.



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A Disclaimer Worth ReadingFirst, why the need for a disclaimer? The information shared with

you via this book threatens the financial bottom lines and power bases

of certain industries, associations, and organizations. And if you think

they would sit idly by when someone has any significant success in

helping others regain and maintain their health naturally, you’d be

mistaken. Therefore...

Based on my experiences, the experiences of many others, much

empirical evidence, basic physiology, nutritional information

regarding the use of plant-based foods in the human diet, and

(un)common sense, it is my opinion and my firmly held belief that

living in harmony with Nature is a path towards restoring andmaintaining good health, and is a way to live to your health and

longevity potentials. I also believe it is the most effective preventative

measure for maintaining vibrant health and avoiding disease, and that

it is the best “health insurance” you can have.

That being said, the sentiments expressed herein are my opinion,

and the opinions of those I’ve quoted, and the reader would be wise to

question and verify everything for him or her self.

I do not claim to cure disease. I believe only a properly nourished

body that is still capable of healing can cure disease. I am not offering

or dispensing “medical advice”. I would not practice medicine

without a license, nor with a license for that matter (in my opinion, for

the most part, the current medical model doesn’t help people heal

from their health problems, nor does it help people prevent getting

sick in the first place, it mostly manages their symptoms... emergency,

poison, burn, and trauma medical care not included).If you have specific health challenges, or you simply want to get

another opinion regarding the effectiveness of the information

contained herein, you may want to seek the counsel of a “qualified

healthcare professional”. It is up to you to define that term, as you are

the one that is ultimately responsible for your health, and you are the

one that must live with the consequences of your decisions. If you

believe your health problem is a “medical problem”, then you may

want to see a “medical doctor”. If you believe your health problem

would best be served by seeking the counsel of people either instead

of or in addition to a medical doctor, that decision is up to you.



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For what it’s worth, the statements made in this book have not

been evaluated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The

information and products mentioned in this book are not intended to

diagnose or treat any disease. While it is the purpose of this book to

share information that may improve your quality-of-life, there may be

aspects of your health that could be adversely affected by the use of

this information. I make every effort to state warnings where

something may adversely affect your health, but use common sense if

you are taking any medications which may interact with anything

mentioned in this book, or if you have any conditions which may be

adversely affected by the use of the products or information

mentioned in this book.

It is your right to use the information contained in this book, in anyof the books that are mentioned herein, or from the health101.org

websites, without the approval of anyone but yourself, assuming you

are of the “age of consent”, and that you have not signed away this

right knowingly and willingly via a legal document. Obviously the

use of this information is at your own risk, but its use may be to your

benefit as well.

(Now here’s the stuff written by the lawyers.) Liability: NeitherHealth101.org, the publisher, Don Bennett, nor any third party

involved in the creation of this book, will be liable under any theory

for any incidental, consequential, or punitive damages arising out of

the reader’s access to, or use of, the information obtained from this

book, or from any of the other writings of Don Bennett.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The above relates to human law, which very often can be broken

without punishment; Nature’s laws however can never be broken

without paying a price.

The Natural Laws of Health: Laws which so necessarily agree with thenature and state of human beings, that without observing their maxims,the highest vitality and happiness of a person can never be created ormaintained. Knowledge of the Natural Laws of Health may be attainedmerely by the light of reason (by a mind unencumbered by harmfulsociological programming), and from the facts, and of their essentialagreeableness with the constitution of human nature (physiology,anatomy, biology).



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1. Diet

“Will there ever be agreement regarding which diet is the best

diet for humans?”

In a word, no. There is so much vested interest in this type of diet orthat type of diet, and there is the “profits before people” philosophythat causes certain people (and I use the term loosely) and certainindustries to tout the cooked meat, grain, and dairy items causingmassive confusion among those shown a vegan or raw food diet. Evenamong raw food advocates, some say, without a doubt, that rawchocolate must be a part of the diet if you want optimal health. Even

though all animals on this planet have a species specific diet –including humans – for reasons of human nature, the optimal diet forhumans will never be a well-settled issue. The people who fare the best when considering which diet to eat are those independentthinking individuals who can dispassionately consider all the aspects,and use logic and common sense to make sense of it all, and who havethe ability to treat any of their biases, personal preferences, and preconceived notions as what they really are: cultural/sociological

programming that can only interfere with them discovering the truthof the matter.

“Why do you eat the diet you eat, is it because you are a vegan?”

I may be “vegan” by the common definition of the word, but I don’tlabel myself as such because some people can make assumptions as to

why I’m “vegan” and those assumptions can be wrong. So for thisreason I don’t label myself with anything unless it is 100%unambiguous. So let me be clear, if humans were designed to eatanimals, I would eat animals. I do not begrudge a lion his eating ananimal because that is his diet. But fortunately humans are notdesigned to eat animal; we always do worse – health-wise – when wedo (regardless of whether they’re cooked or uncooked). Even thoughmy initial reason for no longer eating any animals and animal

products was one of personal health, since there is no need to wear a belt made out of an animal because there are belts and clothing thatare made out of non-animal materials, I do that too, for the sake of the



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animals. If I was living in the tropics – where humans are designed tolive – I’d have no need for any animal products. In the interest of fulldisclosure, because I live where the sun cannot make enough D in myskin all year-round, I do take D3 during a few months of the year, andD3 is made from the wool of sheep.

I eat what I eat out of respect for my body, so I only eat that whichmy body is designed to eat, which also doesn’t include grain productsor items made from beans, like soy. A criterion I use is that ifsomething must be cooked or in any way processed for me to be ableto eat it, it wasn’t meant for me to eat, and I respect that. I’ve foundthat the foods that fall into that category – the ones that I can eat“easily” – are not only delicious, but they’re delicious as is.

“How much nuts and avocados should be in a healthy raw diet?

One ounce of nuts or half an avocado, that’s not over-doing it, is

it?”

That is certainly not overdoing it (but what if, on occasion, that would be under-doing it? More on this in a moment). We should keep in

mind that as far as nuts go, in our biological eco-niche, they wouldn’t be available all year-round. So since the further away from Nature westray, the less healthy we can be, and the opposite also being true, weshould consider not having nuts every day. There have been weeks(and even months) where I didn’t eat any.

Also know that many of the foods of our biological adaptation containmore fat than an apple or banana. Durian is a good example; not ahigh fat food like an avocado, but not a low fat food like a banana.And since it is a good source of sulfur (the body’s naturaldisinfectant), I recommend to all my clients to eat some at least twicea month.

And the “not every day” school of thought applies to avocados aswell. What if your body really wanted 3/4 of an avocado, but you’ve

consciously decided to have one-half or a whole one? Ultimately it’s better to get to the point where your body will “tell” you what it wantswhen you find yourself hungry, and you’ll also get to the point when,as you’re eating, you’ll know when enough is enough so you won’t



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have to confine yourself to “portion control”. But if you eat accordingto a weekly food list, and you eat a proscribed amount, you won’t beable to take advantage of these marvelous abilities that your body possesses. So rather than simply making avocado part of your meal asa regimented thing, when hungry, ask yourself, “What do I want?”

and then listen for an answer. Sometimes to hear the answer, itrequires actually seeing the various foods you have available to seewhat “speaks” to you. And any time you find yourself automaticallygrabbing an avocado, ask yourself, “Do I really want some avocado?”This intuitive eating is how all other animals eat.

“Why are some people not successful with a raw food diet?”

What I’ve seen in the many years I’ve counseled people is that thereare bad, fair, good, better, and best ways to do the various aspects of ahealthy dietary plan. But even when they attempted to follow the best plan, some people say “such-and-such didn’t work for me” but inreality, this happened because they were operating on some faultyinformation, or they misunderstood some piece of information orwhat their body was saying, or they weren’t following it 100%, or

they didn’t give it enough time. There are other secondary reasons, but these are the primary ones. This is why acting on correctinformation that squares with human physiology is essential if youwant to regain and maintain lost health and vitality. Plus, you need tofollow the plan and not cherry pick what you’re willing and notwilling to do. One important consideration is to make sure your newlifestyle is providing you with enough of the nutrients your bodyrequires, and there’s a lot of misinformation concerning this issue.

“Animal foods can’t be the cause of all the diseases that affect our

society. Eskimos don’t have fruits, have very few vegetables,

almost no grains, and eat lots of Reindeer meat and fish. Even

though they don’t get older than around 50 to 60 years, they don’t

know of heart diseases, bad teeth, hair loss, diabetes, allergies and

all our modern problems. How can that be?”

If this doesn’t sound plausible, it’s because it isn’t. These cultures doindeed experience heart disease and other serious health issues, andtheir quality of life isn’t that great. And since we’re biologically



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programmed to be able to live to about 124, I’d say that those wholive to 60 are doing something wrong.

I won’t even hazard a guess as to how a myth like this gets started, but I can easily see how it could be seized upon by those wanting to

believe that we need, or can be okay, with animal foods in the diet.But if someone is using this as part of their decision-making, theyshould try to disprove this with as equal a vigor as when theyembraced it… assuming they want to get at the truth.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that diet isn’t everything; it is onlyone link in the “chain of health”… if it’s the weakest link, then ofcourse it should be attended to. But when it becomes the strongestlink, take a look at the rest of the chain… are there any other weaklinks? Keep in mind, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

“My friend said that he didn’t know of any society on this globe

that eats entirely raw or entirely vegan or raw vegan, and this

way of eating was never known in history… what say you?”

Let me be blunt, this is either the “if I’m not aware of it, it doesn’texist” way of thinking, or your friend has simply adopted this notion,which is always circulating somewhere. The fact of the matter is thatthere are cultures that eat a very simple, plant-based diet; I saw one ofthem on a National Geographic special on PBS. No fire, no tools, nokilling anything, great health (sound good?). And before there was“history” there was “pre-historic”, and there has been way more pre-historic years than years that have made it into recorded history. So itis possible that before recorded time there were people who ate noanimal because they didn’t have to, because there was plenty to eatwithout having to chase down animals. I became part of a discussionwith some anthropologists, and they were talking about when humanswere hunter-gatherers. They became noticeably agitated when Iinquired about the behavior of humans prior to being hunter-gatherers. It seemed like all of a sudden all kinds of proofs came out

that supported the notion that we always ate meat, and that there wasno proof that humans ever ate only fruit. I said, “What about the fossilremains of consumed fruit?” and they were very happy to tell me thatthere can never be any fossil remains of fruit, only bones. When I



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said, “Exactly my point… it can’t be known that we never ate fruit”they decided to change the subject. (And by the way, even thoughthere can’t be evidence of eaten fruit, there can be evidence of fruiteating, as determined by the fossil record of teeth! I wish I had knownabout this when I had that conversation. You can read about that atwww.Health101.org/bookmark#1

“She tried the raw food diet and failed, she really did have a lot of

problems, so that means it’s not for everyone.”

Is it possible that there was something(s) missing in her diet orlifestyle that could have accounted for the problems she experienced?

I harp on this a lot: When you move away from processed foods thatare fortified (with certain hard to come by nutrients) you may run intotrouble especially if you were on the edge, nutritionally speaking, to begin with. That’s why B12, D, and iodine should be monitored, andmaybe a prudent thing to do would be to use a good multi-mineralsupplement every day (unless you’re growing all your own food insoil that you know to be very nutrient-rich, or are eating from thewild). Humans can be quick to place blame on something that sounds

like it was at fault, when it was something else entirely. When werush to judgment or make leaps that are based on personal preferences, or on what sounds good, or on something someone elsesaid, instead of trying to figure out something using unbiased, clear-headed thinking, logic, and common sense, we very often arrive at anerroneous conclusion.

Between the folks who misunderstand what is happening to themwhen transitioning and who are maybe not paying attention tosomething important, and the health advocates who want to be popular and have the widest appeal for the sake of selling productsand classes, there is going to continue to be the kind of misleadinginformation that she may have relied on. So in a sense, it wasn’t thenegative symptoms that derailed her, it was simply incorrectinformation that she accepted as the truth.

If I were to start “not doing well” on a 100% raw vegan diet, Iwouldn’t blame the diet and start adding in eggs or fish or dairy orcooked food as she had done. When I did begin to feel something was



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“off” after having been a raw food vegan for quite some time, my firstthought wasn’t that I might be missing something that fish or eggs ormeat or milk might supply me with. This is because I know we’re notdesigned to eat these things, so it must be something else. But I followthis line of thinking because of what I’ve learned, not because I don’t

want to believe that I might need to consume animal. So I’d firstsuspect a lack of some nutrient(s) that the agri-based foods I waseating weren’t supplying, and I’d also look to the non-food nutrientslike D and B12. And I’d postulate that this might have been going onfor a while and resulted in what I was experiencing. Turns out in mycase it was a lack of sufficient B12 (and contrary to popular belief,you won’t get sufficient B12 from animal products, even if eatenraw).

“Did you see Stephen Colbert’s interview with that guy who said

we are hunter-gatherers? So doesn’t this mean we should have

some meat in our diet in addition to fruits and vegetables?”

It’s with mixed feelings that I watched Stephen Colbert interview anadvocate of the “Paleo Diet”. It’s dawning on many people that the

typical Western diet is a recipe for ill-health and diminished quality oflife, so they’re hungry for information on how to improve their health.And while John Durant mentions some great things to do for health-improvement, his dietary information doesn’t square with human physiology. Although he accurately talked about what humans onceate, we need to look at, not what humans ate at one point in ourhistory, but at what we’re designed to eat for optimal health and thebest odds of never getting a diagnosis of something serious. Ourhunter-gatherer ancestors ate animals, but what did their ancestors,the foragers, eat? Being that our digestive system is essentially thesame today as it was then, this knowledge, along with what we’re

suited to eat, is what will allow us to regain and maintain robusthealth and vibrant spirit.

But to be able to recognize the truth, we need to be able to look at

information dispassionately, unemotionally, and without bias or personal preference coloring our judgment. We can start this journeyof discovery by having a solid foundation in how we filterinformation, like Mr. Durant’s. You’ve seen the term “Natural



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Hygiene”; go to www.Health101.org/bookmark#2 for a good explanation ofwhat this is.

And for some enlightening information on the “Paleo Diet”…

So Much for the Hunter/Gatherer Theorywww.Health101.org/bookmark#3

Research Yields Surprises about Early Human Dietswww.Health101.org/bookmark#1

“What’s the deal with blending? We couldn’t have done it

centuries ago, but some people swear by it?”

There’s a maxim (an unwritten truism) of health; “the further awayfrom Nature you stray, the less healthy you can be.” It’s not natural totake a D3 supplement, but when you can’t get enough sun, whatchoice do you have but to resort to something not natural. Withsmoothie meals and non-smoothie meals, you do have a choice.

I’m of the opinion that even relatively easy to digest fruit needs some

digestive “juices”, and those juices are set into motion by chewing.Some smoothie advocates recommend chewing a smoothie, but“chewing” a smoothie is not same as chewing those items that wouldhave gone into your smoothie. And most people don’t allow asmoothie to spend sufficient time mixing with saliva, which startsstarch and fat digestion. So since all food benefits from chewing before swallowing, this is why I recommend adding some small pieces of celery to the smoothie after it comes out of the blender because this gets you to chew by giving you something to chew.

Let’s also consider the damage done to some of the nutrients by those blender blades. True, the average temperature increase of the entiremixture is only about eight degrees, but that five degree increase lastsa long time. Now you might be saying, “so what does that have to dowith anything?” We often just talk about the temperature our food is

exposed to, but not about the length of time it’s exposed to it. Due tothe heat of friction”, when a portion of your smoothie comes incontact with the blender blade, the temperature can be higher than 124degrees, way higher! Yes, this is only for a brief moment in time



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(which is why the average temperature of the whole mixture onlyrises by eight degrees). So there can be damage done to nutrients eventhough you wouldn’t think so. This is why I recommend pulsing a blender (especially a Vitamix); don’t just turn it on and let ‘er rip. Aslittle blending as possible is best from a nutritional perspective.

And there’s also the point that to be able to run the blender, very oftenyou must add water, and if the contents of that blender were supposedto be of a higher water content, you wouldn’t have to add any water.One of the things water does, is dilute. No, adding water to a blenderis not as bad as drinking with a meal, but remember that maxim ofhealth I mentioned above. Plus, many people, when first starting araw foods diet that consists of lots of high water content foods,relative to what they had been eating, find it difficult to consumeenough bulk to get enough calories because a meal of healthy foodtakes up more room in the stomach compared to a meal of unhealthyfood. And to add even more water to a high water content food makesgetting enough calories even more difficult. So if you can blendwithout adding any water, that’s the best. There will be times whenyou must add water, like when making date sauce.

And one last point: A blender can invite concoctions that are nothandled well by the stomach compared to eating those items that wentinto the blender separately. I’ve seen the Vitamix demonstrator atWhole Foods throwing everything but the kitchen sink into asmoothie (including things that we’d normally never eat, likewatermelon rinds).

If it sounds like I’m smoothie bashing, I’m not. I’m just making these points because some people want to adopt healthful living practicesthat will give them the best odds of healing that which ails them, andof never getting a diagnosis of something serious, and chewing yourfood (well) versus letting the blender do it (and possibly makingconcoctions that don’t combine well in your stomach) could make adifference in those odds. Food for thought.



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“Can you get enough iron on a plant-based diet?”

Calorie-for-calorie, there is more iron in strawberries than in beef. Butiron content is usually reported in quantity per unit of weight, andsince meat is six times more calorically dense than strawberries, it

will appear that beef is a “better” source of iron than strawberries. Butyou don’t eat food by weight, you eat according to your caloric needs(hopefully). And leafy greens are a great source of iron.

Why then do vegetarians get iron deficiencies? Many vegetarians eatthe way they do for moral/ethical reasons, and not for reasons ofhealth (although they will cite health benefits to support their dietary practices), so they tend not to be as well-informed from a nutritional

perspective as those who eat a healthy diet for reasons of health, andthis lack of information is a contributing factor in iron deficiencies.

Vegetarians who consume lots of junk health food and dairy products,which are poor sources of iron, can bump up against an irondeficiency. But to paint a broad stroke and say that a plant-based dietcan’t supply us with enough iron because there are veg*ans(vegetarians and vegans) who get an iron deficiency is simply junk

science perpetuated by the animal-based diet industry and bymisinformed lay people.

It’s almost unheard of for a vegan who eats enough uncooked(undamaged) fruits and leafy green vegetables to have an irondeficiency.

Now let’s talk about the two types of iron so that we can dispel someother myths concerning iron in the diet. There’s “heme” iron (rhymeswith beam), heme coming from hemoglobin, which is the oxygen-carrying pigment of red blood cells that gives them their red color andconveys oxygen to your cells. Plant products have “non-heme” iron,and it’s typically stated that heme iron is better absorbed than non-heme iron, but this generalization is misleading. About 40% of theheme iron you ingest is absorbed. Non-heme iron is absorbable

anywhere from 10% to 40%; there is “selective absorption”depending on how much you need. If your body needs more, it willabsorb more, if it needs less it will absorb less. So there’s a built-inregulation mechanism for non-heme iron, but not for heme iron;



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you’re going to absorb whatever heme iron is in the food you eatwhether you need it or not. And this is an important point becauseexcess iron in the body is a pro-oxidant (and since anti-oxidants aregood for us, pro-oxidants must be bad for us). Pro-oxidants contributeto cardiovascular disease and cancer. (And this is why iron is the most

important supplemental nutrient regarding potential overdosing.When it was discovered just how damaging too much iron was, it wasremoved from children’s vitamins.)

So as long as someone is eating enough food to supply enoughcalories to fuel a healthy amount of activity, and they eat a variety ofuncooked fruits and vegetables, and they eat them as mono mealsoften enough so their body can note in its food composition databasewhich foods are the richest sources of iron, barring a pathology thataffects iron absorption (rare), it is virtually impossible for a healthyvegan to not get enough iron. And any malabsorption of iron isusually gastrointestinal in nature and can be resolved by embracinghealthy lifestyle habits, dietary and otherwise.

“One of your colleagues said, ‘When your appetite is specific (i.e.craving specific foods), that’s addiction speaking, and it’s tough to

get satiation when we’re dealing with addiction’ so why do you

say that getting a desire for a specific food is a good thing?”

A desire for a cheeseburger and a desire for a banana are desires thathave two very different causations, and you get them for two verydifferent reasons. So a desire for unhealthy things is obviously a badthing, but a desire for health-enhancing foods, and specifically for a particular health-enhancing food is a good thing. For the most part,you have been programmed with those desires for health-degradingthings, and in the same way you can program yourself to desirehealthy foods. But since different foods have different nutrient profiles, it’s an even better idea to program your brain’s foodcomposition database with the make up of all the different healthyfoods you eat. When your body needs fuel replenishment, it gives you

a desire to eat, but since you also have nutritional needs, if your bodyknows that a “banana” is an excellent source of potassium, when itreally needs a goodly intake of potassium, it can “point” you towards bananas for that meal that it wants for calorie replenishment.



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So even though an addiction is commonly thought to be a bad thing,in a sense, addictions can be bad or good. If you’re “addicted” tosweet, juicy, delicious fruit, this is an example of a good addiction.When people say to me that they have a sweet tooth, as if it’s a badthing, I point out that we’re supposed to crave sweet things, so a

sweet tooth is not a bad thing (unless you satisfy it with unhealthysweets).

“What do I do with someone who can’t transition to a healthy diet

as quickly as many people can, but he wants to improve his

health, but he needs to take baby steps, and he’ll be eating cooked

food for a while longer. Any suggestions?”

Taking a product like Digest Gold (digestive enzymes) prior to acooked meal is certainly a prudent thing to do. Let me be clear, thisdoesn’t make it “okay” to eat cooked food, it just makes it slightlyless burdensome on the body. And if he could gravitate to a restaurantmeal that begins with a big salad (sans dressing) so that he gets lots ofgreens in first, and then from a baked potato with butter to a baked potato with avocado for butter and/or marinara sauce on the potato,

these would be steps in a health-enhancing direction, albeit babysteps.

And anyone eating a less-than-healthy diet should certainly takenutritional supplementation; many mainstream health organizationseven recommend this (but they don’t differentiate between worthlessones and efficacious ones, and since the majority of supplements areworthless, you need to know which ones are worthwhile). And some people would say that until he stops cooking those foods which wouldotherwise supply him with usable Omega Fatty Acids, it might be prudent to consume a supplement that specifically supplies these, butas this would be an oil, and probably a fish oil, I’d rather see someoneeat some uncooked avocado, hemp and chia seeds, and small portionsof nuts on occasion.

And as you know, diet should be just one of the focuses; so regularrebounding would be a great improvement too.



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And continued research would help him to better understand the“whys” of the benefits, which can help incentivize him to put the“hows” into practice.

“So what’s wrong with using honey in my recipes? And why do

some people call it ‘bee vomit’?”

Honey bees form nectar into honey by a process of regurgitation, sowhen you hear honey referred to as “bee vomit” this is an accuratecharacterization. Honey sometimes contains dormant endospores ofthe bacterium clostridium botulinum, which can be dangerous to kidsunder one year old as the endospores can transform into toxin-

producing bacteria in the kid’s immature intestinal tract, leading toillness and even death. Just because this never happens in adultsdoesn’t mean that your immune system isn’t having to deal with theclostridium’s endospores, and most people’s immune systems arealready overworked, so why give it more to deal with.

The pH of honey is commonly between 3.2 and 4.5 making it an acid-forming substance, but as very little is used in tea, this is not a big

consideration, but when larger amounts are used in recipes, that’sanother story.

Although it’s not normally something a Natural Hygienist wouldrecommend, if you want to add some sweetener to warm water, trysome stevia powder or the soak water from dates. Non-hygienicvegans prefer agave nectar to honey as a sweetener, although that hasits own problems.

The other factor is this: As long as you keep using sweeteners, yourown natural sense of taste regarding sweetness will never return tonormal; it will always be somewhat desensitized. Wouldn’t it be better if you could taste the natural sweetness of the natural foodswe’re designed to eat? You’d never put a sweetener on lettuce, but ifyour taste buds aren’t functioning properly you can’t taste lettuce’s

subtle natural sweetness.

Me personally? I might find honey in the wild, but wouldn’t considerthe bee stings I’d get in obtaining it worth the meal… and I really



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wouldn’t eat it as a meal anyway; way too sweet for someone withnormal taste sensitivities. So I’d leave it bee (pun intended).

“I love tea! What’s bad about drinking tea?”

There are harmful properties to all teas, such as the nutrient-bindingeffects of polyphenols such as tannin (tannins bind proteins and otherorganic compounds such as amino acids and alkaloids, and tanninscan produce phenolic acids in the body thus adding to an “acidenvironment”). I realize tea has played a big part in many culturesthroughout the world, but that fact has nothing to do with its actualeffects on health. Over the centuries we humans have ascribed many

wondrous properties to many things. There was a time when medicaldoctors placed leaches on a sick person to draw out the “bad blood”and the person got well because of this leaching practice (actually, because of the blood loss the person had to rest and didn’t feel likeeating, and it was this rest (fast) that healed the person, not theremoval of “bad blood”). The Native American Indians put a lot ofstock in wild mushrooms as a medicinal, but this was a medicinaleffect much as any drug today. If there are any real nutritive

properties to tea leaves, you’d have to eat them raw, but since theydon’t taste very good that way, this tells you something.

So the important question here is: You may love tea, but does it loveyou back? The hard-science says ‘no’.

“I am curious what style of raw food diet you find to be the most

healthful? There are so many variations – even to the low fat

diet.”

The short answer is: The one that humans are designed to eat. I couldwrite a whole book on this topic alone. Another short answer is: Theone that will result in both short term health improvements and inlong term success. But before I get into specifics, I need to make avery important point…

Many people focus, understandably, on the issue of “which diet?” butwe need to look at nourishment from a much broader perspective. If



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we want the biggest positive impact on our health, we should bethinking about things like diet and exercise in terms of giving

ourselves that which we require to be robustly healthy both in the

short term and in the long term. And this philosophy automaticallyincludes not giving ourselves those things that burden the body,

because when we focus on giving our body the requirements ofhealthful living, this will naturally include not eating bread forexample, because doing so robs you of an opportunity to eat thatwhich we do require. Or you could say that since we don’t require bread, we shouldn’t consume it for that reason. Either way, we’ll noteat bread. And when you apply that same approach to health tosomething like exercise, you’ll discover what you need to do from a physical activity perspective to supply your body with what it needsfor optimal health and quality of life without getting what we don’tneed or want. Same goes for the other equally important requisites ofrobust health, like sunshine, hydration, sleep, etc.

So my point is that if you focus on getting what we require instead ofon a specific diet, that’s when things will fall into place. Because nowinstead of adopting a particular diet wholesale, you’ll first investigate

it to see if it meets all our nutritional needs, and “diets” usually don’t,even the healthiest of the raw food diets. So what we need to adoptinstead of a diet is an “eating plan” that includes the healthiest diet,and the healthiest way of eating that diet, and any nutritionalcomponents that this diet should have but doesn’t for some reason.And since there are other essential nutrients that are not supplied byfood (D and B12), this expansive way of looking at our needs willensure that those needs are also addressed.

Sure, this is a lot more to think about, and some people don’t want tohave to think about things, certainly not investigate everything they’rethinking of doing, but unfortunately this is what’s necessary if wewant the best odds of resolving illness, and of restoring andmaintaining vibrant health for life.

By example: Many people adopt the low-fat, low-protein, high simple

carb, vegan, plant-based, fruit and leafy greens diet thinking that it is“the answer”. And even though it is the best diet, and it’s what we ateway back when, even if we’re eating “fruits and leafy greens”, these



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are not the same fruits and leafy greens we ate a long, long time ago,right out of the wild, at the peak of freshness with optimal nutritionaldensity. So if there are certain “accommodations” that have to bemade because of this fact, and if we aren’t informed about them, orworse, are taught that we don’t need to do anything else, nutrition-

wise, except “eat raw fruits and leafy greens”, we could behandicapping our efforts to resolve existing ill-health (both knownand unknown), and we could be putting our future health in jeopardy.So the hardliners who take rigid stands and fold their arms acrosstheir chests, figuratively speaking, may be putting themselves at risk,even though they don’t think so. Even when we base our dietary practices on a philosophy like Natural Hygiene, some peoplemisinterpret the tenets of Natural Hygiene to mean “no unnaturalthings like pills”, and Natural Hygiene does not specifically rule outnutritional supplements, in fact by inference, it calls for their use inorder to accomplish the goals of living to our health potential; we then just have to apply the same questioning as when we consider “whichfruits are the best ones to eat?” to the issue of nutritionalsupplementation so we can discover which ones are the best ones touse, and – since they’re a “product” – which ones to avoid.

I have to say that when beginning my practice, I thought my dayswould be filled with trying to dispel myths like “we need dairy andmeat and grain products to be healthy”, but I find myself spendingmore time trying to educate people on the subject of health creation asit involves what to consume when trying to eat a healthy raw fooddiet, and this is because the raw food diet has become an industryunto itself, filled with its own self perpetuating misinformation, and

with those who see it as a way to make money with little regard for people’s long term health.

So now that I’ve laid some groundwork, to more specifically answeryour question of which raw food diet style is the most healthful, it’s 1.the one that you’ll follow without cherry picking which aspects youare willing and not willing to do, 2. the one that meets your nutritionalneeds, and if that necessitates a supplement, so be it, and 3. the one

based on hard-science, logic, and common sense, and not on junkscience, preferred beliefs or philosophies. It will consist of no cookedfood. Period. Why? Because we’re talking about the healthiest raw



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food diet. If you want a diet that’s healthier than what you used to eat but not the healthiest diet, than that one can have some cooked food,hopefully plant-based.

The healthiest diet will be a predominantly fruit diet, but all types of

fruit including non-sweet and semi-fatty fruit, and not just sweet fruit.It will be what some call a “low-fat” diet, but it’s actually a diet thathas an appropriate amount of fat (and protein) where simplecarbohydrates from fruit predominate. The fat content of the diet – asa percentage of total calories – will be between five and ten percent,and no higher (so this eliminates the “gourmet” raw food diet). It willalso contain some delicious tasting leafy greens (I don’t call them“vegetables” because that term can be easily misunderstood to includefoods that don’t serve you as well as the ones mentioned above). Andthere would be an eye towards variety. But even if you’re eating a lotof different foods, if you’re essentially eating the same ones monthafter month after month, you’re not keying into the seasonality ofcertain fruits, which is good to do for reasons of freshness andnutritional diversity.

You can’t talk about a diet without talking about how you’d eat thefoods of this diet. Consuming them so they present your digestivesystem with the easiest workload possible is important, so nothrowing a half dozen items into a blender and then serving that withanother half dozen items and calling it a meal. Even though that’swhat the raw food recipe book calls for, that is disrespectful to your body, and will ultimately not allow you to achieve vibrant health. Thevery old adage, The Simpler Thy Meals, the Healthier Thy Life applies

here.

And you’d eat this diet regardless of your level of health. Naturallythere can and should be adjustments made based on certain healthchallenges you are currently dealing with (like no overt fats at allwhen trying to resolve diabetes or candidiasis), and maybe not eatingas many calories as you would when you’re in good health (becauseyour body’s nerve energy requirements need there to be less digestion

than normal so more nerve energy is available for healing), andmaybe not eating anything at all for a time if that’s what’s needed to



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resolve a health problem (this is called therapeutic water-only fasting,and should be a tool in your health creation toolbox).

Oh for the days when we wouldn’t have had to know anything aboutdiet because there could be no dietary mistakes because there weren’t

any choices to make. Today, however, it’s a very different story.Because there are so many ways to go wrong, we need a good roadmap to help guide us onto the right path. And like any new task,there’s a learning curve to get through. But once you get it down, andgive things enough time to work, you can then kick back and reap therewards that dramatically improved health brings.

“My husband can get away with eating some combinations of

foods that are supposed to be a problem, and no digestive issues.

But if I try eating those combinations (because I want that same

pleasurable meal he’s eating) I feel it! What accounts for this?”

Just because someone can eat some miscombined foods and not feeldigestive difficulty doesn’t mean they are experiencing optimaldigestion. The absence of noticeable digestive discomfort isn’t

necessarily an indication of “all is well”. And yes, those with sub-pardigestive systems or very healthy and therefore normally sensitivedigestive systems are likely to be more affected by less-than-perfectmeals/combinations, as you have experienced. But as long as “health”is a higher priority for you than is “self-indulgent-pleasure-seeking- behavior” you’ll be better able to avoid those health-damaging mealsthat you may love, but don’t love you back. A fall off the wagon canserve as a great learning experience, provided you allow the lessonlearned to guide you in the future.

“What diet plan is best to compensate for not-so-healthy habits?

And which ones will allow me to not have to take medications.

What about eating Almased?”

Almased is made from soy, yogurt, and honey; none of these are

foods you would encounter in Nature. A long time ago, in the area ofthe world that humans first inhabited, think about what foods werereadily available for humans to eat. Keep in mind that we had not yet



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become “hunter gatherers”; at this point, we were foragers. And weate what was natural for us to eat. Fortunately, most of these foods areavailable today, and since the human digestive system has notchanged since then, it would stand to reason that what we weredesigned to eat then is what we should be eating today. But there are

many processed products and diet plans that would have you believeotherwise.

If you want to be the healthiest you can be and therefore have thelowest odds of needing to be on some medication, you need to liveyour life in a healthy manner. There is no product or plan that willcompensate for unhealthy lifestyle practices. The problem is thatmany of today’s unhealthy lifestyle habits are not recognized as beingunhealthy because they are a huge and “normal” part of our society,and they are designed to be delicious and make you feel really good(witness the fast food eatery Arby’s slogan “Good Mood Food”). Butfeeling “really good” because your body is being inundated withunhealthy products that stimulate or otherwise release “feel good”hormones, and feeling really good because you are in good health, areentirely two different things. Yes, in both scenarios, you’ll feel good,

and may even weigh what you’d like to weigh, but your state ofhealth will likely be very different, and as you get older, one of thosetwo scenarios will not serve you very well, which is evidenced by allthe chronic degenerative disease we have today.

If you’d like to know how to have the best health possible and the best odds of never getting a diagnosis of something serious, and ofresolving any current health problems that medical practitioners

typically prescribe pharmaceutical drugs for in an effort to managethem, you need to understand just what the human body wants anddoes not want, and then you need to give it what it wants, and not giveit what it doesn’t want. Only those people who discover the truthabout human health and who are willing to live in accordance withtheir biological requirements can attain their “health potential”. Anddiet plans like Atkins, Slim4life, Slimfast, and South Beach do notrespect the body’s requirements. Yes, you may lose weight, but if you

lose weight and lose your health, on balance, that is not a good plan.A good plan is one where you will weigh what you are supposed toweigh and be in good health (assuming you are also paying equal



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attention to the other equally important requirements of robusthealth… diet is just one spoke in the wheel).

The diet “plan” that will give you best results, all things considered, isthe one your body is designed to eat. But since all the above diet plan

advocates would have you believe that their diet plan is good for you,it can be confusing to know what to do. And many diet plan authorstake advantage of the fact that we are not taught in public school whatwe are designed to eat. And if in reality, none of those diet plansabove are in your best interest health-wise, and health is a very high priority for you, then you’d need to know what you are designed toeat (and it has nothing to do with blood type, metabolism type, eye orhair color, or what your hunter-gatherer ancestors ate). There are a lotof books on diet, but only a few that will tell it like it is. The populardiet books do not tell the truth about our natural diet because it is sovery different than the way most people have been conditioned to eat,and therefore want to eat. The books that offer a healthy dose ofreality are only for those who can really value optimal health, andwho are willing to do what it takes to get it, and this, sad to say, is notthe majority of the people. I hope, for the sake of your health, that you

are in that micro minority of folks who can see the light so you willnever have to “feel the heat”.

“Can I get enough vitamin E on a natural diet?”

All plant-based foods have some vitamin E, some more than others. Nuts and seeds are the most abundant, but tomatoes, mangoes, kiwi, papaya, spinach and other leafy greens have some. Even bananas havevitamin E. Any food that has fat, has vitamin E, and all fruits andveggies have fat.

Vitamin E deficiencies are rare, and smokers tend to need more thannon-smokers, pointing out that need as well as intake is to beconsidered. The “recommended daily value” is based on a populationthat is less healthy than the average raw food vegan (who is also

paying equal attention to the other equally important requirements ofhealth). So our needs can be very different than those of the averageAmerican, and thus more easily met from our diet. And then whenyou consider that a diet consisting of a lot of uncooked foods will



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supply more usable E than a primarily cooked food diet, you can begin to see that E shouldn’t be a problem. It’s the water solublevitamins (and minerals) that we have to be mindful about gettingenough of in an agri-based diet, even an all-uncooked diet, as thesenutrients aren’t stored by our body as plentifully as the fat soluble

nutrients.

“We’re told we need milk to be healthy, and some raw foodists

who know that anything cooked is not as healthy as its raw

counterpart consume raw milk. What do you think of this?”

All mammals, including humans, are designed to drink milk, but only

when we are very little. And since all mammalian milks are differentin design (different amounts of calcium, magnesium, protein, fat, etc per gram), each species should drink the milk from its own mother(cow milk is very different than human milk).

Milk from cows was first used to make butter which would storeeasily (compared to milk) and would help to get the early settlers ofthis country through the long, harsh winters; it was never considered

something to drink. But then it was turned into an industry… a hugeindustry. This industry tries to make you believe that milk is good forstrong bones, but it can’t specifically say that because it is not trueand they would be sued if they did. So they imply it. They will say,“Calcium is good for strong bones” (true), “Milk is a good source ofcalcium” (true, it has lots of calcium), and then they say “Got Milk?”They never say, “Milk is good for strong bones” because it isn’t, butthey let you make the “association” between the two things they dosay which are true. This is how they get away with creating a societyof people who believe that milk builds strong bones, even though itdoesn’t.

Humans are not designed to take in hormones from outside sourceslike true meat eaters are (like a lion). When I speak to women’sgroups I ask the audience “Who here is taking hormones?” Very few

women raise their hands because we now know there are risks todoing hormone replacement therapy. But then I ask, “Who here eatschicken, beef, pork, lamb, or dairy products?” Lot’s of hands go up. I



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then inform those women that they are taking hormones. Most areshocked; they had no idea.

One of the reasons we should not be taking extra hormones is becausethe key role of many hormones is to help cells grow. This is why there

are hormones in mother’s milk, so a baby can grow. But if you havecancerous cells in your body (and everybody does), taking in growthhormones can actually help those cells grow into “cancer” the way weknow it today.

But back to milk: Children raised on an uncooked, fruit and vegetablediet (no animal products), never have “milk”, any kind of milk; it’snot something they miss (after they are weaned from their mother’s breast). Yes, you can make or buy rice milk and soy milk, but sinceyou wouldn’t eat rice or soy beans right out of the field, this suggeststhat a liquid made from rice or soy beans is not a natural thing toconsume; and both rice and soy products have negative health affects.True, these are not as bad as cow milk, but if your goal is to undo anydamage done from years of eating unhealthy foods so that thisdamage doesn’t turn into a diagnosis of something serious,

eliminating any unhealthy foods from your diet is key… and thesooner the better.

You could buy almond milk, but since it is pasteurized, it no longercontains any nutrition, so it is essentially just flavorful liquid. But ifthat’s what you are looking for, it is certainly better than using cow’smilk.

Raw milk certainly has an advantage over cooked (pasteurized) milkin that there was no damage done to the milk proteins which is acontributing factor to some common autoimmune diseases. But as I’mfond of saying, we need to look at things on balance. And when wetake everything into consideration, raw milk is not a healthy thing toconsume for many of the same reasons as non-raw milk. But some people focus only on the benefits, and some swear by raw animal products, saying that they make them feel better. Firstly, “feeling

better” is not always a sign that whatever is making you feel better isa health-enhancing thing to do. Secondly, if a raw animal food ismaking you feel better because it is indeed supplying something that



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your body needed, it is not because it is supplying something that canonly be supplied by a raw animal product, and it makes sense to getthat missing nutrient from something that doesn’t have any of thedownsides of raw animal food… an easy fix is not always the best fix.

So yes, dairy products that haven’t been cooked, and thereforehaven’t had their proteins damaged (damaged dairy proteins can causediabetes and MS) is a plus, but there are still the minuses to consider,like: Issues of raising the fat content of the diet above a healthy levelfrom consuming dairy products (milk is 50% fat as a percentage oftotal calories), excessive protein even though undamaged (milk is21% protein as a percentage of total calories), the possibility of pathogens in raw milk, being acid-forming and acidifying the body(which promotes cancer and osteoporosis), excessive calcium becauseit’s non-bioavailable because of too little magnesium, and the factthat, as adults, we’re supposed to be “lactose intolerant” and there arethose who can’t consume even raw milk without using products likeLactAid. So the question really is: Why drink cow milk at all? What’sthe benefit? And do the benefits (if any) outweigh the detriments?These are the questions not being addressed when discussing raw cow

milk vs pasteurized cow milk. The fact that a cooked product isunhealthy so the uncooked version of it is therefore healthy, is one ofthe points raised by the raw milk advocates. And this narrow view prevents a big picture scrutiny. An “all things considered” approach isthe best way to decide if something should be part of our dietary or not.

“How do we know that we’re supposed to eat fruits and veggies

only?”

In the classes I teach, I offer these four answers to the question of“How do we know?”

Physiology, Comparative anatomy, Empirical evidence, Passes tests

From a digestive standpoint, human physiology is suited to processing those foods that are easiest to digest. That may seem like

an obvious statement, but when you look at the various diets thathumans around the world eat, you'll find that they all don't processwith the same digestive ease. Why is this important? Because themore of your body's nervous system energy (aka nerve energy) that is



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used for digestion, the less is available for other tasks such as healingand disease avoidance. Considering that every animal on the planethas a species specific diet, when you look at the over 100 differentdiets that we humans eat, it becomes apparent that, for us, eating isanything but instinctive. So if we want to eat what we're truly

designed to eat so that we can have the best health possible, we've gotto use logic, common sense, and some hard science to know what thisis. And from a physiological perspective, the foods that our digestivesystem is best suited for are medium to high water content fruits andleafy green vegetables eaten in a whole, unprocessed, and undamagedstate (no cooking).

The science of comparative anatomy says that even though a horse,donkey, mule, and zebra look different on the outside, their insidesare basically the same, and they would eat the same diet if in the samegeographical environment. It is commonly thought that chimps are theclosest animal to humans, but this is not so. They have approximately92.4% in common with us chromosomally speaking, but the Bonoboape has more than that amount in common with us, and they lookmore human, they are “better behaved” than chimps, and they walk

upright way more often than chimps do, and are more suited toupright walking than chimps (so I’m amazed every time there’s a newdocumentary that states, “The Chimpanzee, our closest relative…”).I came to my conclusions regarding what I’m designed to eat beforeknowing about Bonobos, so naturally I was thrilled to learn that I eat just like they do. Yes, you’ll hear from some “anti-raw” folks thatBonobos have eaten animal, but this was in scenarios where I’d eatanimal too, even though I normally don’t. The hippopotamus is a

confirmed grass eater, but to survive will eat animal, as I would. So just because the hippo has been observed eating animal doesn’t makehim an omnivore. (And by-the-way, all omnivores have a preferreddiet; the diet they’d rather eat 24/7/365 if they could. It’s when theycan’t that they are able to eat other foods to survive, unlike univores –those animals that can only eat one thing.)

Empirical evidence is a tough one to argue with, even though it’s not

“scientific” in the truest sense of the word. If we’re supposed to eatanimal foods (raw eggs, milk, organs) why ultimately do people do better, health-wise, when they don’t; why do they do better when they



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stick to uncooked fruits and leafy greens. There are those who feelthey do better when also eating raw animal things. My experiencewith those I’ve counseled and others that I know of has been thatsome of the reasons they actually do feel better when including thosethings fall under one of these categories: weren’t eating a balanced

fruit and veggie diet, weren’t eating a raw vegan diet correctly(maybe too much fat or not enough carbs), interference with detox,focusing on a diet which looks at food and not on an eating plan thatlooks at nutrition, or stimulatory/hormonal effects. I gauge how well away of eating works or doesn’t work not so much by how you feel but by whether your health is actually improving or heading in the otherdirection (and this is not always obvious to the naked eye).

And I should point out that since many of us won’t truly know fordecades if what we we’re trying worked or not, we should rely moreon logic, common sense, and hard-science… and carefully scrutinizedempirical evidence is a tool in the toolbox of science. The philosophyof “do what works for you” is all well and good, but, technically, youcan’t know what diet really works for you until you see if it enabledyou to not get a diagnosis of something serious. If 30 years from now

you do get that diagnosis, you can’t go back in time saying, “this timeI’ll try it without raw milk and eggs” or “this time I’ll try low fat, high carb”.

There are some common sense tests that the foods of our biologicaldesign should pass.

AS IS TEST: Can you eat it as it appears in Nature, without having to

process it, and it’s enjoyable as is.

DOES IT LOOK GOOD TO YOU TEST: When hungry, go into a petstore and look at the bunnies, then go into a fruit store and look at thefruit. Which made you salivate and go “Mmmm”?

CAN YOU THRIVE ON IT TEST: This is a test that only time willtell. There are obviously lots of diets that allow people to survive, but

surviving and thriving are two entirely different things… thedifference between them can be a diagnosis of something serious ornot (and huge differences in quality-of-life).



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CAN YOU MAKE A MEAL OF IT TEST: Test these items and see: bananas, onions, durian, cayenne pepper, mangoes, garlic. True, Ican’t make a meal of the vitamin D I take in the winter, but you getthe idea.

THE IRRITATION TEST: The tissue inside your nose and underyour eyelids is very much like the tissue inside your body except thatthey have pain receptors. So if you’re wondering if somethingshouldn’t be part of your diet, try subjecting these areas to it. Bananawill cause no adverse reaction, as will most fruits and leafy greens(even an orange won’t make you sneeze), but if onion or cayenne pepper irritates your nose or eyes, it will do the same thing on theinside of your body, except you may not be as aware of its effect.

Now, of course I’m not suggesting that you actually do this test, but Ithink the point I’m making is clear.

DOES IT MAKE SENSE TEST:

Your question, “How do we know that we’re supposed to eat fruitsand veggies only?” was a good question, and it’s good that you’reasking questions. The truth is out there, and the only way to find it is

to keep asking questions.



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“My husband says this eating fruits and vegetables is nonsense

because we’ve adapted to meat eating and cooked food. Is he right?”

It is well-settled that humans, like most species, did not originate allover the globe; we “began” in an area very close to the equator. For

whatever reason, we roamed to geographical regions that could notsupport our original diet. So to survive, we adopted survivaltechniques which included figuring out how to eat things that wereavailable even though we were not biologically suited to them. Just because we can eat something that allows us to survive, doesn’t meanwe can thrive on this way of eating. Just ask Morgan Spurlock whotried to live exclusively on McDonalds; had he continued theexperiment, he obviously would have died prematurely from

something that was obviously preventable. And I don’t think anyonewould seriously suggest that if we keep eating lots of fast food that atsome point in human existence we will have adapted to it and it won’tcause us any harm as it does now.

Most of the things people die of today are preventable, but peopledon’t think that they are because we’re told that we don’t know whatcauses those diseases that plague us, so if we don’t know what causes

them, how can we prevent them. But the causes are known, they are just not common knowledge (and for very good reasons). How elsecan people with so-called “incurable” diseases (like asthma anddiabetes) get rid of them simply by adopting healthy lifestyle practices? Evidently I don’t need a degree in medicine to help peopleresolve these conditions; indeed, MDs (in this country) are not taughtwhat really causes these conditions, and how best to deal with them.

If we’ve truly become adapted to the diet we adopted, and it is asgood for us as our original diet was, then how do we explain all thechronic, degenerative disease we face today? Sure, pesticides, addedhormones, and other chemicals contribute to the toxic load that is acontributing factor to today’s ill-health, but why then do humans do better, health-wise, when they are weaned off of the typical Westerndiets onto a diet that more resembles our original (pre-fire) diet… and

even when eating organically grown grain products with no additives,and hormone- and pesticide-free meat and dairy, we still do better onan all uncooked, plant-based diet.



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The human body has a finite ability to adapt to unnaturalenvironments. When we donned more clothes in an effort to keepfrom freezing to death and lived in an area where the sun was not asstrong as it was where we originated, our skin tone lightened in aneffort to admit more UV rays in an effort to create adequate vitamin

D. But even with this adaptation, many people are still vitamin Ddeficient, so obviously this adaptive mechanism is limited. And yes, ifI, with my cold-climate skin tone, were to relocate to a tropicalclimate, I would have to be more careful than those native to the areawho had a skin tone far darker than mine. And if my progeny stayedthere in that area generation after generation, eventually mydescendants’ skin tone would be far darker than mine is now.

And since the digestive system of today’s human is still designed fora plant-based diet (because it is still primarily the same as a species ofanimal who never left Africa and who still today naturally eats a fruitand leafy greens diet), we still need to eat what we’re designed to eatregardless of where we live. You can feed a human nothing but blubber because he now lives full-time in an area of the world where blubber is the only thing he can eat, and he can have kids who will

only eat blubber, and their kids can only eat blubber, but instead oftheir descendants one day having a digestive system that more closelyresembles that of a polar bear than an ape, they will simply live a lifeof survival and will not attain their genetic health and longevity potentials.

So just because we adopted other things to eat, and have eaten themfor, what we think of as, a long time, doesn’t mean we adapted to

them. Examples of some Europeans having “adapted” to thecontinued consumption of dairy as demonstrated by them notexpressing symptoms of lactose intolerance is not a sign of trueadaptation. If we have truly adapted to meat, grains, and dairy, we’dnot only have no indigestion from eating them, but we’d also be ableto eat these things without any negative health effects, which isclearly not the case. Just because someone is not “lactose intolerant” by today’s definition doesn’t mean that high dairy product

consumption is allowing them to thrive… they are still only surviving.



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“I’m reading that differences in metabolism are not hugely

significant when eating a raw food diet, but you say that

metabolism types are important when eating a raw diet. Could

you explain.”

There are those such as myself who can eat 4,000 calories a day, only burn 2,500 calories a day and who are thin and will not beoverweight. That is a very different metabolism than someone whowill gain weight if they overeat 1,500 calories a day. And I’m carefulto say that it is important for “fast metabolizers” to eat according tohunger so they don’t overeat, not because they’ll gain weight, whichthey won’t, but because it is a horrible waste of the body’s nerveenergy to have to process the unnecessary food, and a horrible waste

of food to boot (although it is harder to overeat on a 100% raw fooddiet than it is on a typical Western diet because of the calories-per- bite issue). “Slow metabolizers” have the advantage of being able togauge their food intake by the number on the scale when eating ahealthy raw food diet, so they can stay at a good weight even if theydon’t pay attention to eating according to hunger. So that’s how yourmetabolism can play a part when eating a healthy diet.

“I’ve heard that you can become underweight on a fruit and

veggie diet, so how can this be good?”

The weight issue can be a troubling issue for some people, but itneedn’t be as long as you are armed with the appropriate information.What we perceive to be a “proper” weight/look for the body is oftensociologically determined. When people who are transitioning to a

healthier diet contact me to complain about being “too thin” I alwaysask, “But how do you feel?” If their energy level is fine (or even better than ever), there is nothing to worry about. Very often, the body, when suddenly given what it needs to improve its condition,will shed a lot of body fat in an effort to expel stored toxins, and itwill then re-store an appropriate amount of body fat (which is usuallynot as much as was previously stored). So some people’s weight willdrop below their ideal weight for a time. As long as you’re being

active, and eating enough food to fuel your daily activity, thistemporary under-weight condition should not be a concern. If



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however, you are not eating enough food to fuel your activity level,then obviously you will lose weight and can become underweight.

One of the reasons people who’ve normalized their body fat percentage feel that they look under-weight is because they are under-

muscled. But they were under-muscled before losing the over-fatcondition, they just couldn’t notice it because of the higher thannormal amount of fat on their body. So attention should be given not just to reducing excessive body fat, but also to increasing musclemass to an appropriate amount. Even just a modest improvement inmuscle tone is enough to positively affect one’s body shape. And ifyou do this increase in muscle tone in tandem with losing the excessfat, your body shape will certainly change, but the number on the bathroom scale may not change all that much (unless, of course,you’ve got a bunch of body fat to permanently lose).

Since a healthy diet of high-fiber, high-water content (high bulk)fruits and veggies have less “calories per bite” than the moreconcentrated foods typical of the standard Western diets, it is notuncommon for people to unintentionally under-eat if they eat by

“food volume satiation”. Meaning, when transitioning from anunhealthy diet to a relatively healthier diet, one needs to be mindfulthat they are eating a higher bulk diet, and that it is not uncommon tofeel “stuffed” in the beginning (until your stomach has regained itslong-lost elasticity; its ability to stretch to accommodate the higher bulk diet). And it may take some getting used to when you see a“protruding” stomach after eating a healthy-sized meal of fruit, butthis condition is temporary, and your stomach will flatten once the

meal has “moved along”. And if you improve your posture andabdominal muscle tone, it’s even less noticeable.

The only other proviso I’d mention is to ensure you’re getting enoughnutrition in case you are inadvertently under-eating a little too much(because of the new experience of eating a high bulk diet). And the best way to do this is by adding a high quality nutritional adjunct toyour diet. And due to the less than ideal nutritional quality of our

modern day agri-based produce, this is a prudent thing to do evenwhen eating an appropriate amount of calories of the foods you’redesigned to eat.



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As to losing a specific amount of weight, i.e. making a consciousdecision that you don’t want to lose more than X pounds because ofhow you will look, I can only say that if superior health is your goal,you should want to lose whatever weight your body deemsappropriate, and be happy with whatever new “set weight” your body

eventually stabilizes at (assuming you’re eating enough food). Again,addressing an under-muscled condition will affect what you look likein the mirror and to others (and will affect how you feel in general,vitality-wise), and thus is something to keep in mind when thinkingabout what you look like.

“Are the enzymes in food killed at 110 degrees? And do we need

them at all? And are enzymes the difference between raw foods

and living foods?”

As far as heat destroying enzymes, it’s my understanding that nothingis damaged or destroyed at temperatures below 110 degrees F. Beaware that it can get up to 110 degrees in some places during thehottest part of the year. Above that temperature, things start to beaffected pretty quickly. The most “delicate” things go first, like

enzymes and certain vitamins. Heartier things like proteins canremain intact until about 125 degrees.

The point of contention regarding the “enzyme theory” is that theenzymes in food are needed at all (for digestion). Some say the plant’senzymes are needed by the plant, and that we make the digestiveenzymes we need for digestion. But this has been shown not to betrue, but the notion persists, which is why I say in my talks – whenlisting the detrimental things cooking does to food – to leave out the“enzymes are destroyed” bullet point to avoid being dragged into thatdebate, and just focus on the other seven reasons which can’t beargued.

There’s a “digestive enzyme theory of raw foods” which states thatwe are born with a finite amount of enzymes, and when they’re gone,

we decline rapidly. This was Edward Howell’s contention, but I don’t buy it on logical grounds alone. What is more likely is that asunhealthy people age, their ability to manufacture enzymes



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diminishes due to stressing their enzyme manufacturing ability fordecades by eating cooked (enzymeless) food.

And I have a problem with those raw food educators who promote araw food diet purely on the benefit of “living enzymes”, stating that

“cooking kills the enzymes” so the food is now “dead food”. I don’tcharacterize raw food that way; I don’t say that it’s dead or alive(which is how you can describe animals). Instead of “dead food” I say“damaged food”, which is a more accurate description. And this iswhy I don’t like the “living food” label. So the raw food diet is not“all about the enzymes” as some raw food educators would have people believe.

The research I’ve done suggests to me that we do make use of theenzymes in the fruits and veggies that we eat. And if we cook thefoods, the enzymes are destroyed, and the body must now makedigestive enzymes to digest the food, forcing its enzymemanufacturing capabilities away from making metabolic enzymeswhich are needed for other processes like dealing with cancerouscells. But since there is so much debate and conflicting information

on this issue, my position is to not tout it as a reason for eatinguncooked food, especially when there are so many other compellingreasons to not cook food that are not subject to this level of debate.

And it’s interesting to note that the body cannot produce digestiveenzymes that metabolize foods as completely as those enzymes thatare part of the food itself. This results in partially digested fats, proteins, and starches that can clog the body’s intestinal tract and

arteries. And as I said, it diverts the body’s enzyme production awayfrom making metabolic enzymes which are needed to deal withcellular damage. Forcing your enzyme-making organs to do “double-duty” would explain why these organs are found to be enlarged incooked food eaters (compared to raw food eaters) because they areoverworked.

And now for something from the empirical evidence department:

There are people who have better digestion when consuming digestiveenzymes in supplement form along with their cooked food. This



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would suggest that we would benefit from not destroying the enzymesin food by cooking them.

So I say that since we need digestive enzymes to properly digest ourfood, if we can get them from the food we eat and therefore don’t

have to manufacture them, so much the better. But again, this is not“the” reason for eating uncooked food.

“I’m eating just fruits and leafy green vegetables, and when I

enter what I eat in fitday.com, the numbers for calcium can

sometimes be below the RDA. I wouldn’t think that you couldn’t

get enough calcium on this diet, but there is kind of a knee-jerk

reaction when I see a number that’s ‘below normal’.”

We must keep in mind that many numbers and ranges for things likeRDA’s and blood tests do not apply to healthy people, only to those inless than optimal health, and this is because a healthy person’s need ofmany nutrients can be less than a person whose body is workingovertime to deal with multiple insults, burdens, and pre-diseaseconditions. And some of the RDAs are politically motivated, meaning

they are not based solely on human physiology as they should be. Andif that’s not enough, some RDAs are increased by a multiplier toaccount for the nutrient loss from cooking (yes, nutritional scientistsknow full well what happens to nutrients when they are subjected tothe heat of cooking… this information just doesn’t filter out to thegeneral public because it would affect many powerful industries andeven our economy). So if you’re not cooking (damaging) the food youeat, this needs to be taken into account. And to top it all off, someRDAs are nothing more than an educated guess.

But there’s even more to the calcium story…

The British Medical Journal recently published surprising resultsabout calcium intake and the risk of bone fractures. (BMJ2011;342:d1473.) This long term study of over 60,000 women in

Sweden, born anywhere from 1914 to 1948, followed the calciumintake of these women and their actual history of fractures fornineteen years, and those in the upper quintile for calcium intakeactually had a higher rate of hip fractures!



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Lead author of the study, Michael Rosenbaum M.D., comments:

“High calcium intake may backfire and increase the risk of fractures.High doses of calcium can actually reduce bone remodeling orreshaping which is necessary for the maintenance of strong bones.

Bone that is not remodeled can become brittle over time and becomesmore prone to fractures.”

As I’m fond of saying, dense bones (as evidenced by a bone scan) can be brittle and this be more prone to breaking than less dense bonesthat are strong and are able to bend a little when stressed instead of breaking. So bone density scans do not tell the whole story about bonehealth.

Dr. Michael Rosenbaum and his team were surprised by the results ofthis study, but they shouldn’t have been, considering what is knownabout calcium. But medical doctors can only know what they’ve beentaught, and correct and useful nutritional information is not taught tomedical doctors (what they are taught about nutrition is useful only tothe animal products industry, not the general public).

The researchers wouldn’t have been so astonished by the results hadthey been aware of…

“Even when eating 1,400 mg of calcium daily, one can lose up to 4%of his or her bone mass each year while consuming a high-proteindiet.” – American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 1979;32(4)

“Increasing one’s protein intake by 100% may cause calcium loss todouble.” – Journal of Nutrition, 1981; 111 (3)

“Calcium intake demonstrated no protective in preventing bonefractures. In fact, those populations with the highest calciumintakes had higher fracture rates than those with more modestcalcium intakes.” – Calif Tissue Int 1992;50

“There is no significant association between teenaged milkconsumption and the risk of adult fractures. Data indicate thatfrequent milk consumption and higher dietary calcium intakes in



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middle aged women do not provide protection against hip or forearmfractures… women consuming greater amounts of calcium from dairyfoods had significantly increased risks of hip fractures, while noincrease in fracture risk was observed for the same levels of calciumfrom nondairy sources.” – 12-year Harvard study of 78,000 women

American Journal of Public Health 1997;87

“Consumption of dairy products, particularly at age 20 years, wereassociated with an increased risk of hip fractures… metabolism ofdietary protein causes increased urinary excretion of calcium.” – American Journal of Epidemiology 1994;139

Most people have been sold on what amounts to a calcium myth, andthey don’t realize that osteoporosis and thinning bones are preventable, but not by consuming lots of calcium.

Here’s one more quote…

“The myth that osteoporosis is caused by calcium deficiency wascreated to sell dairy products and calcium supplements. There’s no

truth to it. American women are among the biggest consumers ofcalcium in the world, and they still have one of the highest levels ofosteoporosis in the world. And eating even more dairy products andcalcium supplements is not going to change that fact.” – Dr. JohnMcDougall

“On this fruit and vegetable diet I’m getting bored with myevening meals, is there anything I can do about this?”

What you are reporting, about getting bored with what you eat is notuncommon. A new way of eating takes getting used to. It is naturalfor your subconscious to make comparisons between how you arenow eating and the way you used to eat. One recommendation that Iwholeheartedly make is to get a hold of this DVD from Health

Creation Educator Ellen Livingston…



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Simple ‘n Healthy Raw Cuisine:

Recipe Basics and Menu Planning for Success

In this 2-hour DVD Ellen shares many of her tips for raw foodsuccess, explains food separating and combining principles, and

demonstrates 17 delicious recipes. This is all about preparing simpleraw food meals, and you will likely pick up some good ideas fromthis video that will have you being more engaged with your meals,and will help you as you transition. Once you get comfortable with afuller repertoire, and you get more in touch with your body regardingwhat it wants to eat, the evening meals will be as satisfying as theearlier ones. See www.Health101.org/bookmark#4 for info about the DVD.

“This guy says that omnivores are supposed to eat animal

products too, but you say that eating no animal food is best…”

“The key category in the discussion of human diet is omnivores,which are defined as generalized feeders, with neither carnivore norherbivore specializations for acquiring or processing food, and whoare capable of consuming and do consume both animal protein and

vegetation. They are basically opportunistic feeders (survive by eatingwhat is available) with more generalized anatomical and physiological traits, especially the dentition (teeth). All the availableevidence indicates that the natural human diet is omnivorous andwould include meat.” – John McArdle, Ph.D.

Contrary to popular belief, an “omnivore” merely means that theanimal is capable of eating more than one kind of food in order toensure survival, unlike a univore who can only eat one food, and ifthat food is unavailable for a long enough period of time, he’s agoner. But all omnivores have a “preferred diet”, one they would eat24/7/365 if they could. It is when they can’t eat their preferred dietthat an omnivore can eat other things to survive… but surviving is notthe same as thriving, as an omnivore does on its preferred diet. So, being an omnivore doesn’t mean we can eat vastly different kinds of

foods, and process/utilize all of them equally as well, and it does notmean that all of the foods an omnivore is capable of eating have thesame effect on them, health-wise.



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“Is there anything to the ‘eat for your blood type’ diets?”

When I first heard of this concept, I asked myself how could I figureout if there was any truth to it. I didn’t have millions of dollars of labequipment in my basement, nor could I do multiple, placebo

controlled studies, so I used logic and common sense (two things Ifind very useful). I asked if other anthropoid primates (the category towhich we belong) had different blood types too. For if they did, andthey didn’t eat according to a particular blood type, this would say alot about us doing something like that. Well, it turns out, other primates do have different blood types. In fact, they have the same blood types we do. Hmmm.

Bottom line: The thing that dictates what foods an animal should beeating is its digestive system. Just because someone can make a casefor eating according to a particular blood type, doesn’t mean there’sany truth to it. Cases have been made for smoking being good fordigestion, baby formula being superior to mother’s milk, and cayenne pepper being the best thing for cleansing the blood.

“I’ve read that we shouldn’t wait until we’re hungry to eat, butyou say that it’s a good idea to wait until you’re hungry before

eating. Why?”

There are reasons why some health educators recommend not to waituntil you get hungry to eat. When people who are new to this new diettry waiting for hunger before eating, one of three things can happen:1. They may not recognize what real hunger is, expecting it to be

gurgling in the stomach or mildly painful, thinking the expression is“hunger pains” (but it’s not; it’s hunger pangs, which is a “physicalsensation”), so they may under-eat while waiting for something thatdoesn’t come. 2. If the person is not in the best of health, their hungermechanism (and other signals) may not be working at 100%, so theymay not feel hunger until it is way past time to eat. 3. If the person’s body is trying desperately to get ahead of a potentially life-threateningcondition, and it’s been trying to get the person to stop eating so it can

devote maximal nerve energy to healing, and then the personsuddenly decides to wait for hunger before eating rather than eatingaccording to a schedule as they had been doing, the person may not



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get hungry for a few days for even a few weeks. And even though itsounds like a good idea to obey the body, this may not be the besttime to stop eating because of the inevitable weight-loss that willoccur (as the body turns to fat stores for fuel, toxins stored in that fatwill become systemic and could over burden the liver and kidneys).

So it may be a better idea to transition to a healthier diet and to eatthat healthier diet for a while before obeying your body’s desire forsome complete physiological rest (no eating).

There are some health educators who don’t include the above in whatthey teach, either because they are not aware of it themselves, or because they feel it’s advanced stuff that newbies don’t need to know,so they simply advise “don’t wait for hunger to eat”. And some healtheducators are aware that many people new to eating a fruit and leafygreens diet tend to under-eat and will therefore start becoming under-weight and under-nourished, and that could put them off to anotherwise health-enhancing diet, so these health educators elect tooffer the simple and straightforward advice to not wait until hunger toeat.

But let me ask you, if you don’t wait until hunger to eat, how do youknow when to eat? It’s all well and good to figure out approximatelyhow many calories you need in a day (based on your ideal weight andlevel of activity), but how do you then eat those calories? Do yousimply divide the number by three or four meals a day and figure outhow much food that is for each meal? To me, that soundscomplicated, but then I took a different approach to eating, wanting torely on my body for my cues when to eat (and what to eat).

In case it might help you to know how I eat: I eat when I’m hungry,and I don’t eat when I’m not hungry. I do get hungry several times aday, and I feel this in my chest in the same area as you would feelthirst. Thirst has an “immediacy” to it and can’t be described as“pleasant”, but hunger is certainly a pleasant feeling, and unlike thirstif unattended does not begin to furrow my eyebrows; hunger will waxand wane, and when it wanes it returns stronger (and when it first

appears, it’s very subtle).



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When I eat, I don’t eat until I’m ready to burst, i.e. I don’t ‘pack itin”; I eat slowly, paying attention to my eating (not conversing orwatching TV); when I’ve had enough, I know it, and I stop eating(even if I’m in the middle of a banana just like other primates do).Evidently I get enough food to fuel my level of activity, which is not

sedentary but which is also not overdoing it. (Just as it is possible to be under-active, it is also possible to be over-active, and these twoscenarios are possible because we are no longer living in the wild,where we were designed to live; today we have to decide how activeto be.)

And when I’m hungry, I’m not feeling like I’ve “hit a wall”. Like Isaid, it’s actually a very pleasant feeling, and I’m still energetic at the point when I get hungry, I just “feel like eating something”. Yes, it’strue that for some people, when they first make that shift away fromthe typical Western diet to the diet they’re designed to eat, there’s alot of “rebalancing” that goes on, and part of that process is becomingacquainted with the body’s “whispers” for things, but if they’re not onthe lookout for this, they may not recognize them or may misinterpretthem.

And I’ll just throw this out there: If you never wait for hunger to eat,you’ll never develop the ability to eat “on automatic”, it will always be eating “on manual”. And, naturally, if you always eat ahead of truehunger, never waiting for it, how would you know if your body wantsyou to “take a break” from eating? Once every year or so, I realizethat I haven’t eaten most of the day, and then I realize that I haven’teaten all day, and this can go on for a few days, during this time I’ve

realized that my body is dealing with something, probably a foreigninvader of some kind, and then after a few days I get my appetite back, and all is back to normal. My only symptom of the virus (orwhatever it was) was no appetite. If I never waited for hunger to eat,my body would not have been able to jump on that pathogen and dealwith it bringing to bear the full force of its nerve energy reserves(because I was still eating, which is a very energy intensive process),and I would have experienced the flu the way most people do… with

all the usual unpleasant symptoms, which go on for days and days. Ilike the way my body deals with pathogens now that I respect its wishes.



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All this is why it’s important to hear from all those who have beensuccessful with a raw natural diet (and lifestyle – because robusthealth requires more than just a healthy diet) so you can makeinformed choices for yourself. And I find it especially educational tohear from people who have been doing something a “long time”. This

is because you’re not likely to know how a radically different way ofliving works for you until you’ve been doing it, faithfully, for a longtime. If someone does a 180 from a cooked animal and grain-baseddiet to an all-raw fruit and leafy greens diet, and experiencesuncomfortable symptoms, and concludes that an all-raw fruit andveggie diet doesn’t “work” for them, this would be an incorrectconclusion because you can’t base long-term results on short-termexperiences. This underscores the importance of making soundchoices, and for those who don’t have the wherewithal to do the tonsof research that myself and many of my colleagues have done, itwould be good for you to be privy to the experiences of those peoplewho are headed in the same direction you want to go (especially fromthe ones who’ve been on that path for a “long time”). And now thatI’ve been eating, as of 2012, a LFARVFLG* diet for over 20 years,I’ve been able to reach some conclusions (but other health educators

will have to wait another 15 years or so before they – hopefully –come to the same conclusions). And I’ve counseled/coached enough people over the last ten years, and have met people who’ve been onthe same path for longer than I, to have learned a few things.* Low Fat, All-Raw, Vegan, Fruit and Leafy Greens

And I have to say that I know many people who could be described as“Natural Hygienists” (even if they don’t call themselves that) who are

fit and trim, with lots of energy, and who are vibrantly healthy, andthey eat when they’re hungry and don’t eat when they’re not.

Some things to consider: Our stomach is not like a gas tank, whichyou need to keep something in it all the time. The stomach is meant toempty after each meal, and the idea is not to put more food into it assoon as it finishes processing what it had in it. There are many peoplewho consume a typical Western diet who start their next meal while

there is still some food in their stomach, or very soon after thestomach empties. Obviously this is because of what they are eating (ittakes longer to digest than a fruit meal). So it’s natural for some



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people, when they transition to a healthier way of eating andexperience an empty stomach, to “feel” like they should be eating, butthis is because what they are feeling is an empty stomach, which theyhaven’t experienced much before. There is a lot to be gained fromwaiting until you get hungry (and hunger is not felt in the stomach).

I’m not saying that we all must eat every meal this way, but getting intouch with our bodies is a good thing, and listening for certain signalsthat we either never used to get or got but couldn’t “hear” because ofrelatively unhealthy lifestyle practices is very often an “ah ha”moment when we “get it”.

So I say definitely eat if you are hungry. If you find you are becomingunder-weight eating this way, then you are either not eating when youshould, or more likely you are simply not eating enough simple carbswhen you do eat. If you feel more comfortable not trying to wait untilyou are hungry before eating, that’s fine in the beginning, as this mayhelp you to eat “enough” simple carbs so you don’t become under-weight. But don’t think that this way of eating is the natural way toeat, or that you need to eat this way forever.

“Sometimes I find myself getting hungry just before I’m going to

go to bed, and I know it’s not good to eat just before going to

sleep. What can I do about this?”

There are many factors that affect the body’s desire for food. Here’sone scenario that addresses your question. We’re meant to experiencea sunset, which, when it’s done, we’re in darkness. And this slowdimming of light signals the body to make melatonin which preparesour brain for sleep. And one of the effects of melatonin production isthat hunger is shut down for the night (because the body doesn’t wantyou eating just before going to sleep because doing so will interferewith getting a restorative night’s sleep). But what do we do now-a-days? We keep the sunshine up even after the sun has gone down.And then we shut off the lights suddenly after we’ve plunkedourselves down in our bed, and our brain says, “WHAT THE…!!!!”

We’re not designed for an “instant sunset”. So I recommend to startlowering all the lights in your house about 30 minutes before bedtime(and of course avoid bright lights during that time period, like the onein the refrigerator). This will not only help prepare you for falling



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asleep easily, but will curb hunger so you are not tempted to eat just before going to bed. And not eating after, say, 6 or 7 pm will help youto have a vigorous hunger earlier in the morning the next day.

But if just before your home’s “sun” starts setting, you get hungry, eat

a very little bit of a sweet high water content fruit (grapes, melon).But not the usual sized meal. The primates who live in the wild don’tgo to sleep with full bellies, so this suggests that neither should you.

“Some people say a vegan diet is unhealthy, especially for

children, and that we need animal food to avoid dental problems,

which a lot of vegans get. What is your take on this?”

I know many vegans, both healthy ones and unhealthy ones. A vegandiet doesn’t guarantee health because it is possible to eat many non-animal foods that are either not health-promoting or rob you of health(soy products for example). And every vegan meal that doesn’tcontain lots of fruits or leafy greens is a missed opportunity to eat ameal of the healthiest foods we can eat.

I know kids who were raised on a low-fat, all raw, fruit and leafygreens diet (technically a vegan diet), who are flourishing. No tooth problems, never been “sick” (as it is experienced today), and todayhave healthy adult teeth.

So all vegan diets are not the same, and for someone to make a broad-stroke statement that a vegan diet is not healthy is irresponsible. Plus,Ramiel Nagel’s remark, “Breast milk is not vegan. Humans areanimals…if you’re going to breast feed your child and you are vegan,you might as well give them other animal foods as well so they can behealthy” is ridiculous logic, and in reality, is an irresponsiblestatement. Humans are designed to consume breast milk; we are not designed to eat cows, pigs, birds, fish, lambs, dogs, horses, orhumans.

When people who eat a vegan diet develop dental problems, it’s for areason, and that reason is not because they stopped eating animal products. And I hope we’re not going to entertain the notion that somehumans have the DNA to be able to eat a plant-based diet and be



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perfectly healthy, and other humans don’t have the DNA for it andrequire animal food to be optimally healthy, because this is simply nottrue. Every animal on this planet has a “species specific diet”; the dietto which that animal is designed to eat (and to eat the foods of theirdesigned diet as those foods appear in Nature and not processed,

which includes cooking). Humans are no different. If you get aroomful of experts on the giraffe, for example, they may havedifferent opinions on whether giraffes should be kept in zoos or not, but they will all agree on what a giraffe is designed to eat. All ofthem. And it’s usually difficult to get a roomful of experts to agree onanything. But not on the diet of hippos, ants, hummingbirds, and of allthe animals on this planet, expect for one… humans. This is becauseof misinformed/miseducated people due to the tons of mis- and dis-information that abound, and this is because of either the profitmotive or personal preference, i.e. believing what we’d rather believe,as opposed to believing in the truth.

As of 2012 I’ve been eating a vegan diet for over 30 years, and an all-raw (all uncooked) fruit and leafy greens diet for over 20 years, andso far so good. I phrase it this way because we really won’t know if

our chosen way of eating worked for us until we see if we did ordidn’t get a diagnosis of something serious, which won’t be foranother 25 years or so in my case. And since I won’t have a timemachine to be able to go back to age 20 and try a different approach ifI do get cancer or Alzheimer’s when I’m older, it’s important for meto make correct choices now… which is why I’ve spent 35 yearsresearching the issue of optimal health. So we’re going to be stuckwith the ramifications of whatever diet we decide to eat. I hope the

diet you decide to eat is decided by you and you alone; don’t embracewhat seems to sound good to you or what “resonates” with you. Baseyour decisions on hard-science, empirical evidence, sound logic, andcommon sense.

But back to teeth. As far as dental problems being caused by lack ofEssential Fatty Acids (EFAs) or proteins, a plant-based diet of fruits(both sweet and non-sweet) and leafy greens do have all the EFAs and

protein one would need to be healthy if those substances are notdamaged by cooking, and if one is eating enough of these foods(meaning you must be active enough to warrant enough calories worth



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of food to get enough EFAs and protein), and if you are eating avariety of foods (a diet of just oranges and romaine lettuce will resultin dental problems). It’s amazing how the fact that cooking damagesEFAs and protein is not known by those who weigh in on the issue ofdiet. Even traditionally educated nutritionists aren’t taught what

happens to the various components of food when they are subjected toheat.

Regarding dental problems: If you could ask dentists what percentageof their patients with dental problems are vegans, you’d get a verylow number. But, as I said, there are vegans (and raw foodists) withdental issues. One reason is the increase of grain products and other“acid forming” foods when going vegan. Excess acidity in the

bloodstream causes the body to use stored alkaline minerals, calciumespecially, to neutralize the acid condition. This will, over time,demineralize bone, and that includes teeth. And there are otherimbalances that can predispose you to weakened tooth enamel (and bones) if you’re not eating the diet humans are designed for.

Those raw foodists who developed major dental problems in myexperience were found to be eating a lot of citrus fruits, little to noleafy greens (excellent source of minerals), and waaaaay too manynuts (metabolizes acidically).

I wonder if the most damaging practices to teeth are discussed inRamiel Nagel’s book, such as:

1. Fluoridation (actually promotes tooth decay).

2. Using toothpastes that contain glycerin (which coat the teeth and prevent remineralization of the enamel by the saliva) which is basically all toothpastes.

3. Brushing with anything but a “soft” toothbrush (hard brushes, or brushing hard with any toothbrush can irritate gums causing them torecede exposing non-enameled parts of the teeth which are moreeasily damaged by acids).

4. Clenching/grinding teeth while sleeping which can loosen themallowing pockets to form where bacteria can develop (it’s difficult forthe body to effectively deal with bacteria in these pockets).



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5. Improper flossing (irritates gums causing them to recede exposingnon-enameled parts of the teeth which are more easily damaged byacids).

6. Products (that can be termed “vegan”) that demineralize teeth such

as soda, and acid-forming foods such as soy and grain products viathe mechanism mentioned above.

7. Dried fruits (sticky sugars linger on teeth, feeding bacteria whose“poop” is acidic which damages enamel).

8. Too much nut and seed consumption (prevalent among many rawfood vegans). The body controls mouth pH, and will make mouth pHmore acidic after a meal of nuts (probably to deal with the particles ofnuts that remain in the mouth) and this will have a deleterious effecton tooth enamel over time.

9. Consuming hot and cold things. Divergence from normal mouthtemperature by the amounts experienced when consuming ice creamor tea for example contracts and expands the enamel and over timecauses “cracks” to form (crazing) which weakens teeth but moreimportantly allows bacteria to enter those crevices where brushingcan’t get to them. This is especially pronounced in the areas ofdissimilar materials such as where natural tooth meets metal filling(the thermal expansion properties of enamel and metal are differentand increase the “micro cracking factor”).

10. When moving away from unhealthy processed food that isfortified with certain nutrients, it is important to make sure that youstill get those nutrients now that they are not being provided to you

via those fortified products. Some of the more important of thesenutrients are vitamins D and B12. Many processed foods marketed tovegans are not fortified with any nutrients. And if the raw fruits andvegetables that raw food vegans eat are lacking in any essentialnutrients because they come from an agricultural-based system,someone could bump up against a nutrient deficiency, which, in thecase of vitamin D, can impact bone health and thus dental health (itshould be noted that D is not supposed to come from food, but fromadequate exposure to sunshine strong enough to make enough D inyour skin).



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So as you can see, there are other factors to the dental health issue thatneed to be considered, including genetics (some people have strongeror weaker enamel; those with weaker enamel may want to rinse theirmouths with something that kills bacteria before going to sleep, like adiluted clove oil).

As far as children raised on a “raw food diet” having health issues, incertain ways this is no different than adults who experience the same problem, although nutrient deficiencies are more immediatelyapparent in a growing child than in an adult. But the same issues areto blame.

There is no such thing as “the raw food diet” because there are manydifferent versions of a raw food diet, all calling themselves a “rawfood diet”. But some of these diets are way too high in nuts and seeds,and when the fat content of a human being’s diet gets much above ten percent of total calories, health will be affected at some point. Otherraw food diets do not contain enough variety resulting in potentialnutrient deficiencies. And then there’s the issue discussed in #10above, and this is especially important to a growing child.

I will say that it is entirely possible to raise a child, from birth, on a100% all-raw all-vegan plant-based diet and for the child to thrive andhave robust health. And, naturally, this is possible only if donecorrectly, as is the case with many other things in life. What makes itdifficult to do something like this correctly is all the misinformationthat is courtesy of misinformed people and of those who know better but value their marketability more than their audience’s good health.

“I’ve been trying some tropical fruits now that I’m attempting to

eat an all-raw fruit diet, and they just don’t taste sweet to me, yet

other people who’ve been eating them for a while assure me they

are sweet. What accounts for this?”

Assuming you are eating these fruits when they are ripe (because if

they aren’t, they won’t be sweet), it’s probably your sense of tastethat’s “off”. But this is not a permanent condition. As healthimproves, so do all the cells in your body, and whatever functionthose cells are responsible for will likewise improve. If it’s the cells



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that sense taste, this improvement in functioning will result in naturalfoods tasting better and unnatural “foods” tasting not as good as theyonce did. Even super-sweet junk food will then taste too sweet, or“sickeningly” sweet. Hard to imagine there is such a thing as toosweet, right? But when the taste buds that are sensitive to sweetness

regain their natural sensitivity after having been dulled (desensitized) by overly sweet designer foods, you’ll be able to taste the sweetnessin things that never tasted sweet before.

Here’s a test you can do at home. Take a bite of a banana to makesure it’s a sweet banana, and notice how sweet it tastes, then take a bite of a sweet candy bar. After the candy bar has spent some time incontact with your tongue, spit it out and take another bite of thatsweet banana… Doesn’t taste so sweet now, does it. This is anexample of acute desensitization. When you subject your tongue tosuper-sweet and super-salty stuff for decades, it’s no wonder naturalfoods don’t taste scrumptious at first. But after a while they taste better than any processed food you ever had. True, they won’t giveyou a serotonin high like dairy and grain products (because thosethings contain opioids and morphine-like substances), but that’s okay,

because when you’re in a vibrant state of health, those kinds of highswon’t make you feel good; they’ll be too stimulating.

“I’m trying to ‘transition’ to this healthier fruit and veggie diet,

but sometimes it seems like an uphill battle, but the battle is

mostly due to arguments I have with myself… I don’t want to eat

the pizza, and I do want to eat the pizza. How can I want both

these things at the same time!!?”

It can be an uphill battle in the beginning; the less healthfully a personwas living, and the longer they were living that way before “seeingthe light”, the harder it can be to transition. Fortunately, you can dothings (like water fasting) which can make the hill smaller. Once youcrest the top, you’re gonna love the ride down the other side. But for atime you’ll need to be mindful of those two voices on your shoulders,

the one saying, “Oh go ahead and eat it, you know you want to, youdeserve it, and it tastes soooo good…” and the other saying, “Youknow you don’t want to, you know how harmful it is, and you knowhow bad you’ll feel if you eat it, both emotionally and physically…”.



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The reason why you can have both of these narratives simultaneouslyis because they emanate from different areas of your brain, and that’swhy we can have these arguments; that’s why we can want both things at the same time, which can make “staying the course” difficultin the beginning. And the more you give in, the longer it’s going to

take to get to the point where whatever you were giving into doesn’thave any appeal anymore. The pull of that voice on that one shouldercan be strong, so you have got to be stronger. There are some tricks tothis: Think of how that “bad” voice is really a product of sociological programming courtesy of those companies that don’t give a rat’srump about your health, and think about how you can take back your power when you don’t go the “bad” route (and this helps to weakenthat voice). And everyone loves a pat on the back, even if it’s fromthemselves, and you get to do that every time you “just say no” to that“devilish” voice.

The truth of the matter is that the person you want to be is in there…you just have to nourish her, cultivate her, and embrace her. A greatsculptor once said that the finished sculpture is in the block of stone;all he had to do was take away the pieces that didn’t belong. In the

beginning it may feel as if there are two of you, and this is onlynatural, but after a while there will be only one. And that one will bethe one you want to be… just keep chip’n away the pieces that don’t belong!

You mentioned, “One doesn’t give a care about me and that is the onethat I am always letting win”

If you’re wondering why sometimes one voice wins and sometimesthe other voice wins, it’s because both sides want to be in control and both sides think they are what’s best for you, and there’s no arbitrator.So the side that wins is the side that was stronger at that moment.There are a few reasons for simply giving in and allowing that oneside to win, and sometimes understanding the reason can be a hugehelp in having the wherewithal to “stay the course” and “just say no”.

Sometimes it’s just plain easier to “give in to it”. But that’s wherethe “you’ve got to do the work necessary” comes in. Nothing that’sworthwhile is ever easy. If this was easy, there’d be a lot more healthy



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people out there. But know that it won’t be a constant struggle; the“heavy lifting” only needs to go on for a little while, until that voiceand all who support it no longer influence you. It’s a war in the sensethat victory is yours, all you must do is claim it.

Some people, on some level, don’t feel they’re worth havingwonderful things like robust, vibrant health. If that’s your situation,then it’s easy to deal with that one. Just know that you are definitelyworth it! If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be trying at all.

Sometimes you are feeling so “low” or “down” that you naturallywant to feel the opposite, and industries have done a great job makingyou think that the things your “devilish” voice tempts you with willmake you feel good. But as you know, they only make you feel goodfor the few minutes you’re eating it, after that, things are worse because now you may also be disappointed in yourself forsuccumbing. So focus on how good it’s going to feel when you areconstantly giving yourself a pat on the back for being triumphant overthose multi-trillion dollar entities that seeks to take advantage of you,for the sake of profit, at the expense of your health. How good does it

feel to know that you are more powerful than them!

“Why do I feel better when I avoid eating overt fats like nuts and

avocados?”

The reason many people feel better when doing no overt fat foods issimply because they eat too much of them when they eat them. Maybethat’s because they’re used to eating high volume foods like bananasfor a meal, so a meal of just 3/4 of an avocado doesn’t “do it” forthem. But you shouldn’t base your meals on stomach volume; whatyou eat should be based on satiation, which is not the same thing. Soyou’ve got to be vigilant if you want to eat appropriate amounts sothat you respect your body. And keep in mind that it’s easier to pile itin until you’re stuffed, but easier is not necessarily healthier.



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“How do I know if I’m eating too much overt fat?”

If it were me, I’d eat modest amounts of overt fats (avocado is best).Just as you would be overeating on walnuts if you ate a whole bag ofthem, if you find yourself eating a whole avocado, you may be

overeating on avocado. The law that our moms gave us to “finisheverything on your plate” is not based on science and does not respectour body. If you want a “rule of thumb” when eating nuts, take anamount that you can hide within your fist, and eat no more than that.And don’t feel that you must finish them all. Look at it this way: Ifyou were eating walnuts out of a huge bag, you certainly wouldn’tfinish the bag, so how would you know when to stop? If you’re notyet in tune with that “STOP” mechanism, rely on the “no more than

what can fit in your fist” when it comes to nuts, and the “never finishthe whole avocado”. And never eat overt fats two days in a row.

And something to keep in mind about nuts: In Nature, nuts are notavailable 24/7/365; they are only available for a short period of timeduring the year. Also, the version of nuts we get in the store is nothinglike the ones we’d eat from the wild (commercial nuts must be driedso they don’t get rancid, nuts from the wild have a higher water

content). I think they can be a healthy part of a healthy diet, but people do one of two things: They either eat waaaaay too many ofthem, or they eat none. I will eat some Brazil nuts once or twice ayear as dictated by my body’s desire for them, same for the other nuts.What I will not do is eat them as a matter of course, because I’m toldthat I should eat some “every week” or “every day”.

And durian lovers: Although durian is not as fatty as an avocado,ounce for ounce, it is considered a medium fatty food, midway between a banana and an avocado, so although this means that youcan eat more durian than an avocado, it doesn’t mean you can eatdurian until you’re ready to burst.

“No matter what I eat, or how much I eat, I am always hungry!”

The urge to eat falls into two basic categories: 1. A physiologicalneed, 2. A psychological need. I’ll mention the second one first



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because knowing you as I do, it’s probably not your problem, but anydiscussion of this sort should touch upon it.

It has been found that when someone loses a loved one, they eitherstop eating while they go through the grieving process (because they

lose their appetite) or they start eating more than they usually do as away to avoid feeling grief (because heavy-duty digestion and heavy-duty emotions can’t happen at the same time, and digestion takes precedence). Assuming you’re not eating the way you are eating foremotional reasons, let’s now talk about the physiological need forfood.

There are two reasons the body requires food: 1. Fuel, 2. Nutrients,and you can be “hungry” for either. When eating the foods of your physiological adaptation that come from the wild, they will have farmore nutrition than your body requires, so even if you are under-eating a little (because you broke your leg and can’t be active), you’llstill get sufficient nutrition.

So, you’re either not getting enough fuel (measured in calories), or

not getting enough nutrients, or both. When you first shift your eatinghabits away from the foods of the typical Western diet that arecalorically dense (lots of calories per mouthful) and start eatingnatural foods that are less calorically dense, if you eat the sameamount of food, mass-wise, you’ll likely come up short on calories.You didn’t mention if you were losing weight, which would be a signof this. It can take a while until your stomach gets used to eatinghigher water content and lower “calorie-per-bite” foods, so during this

adjustment phase it’s a good idea to be vigilant that you eat plenty ofcalorically dense fruit, which are the sweet fruits.

You mentioned, “No matter what I eat, or how much, I am alwayshungry”, so I’ll mention another possible reason for this, but it is notas common as the above “caloric” scenario. When one moves awayfrom processed (unhealthy) foods that have been fortified withnutrients that are lacking in the typical Western diets, to natural foods

that have no added nutrients, it’s important to eat organically grownfoods as much as possible because they tend to be higher in nutrientcontent than conventionally grown food. And it’s also important to



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not eat a “narrow” diet, and to eat a variety of foods as this will helpensure that you are getting enough of the various nutrients you need.

Now to the hotly debated issue, that of nutritional supplementation.One of the reasons people advocate the consumption of juices is that

the nutrients are concentrated, i.e. you can’t eat 20 carrots whole, butyou can get the nutrients of 20 carrots if you drink the juice of 20carrots. So drinking juices is thought to be a way to ensure sufficientnutrition, but juicing also has its downsides. That’s one end of thespectrum. At the other end are those who say that if you wear acertain crystal, it will pull nutrients from the air and impart them toyou. I place this in the category of pure nonsense because there is nohard science to support it and because empirical evidence says itsimply doesn’t work. But there are approaches in between which Imight explore if I wanted to be sure I wasn’t “craving” some nutrientthat I wasn’t getting in my new diet because, for example, the agri- based foods I was eating weren’t grown on sufficiently nutritious soil,and/or they were picked early in order that they not spoil in the store but when prematurely disconnected from the soil, they could belacking in some nutrient(s) that you need.

“Is there any possibility of over-alkalinity of blood, and what are

the symptoms? Could over-alkalinity of blood come from over-

eating of alkaline foods?”

The pH of blood must remain within a very narrow range in order forlife to be possible. It’s so important for blood pH to be within aspecific range, that the body will do whatever it has to do to keep blood pH from varying too much (which is why a test of one’s blood pH isn’t really revealing of anything). Obviously most people areeating an acidifying diet, and the body mobilizes calcium from the bones to neutralize excess acidity, and over the many decades ofdoing this, osteoporosis and cancer – to name two – develop.

Pulling calcium from the bones is the most often mentioned

mechanism for correcting a pH that’s heading towards the acid range, but the body’s pH regulatory systems also allow it to “borrow”minerals from body tissues and the interstitial fluids (lymphatics) inorder to neutralize excess acid. In addition, various organs, including



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the lungs, colon and skin help to excrete acids, and the kidneyseliminate excessive amounts of either acid or alkaline substance fromthe body through urine. And finally, the body can store excess acidsin the tissues, muscles and arteries. But all this effort to correctacid/alkaline imbalances can, over time, weaken organs and bones

and lead to a variety of serious health concerns.

The natural state of the body is alkaline (except where acidity isneeded for digestion of protein, which is mainly in the stomach). Sofor all practical purposes, it’s impossible to be “over alkaline” on thediet we’re designed to eat. There is enough acidity being producedfrom normal metabolism without adding to it by eating an acid-forming diet. The vast majority of my diet is alkaline-forming, and forweeks or months at a time I’ll have no “acidifying” foods (nuts), andas of 2012, this has been going on for 20 years.

It should be noted that the healthy buffering capability of most young people is due to the robust mineral reserves stored in their bones,healthy buffer systems, and strong lung and kidney function. But as people age and experience the mostly acidifying stresses of modern

life such as diet, emotional stress, poor sleep habits, inactivity, andsub-clinical dehydration, the efficiency of the pH-regulating system begins to decline. But this doesn’t have to happen. As you can see,there is a lot we can do to prevent an over-acid state.

An example of one of the things that fosters confusion is a statementlike this: “It is, therefore, vitally important that there is a proper ratio between acid and alkaline foods in the diet. The natural ratio in a

normal healthy body is approximately 4 to 1 – four parts alkaline toone part acid, or 80% - 20%. When such an ideal ratio is maintained,the body has a strong resistance against disease.” But this is advicegiven to people who are not likely to adopt a truly natural diet offruits and leafy greens (with occasional nuts), and will still want to eatanimal and grain products which metabolize acidically. So what thisinfo is actually saying is “don’t eat a diet that is mostly acidifying”.And indeed that statement does go on to say, “Therefore in the

treatment of most diseases it is important that the person’s dietincludes plenty of alkaline-ash foods to offset the effects of acid-forming foods and leave a safe margin of alkalinity.” If you read



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between the lines and do a lot of research, you’ll see that people whodevelop disease tend to eat a diet that is, on average, acid-forming.By-the-way, I’m sure my diet is closer to 95% - 5%.

And it should come as no surprise that the promotional organizations

that advocate eating animal products will often disseminate info thatsuggests that eating acid-forming foods is good for us. The morewide-spread the information on alkaline-forming foods and body pHawareness became, the more you started seeing misinformation aboutdiet’s affect on pH… which is one of the reasons I continue to dowhat I do.

“How many grams of protein, calcium, iron, sodium, vitamin D,

and fats do we need?”

The “number of grams of X” is what is used to makerecommendations, but never-the-less, it can only provide a ballparknumber because of such things as:

Individual need (raw foodists may need less of certain things

relative to SAD eaters) Utilization efficiency due to state of health Utilization effectiveness due to sufficient amounts of co-factors Genetics

And some recommendations are politically motivated because ofindustry influence, and therefore these recommendations tend to behigh and so have no correlation with our physiological needs. Andrecommendations that are based on flawed or insufficient research can be too low (as it is with vitamin D). So when a ballpark is largeenough, it can be irrelevant.

That said, here are some numbers…

PROTEIN:

A typical recommendation: 0.36 grams per pound of body mass.So for a 130 pound person, this would equal 47 grams. This is one ofa number of mainstream recommendations, and it is high relative to



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what we really need when you consider that it is often said, “this is forsedentary people, and for active adults engaged in strength training orintense endurance training, they should get 0.82 grams per pound of body mass”, which means a person weighing 130 pounds needs 106grams, which is way too high, and has been shown not to be needed to

build muscle or to fuel a very active lifestyle.

When eating a diet where you get on average (as a percentage of totalcalories) 90% carbs, 5% fat and 5% protein (denoted as “90/5/5”which is the max on carbs and the minimum on fat and protein), andthis diet is a raw fruit and leafy greens diet, and you’re getting 2,000to 2,500 calories, you’ll get 32-37 grams of protein according toFitday.com, which is plenty if you don’t cook what you eat (cookeddamages protein making it unavailable to the body). And it is plenty ifthose 2,500 calories are from a variety of foods so that you’ll likelyget all of, and enough of, the Essential Amino Acids (amino acids being the building blocks of protein). See the short video at

www.Health101.org/bookmark#5 for more info on protein.

FATS:

How many grams of fat you need in a day is a very open-endedquestion because it has to do with your body fat goals, i.e. are youtrying to lose weight. But assuming a person has a BMI less than 24,under 30 grams is a good idea (even though some mainstreamrecommendations for athletic people will say 100 grams because“their energy output is high enough to burn it all up”, which is nothow it works).

There are worksheets on the Internet that allow you to enter thingslike your basic metabolic rate (BMR) based on a chart of age groups,and your “activity factor” to determine how many calories you need,and it then calculates how many grams of fat you need. But theseworksheets are using 30% as the percentage of total calories from fatto give you your answer, and this percentage is way too high. (Onesuch worksheet takes you through all the calculations, gives you an

answer, tells you it’s based on getting 30% of your calories from fat,and then in small print underneath says, “It is best to eat less than30% of total calories consumed from fats”. Go figure!) Mostmainstream recommendations are for 67 grams of fat for a 2,000



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calorie diet, but again, this is based on 30% of your calories comingfrom fat, and this should be no more than 10% if you want superbhealth.

And let’s not forget there are different types of fat. The standard

recommendations say not to get more than 16 grams from saturatedfat (on a 2,000 calorie diet), but in that 90/5/5 diet above, only fivegrams came from saturated fat, and that’s more like it.

Again, as with protein, it’s not good to focus on the number of gramsof fat when considering nutritional issues; a better question is, are yougetting enough of the Essential Fatty Acids? And since these aredamaged by cooking, many typical Western diet eaters, even thoughthey’re over-eating on total fat, may be lacking in enough Omega 3Fatty Acids (also because their ratio of Omega 3’s to 6’s are way outof proportion because of what they are eating).

But the good news is, if you don’t cook what you eat (so you don’tdamage the fat), and you eat enough calories to support a healthyideal weight, and you are active enough to require a healthy amount

of calories (couch potatoes require less calories than an active person, but when calories go down, so do essential nutrients, which can leadto deficiencies over time), and you eat a variety of foods which willinclude some medium-fat and high-fat foods, and you keep youraverage weekly fat intake below 10% of total calories, you’ll getenough fat and EFAs.

I will say that it is especially important to be mindful to not under-eat

on fat when pregnant. If you’re trying to hold to 5% in order to losefat, and this becomes a habit, it’s fine for non-pregnant people. Butwhen pregnant, don’t resist an urge for more fat; if it gets upwards of10 to 15 percent, that’s fine… you’re eating for two, and one of you isgoing to have a high percentage of body fat when he or she pops out.

SODIUM:

Sodium (and calcium) is one of those nutrients where theRecommended Daily Intake (RDI) does not reflect actual need. 1,300mg per day is simply way too high, but since much of the sodium thatAmerican’s consume is from the salt that is added to food, and this



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form of sodium isn’t nearly as bioavailable as the natural sodiumfound in uncooked fruits and vegetables, the RDI must be inflated forthat reason. And the RDA for sodium (and calcium) is also a politically motivated number; attempts to lower it (because of inputfrom health advocates and nutritional researchers) are met with stiff

resistance from an industry that must deal with a public that hasdesensitized “saltiness” taste buds; lower the salt content of processedfoods enough and sales will drop. And since huge industries have a lotof influence over the USDA, we’re not likely going to ever see theRDIs reflect a healthy diet.

CALCIUM:

This is another over-recommended nutrient, and probably the biggestone, thanks in large part to the dairy industry. With the exception oftaste, the same issues that affect sodium, also affect calcium. The90/5/5 diet mentioned above has, according to Fitday.com, 70% of theRDI for calcium, and that’s just about right as far as what we needand can get from a plant-based diet. So even though the 817 mg ofcalcium is printed in red, indicating that it is less than the 1,200 mgRDI, it’s probably more calcium than I need.

I should add that trying to use a program like Fitday.com to see ifyou’re getting enough nutrients is inaccurate at best, for all thereasons stated above regarding RDIs, and also because the amounts ofnutrients ascribed to the foods in its database can be inaccurate (forexample there are wide variations in nutritional content of a food thatis organically grown and the same food that is grown conventionally…so what foods are the USDA basing their profiles on?).

IRON:

Just as with fats, carbs, and sodium, there are different kinds of iron.When you say the word “hemoglobin” take the “heme” and add it tothe word “iron”; heme-iron is one type of iron, and it is the type thatis found in animal flesh products (beef mainly). The iron in plantfoods is known as “non-heme-iron”.

We’re told by nutritionists and dietitians that heme-iron is betterabsorbed than non-heme-iron (thanks to the efforts of the meat



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industry), but let’s take a close look at this: You absorb about 40% ofthe heme-iron you take in, and you absorb anywhere from 10% to40% of the non-heme-iron depending on how much you need. There’sa built-in regulation mechanism with non-heme-iron, not so withheme-iron; you’re going to absorb it whether you need it or not. And

too much iron is not a good thing (more on this in a moment).

Sufficient iron is extremely easy to get in a plant-based diet, despitewhat you may have heard to the contrary (which is ultimatelycourtesy of the beef industry). If you compare, calorie-for-calorie theiron in strawberries with the iron in beef, there’s more iron instrawberries. But since the way iron is usually reported is by weight,if you take a pound of strawberries and a pound of beef, the beef being more calorically dense than strawberries, everything’s moreconcentrated, and it appears that beef is a better source of iron than plant-based foods, but calorically speaking, it’s not. And when youlook at leafy greens, they are even better than strawberries in the irondepartment.

Yes, there have been vegetarians who ended up with an iron

deficiency, but this is usually because they consume a goodly amountof dairy products (thinking it is healthy for them to do so) and dairy isa very poor source of iron (and binds with iron in your body making itunavailable), and they don’t eat enough uncooked fruits and leafygreen vegetables (most people who self-identify as vegetarian eat agoodly portion of their diet cooked, and eat a goodly amount of“junk” vegetarian food. On the other hand, it’s unheard of for a person who eats a vegan diet that includes lots of uncooked fruits and

green leafy vegetables, to have an iron deficiency.

The 2,500 calorie 90/5/5 diet above, which, by the way, consists of…

10 bananas10 slices of Hass avocado2 papayas3 oranges

1 head of romaine lettuce3 apples3 mangoes3 cucumbers



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…has 14 mg of iron, and the RDI is 8, which is a little on the low side because they know that the form of iron people most get is animal- based heme-iron, so they want to err on the side of caution becausetoo much iron can be dangerous… excess iron in the body is a pro-oxidant, and since anti-oxidants are good, pro-oxidants are the

opposite, contributing to cardiovascular disease and cancer, andanimal based iron has no regulation mechanism like plant-based irondoes.

There is a separate issue for women regarding iron. The more bloodthey lose on a monthly basis, the more iron they need, but , thehealthier a woman is, the less blood they lose. So for those eating ahealthy diet, and adhering to the other equally important requirementsof robust health, their iron requirements are effectively no differentthan for a man of the same size and weight. But even if a woman stillhas “heavy” periods, their iron requirements can be easily met if theyare active enough to warrant eating enough fruits and veggies to getenough iron, and if they refrain from teas, coffee, and dairy productswhich contain substances that bind to iron making it non-bioavailable.

VITAMIN D:See the article Disease Prevention and Vitamin D at

www.Health101.org/bookmark#6

“But aren’t we meat eaters too? Fossil records show early human

remains alongside the bones of the animals they consumed.”

If it were possible, earlier fossil records would have shown humanremains alongside mango pits and banana peels. But, alas, plantmatter decomposes; very convenient for those trying to make a casefor an animal-based diet.

And one day there might be fossil records of human remainsalongside weapons of mass destruction and Hostess Twinkies. Thatdoesn’t mean that they were items of our biological adaptation… it

just means we weren’t wise enough to not embrace these things.



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“I’m eating mostly raw, but every time I eat a cooked low-fat

vegan dinner, I feel completely nauseous, bloated, and actually

feel so tired I feel like I’ve been drugged. Why is this?”

Being vibrantly, robustly healthy is a double-edged sword; you’ll

experience (eventually) extreme physical vitality, more enlightenedemotions, and you’ll have the best odds of never getting a diagnosisof serious illness. That’s the upside. But when you’re very healthy,you’re more sensitive to the things that are harmful (like cooked food,smoky bars, and substances that have toxic properties). That’s whythose who straddle the fence and improve their health with a healthyraw food diet while still partaking of some of the unhealthy foods thatwere part of their previous diet can experience some very intense

reactions. The reason they would not have had these reactions yearsago when eating those unhealthy things is because their body thenwas too devitalized to react appropriately. This kind of eating canreally throw your body for a loop, which is why it’s best to transitionas quickly as you can and be done with it (“it” being both the oldunhealthy diet and the transitioning).

“What’s so good about the tropical fruit, durian?”

When I take on a new client, I give them some tests to help gaugetheir level of health, and one is the durian test. This tests taste budfunction. Humans with normally functioning taste buds should love agood durian (I say “good” because some durians I’ve bought were notgood). If I give some good durian to someone and they try it and saythat it doesn’t taste too bad, that’s a good sign. If they think it’s the

most disgusting thing they’ve ever eaten, that’s a bad sign; it meanstheir taste buds aren’t functioning correctly and this is usually becausethe cells that make up the taste buds aren’t working right, whichmeans all their cells aren’t in the greatest of shape, which meansthey’ve got a bunch of healing and repair to do (of course if they’re acigarette smoker, this can account for malfunctioning taste buds too).In general, young people don’t think durian’s that bad, and older folksthink it’s disgusting, which makes sense; the older you are, the more

time there’s been for your health to decline. But those who hate it, andthen turn their health around, and then try durian again in a year ortwo, love it.



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And durian is a good source of sulphur, the body’s disinfectant (this iswhat gives durian its distinctive smell). Not many other natural foodsfor humans have a goodly amount of sulfur. And it’s a medium fatcontent food, midway between a banana and an avocado, so you caneat more durian than avocado, but less than bananas.

I recommend durian be eaten a few times a month. And since yoursense of taste is dependent on your sense of smell, if your “nose buds”aren’t working right either, durian can smell “terrible” (the “stink” indistinctive). But when you achieve robust health, you will love thesmell as well as the taste. So if after making sure it’s a good durian (itshould have a creamy consistency, not chewy), try some and see howmuch you like it.

So now you have a test under your belt that 99.9% of medical doctorsknow nothing about, yet is a very good indicator of someone’srelative level of health… much better than most of the tests thosedoctors routinely give.

“In terms of meal sizes and meal frequency what do yourecommend? Few big meals, or more but smaller meals?”

As people who know me well will tell you, I am a big proponent ofeating according to what your body wants, not according to a plan.Plans don’t respect the body’s needs. But initially many people can’ttell what their body wants; this can take time to get good at. But thisapproach can be handicapped by programs that advocate a plan andmake no mention of transitioning to the point where you can eat on“automatic” instead of on “manual”.

But using logic, we can make some assumptions. Since variety is keyto a healthy diet, if, for example, you eat one big meal a day, you onlyget seven meals a week. And since the easiest to digest meal (andtherefore the healthiest meal) is a mono meal (a meal of just onething), eating one big mono meal a day would mean eating only seven

different foods for the week… obviously not nearly enough variety.

So the smaller the mono meal, the more of them you can eat in a day,and the more variety you can get. Logical. Plus, all meals don’t have



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to be the same size. Since it’s important that you get enough caloriesin to supply the calories out, your sweet fruit meals would likely be bigger than your non-sweet fruit meals.

Plus, if you don’t eat a meal as soon as you wake up (because you’re

probably not hungry yet), the first meal may not be until 10 or 11 am.And this would factor into your eating “schedule”. (I highlyrecommend not giving your meals names, because we all know when“breakfast” should be eaten.)

Bottom line: The more mono meals you eat (on an empty stomach)the better your body will be able to give you a craving for a particularfood according to what it wants. And the sooner you learn what realhunger feels like, the sooner you can do what all other animals do: Eatwhen you’re hungry (and don’t eat when not hungry). Eating thatway, I tend to eat more, smaller meals, but when I eat, I eat until my body says “STOP”. Depending on my activity level, sometimes thismeans six bananas, and sometimes this means 11, and the beauty partis, I’m not choosing the amount. But keep in mind, if new to all this,your stomach may not be able to accommodate an appropriately sized

meal of fruit; over time you’ll regain lost stomach elasticity, and thiswon’t be a problem, and you’ll be able to eat an appropriately sizedfruit meal without feeling like you’re going to burst, and thereforegetting enough calories in a day won’t be a struggle.

This eating in tune with your body’s desires takes a while to getdown, but if you’re not aware of this way of eating, or if you are toldthat it’s not the best way to eat, it may never happen.

“How much food should I eat?”

We should eat to supply ourselves with the calories that we needwhen we’re being as active as we should be. Meaning, if I’m a couch potato, and I don’t overeat, I’ll eat 1,300 calories. But if I was asactive as I would be in my natural environment, I’d need twice thatamount easily. And since nutritional needs don’t parallel caloric

needs, we need to eat enough food to fuel a natural activity level, andthe only way to do this without over-eating is to burn enough calories per week to warrant that amount of food. In-other-words, if you know



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that you should be eating 2,500 calories based in your current idealweight and ideal activity level, but you aren’t as active as you should be, if you eat 2,500 calories anyway, you’ll become overweight, or ifyou’re the type who is always slim regardless of what or how muchyou eat, you’ll be wasting food, wasting bodily resources, and wasting

nerve energy on unnecessary digestion, and this is counterproductiveto optimal health.

True, if you’ve got some heavy duty housecleaning that your bodyhas been trying to do (sometimes for decades), being less active (tofree up more nerve energy for this task) may be something your bodywants, and if so, obviously less food will be needed. But this isdifferent than you deciding that you’ll eat less so your body cancleanse. If your body does not want you to eat less food at this time(maybe for nutritional reasons), and you do, this is not respecting your body, and on balance, it will not be for the best. This is why I’m anadvocate of getting in touch with your body, and giving this goal ahigh priority, rather than delegating the decisions that your bodyshould be making (and is always trying to make) to someone else, oryou making them by trying to intellectualize things (even though we

need to do this sometimes). Placing an importance on learning how tohear your body’s many whispers is one of the best things you can dofor your future health, but it is one of the least talked about aspects ofhealth by health educators.

But until you can be confident in your body’s wisdom, and developyour “health intuition” there is information you can rely on to answeryour question. Here’s my white paper on caloric need.

How to Determine How Many Calories to Eat

There are almost as many dietary recommendations as there are people. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but when you considerthat every animal species has a species-specific diet, it’s clear thatwith so many dietary recommendations for humans, there are many people who are miseducated (and many people who are eating the

wrong diet for their species).



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One reason for this is the almighty dollar. And that’s the same reasonthat there are so many overweight people and people with chronicdegenerative disease on this planet. And the sad part is that thisdoesn’t have to be, yet it is.

Okay, with that out of the way, how do you decide how many caloriesyou need?

First it should be noted that you can’t consume calories anymore thanyou could consume quarts. A calorie is a unit of measure, just like agallon. If I asked you for a gallon, you’d no doubt ask me “a gallon ofwhat ?”. But we think of the fuel we eat as “calories”, even thoughcalories is the fuel value of food.

Since my goal is to get those I teach to try and answer questions forthemselves so they needn’t be dependent on others for the answer totheir questions (because when you think with other people’s brains,you could be getting some incorrect info and philosophies). So howwould you have determined how many calories of food you should eatthousands of years ago? And how do other animals, who can’t

conceive of a calorie, know how much food to eat? And how do littlekids who also don’t know about calories know when to eat? In aword, hunger!

But as with most things dietary, you’ll hear many different opinionsabout hunger. Some say to not wait for hunger to eat, some thinkhunger is when there’s growling and gurgling in the stomach, othersthink hunger is when you get lightheaded. I’ve been researching diet

and issues of health for over 30 years, but more important than theamount of time I’ve devoted to this, is my perspective. Initially Iwanted to figure out what was the healthiest way to live so I could bethe healthiest I could be. It was purely out of self-interest. But once Icame to realize just how much I was being taken advantage of, for thesake of profit, and the expense of my health, I was also motivated toshare what I had discovered with all those who would listen; it reallyfrosts my cookies when people are taken advantage of, even if it’s

“nothing personal, it’s just business” (and by-the-way, everything’s personal).



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So what I will share with you here comes from a place where therewere no biases, no personal preferences, and nothing is being parrotedhaving come from someone else (without me giving it careful andconsidered thought). Even though it means there’s tons of research todo, there is great benefit to being an independent thinker, and not

merely adopting someone else’s programs, opinions, and philosophies. In a way, I’m thankful there was no Internet back then,and that I knew nothing of the pioneers of healthful living. Learningto figure things out for myself has served me very well when trying torecognize the sense from the non-sense.

So even though this is just one of the recommendations out there,understanding where a recommendation comes from, at its heart, isimportant if you seek information that is reality-based.

Okay, first, the reasons why some health educators don’t advise youto “wait until hunger” to eat…

Many people do not know what true hunger feels like

When you make a radical change in diet (from a very unhealthy dietto the healthiest of diets) while rebalancing and detoxification isgoing on, hunger may not work like it would when all is well.

Certain health practitioners do not want you losing weight (becausethat might discourage you from pursuing the diet) so they adviseeating X number of calories regardless of hunger. (And if you findyourself gaining weight, the advice is often to be more active.)

[You may have to read this one a few times to be able to wrap yourhead around it.] Since serious healing uses lots of nervous systemenergy (a.k.a. nerve energy), and since digestion also uses lots ofnerve energy, and since you only have a finite amount of nerve energyavailable at any one time, if your body wants to be able to devote amaximal amount of nerve energy to healing, it needs you to not eat.This mechanism is evident when running a high fever (which your

body initiates, not the pathogen it’s dealing with). If you eat with a104 degree fever, what happens? The food is tossed back out. Your body will not tolerate dialing down its healing efforts at that point so



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that enough nerve energy is available to digest the food you just ate;what it’s dealing with takes priority over the digestion of food. Butwhen dealing with non-life threatening things, your body won’t throwup the food you eat, even though it didn’t want any food (it didn’tmake you hungry). But you ate anyway, so here, digestion takes

precedence, and healing will be handicapped. But you’re still tenyears away from a diagnosis of cancer, so your body prioritizesaccordingly. So if you’re always eating ahead of hunger – eating“breakfast” or “lunch” or “dinner” whether hungry or not – howwould you know if your body would rather you skip a few meals so itcan “catch up” on some much needed healing that it has gotten behindin? So if with your new dietary practices, you now decide to wait forreal hunger to eat, and your body says, “Thank heavens! I needed this break!” you may find that you honestly don’t get hungry for a fewdays. And if you’ve got some weight to lose, you might think this agood opportunity to lose some excess weight, but since anyaccumulated toxins are stored in fat cells, it might not be a good ideato lose weight as fast as not eating would allow, because this canresult in some pretty intense “detox” symptoms, and although detox isnever pleasant, it needs to be tolerable. So when trying to lose weight,

it’s actually better to get down to your ideal weight, and then obeyyour hunger or lack of it. And if you’re already at your normal weightwhen you adopt your new dietary practices – including eating onlywhen truly hungry – if your body wants you to fast, this may be agood time to do so, but you will obviously lose weight, and if youdon’t know why you’re not getting hungry and thus losing weight,you might think that your hunger mechanism is broken or that thisnew diet of yours might not be for you, when neither one is the case.

Feeeew! I told you that last one was a brain buster. And if you’rethinking, “Why is this so complicated!” it’s because you were nevermeant to get into ill health, never meant to eat an unnatural diet, andnever meant to live a life without enough sleep, activity, sunshine (forD), etc. So when you did, and then you want to turn things around andregain what you lost, there is a bit of a learning curve. Especiallywhen doing this in our modern environment that isn’t designed for

doing this. Oh, it’s still doable, and you’ll be very glad you did afteryou’ve regained the vitality you had as a child, but there’s somelearning and unlearning to do.



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So now you see the various reasons for people saying “don’t wait forhunger” even though that’s how we’re designed to eat. But knowingthis, you can better decide your course of action.

Calorie counting

One reason for calorie counting when adopting the healthiest of dietsis not to be sure you don’t overeat, it’s to make sure you don’t under-eat. Here’s why.

The typical Western diet contains a lot of foods that have a high“calorie-per-bite”, and this is because of the ratio of its caloriecontaining components to its water content. A high-fat, low-water-

content food, or a high-complex-carb, low-water-content food will provide more calories per cubic inch than a high-water-content sweetfood like sweet fruit. For example, ten cubic inches of pizza will havemore calories than ten cubic inches of banana. So when we stopeating a diet of foods that are calorically dense, and eat foods thataren’t as calorically dense because of their higher water content,obviously if we eat the same volume of food, we’ll get less calories. Now, this may be preferable if we’ve got some weight to lose, but if

we don’t, and we don’t eat more volume than we were used to eating,we’ll lose weight (assuming we weren’t overeating on calories previously). If we become underweight, we may conclude that this“healthiest diet” isn’t working for us.

There is also the issue of lost stomach elasticity, which can makeeating a diet of lower caloric density than you were used to difficult atfirst. For more about this issue, see this article on my “banana page”www.Health101.org/bookmark#7

So in the beginning it’s good to know how many calories you reallyneed and how many calories you are really getting. There are freeservices that can help with tracking this. The one I use is an onlineservice called FitDay.com You set yourself up a free account, andthen enter what you eat each day. It will also show you the ratio of

carbs-to-fat-to-protein of the foods you ate for the day. You thenaverage those ratios for the week (which it doesn’t do) to see whatyour average percentage of fat is in your diet (it should be under10%). Another program some people use is called Cron-O-Meter



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which is downloaded and installed on your computer, instead ofaccessing it via the internet like FitDay.com

One method of determining your caloric need is to multiply your idealweight (which may not necessarily be the weight you are now) by an

“activity factor”.

12 to 15 times ideal weight = sedentary to mildly active (too low)

15 to 19 times ideal = appropriately active

19 to 30+ times ideal weight = heavy-duty “athlete” active

That will give you a ballpark figure (it’s not an exact science for

many reasons, one of which is digestive efficiency).

Regardless of what method of calculation is used, it’s anapproximation at best.

So for a 100 pound person, it breaks down like this:

Mild activity (too low): 1,200 – 1,500 calories

Appropriately active: 1,500 – 1,900 calories

Heavy duty activity: 1,900 – 3,000+ calories

For a 160 pound person…

Mild activity (too low): 1,900 – 2,400 calories

Appropriately active: 2,400 – 3,000 calories

Heavy duty activity: 3,000 – 4,800+ calories

Note: There are other factors involved in how much to eat…

Are you getting enough sleep? (if not, calories eaten can become body fat)

What foods are making up those calories that you’re eating? (2,000calories of avocado is not the same as 2,000 calories of banana).



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How much “critical” healing needs to be done? (You can’t knowabout this fully, so this is why eating according to your physiologicalneed – as opposed to a calculated need – helps you know if your bodywants you to eat lightly during a period of time, or not eat at all for aday or two or three. If you’re being sure to “eat X number of calories

a day”, but your body wants you to not eat, or to eat less, as Iexplained above, these two things are incompatible. And if eating, oreating more food than your body wants to be eating, interferes withhealing, that’s obviously not a good thing.

What kind of metabolism do you have, and how efficient are you atutilizing those calories of fuel?Which brings me to…

Q: Are “metabolism types” something to consider when eating a

healthy diet?

Your metabolism does not dictate the type of diet you should eat(contrary to what a lot of diet books say), but there is a difference inmetabolisms as it regards eating a raw food diet. There are those like

myself who can eat 4,000 calories a day, burn 2,500 calories a dayand who are thin and will never be overweight. That is a verydifferent metabolism than someone who will certainly gain weight ifthey overeat 1,500 calories a day. And I’m careful to say that it isimportant for “fast metabolizers” like myself to eat according tohunger when they can so they don’t overeat, not because they’ll gainweight, which they won’t, but because it is a horrible waste of precious nerve energy to have to process unnecessary food (althoughit is harder to overeat on a 100% raw food diet than it is on a typicalWestern diet because of the calories-per-bite issue). “Slowmetabolizers” (those who can just look at a photo of chocolate cakeand gain five pounds) have the advantage of being able to gauge theirfood intake by the number on the scale when eating a healthy rawfood diet, so they can stay at a good weight even if they don’t payattention to eating according to hunger. So that’s why understanding

your metabolism is important when eating a healthy diet, but that’sthe only reason.



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Another factor that makes “counting calories” an inexact science isthis: If you ate nothing but bananas, and you need, say, 2,000 caloriesa day, you might be tempted to think that this equates to 20 bananas;assuming a banana is 100 calories. But a banana has a carb-to-fat-to- protein ratio of about 92/4/4 which means that there are only 92

“usable” calories (the 8% of total calories from fat and protein are notused for fuel even though they are listed as a “percentage of totalcalories”). So when you track the calories of food consumed onsomething like Fitday.com, it’s not a totally accurate representation ofwhat you’re actually getting that you can use for fuel, but you can stilluse those multipliers above to get you in the ballpark.

Bottom line

If you are eating a low-fat, raw, vegan diet, it is difficult to overeat tothe point where you put on too much fat weight. You’d have to be acouch potato, have a very “slow” metabolism, and get very disorderedsleep (not enough deep sleep). So as you can see, you need to look atall sides of the “caloric” issue.

And when you lose unnecessary fat weight, and are at your normal body fat content, you may look “too thin” in the mirror. This is not because you lost too much weight, but because when you were “over-fat” you were likely also under-muscled, but you couldn’t notice it because of the over-fat condition. Now that you’re at a normal bodyfat percentage, having less muscle than you should have is noticeable.If as you lost fat weight, you also gained muscle (because you also paid attention to your physical fitness), the number you see on the

scale might not change all that much, as fat weight goes down andmuscle weight comes up, but how you look will certainly change…and it’ll be the kind of change where people who haven’t seen you ina while will comment, “Wow, you look great!”

“Do you soak your seeds and nuts to deactivate their enzyme

inhibitors?”

Those “enzyme inhibitors” are digested as proteins and don’t inhibitanything regarding your digestion; they just prevent the nut/seed fromgerminating until there is sufficient water that will support life (of the



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seedling). So, no, I don’t soak nuts for that reason. The reason to soakthem, if you decide to soak them, is to bring them back to a level ofhydration that they were at when they were fresh. All nuts are dried tosome degree after harvesting because if they weren’t, they wouldn’thave the kind of shelf life that our modern grocery system requires.

Almonds for example are far softer in the wild, having a higher watercontent than their store-bought counterparts (which have almost nowater). So to prevent them from being a super-low water contentfood, and thus robbing your body of water simply to be able to digestthem, you can soak nuts for a few hours. But just know that this isdone for reasons of re-hydration and not to “deactivate” enzymeinhibitors.

“I read that getting your greens through juicing and blending are

the best ways to consume them, better than eating them whole,

because you get more chlorophyll that way. What’s your opinion?” JUICE

To say that green smoothies or juices are the “best” way to consumegreens goes a little too far in my opinion. They are surely helpful insome cases of impaired digestion and when a person has not yet

learned to chew their food sufficiently, but like it or not, using a blender does damage some of the nutritional quality of the food, evenmore than a triturating juicer (the best kind), but juicing has moredownsides than blending.

And if a smoothie is consumed without chewing, as most smoothiesare, digestion will not be as complete as it would be had there beenchewing, which starts digestive juices flowing. And salivary glandsalso secrete salivary lipase to start fat digestion, so if greens (whichdo contain some fat) spend no time in the mouth mixing with saliva,well, you get the picture.

Having been eating the healthiest of diets for 20 years, greensmoothies are not part of my diet as I prefer to eat my foods asintended so they are best processed. Since smoothies don’t require

chewing, and if you try and consciously chew them so that digestiveenzymes will be released in the stomach, you’re not really chewing onanything and are merely gnashing your teeth together. This is why Irecommend adding some small chopped up pieces of celery to a green



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smoothie after it comes out of the blender, so you will have somethingto chew.

And as I’ve said, since fat digestion begins in the mouth with saliva,and since the major portion of fat in a truly healthy diet comes from

“non-fatty” fruit and greens, and since these foods have juuuustenough fat to fulfill our needs, it is vitally important for fat digestionto go “as designed”. So a mouthful of green smoothie needs to spendsome mouth-time before being swallowed, and many people whoteach green smoothies don’t talk about these issues, and thereforemany people who are consuming green smoothies are missing out onan important aspect of the meal… and we need as little “missing out”as possible if we want the best odds of being as healthy as we’recapable of being.

And in the spirit of accurate information: Chlorophyll is a green pigment found in most plants and provides for photosynthesis, whichallows plants to obtain energy from light; it is not used by the human body as a nutrient as some sources suggest. Like a lot of things,chlorophyll was assumed to be used by the body. Yes, chlorophyll has

magnesium in it, but so does the lettuce itself (more than is containedwithin the chlorophyll’s chlorin ring). But some say this info is toolittle too late because there have been many books that citechlorophyll as the main reason to consume greens, and scores of people now believe this. But at one time we thought (assumed) wehad to eat certain amino acids together in the same meal in order toutilize them (“complementary proteins”), but even though it is nowknown that this is not true, this notion still persists in some circles. So

even though you don’t need to know about the specifics ofchlorophyll, it’s good to know some facts so that at the very least youcan know who is disseminating accurate info, and who isn’t.

“What are your thoughts on the benefits of juicing?”

I’ll share what I’ve learned from my years of research, personal

experience, and that of the people I’ve counseled over the years. Froma purely Natural Hygiene perspective, since juices aren’t to be foundin Nature and are made courtesy of technology, this is an indicationthat there are likely to be downsides as well as upsides. Although a



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perfectly healthy human being should have little use for juices, peoplein poor states of health – especially digestive system health – and people trying to lose a lot of weight, have found benefit in green juices.

Fruit juices, however, are a different matter. I am not a fan of fruit

juices, mainly for the “concentrated sugar – no fiber” reason, as many people are dealing with sugar metabolic disorders, both known andunknown. But there are other things to consider too. Keeping in mindthis maxim (unwritten truism) of health, “The further away from

Nature you stray, the less healthy you can be”, we should considerthat the digestive process really gets going when you begin chewing ;this causes digestive “juices” to be dispensed. Since juices and mostsmoothies aren’t chewed, their digestion is being done a disservice.

Another point to chew on is that of absorption. We are designed toderive nutrients from solid food which spends a goodly amount of“face time” with our intestines, which is where nutrients are absorbed.The only liquid we’re designed to drink is water, and consumed on anempty stomach, water pretty much goes right through you, and sincewater contains no nutrients, our digestive system wasn’t designed to

effectively extract nutrients from a liquid. So the notion that we’regoing to benefit from all that concentrated nutrition in a juice is notso. We’ll certainly absorb some, but when combined with thechewing issue above, the high transit time of juice is something toconsider if the best odds of never getting a diagnosis of somethingserious is the goal. But there’s still one more issue: Starch and fatdigestion begin in the mouth courtesy of saliva, but if you drink yourmeal instead of chewing it, this part of digestion is also circumvented.

True, what we tend to juice doesn’t contain much starch (unless you juice carrots), but it does contain some fat, and since we eat a “low”fat diet, we don’t want to miss out on the small amount of fat that iscontained in fruits and leafy greens.

So, what about eating some celery prior to consuming a green juice toget the ol’ digestive juices flow’n. Or if you don’t want to have anysolid food in your stomach, maybe chew some gum first? As you can

see, when we do something that we couldn’t do in Nature, it begsmany questions.



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2. Carbs

“I’ve heard carbs are bad, and I’ve heard carbs are good, how

can both be true?”

Because there are two types of carbs, affectionately known as “good”and “bad”, aka simple and complex. Humans are designed to run on asimple carb (glucose). If complex carbs are consumed (from grain ordairy) they must be converted into glucose because that is the onlysugar a cell can use as fuel. Just as when you are fasting and noteating anything and your body is using your fat reserves for fuel, it

must take that fat and convert it to glucose because the cells only runon glucose. Same for protein (when not eating and you run out of allavailable fat reserves). So the healthiest form of carbohydrates are thesimple sugars, which are found in abundance in fruits, and to a lesserextent, green leafy vegetables.

“Which fruits have the most sugar?”

The most concentrated sugar source is probably dates. One date hasabout 18 grams of sugar, about 67 calories, the same amount ofcalories as a small banana! Obviously all the sweet fruits have goodlyamounts of sugar compared to the non-sweet fruits such as tomatoes,cucumbers, and red bell peppers.

If you’re counting carbs and wondering how many calories of carbs

are in various sweet fruits, you can look them up at fitday.com (opena free account). (FitDay.com also has a nice pie chart that shows theratio of carbs-to-fats-to-proteins.) But if you’re looking at fruits to seehow they’ll affect blood sugar, calories won’t help you. You’d need tolook at the fruit’s Glycemic Load (GL). You may have heard aboutthe Glycemic Index (GI), but that’s not as telling as the GL. Unlikethe GI, GL takes into account the portion size, and measures theactual fluctuation of blood sugar from a typical serving of food.



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Here’s the technical stuff: GL is found by taking a food’s GI anddividing by 100 then multiplying by the available carbs [carbs minusfiber] in a single serving. A low GL is under 10, and low is good.

So watermelon (considered a very sweet fruit) may have a GI of 72

(which is considered high and is not good) but a serving ofwatermelon has a GL of 4.3 which is very low, meaning it won’t raiseyour blood sugar very much. Contrast this to a piece of chocolate cakewhich has a low GI of 38 but has a GL of 20! (which is very high onthe GL scale and not good). Another way to look at this is this:Watermelon won’t raise your blood sugar that much, but the juicefrom that serving of watermelon will, because there’s no fiber whichhelps control the uptake of sugar into the blood. That’s why it’s not agood idea to make juice out of sweet fruits.

“Is it okay to get your carbs both from raw fruits and from some

cooked carbs like potatoes and pasta?”

While transitioning to the healthiest of diets, it’s okay if it helps to getyou there, but some people are being led to believe that if this is what

you eat for the rest of your life, it’s fine. But just know that if it’soptimal health you’re looking for, this is not a diet that will work.Sure, it’s better than a typical Western diet, but I want the best oddsof never getting a diagnosis of a serious disease, and I want to have awonderful quality of life throughout my whole life, and not just thefirst three-quarters of it. So I want to eat the diet I’m designed to eat.And although you could eat raw potatoes if you had to, you couldn’teat raw wheat, therefore pasta is something you couldn’t pay me toeat. So I wouldn’t include grain products in a transitional phase asthey are something you should be trying to get away from, and that’sone of the things a transitional phase is for.

“He who knows nothing is nearer to the

truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.” – Thomas Jefferson



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3. Fat

“I’ve heard that we need saturated fats, so shouldn’t we be eating

them instead of avoiding them?”

It’s true that the body does need saturated fats, but we don’t have toeat them. Here’s why. The body can manufacture fats with differentsaturation levels. A good example is an artery. Arteries are made upof poly-unsaturated fats, mono-unsaturated fats, and saturated fats,each one having a different elasticity and tensile strength. The reasonyou don’t need to eat saturated fats for your arteries’ sake is because

the human body is perfectly capable of making all the saturated fat itneeds (which isn’t much) from the other less saturated fatty acids.Typical Western diets contain saturated fat and cholesterol (which the body can also make to supply its needs), and since we’re designed tomake our own, and not to get any from our diet, when we get waymore than we need, this presents a problem for the body (affectingcell respiration, blood sugar levels, and weight management mostly).

“If you eat 2,000 calories a day, why does it matter what

percentage of those calories are carbs, and what percentage is

fat?”

You could eat a 100% fat diet and still only eat 2,000 calories a day, but since your cells run on carbs and can’t run on fat, that fat mustthen be converted to glucose so the cells can have their fuel. I’d rather

eat foods high in glucose and spare the body the task of all thatconversion, and then eat enough fat to supply my body with theEssential Fatty Acids (EFAs) it needs for the processes that require fat(and we need far more carbs for fuel in a day than we need fat for the processes that require fat in a day). But it’s not just about calories,what about nutrients? There are nutrients that can come from highcarb foods like fruit that can’t come from high fat foods. Then there’sthe issue of too much fat in the blood and overworking the fat-

processing organs from a diet that’s too high in fat (above 10% oftotal calories). So I’ve chosen to pattern my diet after those primateswho have essentially the same digestive system and internal organs



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that I do. Their species specific diet is pretty much the same as mine:lots of fruit, some leafy greens (and some of their fruit is medium fatfruit and occasionally some high fat fruit, like our avocado).

Since one picture is worth a thousand words, if you want to see what

too much fat in the diet looks like, visit this webpage…www.Health101.org/bookmark#8

“Aren’t the studies that show that a high fat diet is unhealthy

done with cooked food? Maybe it’s the damaged, rancid fat that’s

the culprit, and a diet that’s high in fat is only bad if it’s fat from

cooked food and not fat from raw food?”

A 90 day study of 657 participants at the Pritikin Longevity Centerwho had Type 2 diabetes revealed that 76% were able to lower their blood sugars to the point where they were no longer defined as havingdiabetes. This was accomplished by a diet that was 80% or morecarbs, and less than 10% from fat. And the China Study suggests thesame thing; keep fat below 10% for the best odds of a positiveoutcome in the “winter” of your life. And true, these diets did contain

some cooked food, but other studies show that too much fat is toomuch fat regardless of whether it’s raw or cooked, plant or animal based.

Even if multiple, long-term studies are done comparing two largegroups, one eating 40% cooked fat, and one eating the same amountof uncooked fat, we can’t know for sure what negative effect isattributable to the fat component because there are so many otherfactors that contribute to ill-health (animal vs plant-based foods,damaged proteins and nutrients from cooking, etc). But empiricalevidence, studies on raw food vegans, and hard-science clearly showthat any fat above approximately 10% on a regular basis is unhealthyand is a contributing factor to chronic, degenerative disease. But if weonly had a time machine, the experiments we could do! Then wecould really address the “do whatever works for you” approach, for

we could try something, do it for 40 years, and if the results are bad,instead of going in for surgery and chemo we just push a button andgo back 40 years and try something different to see if it works for usany better. But, alas, no time machine, so I’m stuck using logic,



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common sense, and hard science to ensure that I have a goodoutcome. And as long as I make sure not to follow any dogmatic philosophies that may, in reality, not be based on the actual needs ofhumans in the real world, I should do okay.

“If a man, holding a belief which he was

taught in childhood or persuaded of

afterwards, keeps down and pushes away

any doubts which arise about it in hismind, purposely avoids the reading of

books and the company of those who call

into question or discuss it, and regards as

wicked those questions which cannot

easily be asked without disturbing it – the

life of that man is one long sin against

mankind.” – W. K. Clifford



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4. Protein

“My understanding is that fruits contain very little protein, so

where do you get your protein from when eating a diet almostexclusively of fruit?”

From fruit. Yes, you did just say that fruit contains “very little protein” but the word “little” is a relative term. It would be morerelevant to ask, “Can fruit supply a human being with enough protein?” and the answer would be “Yes, if you don’t damage its protein by cooking it. Fruit, unlike other higher protein content foods,

does not have enough protein to supply our needs if we cook it. So Idon’t cook my watermelon, my oranges, my kiwi, my bananas, or anyof the other fruits I eat; I eat them as nature intended. That’s the shortanswer. To expand on this a little, all fruits and vegetables have protein. Yes, some people say that fruits and veggies don’t have asmuch as animal products, but without knowing how much we need ,knowing how much various things have is meaningless. As it turnsout, we don’t need any more protein than can be easily obtained from

eating uncooked fruits and vegetables. Proof of this is:

1. I’ve been eating only fruits and vegetables (and a small amount ofnuts on occasion) for 20 years, since 1992, and no protein powders,and I can grow muscle, and my hair and nails are fine, and I have tonsof energy. If I wasn’t getting enough protein or enough variety of theessential amino acids that make up protein, I’d be dead by now, andcertainly wouldn’t have been in good shape after even three years of

eating this way.

2. A gorilla eats only fruits and green leafy vegetation and has no problem getting enough protein. And his digestive system is verymuch like ours. The key here is that the gorilla doesn’t cook what heeats.

3. The time of your life when you need the most protein is whenyou’re doing the most explosive growth you’ll ever be doing, and thatis the first year and a half of life. And your diet during that period issupposed to be mother’s milk. And mother’s milk contains the same



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amount of protein as do fruits. Green leafy vegetables actually containmore protein than mother’s milk, pound-for-pound, but to be the solesource of protein you’d have to eat way more lettuce than is humanly possible. And keep in mind when comparing the protein in mother’smilk to that of fruit, we’re talking percentage which makes it possible

to compare one to the other (some people assume that mother’s milkhas way more protein than fruit because a baby consumes way lessmilk than the fruit consumed by adults, but both have about 4%). Andan adult is not growing, just maintaining, so an adult would not needmore protein – proportionally speaking – than a baby.

A pro-meat-eating website says we need…

Average adult male 48 - 63 grams per dayAverage adult female 37 - 50 grams per day

Independent researchers around the world agree that the human needfor protein each day is only 25-35 grams. Many nutritionists feel that20 grams a day is more than enough. Meanwhile, the averageAmerican eats more than 100 grams of protein a day. Reports in the

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition say that people do not need to

consume more than 2.5% of their daily calorie intake from protein.Even the World Health Organization says people do not need morethan 4.5% of their total calories from protein, and raw food educatorssay 10% which is extremely generous. Just like mother’s milk, thenatural source of protein for adults should come from food that isn’tcooked.

For those who want to crunch numbers, .58 g/kg (.26 g/lb) of bodyweight per day is sufficient for an adult if the protein is undamaged bycooking. And this allows for a large margin of safety. So for a 120 pound adult, 31 grams is more than enough.

A key to getting enough protein is being active enough to warranteating the amounts of food that, while supplying sufficient calories tofuel that level of activity, will supply adequate protein. And a key to

getting all the Essential Amino Acids (the building blocks of protein)is to eat a variety of foods. If the only thing you ate were bananas,year after year, eventually you would come up short in a certainamino acid (and a few minerals). We’re not univores (eating only one



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thing), we’re omnivores, which means we eat many things in thecategory of foods that we’re bio-physiologically adapted to eat, whichdoesn’t include animals or animal products. Yes, I know you’ve heardthat the definition of “omnivore” means that we eat all things, both plant and animal, but that is not a correct definition where it applies to

human beings. Besides, I’ve looked carefully, and I don’t see a birthmark resembling the words “eats plants and animals” anywhereon my body. In fact, the part of my body that dictates what I’msupposed to eat – the digestive system – indicates that I’m designed toeat a plant-based diet. And your digestive system is no different thanmine. It may function at a different level than mine, but it’s designedto eat the same diet as all other humans, regardless of blood type, body type, metabolism type, zodiac sign, or eye color.

And as it regards muscle building: It has been sufficiently proven thata drastic increase in physical activity (couch potato starts working outwith a strength training protocol) does not increase the need for protein more than would be obtained through the natural increase incalories burned and thus calories consumed. In-other-words, one doesnot need to start supplementing their diet with protein powders and/or

does not need to increase the proportion of nuts in their diet just because they are now starting to build a higher level of muscle ontheir frame. Bodybuilders have been able to easily put on andmaintain muscle eating a fruit and green leafy diet with a modestamount of nuts (if it’s all-raw), and the make-up of the muscle doesnot contain a disproportionate amount of water, which happens when bodybuilders supplement with ridiculous amounts of protein. And by-the-way, a higher water to muscle fiber ratio equals lower strength, so

if you compare the relative strength of two body builders who visuallyhave the same amount of muscle, the person who has built muscle ona healthy diet will have muscles that are stronger than the person whotook in way too much protein.

Bottom line: The problem in our society today is too much proteinand not too little; this thanks in large part to the propagandadisseminated by those industries who market “protein products” like

beef, eggs, chicken, fish, and protein powders, and in part to themisinformation taught to nutritionists and dietitians.



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“I drink hemp milk for its protein (because I’m working out and

I’m told I need more protein), but you’ve said that this is not

usable protein, so why does the manufacturer list the protein?”

I emailed pacificfoods.com this question: You say that your hemp

milk “is brought to the temperature of approximately 292° F, and thensustained for a short time for ultra high temperature (UHT)treatment.” So the 4 grams of protein mentioned under “TheGoodness Inside” is in reality 4 grams of denatured protein (whichoccurs at approximately 140 degrees), and since “the most significantconsequence of denaturation is that the protein loses its characteristic biological activity” (from a biology textbook) those 4 grams of protein are actually 4 grams of unusable protein, correct?

They never wrote back. But in a conversation with a nutritionalscientist who worked at a big food company, I asked, “Is the 8 gramsof protein per serving mentioned on the container before the food isheat processed or after?” He replied. “It’s the same 8 grams beforeand after…” but then he volunteered, “…but afterwards it’s not usable protein.” !!!

And by-the-way, just because you are told you need to eat more protein when increasing muscle mass, doesn’t mean you’ve got to goout of your way to get it. To work out to build more muscle, you’ll beworking out very intensely and will require more calories, and ifyou’re eating according to your (increased) hunger, you will get proportionally more protein. And if you’ve been eating mono-mealswhich allow your body to give you cravings for specific foods, your body will point you in the direction of the foods that it needs based onwhat you’re requiring of it (in this case, more muscle mass). If I haddone what everyone has told me to do for reasons of health, I’d beeating dairy products, beef, chocolate, grain products, beans, drinkingred wine, and staying away from bananas. Obviously we need to takedietary recommendations with a grain of salt (celery sodium).

And if it were true that you weren’t getting enough protein to grow

more muscle as fast as the body could grow it if it were supplied withsufficient protein, it would simply take longer to grow it to the levelyou were requesting (by the action of your workouts). So since there’sno hurry, it shouldn’t be a concern. You’ll get there eventually. But



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some would say that if you had been as active as you should have been all along, you’d now be at a proper level of musculature, andyou obviously wouldn’t need to be thinking about “more protein”. Butsince you’ve been under-muscled – an unnatural condition – and arenow trying to become appropriately muscled, temporarily eating a

diet higher in protein than normal during the “adjustment” phasemakes sense, and using a protein powder from something like hempthat has not been damaged by heat processing is an “okay” thing to dounder these unusual circumstances. While this line of thought iscertainly the result of independent thinking, and may seem to havemerit on the face of it, it does involve consuming something you’d notlikely eat in Nature, hemp seeds. So this then becomes a personalchoice… maximize the efficiency of the muscular increase phase(assuming that would happen) but consume something unnatural.

“I understand I’ll get enough protein from a plant-based diet of

fruits and leafy greens, but I’ve heard that I won’t get all the

Essential Amino Acids. Any truth here?”

I just had another client who exhibited symptoms of amino acid

insufficiency; small white spots on the skin in the upper chest andshoulder area. I’ve seen this before, and because I had read about it ina piece by Virginia Vetrano, I was able to recognize it as a possibleamino acid insufficiency, and suggested adding hemp seed powder to banana-only smoothies, and again, the spots went away in a few days.(But this was for diagnostic purposes, and is not the best way to dealwith this situation on an ongoing basis.)

It could be said that this was not a “protein deficiency” because whenwe ran the numbers, she was technically getting the bare minimum of protein as measured in “grams of protein”, and protein was about five percent as a percentage of total calories. But obviously she was under-eating on foods that provided a particular Essential Amino Acid(EAA)… which EAA is indeterminable because there are no RDIs forindividual EAAs, only for protein.

She was active, eating about 1,900 calories a day on average, buteating a “narrow” diet. I advised her to increase her variety, and seekout and eat tropical fruits like durian, mamey, papaya, and kiwi. She



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said she would but also intends to do a banana-hemp smoothie once aweek, and I didn’t try and dissuade her from doing this, except to saythat she shouldn’t be drawn into the “protein powder” camp whichadvocates powders made from whey, egg, soy, grains, beef, etc.

So, the way to not get enough EAAs: 1. Don’t be active enough towarrant eating an appropriate amount of calories, 2. Eat a “narrow”diet with no variety. 3. Cook your food.

And it should also be pointed out that our EAA needs are not set instone; our state of health affects our needs too… which is why there is

a lot of misleading information regarding EAAs, EFAs, and just aboutevery other essential nutrient.

“Protein, any tips when trying to explain it to others?”

I’ve learned that there are some people who can never be gottenthrough to regarding protein, sunshine, running, garlic, vaccinations,

etc. The best way I’ve found to put it regarding protein is to say that ifyou’re cooking the protein you eat, you need to eat a lot more of itthan if you’re not cooking it, because cooking denatures most of the protein (using the word “denatures” helps to give the impression that



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you know what you’re talking about. And on that note, it would begood to explain right after you say that line, that “denaturation”means that the protein loses its “characteristic biological activity”,meaning it’s still a protein, but it’s a broken protein that can’t be usedas protein.) This should end a doctor’s attempt to get you to eat more

protein because he will see that you probably know more about thesubject than he does. What some of my students/clients do is have a business-card-sized card with these printed links on it, and they hand‘em out saying, “If you want to know about this issue, here’s a goodresource.” They are short video clips of me explaining the science.

Protein Explained , www.Health101.org/bookmark#5

How Cooked Food Can Cause Overeating ,www.Health101.org/bookmark#9

Diabetes Explained ,www.Health101.org/bookmark#10

“What do you think of this guy’s take on protein?

Here are some of the incorrect things that were said regarding protein:

“We don’t need protein, what we need are amino acids.”This is confusing because we do need “protein”. Yes, protein is madeup of amino acids, but to say that we don’t need protein is nottechnically correct, and it only confuses the “Where do you get your protein from?” question by saying “I don’t need protein”. Yes, theremay be some peptides of “semi unbonded” amino acids in fruits andleafy greens, but do we really need to confuse those who are askingthese kinds of questions with such details?... They are confusedenough from all the mis- and dis-information provided by the meat,dairy, soy, and grain industries, and by the conflicting info from mis-educated raw food educators. So this statement serves no useful purpose.

“We want clean-burning fuels… clean burning protein…”

Our bodies normally do not burn protein for fuel. It will only do so

when we are starving, and that does not take place until you’ve beenon a water-only fast until the point where all the available fat has beenused for fuel. So this is an incorrect statement, but one that persists



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among some health educators. And by-the-way, when protein is usedfor fuel, it is anything but “clean-burning”. The most clean-burningfuel is simple carbs.

“When you cook food you destroy 50% of the protein… and later it’s

sleepy time (inferring that cooked protein makes you sleepy).”

To attempt to quote a specific amount of protein that is damaged fromcooking is absurd. The amount of damage depends on a number ofdifferent factors; sometimes 100% is damaged, and sometimes 40%.And cooked protein is not the cause of “sleepy time”. It is the largeamount of nerve energy needed to process a cooked meal that depletesyou of nerve energy which makes you sleepy.

“It’s critical to consume hemp seed.”

I wouldn’t say it’s critical; I use that word with vitamin D and B12. Ifyou are eating enough food to fuel an active lifestyle, and you eatenough variety, you should not have to use hemp to get enough of allthe Essential Amino Acids (EAAs). But some people are not activeenough, or are not eating enough variety, and these folks might want

to consider consuming some hemp seed powder every now andthen… but I wouldn’t say that “it’s critical to consume hemp seed”,it’s far better to eat and live as you’re intended to rather than take asupplement.

“How do you answer someone who asks you, “Where do you get

your protein from?”

How do I answer the “protein” question? First, I should say that as of2012 I’ve been eating an all-raw, vegan, fruit and leafy greens diet forover 20 years, and have been researching the field of health creationfor over 30 years. (And consider that if I’m answering this question in person, I look well-muscled). I’ve got a few answers to this questionin my toolbox, which ones I use depend on the situation.A: I get all the protein my body needs from a plant-based diet, and

that’s possible because I don’t damage any of the protein by cookingthe foods I eat. (This gets them thinking about the issue of whatcooking does to food).



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A: From the same places gorillas do, and a gorilla could kick any body-builder’s butt.

A: I don’t know… it must be from my diet, so there must be enough protein in uncooked fruits and vegetables or else I’d be dead by now,

or at the very least I’d have no nails, hair, or energy, and I have strongnails, robust hair, and oodles of energy (more at age 55 than I had at25).

A: Half of my protein needs are met by recycling my own aminoacids. The other half comes from my diet (this suggests that I knowwhat I’m talking about when it comes to protein, so people are morelikely to be interested in further discussion).

I also ask the questioner: From the moment we’re born to the momentwe die, when do we need the most protein? And where does our protein come from during this period? And how much protein is in thefood that we’d be consuming during this period? All this is explainedin the latter half of this video on protein, www.Health101.org/bookmark#5

Also, I should say that the protein in food doesn’t cause muscle togrow. It does supply the building blocks of muscle, but what causesmuscle to grow is the level of its usage. A good article that explainshow this works is at www.Health101.org/bookmark#11

“How hard it is, sometimes, to trust the

evidence of one’s senses. How reluctantly the

mind consents to reality.” – Norman Douglas



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5. Nutritional Supplementation

“It’s my understanding that the downside of taking a nutritional

supplement is that it unbalances the body somehow. How do yousquare this with your recommendation to take one?”

Anyway you slice it, you’ll be “taking a chance” depending on your point-of-view. The question is, which “chance” is more problematicin reality, personal philosophies aside.

Knowing what I know about soil quality, human nutritional needs,

and supplements, if I had to choose between taking my chances that…

A. The foods I am eating may not be supplying me with everythingmy body needs because of:

Early harvesting Less than optimal soil nutrition Transportation and storage times Heat processing

…so, as a hedge against sub-clinical deficiencies that can increase theodds of chronic degenerative disease later in life, I’ll opt tosupplement and take my chances that my body can keep things in balance as it does with any nutrient overages from the foods I eat…

or

B. Not take any supplements (other than D and B12 as needed) and

take my chances that despite…

Early harvesting Less than optimal soil nutrition Transportation and storage times Heat processing

…I’ll get everything I need from the food I eat so I can have the bestodds of avoiding disease...

…I’ll choose A. because I believe it to be the less problematic choice,and therefore the more prudent choice. To date I have not seen any



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hard science to support the notion that a high quality nutritionalsupplement unbalances the body in a way, or in a way so negative asto be worse than not getting enough of what my body requires.

And as I’ve shared, when I do take a worthwhile supplement, certain

minor physical problems go away, and they eventually return when Istop supplementing. These are of course noticeable; what about problems that are not noticeable but are still problematic for the bodyand could contribute to a lessened quality of life down the road?

So I know for sure that a good supplement aids in having good health(from my own personal experience and from those I’ve counseled), but I am skeptical that this same good supplement does damage to the point that, on balance, it is better to not take the supplement and livewith those minor, noticeable problems and any problems I’m notaware of. If anyone can provide me with information that would haveme thinking that, all things considered, it would be better to not takeany supplementation (other than D and B12 as needed), I wouldwelcome that information. But speculation and/or assumptions thathigh quality supplements (not talking about worthless ones like

Centrum, Theragram and One-A-Day) do more harm than good isn’tgood science, and does not play a part in my decision-making process.

“In his book, ‘Everything You Always Wanted to Know about

Nutrition’ Dr. David Reuben says, ‘The current preoccupation

with vitamins is totally inappropriate and, while vitamins are

necessary, they are amply supplied in natural raw foods of our

biological adaptation.’ How does this comport with your positionon nutritional supplements?”

A lot of great reading in this book, but I must take issue with a few points based on empirical evidence and logic. I should say that I am aHygienic Practitioner, have counseled many people, and supplementshave helped with the resolution of certain health issues with certain people, and I include myself in this group. So I have some practical

experience in these matters, and you won’t find me making many broad stroke proclamations such as…



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“The current preoccupation with vitamins is totally inappropriate and,while vitamins are necessary, they are amply supplied in natural rawfoods of our biological adaptation.”

True, but only if the foods are grown in nutritious soil, and if they are

left to ripen before being harvested, and if they don’t take too long toget to our kitchen. But sadly this is not the case with much of ouragri-based foods; the soils are not as nutrient dense as they would bein Nature, and the foods are often not “vine ripened” for reasons of practicality. And once the food is disconnected from the tree, bush, orvine, it can uptake no more nutrients, and normally foods continuethis process right up until they are ready to fall off on their own. The“ripening” that we tend to think of is the turning of starches intosugars, which can take place on our kitchen counters.

So yes, if I’m eating from the wild, and waiting until it is fully ripe to pick a fruit to eat (and I’m eating a variety of foods and eating enoughof them) I will very likely get all the nutrients that are supposed to besupplied from that food. But this is not the case with the food I amcurrently eating. And if there is noticeable improvement in a health

issue when a simple, highly efficacious supplement is added to thediet (a diet of a variety of all organic uncooked fruits and leafygreens), then there is obviously something to be said for it, and thewhole idea of supplementation in general should not be discarded insuch a wholesale fashion. We’re not living in our biological eco-niche, and therefore some accommodations will be necessary foroptimal health, even if they’re not “natural”.

You also mentioned that Dr. Reuben said that vitamin D is formed bythe interaction of sunlight and ergosterol in the skin, and our needs aremet by so little sunlight that he has pointed out that “while a vitaminD deficiency could occur to a black nun living in Norway, it is anunlikely occurrence in most cases.” From personal experience, I knowthis to be false. And to some, this may discredit Dr. Reuben’s book, but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater… if we’re trying toget at the truth, let’s look at things individually. How are we to define

a “vitamin D deficiency”? If it just means not getting rickets (a bonedisease caused by the most severe D deficiency), then mostAmericans are okay (actually this is not as true as it once was). This is



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why D is added to processed, fortified foods, to make sure no one, nomatter how bad a diet they are eating, gets rickets. But deficienciesare never a black or white issue. You can get enough D to preventrickets, but not enough to avoid cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, and allthe other degenerative conditions where insufficient D is a

contributing factor.

Owing to my own personal experiences with nutritional supplements,and to the roles they have played in helping to resolve certainconditions of ill-health in those I’ve counseled, and owing to theknowledge I’ve attained on the realities of creating robust health overthe last 40+ years, I can say without a doubt that certain nutritionalsupplements, on balance, provide positive benefits. I am not advocating taking worthless items such as Centrum, One-A-Day,Theragram, etc., nor am I advocating buying a bottle of chromium toensure you are getting enough of this vital nutrient if you’re trying toresolve diabetes because what about the other vital nutrients you may be lacking.

We will not have access to a time machine that we can use to go back

and try “something different” should we discover, 20 or 30 yearsdown the road, that despite our best efforts, we still received adiagnosis of something serious. Yes, it’s great that we probablyreceived it way later in life than we would have had we not lived insuch a healthy manner, but if there’s a possibility that I don’t everhave to receive such a diagnosis, and can pass from this life the waymy grandparents did, over 100 in reasonably good health, I want the best odds of this… and this requires using common sense, logic,

independent thought, and not subscribing to any dogma, even if itcomes from someone who I otherwise agree with 95%.

“Nutritional supplement are not found in Nature, and I thought

Natural Hygiene was a way of living where you lived in harmony

with Nature’s laws and using what nature has provided for

restoring health?”

If you take this to mean that we only consider natural things found in Nature, then this only works if we are living in our biological “eco-niche”, living where humans were designed to live, eating from the



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land (from Nature), with no pesticides, and without the stressorsassociated with “modern living”. So I am obeying Nature’s Laws bymaking sure that my body gets what it needs here in this very un-natural environment where I live. I know people who live where theonly “locally grown” things they can eat in the winter are animals.

And they want to only eat from Nature, so they eat animals. I don’tcare if they eat them raw, if they eat the internal organs as do mosttrue carnivores, this is not what is meant by “using what nature has provided”. Nature provided those animals for the wolves and bears,not for humans. All raw vegans I know understand this, but someinsist that since a nutritional supplement cannot be found in Nature,they are not going to consume it, period. This is not respectful of the body’s needs. The body requires a certain amount of chromium, and ifyou can’t get what you need from the foods you’re eating, and theonly way to get it is from a supplement, do you stand on principle andnot supplement, or do you do right by the body’s needs and take thesupplement? And if the same chromium that is found in the plant can be supplied via a pill thanks to our ability to figure out how to do this,what is unnatural about consuming chromium in this manner?Granted, you’ll get appropriate doses of chromium if you eat real food

(if there was enough chromium in the soil and the food wasn’tharvested before enough chromium got into the food), and in pill formyou could take way too much or take a form of chromium that is notvery bioavailable to the body (there are rip-off supplements just asthere are with a lot of products), but this is where education comes in.In my mind, it is irresponsible to simply go out and by a bottle ofevery supplement from A to Zinc unless you happen to be aformulation scientist. If you’re not, it is probably prudent to do the

due diligence necessary to find a worthwhile supplement made by acompany that’s not trying to make the most profitable supplement andis instead trying to make an efficacious supplement.

“I’ve taken tons of supplements over the years and did not notice

one iota of a difference, so why should I continue to take them?”

Because you didn’t notice a difference does not mean that theyweren’t providing a benefit. Please know that just because you are notable to consciously discern a “benefit” from them is not necessarily anindication of worthlessness. Yes, they indeed may be worthless and



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give you nothing more than expensive urine, and may even burden the body some due to poor quality and use of nutrient forms that are notvery bioavailable. But if the opposite is true, and the supplement is, inreality, providing something that the body needs that you weren’tgetting or weren’t getting enough of, it may not be something

observable in the short term, but it could certainly have made adifference 40 years down the road as demonstrated by the absence ofsomething that would have developed had you not taken thesupplement. But since there’s no way to know this in advance, this iswhy we need to study these issues and learn the actual facts ratherthan making decisions based on a philosophy or embracing whatsome educator says because at first blush it sounds like it makessense.

“I’ve heard that supplements are bad because they unbalance the

body, so why do you recommend them if they do this?”

Your question is based on the assumption that supplements unbalancethe body. The contention that taking a multivitamin-mineralsupplement somehow unbalances the body because of the

different/unnatural ratios of one nutrient to another doesn’t make anysense when you give the issue considered thought.

Our body has a certain daily requirement of calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, etc. What are the odds that the food we eatwill exactly meet those requirements without going over or under atall? A trillion-to-one; never going to happen. So, there are only twoother scenarios of the three possible scenarios: We’ll not get enoughof one or more nutrients, or we’ll get more than what we need. Notgetting enough of those nutrients that our body can’t make is not agood thing. No argument there. So the foods we eat (hopefully)contain more than what we need in a day. And the body either storesor excretes what it doesn’t want or need.

And what about the often mentioned ratios of certain nutrients to

other nutrients? All foods have different amounts of nutrients, and ifyou’re eating a healthy diet, you’re eating a lot of variety. So what arethe odds that these ratios will exist in the totality of the food you eatwhen consuming more nutrients than you need from a wide variety of



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foods? Not likely. But these ratios do exist, so where do they comeinto play? Inside your body! Above I said “the body either stores orexcretes what it doesn’t want or need”, and one of the things it wantsis to have certain ratios of certain nutrients to other nutrients; anotherway to put it, the body wants to balance certain nutrients against other

nutrients. And one way the body does this is to deal with nutrientoverages by storing them, utilizing them, or getting rid of them.

So assuming for the moment that you are getting all the essentialnutrients you need from your diet, how does taking a multivitamin-mineral supplement unbalance anything when the body has the abilityto balance the nutrients given to it?

Now let’s assume that there are some nutrients lacking in the foodsthat make up your diet. If these insufficiencies/deficiencies arecorrected by taking a high quality, efficacious multivitamin-mineralsupplement, wouldn’t this be considered a good thing? Of course itwould (assuming the supplement you take is a worthwhile one).

Now let’s not do any more assuming, and let’s deal with reality. If thefoods you are eating are not coming from your garden where youknow for sure that they have been grown in very nutritious soil, andinstead your foods are coming from an agri-based system, it is verylikely that the foods you are eating are not as nutritious as they aresupposed to be. Reasons for this are explained atwww.Health101.org/bookmark#12

So from the body’s perspective, it’s not only okay to get more thanwhat we need, it’s preferable to not getting enough of what we need.

Additionally, I have yet to see any hard science based explanation ofthis “unbalancing”. And when I ask someone – who has just assuredme that supplements unbalance the body – to explain how thishappens, I invariably get the answer, “I’m not exactly sure, but theydo.” There is a difference between repeating something you’ve heard,and thinking about something you’ve heard. Understandably, most

people can’t question everything they hear; we’d like to simply believe that what we’re being told is correct. But my experience has been that there is a lot of misinformation that’s thought of as the truth,and obviously this is not health-enhancing.



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And logically, even if there is some unbalancing that occurs as theresult of taking a supplement, if that supplement is also providing a benefit by supplying a nutrient(s) that were not being sufficientlysupplied by the diet, then – on balance – it’s a positive thing to do.When you weigh the negatives of unbalancing (possible burdening of

the body) to the negatives of not getting an essential nutrient(s) thatyou need (can be a contributing factor in disease), all thingsconsidered, taking a high quality, efficacious multivitamin-mineralsupplement seems like the prudent thing to do.

The problem with supplements exists where the forms of the nutrientsused have low bioavailability or are not usable at all, and this is what presents the body with a burden. And I agree that most nutritionalsupplements give you nothing more than expensive urine. But I don’tthrow the baby out with the bathwater… all supplements are not madeequal; there are some high quality, bioavailable, useful nutritionalsupplements.

And then there’s the topic of the nutrients that are not supposed tocome from food, like D and B12. There are some dogmatic, “hard-

line” Natural Hygienists who lump all supplements into the same basket, and they won’t go anywhere near D or B12 or even participatein their debates because, for them, it’s a matter of philosophy… theydon’t take any supplements, period.

So all I’m saying is to give independent thought to the issue, anddon’t simply adopt what someone else says, me included.

If you’re trying to get to the bottom of this issue, I’ve provided moreinsights at www.Health101.org/bookmark#13

“If supplements were so effective, we would have a nation of very

healthy people, and we don’t.”

Those who take the commonly consumed supplements, Theragram,

One-A-Day, Centrum, etc. are not going to benefit from them asmuch as the TV ads would have you believe. It is only the trulyefficacious supplements that will have a positive effect… and youcan’t tell which ones they are solely by price. Yes, you can be



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reasonably sure the inexpensive ones are worthless, but the opposite isnot necessarily true… there are many very costly “nutraceuticals” thatare a waste of money in my opinion.

And if more people would switch from taking a worthless multi to

taking the best nutritional supplement, there would be animprovement in that demographic, and that improvement would beeven more pronounced if they were to also improve their diet andother lifestyle practices. And consider that a large part of the population takes no supplements at all, and they participate in themany habits that erode health and diminish quality of life. So youcan’t go by the health of the majority of Western society when givingout a report card to supplements.

Bottom line: A worthwhile nutritional supplement just improves theodds of never getting a diagnosis of something serious way on downthe road, but it can’t give you the best odds by itself, it’s just one linkin the chain.

“Certain things take a long time to show up. Osteoporosis for one.Smoking damage. I’m sure we can think of some other things. But

there has been some very FAST results seen with turning to an all

raw program, fasting for 3 weeks and getting enough sleep. The

body is pretty resilient and changes pretty quickly. I think if a

supplement were “working”, we’d see it a lot sooner than 40 years

down the road.”

One of the criteria of “degenerative disease” is that it developsslowly, over time. Cancer as we know it today, often takes decadesfrom when it starts getting “out of hand” (getting ahead of the body’sability to keep it under control) to when you feel “off” and thus go tothe doctor to see what’s up and then get a diagnosis of somethingserious. For those of us who weren’t raw vegans from birth, if, whenyou start making major positive changes in your lifestyle practices,you’re already 15 years into a “30 year” cancer (in-other-words 15

years from now you’ll get that diagnosis if you make no lifestylechanges), the types of changes and how much you change will have a profound effect on whether or not you get that diagnosis in 15 years.This is my point. When people recommend, “Do whatever works for



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you” you will not truly know what worked for you for a very longtime, because the real definition of what “works” is did you live anice long life in relatively robust health and died in your sleep of “oldage”. If you make some lifestyle changes and feel “better”, this doesnot necessarily mean that the changes you made will result in the

above wonderful scenario. This speaks to the concept of investing foryour “future health”, and not just short-sightedly focusing on how youfeel today. Taking a worthwhile nutritional supplement could verywell make the difference between getting or not getting that diagnosislater on in life, again, unless you’re living in that geographical areawhere humans were meant to live, in which case a dietary supplementwouldn’t be needed (unless there wasn’t enough iodine in the food).

“I don’t feel that we need to “supplement” a raw diet. Eat foods

grown in a variety of soils – preferably food you’ve grown

yourself, focus on good assimilation by not overeating, eating

while stressed, not sleeping enough, etc., and we should be fine.”

Yes, putting into practice and being diligent about those habits will goa long way towards achieving optimal health, but the fact remains, if

you’re not getting enough of all the nutrients that the body requires toachieve optimal health and to have the best odds of never developinga disease to the point where you are affected by it (either mildly oracutely), it’s physiologically impossible to be optimally healthy.When my dad was diagnosed with abdominal cancer, and we saw thetumor on the MRI which was the size of my fist, and I asked theoncologist how long a tumor takes to get to be that size, and he said“30 to 40 years”, I asked my dad, “How have you been feeling the last

five years?” He thought about it, and said, “Fine!”. So it’s possible tofeel “fine” while there exists a degenerative ill-health condition whichis staying ahead of the body’s ability to deal with it.

Two good articles to read are, How Do You Feel? atwww.Health101.org/bookmark#14 and At Least I Have My Health atwww.Health101.org/bookmark#15

And “we should be fine” doesn’t mean we will be. What if there’s notenough iodine in the soils your food comes from? Your body can’tdeal with cancer cells effectively without sufficient iodine.(Read this important article on iodine: www.Health101.org/bookmark#45 )



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“Why is it that raw vegans are the ones worried about the

deficiency and supplementing issue… Why aren’t those who eat a

typical Western diet worried?”

Firstly, I would say that those eating a typical Western diet have more

to be concerned about regarding nutritional inadequacies than dothose eating a 100% raw vegan diet, so they should be concerned. Butthat’s not to say that those eating entirely from the organic producesection of their health food store have nothing to be concerned aboutregarding nutritional inadequacies. I have seen empirical evidence tosupport the contention that we should give this issue some attention.It’s matter of degree. What’s the difference between my neighbor –who eats a typical Western diet – getting cancer at 50 and me getting

it at 70 because we ate and lived very differently but neither took anynutritional supplementation (including D and B12). You could say thedifference is 20 years, and there are those who would say that I faredfar better, but I’m not looking for better relative to my neighbor, I’mlooking to achieve the best for me. And to achieve my personal best,health-wise, I require sufficient nutrients throughout my whole life,and if taking some supplements helps to ensure that this occurs, I’mfine with it.

Secondly, those eating processed foods are eating foods fortified withcertain nutrients. When you move away from the otherwise unhealthy processed foods that we’re not designed to eat, to fruits and leafygreens, you’re now eating foods that are not fortified with, forexample, D, B12, and iodine.

And lastly, the reason most people switch from a non-health promoting diet to the healthiest of diets is because they want the besthealth possible (to either resolve a current health problem and/or to prevent getting one in the future), and these folks do tend to be moreconcerned about the things that impact their health than those eating atypical Western diet. So this would account for the attention paid tothis issue of nutritional sufficiency, and justifiably so. And what I’velearned is, if we think we’ll have nothing to be concerned about,

regarding adequate nutrition of all essential nutrients, when switchingfrom a typical Western diet to the diet of the things we’re designed toeat that we can get from the health food store, we’d be sadlymistaken.



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“Why do some raw food health educators not recommend

supplements but you do? Although they do recommend them in

extreme cases, they don’t recommend them as routinely as you

do. Why the difference?

All I can say as a way of explaining my thought processes is this: Idiscovered the tenets of Natural Hygiene on my own. Meaning, in1978 I had no knowledge of Natural Hygiene or of any NaturalHygiene practitioners, past or present. I had heard of vegetarianism, but that didn’t even begin to approach the philosophy of NaturalHygiene. So, I basically figured it out for myself. I was taught by mymom to think with my own brain and not with other people’s brains.This was easy when discovering the tenets of Natural Hygiene

because I didn’t know about anyone else who was teaching this. Andto say that I was overjoyed to later find out that my chosen way of lifewould not be a solitary one, would be an understatement (I didn’tthink anyone else would be nutty enough to eat only uncooked fruitsand veggies). I found ANHS (American Natural Hygiene Society) justas they started to backpedal on an all-raw diet in an effort to garnermore members, and that’s when I was exposed to the politics of thenatural health movement (which today is an industry not unlike other

industries that indulge in irresponsible practices).

So, because I came upon the basic tenets of natural living and ofliving in harmony with Nature on my own, I haven’t been influenced by others, as some other natural health practitioners have been. Beingmentored by someone is not necessarily a bad thing, but if that mentorespoused some unknowingly incorrect health practices, those whofollow in his/her footsteps might do the same, especially when 99% ofwhat their mentors did teach is unarguably 100% correct. I make sureto always have zero ego, zero personal preferences, and zero biases,when it comes to studying the science of health. So all this mayaccount for why I arrive at different conclusions than others. It should be noted that I’m in agreement with most of the health educators youreferred to on 99% of things.

“This health educator says, ‘I do not promote supplementation as

a preventative strategy, without any symptoms, but instead prefer

to deal directly with the lifestyle factors that can help’ but you



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advocate nutritional supplementation before there are any

symptoms of a deficiency. Why is there all this conflicting

information among those who should be knowledgeable on issues

such as this?”

My professional opinion is that it is not a good idea to wait for anoticeable symptom of a nutritional deficiency before doingsomething about it, especially when testing can be done to detect aninsufficiency before it becomes noticeable (deficiency). One reasonfor this is that a nutritional insufficiency can cause harm to the body before you notice any symptoms. And sometimes even whensymptoms of a nutritional deficiency manifest, the person doesn’trecognize them for what they are, and tries dealing with them in ways

that will not resolve the deficiency. And sometimes these symptomsare not dealt with at all until they become severe, and obviously this isa scenario to be avoided.

So I don’t agree with his first philosophy, but I do agree with thesecond point he made: dealing with the lifestyle factors that can help.We just have different definitions of “lifestyle factors”. In our modernsociety we get our food from an agricultural-based system, and this

food is often nowhere near as nutritious as its wild counterpartconsumed at the peak of ripeness right off the vine/tree/bush. So alifestyle factor that we must deal with, that our ancestors didn’t haveto deal with, is making sure not only to get the foods of our bio- physiological adaptation and enough calories from them, but enoughnutrients too.

There are people who are of the belief that we can get everything weneed from whole, fresh, raw, ripe, fruits, and vegetables. I’ve known people like this, and some have gotten themselves into trouble;usually with B12 and D – which aren’t supposed to come from ourdiet – and sometimes with a few other nutrients that are supposed tocome from food but don’t; at least not in sufficient amounts, such asiodine. The “I get everything I need from fruits and veggies” is aromantic notion, a wonderful thought, but in the real world, for most

people, this simply isn’t 100% true.

And it’s one thing if an individual is of the belief that we can geteverything we need from the diet we’re designed to eat, but when this



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person is a health educator, if he or she has been taught somethingthat, in reality, is not 100% correct, this misinformation can becomesomething that many people believe.

I’m the first to admit that if we get worried enough about getting

enough nutrients we can be influenced by sales pitches, scare tacticsand junk science that promote worthless products. So there is that endof the spectrum, and it’s not a good one to be at. But how about not being at either extreme of the spectrum; not putting our faith solely insuperfoods and healing crystals, and not simply believing thatuncooked fruits and veggies, and some sunshine, will provide us witheverything our body needs.

We are a species that tends to exist in the extremes. It’s easier there.Living somewhere in the middle requires considered thinking andindependent thought. Some of us prefer this, but others are morecomfortable simply accepting what someone says, especially if we seethat person as a mentor. And this is fine if 100% of what we’rehearing is 100% correct. But if it isn’t, our most valuable possessioncould be at risk.

And we often talk about the wisdom of moderation, but moderationdoesn’t apply to everything (cocaine, cigarettes, alcohol). So howabout not applying that philosophy to cooked animal food and beer,and instead applying it where it can do us some good… to ourthinking processes; let’s moderate them so we steer clear of rigidextremes when making decisions, so those decisions can be in our best interests.

Believe me, you are not alone in your confusion regarding the issue ofnutritional supplementation. It would be one thing if it was simply amatter of medical doctors saying it’s a waste of money and NaturalHygiene educators saying the opposite… that scenario would be easyto figure out. But when you have people within the medical profession taking both positions, and worse, people within theHygienic profession taking both positions, it leaves people who are

new to all this scratching their heads and not knowing what to think.And then, in an effort to come to a decision one way or the other, people either embrace what their favorite educator’s position is,



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assuming it’s the correct one, or they keep the status quo and make nodecision at all, which is of course a decision in and of itself. And thisway of deciding is a crying shame when it comes to something asimportant as our health.

“Don, my father is very scientific in nature (that is his schooling

background) and he does agree with all you say and the science

behind it but he brought up an interesting point that I wondered

if you had the answer to: You mentioned most people are vitamin

D deficient, and my father asked then how do they know what the

proper range is… what is the science behind it. Meaning, at first

it was believed 30 was the low end of the “okay” range, now it’s

50… how/who came up with that number?”

For all our accomplishments, sometimes we’re not a very brightspecies, sometimes we make assumptions that are really baseless, butthat doesn’t stop them from being made. When it was discovered justwhat caused rickets (just after vitamin D was discovered), we had tocome up with a range. And even if we had nothing really to base it on,we still had to come up with one. The public would be shocked to

know that much of what is assumed to be parameters based on solidscientific knowledge is anything but. The initial low of 30 was believed to be a good lower end of the range, based on how low people were when they were diagnosed with rickets, and based onwhere they were when bone loss would stabilize (and then improve).Although I’m sure the scientists at the time would bristle at thenotion, it was an educated guess. And it was also a politically arrivedat number because D would then be added to food to wipe out thescourge of rickets, and since it was uneconomical to add more D tofood than was needed to prevent rickets, the low end of the range became the amount needed to not get rickets.

And just like when researchers decided to test VOmax (aerobicefficiency) of the legs separately and then train just one leg andmeasure again to see what really accounted for improvement instead

of assuming that when the heart and lungs had an easier time of itafter training, it must be the heart and lungs that were improved,someone decided to test the D levels of people who get lots of sun(after it was discovered that the body would keep from making too



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much D). It was found that ranges were between 50 and 80 ng/ml. Sothis was the range that the human body would maintain on its ownwhen there was plenty of sunshine and thus plenty of potential tomake all the D that the body would need (and when calcium levelswere sufficient, which D utilization depends on).

But human nature being what it is, it will take many decades (maybecenturies) before everyone in the medical field will adopt what is soobvious to some today. Maybe this is due in part to people just figuringthat as long as no one gets rickets anymore, things (ranges) are goodenough. With the ever-present resistance to accept that it’s simply theinsufficiency of certain nutrients that has a lot to do with the plague ofdegenerative disease we have today, it’s no wonder that there is suchapathy to making changes to long-held standards (especially whensuch changes could dramatically improve the health of the nation, andstate of health and health care industry profits are inversely related…the less healthy we are as a culture, the more profitable it is).

I’ll admit that one of the tough things about finding the optimal rangewas that the consequences of inadequate D (not the severe inadequacy

that causes rickets) will not be known for a particular individual formany decades, and even then, it’s very hard to say that it was the lackof enough D that was one of the major contributing factors to this person’s cancer/osteoporosis/Alzheimer’s, simply becausedegenerative disease has multiple causes, and you can’t put a tumorunder the microscope and see the words “NOT ENOUGH D” spelled

out by the cells. This is where logic and common sense come in,along with outside-the-box thinking that leads to meaningful research

that leads to meaningful answers (such as the D range we have today).

Even when it’s now obvious that the 1,25-dihydroxy-vitamin D test isnot the most accurate indicator of one’s D status, and it is the 25-hydroxy-vitamin-D test that gives a truer picture, about 20% of U.S.doctors still do the wrong test… and that’s one of the reasons I dowhat I do, so that you can be an educated consumer of health services.

And crazier still are the doctors who do accept that 50-80 is the range, but when they encounter a very low reading (10-15) will prescribe50,000 IUs at one time, which is way too much. They hear that the



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sun can produce a heck of a lot more than 5,000 IUs a day in strongsun, without realizing that just because the numbers say that the sun“can”, the body will not allow a high amount (like 50,000) to bemade, because it would be dangerous. There has been more harmdone to people through the arrogance and/or poor judgment of health

professionals than I care to think about.

So applaud your dad for questioning things; it is those very peoplewho will ultimately enjoy a healthier life by questioning those whoappear to have “the answer”, whether they be medical doctors or non-mainstream health professionals like myself.

“From everything I’ve read, cancer is from animal protein and an

acidic environment, diabetes is from too much fat (mainly

animal), and osteoporosis is also from too much animal protein. I

know that T. Colin Campbell talks about vitamin D in his book,

The China Study, but my question is, aren’t supplements cooked?

How would anything cooked provide more nutrition than

something raw?”

All the above diseases have one thing in common: They never have just one causation (unless you’re in perfect health and then you getexposed to massive doses of radiation during an accident at a nuclear power plant). There are indeed primary causes, like pesticides forcancer, and too much fat for diabetes, but a from-birth vegan candevelop osteoporosis if they had a sub-clinical vitamin D deficiencytheir whole life because of where they lived. And one can get diabetesfrom a combination of insufficient D and chromium, and sub-par pancreas genetics even though they always kept their dietary fatcontent down below 10% of total calories. What results in all thesemodern day diseases are the cumulative effects of the contributingfactors to ill health. And all contributing factors play a role.

Sometimes this issue of “cooked vs uncooked” isn’t so black or white.For example, when dehydrating at 110 degrees for many hours, is

there no damage done to nutrients just because the temperatureremains under an amount that would damage nutrients immediately?Some say ‘no’, there is some damage. And when blending, is there nodamage done to nutrients just because the average temperature



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increase of the mixture rises only a few degrees? Some contend that atthe point-of-contact of blade to nutrient, the temperature can rise toover 160 degrees, and even though it’s only for a very short period oftime, there is some damage done in that brief moment of contact. Butregarding supplements, the bottom line is efficacy: If the B12 and the

D that I use and recommend helps to correct B12 status and D levels,then the debate over whether it’s a “cooked” or “uncooked” product ismoot. The supplements that need to be carefully scrutinized(regarding how they’re made) are those that are taken as a hedgeagainst nutritional deficiencies… deficiencies that can’t be adequatelytested for, and ones that contribute to degenerative conditions thattake a long time to manifest. With these supplements, there is often noimmediate “feedback” like there is with D and B12.

Fortunately there are some conditions that show themselves in the presence of a nutritional deficiency in a matter of weeks; I have a fewof those (no doubt due to less than perfect genetics), and they can helpwith recognizing the difference between a useless multivitamin and anefficacious nutritional supplement. I have seen the results of this“testing” on myself, which is why I can say that some nutritional

supplements have bioavailable nutrients, and some give you nothingmore than expensive urine, but the reason for this is not a cooked vsraw issue; it’s an issue of bioavailability.

If my diet consists of all-raw plant foods that are grown on poorlyfertilized soil, and eating this food year after year can result in aserious illness down the road due to nutritional insufficiencies, and Ican mitigate this scenario by taking a supplement that contains

bioavailable nutrients, personally I’m all for it, and I don’t see it as being non-hygienic. Remember, hygiene is “the science of health”and can be defined as being “the art of restoring and preserving health by those substances and influences that have a normal relation tolife”, and if I have to take a nutritional supplement to be able to getthose nutrients that I need to live a healthy life, while I’m not thrilledabout the fact, being that I’m a pragmatist, I’ll do it anyway, and beglad that I can.



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“I just read an article that says that people who live in northern

areas have trouble getting enough vitamin D and that we need to

get lots of sunshine and eat cholesterol-rich foods to get enough D.

I can understand the sunshine recommendation, but I didn’t

know that a vitamin D deficiency can be caused by not eating

enough animal products.”

Thank you for the article. It is great for pointing out many thingsregarding vitamin D, but like many articles it is filled with bothcorrect and incorrect information While I agree that statin drugs likelyreduce stores of vitamin D because they reduce cholesterol and thus7-dihydrocholesterol which is needed to make D, the line, “The

lesson? Lots of sunshine and cholesterol-rich foods are good for you”

is misleading and is what spoils an otherwise good article. Yes, lots ofsunshine is good for you (as long as you don’t burn), and yes the bodyuses cholesterol to make D, but the body is perfectly capable ofmanufacturing enough cholesterol to provide more than sufficientamounts of 7-dihydrocholesterol to make enough D, assumingsufficient exposure to strong enough sunshine.

And getting “lots of sunshine” during those months when the sun isn’t

strong enough to make enough D in your skin, isn’t going to keepyour D stores up, and the article doesn’t make mention of this. So in“vitamin D winter” I take a D supplement.

And although the article mentions that some animal products containD, you’re not going to be able to get enough D from this “source”.One reason: If you look at how much D we need to get in the winterto provide an adequate blood level of 25(OH)D, which is 50-80ng/ml, this would require eating way too much fish, butter, and eggs;in reality, more than you could eat. When you look at things on balance – all things considered – eating enough animal to try and get a beneficial amount of D isn’t a healthy thing to do in my opinion.

“I don’t like taking pills, but I need more vitamin D, what about

tanning lamps, or maybe the UV lamps for reptiles?” There is some misinformation regarding vitamin D production fromlight bulbs. First, just because a light source emits UVB radiation



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doesn’t necessarily mean that this light will cause D to be created inyour skin. In winter there’s UVB rays in northern areas, but they’renot strong enough to create D in humans because the sun is shiningthrough a lot of atmosphere. Can you get a sunburn from these lamps,or even a deep tan? Not from the ones that are marketed for birds and

reptiles. And if the UV light isn’t strong enough to tan/burn you, itisn’t strong enough to make meaningful amounts of D (that will keepyour blood’s 25-dihydroxy-vitamin-D in the 50-80 ng/ml range).

And those websites that talk about how it doesn’t matter what wavelength light bulbs you use to deal with Seasonal Affective Disorder(SAD) are not telling the whole story. SAD can be reduced with lighttherapy (ones that don’t make D) and artificial sunrise lamps, but itshould not be assumed that if you feel better from this, that your Dlevels must now be okay. Sufficient D also affects mood regulation, but again, even if artificial lighting improves mood, it doesn’tnecessarily mean that it’s making enough D. And even if you light upyour room with full spectrum lights, as a friend of mine did who livesin Seattle, Washington (least amount of sunshine per year of all thestates in the U.S., and the highest rate of SAD related suicides), it may

help improve your mood in winter, but his D level was still 20(normal is 50-80 ng/ml) so he was still at risk for all the conditionswhere inadequate D is a contributing factor.

So I’ll still recommend D3 supplementation (and testing as theultimate indicator of how you’re doing) unless you live in a tropicalarea. If someone who is vegan for moral/ethical reasons and will nottake D3 because it’s made from wool, and they choose to use lights to

make D, they should test themselves every two months after they startusing the lights to see if they actually work; don’t just go by the product promotional claims or by how you think you feel.

Also know that the laws in this country do not protect consumersagainst false claims about a light’s ability to make D because themanufacturers are not making a health claim (which is what the FDAgoes by), only that their product emits UVB rays which make D.

And again, just because a particular light emits UVB rays, doesn’tmean that illuminating your entire body with it for hours will create



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any meaningful amounts of D. The area of tanning beds is one where“Let the Buyer Beware” certainly applies. Seewww.Health101.org/bookmark#42 for a recommendation.

“During the summer can we store enough vitamin D for the winter?”

The reason many people get colds and flu in “cold and flu season” is because they are already D insufficient (a blood level under 50 ng/ml)and then they get into “vitamin D winter” (that part of the year wherethe sun isn’t strong enough to make any vitamin D), and their leveldrops to a “deficient” level. Then, other people who are in the same boat start spreading viruses around, and voilà! Flu season. So it’s

interesting that experts have said that D supplementation would be farmore effective against the flu than flu shots, yet we don’t hear aboutthis on the evening news.

Our ability to store vitamin D is not something to rely on. Here aresome reasons why.

1. Because we’re designed to be in “vitamin D summer” all year-

round we don’t have a built in ability to store D through a “vitamin Dwinter”. Yes, D is a fat soluble vitamin, so there is an inherent abilityfor the body to work off stored vitamin D, but we’re not designed todo so for long periods of time, and this is why any stored D will notcarry you through a period of time when the sun is not strong enoughto make D in your skin.

2. Our need for D also needs to be considered. The less healthy weare, the more D we need. So a superbly healthy person couldtechnically last longer through the winter – D wise – than anunhealthy person.

3. A person with a lot of body fat can store more D than a person witha normal amount of body fat. So vibrantly healthy people can storeless than overweight people, but overweight people very likely need

more D than a robustly healthy person of normal weight.

4. How much sunshine – and therefore D – did you get during thesummer? The body can’t overproduce D from sun exposure; once



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you’re at the optimal amount, no matter how much sun you continueto get, no more D will be made. So you really can’t “stockpile” D toany significant amount as some people suggest. You can store enoughto get you through a period of cloudy days.

5. How long is your “vitamin D winter”? If you live in Canada, it’s alot longer than for someone living in Florida. So if you are of a slim build, living up north, didn’t lay in the sun naked every day during thelate spring, summer and early fall, you will not “get through” thewinter, D-wise.

So as it turns out, going by a vitamin D blood test reveals that wecan’t get enough in summer to carry us through the winter. This iswhy I start supplementing with D in September (1,000 IUs a day),through January (when I’m taking 5,000 IUs a day) to March/April(where I end at 1,000 a day). And I live in Florida, where I have anice deep tan in the summer, but it fades in the winter no matter howlong I lay out in the sun!

I wouldn’t have to do D supplementation if I was living where

humans were designed to live and had normal skin tone so I could geta normal amount of time in the sun.

By-the-way, rickets, which is a condition caused by a severe Ddeficiency, is making a come-back in children. When it wasdiscovered that rickets was caused by not enough D (from not enoughstrong sun exposure) it was decreed that D would also be added to thefoods we were eating (in addition to the other nutrients that people

weren’t getting enough of). It was found that 400 IUs would preventrickets. But now that kids are spending even less time outdoors due toGameBoy, PlayStation, the Internet, Facebook, etc., kids are onceagain getting rickets! Which just goes to show that when calculatinghow much D to add to fortified foods, the least amount that wasneeded to prevent rickets at the time was what we came up with (nodoubt for reasons of cost). And we now know that 400 IUs doesnothing to help prevent cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, etc. So get

enough sun or supplement with D if you want the best odds ofavoiding degenerative disease.



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This map suggests that people living below the red line have nothingto worry about regarding the acquisition of enough D, but clinicalevidence says otherwise. Maps like this are an attempt to provide aneasy answer to questions like, “How many minutes a day should Isunbathe?” The page where that map came from says, “10 to 15minutes of sun on the arms and legs a few times a week can generatenearly all the vitamin D we need”. Maybe to prevent rickets, but not

to make enough D for effective disease avoidance. There is no simpleanswer for this question. The above map doesn’t take into accountskin tone (the darker the skin, the lower the line). And what bloodlevel of D are they basing the map on? If it’s the outdated 30 ng/mlwhich many labs, and thus doctors, are still using as the minimum,then that line needs to be lower. Of the people I counsel down here inSouth Florida, 95% of them are D deficient. And as I’ve said, eventhough I sunbathe, my body can’t make enough D in “D winter” here

in South Florida even though I’m light skinned, sunning at high noon,and wearing only a tan-through bathing suit.

It’s interesting to note that one of the problems is that during thesummer I get a tan, but that tan works against me when the sun’sstrength starts to wane starting in September. In the area of the planetwhere humans were designed to live, the sun’s strength wouldn’t riseand fall to the degree it does here (the further away from the equator

you go, the more pronounced this is). So this “tan working againstyou” situation isn’t abnormal when you consider that I’m notdesigned to live this far away from the equator.



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So as you can see, now that we’re away from our biological “eco-niche” all bets are off regarding getting enough D. This is why Iadvise testing your D level and supplementing appropriately withlamp or pill so that your level is up around 70 ng/ml. Your level is the best indicator of “Am I getting enough sunshine?”.

VITAMIN D TIDBIT: It was interesting that one of the four wards ofa mental hospital, which housed long term care patients, had a doctorwho decided to see what effect vitamin D would have on psychiatricdisorders. So he gave all of his patients “large” doses of vitamin D.He then found that, during flu season, almost none of his patients gotthe flu, while the usual amount of patients on the other three wardsgot the flu (all four wards were on the same floor). Hmmm.

“I have to wonder how did humans survive for billions of years if

they were not getting enough vitamin d in cold climates.”

According to what we now know, we haven’t survived for millions ofyears in cold climates, let alone billions of years. Looking at the entirehuman timeline, we’ve been out of our natural “eco-niche” for only a

short while.

Homo sapiens, an entirely Africa-bred species around 200,000 yearsold, likely left Africa roughly 70,000 years ago. First moving intomore southern regions (Middle East, South Asia etc.), we probably began spreading into “vitamin D deficient” areas sometime 30,000 -50,000 years ago. The conditions prevailing at the time made itimpossible for man to survive anywhere like current Scandinavia /Canada (ice age). We didn’t inhabit these areas until around 8,000 -10,000 years ago when the ice had melted (although we certainly didvisit them occasionally and the Americas were colonized beginningroughly 16,000 years ago, most likely by humans emigrating fromAsia to Alaska over the Bering strait).

Neanderthals did live in Europe for 300,000 - 400,000 years, but

today’s humans don’t share much DNA with them.

There have been adaptations, the most important of which is our skintone, but even 70,000 years is too short a time for evolution to change



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us from a tropical species into a sub-arctic one, if that adaptation iseven possible (we can’t adapt to just anything). We have doneremarkably well for a tropical anthropoid primate far away fromhome though… but in today’s society, we could do a lot better thanwe’re doing as a species.

“Why do you supplement with vitamin D in Florida?”

In my practice, I’ve counseled a lot of people here in South Florida,and 95% of them come up short on vitamin D (as demonstrated by blood testing, which you can do at home). Even people who sunbatheall year-round here in Florida are deficient in D come end of winter,

meaning the sun wasn’t strong enough to make D in their skin duringa part of the year. This is more pronounced the further up fromFlorida you go of course. People in Michigan for example would needto start supplementing with D before people in Florida would, and people in Alberta, Canada need to start before people in Michigan.

The time of year when the sun can’t make D in your skin is called“vitamin D winter”. And this is longer for people with darker toned

skin. Indeed people with dark toned skin need to supplement all year-round if they are living in Alberta. Where you may be living, vitaminD winter may be longer than here in South Florida. I startsupplementing with 2,000 IUs in October increasing to 5,000 in thedead of winter, and then back down to 2,000 in May. From June toSeptember the sun is strong enough here to make D in my skin.

I strongly suggest you test your D when “vitamin D summer” ends tosee how good you were at getting enough sun during that time of theyear when the sun was capable of making D in your skin. If you aredeficient, this test will also be good for knowing how much to startsupplementing with (a therapeutic dose may be called for instead of amaintenance dose). Then I suggest testing again at the end of vitaminD winter to see how effective your dosing regimen was.

“I’ve heard you can eat fish to get your vitamin D instead of

taking a supplement, true?”



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It’s fascinating to research this issue, because sardines for exampleonly have D when they are packed in oil. And many references showsalmon as having no D, but there are some that show that it does. Buteven if it did, I don’t know too many people who would relish eatingraw salmon. I know that there are many people who eat sushi, but I

wouldn’t think they’d enjoy it as much if it was just raw fish, with nosauces, wasabi mustard (traditionally eaten to deal with parasites), andthe wraps, etc. I’d rather eat raw mango. So do toddlers if given thechoice between raw fish and raw mango. But even if you loved eatingraw salmon, just like bears do, and if it did have D, the amounts of Din the research that shows that salmon have D is not nearly enough tosupply a human’s D requirements. You’d have to eat so much salmonthat the fat content would do you in. So this myth is busted.

“How many minutes of sun exposure do I need to make enough D?”

There is no set amount, and anyone who gives you a simple answercontaining a certain number of minutes, or a certain time period of theday, is totally unaware of the issues regarding how much sunexposure to get. What that pat answer is likely based on is a safe

amount of time if you were sunning yourself at the hottest part of theday, at the hottest time of the year, with no cloud cover at all, at analtitude higher than sea level, with a light skin tone. This amount ofminutes will guarantee that no one gets a sunburn. And although it’sgood to be safe because the last thing you want is a sunburn, those“safe” recommendations will not get you enough sun under all theother scenarios, and the last thing you want is cancer, which you aremore predisposed to if you don’t get adequate vitamin D fromadequate sunshine. So there is no simple answer to this question because of the many factors involved. The only two factors that areunchanging, and are for everyone all the time, all year-round are:don’t burn, and keep your blood levels of 25(OH)D between 50-80ng/ml.

Here are the things to keep in mind: The sun is strongest between the

hours of 10 AM and 2 PM, any time during the year. During thehottest months of the year, people with light skin tones may want tosun themselves before 10 AM and after 2 PM. People with dark skintones, may want to sun themselves during that time. People with light



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skin tones may want to sun themselves between 10 AM and 2 PM ifthey live very far north or south of the equator. During other times ofthe year the sun may not be strong enough to make D in your skin before 10 AM or after 2 PM, so you may want to sunbathe between10 AM and 2 PM.

If after you’ve gotten enough sun, and you need to remain out in thesun, cover up by putting on some white, light-weight clothes, and awide brimmed hat. This is preferable to using sunscreen (for manyreasons). If going to the beach, invest in some large umbrellas for youand the kids. This is also preferable to using sunscreen.

Keep in mind, a lot of the sunshine and D recommendations are onlyfor enough D to prevent rickets, which is a condition caused by themost severe form of D deficiency. But an insufficiency of D, althoughnot bad enough to cause rickets, is a contributing factor to many ofthe common degenerative diseases.

There’s an online calculator that takes into account where you liveand the time of year, and then tells you how many minutes of sun

exposure to get. It even takes into account altitude, sky condition, andskin tone. But its recommendations are based on getting 1,000 units ofD, enough to prevent rickets, and but not enough to help prevent allthe other conditions that depend on sufficient D, yet it calls itself,“Calculated Ultraviolet Exposure Levels for a Healthy Vitamin DStatus”. I guess this is as opposed to a very healthy vitamin D status.And it doesn’t take into account that during certain times of the year,in certain places, the sun isn’t strong enough to make enough D in

your skin. Here’s an example: On November 18th, in Atlanta, GA,USA, high noon, clear sky, slightly tanned skin tone, the calculatorsays…

“Recommended UV exposure of face, hands and arms at least everyother day to obtain sufficient vitamin D, equivalent of 25 microgramsvitamin D (1,000 IUs), if no dietary vitamin D is available: minimumrecommended exposure time (hours:minutes) 0:20”

Twenty minutes. So to get a meaningful dose of 10,000 IUs from thesun, you’d need 3 hours and 20 minutes. But this is every other day,



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and this is wearing a short sleeved shirt and long pants, so you’d needless time if sunning yourself in a bathing suit… but how much less isnot readily apparent.

On the “shortest” day of the year, December 21st, when the sun is the

weakest, it’s an additional hour according to the chart, and eventhough you’re not likely to be outside with bare arms then in many parts of the country, this calculator is also not taking intoconsideration the current data that shows that after a certain point intime/latitude, the sun is not strong enough to produce any Dregardless of how long the exposure. When inputting the same datafor northern Michigan, USA on December 21st, you need 240 hours per day, and since there’s only 24 hours in a day, these folksobviously need to take a D supplement if they want the best chance ofavoiding degenerative disease. If you want to play around with thiscalculator, the website is at www.Health101.org/bookmark#16

Also, here is a website to find a city’s latitude and altitude which youneed for the calculator… www.Health101.org/bookmark#17

And to convert micrograms to IUs (which is what supplementary D ismeasured by), multiply the number of micrograms by 40.

“Can you stock up on D in the summer to get you through the

winter?”

As far as you making D from the sun in the winter: In most parts ofthe US, even if it is a cloudless sky, at 12 noon, the sun is shiningthrough too much atmosphere to be able to make any meaningfulamount of D in your skin, regardless of how nice it feels to have thesun shining on you. So the answer in many parts of the world is, no.

And as to the onset of mild vitamin D deficiency symptoms comingnear the end of winter if you get copious amounts of sun in thesummer and fall, keep in mind that these noticeable symptoms do not

necessarily correlate to there being enough D for cancer and diabetes protection up until the moment just before you started feeling thosesymptoms. In-other-words, a month before you started feeling thosesymptoms, you could have already been low enough in D to not be



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providing adequate protection against all the degenerative conditionsthat depend on adequate D. We don’t wait for symptoms of B12deficiency to start taking B12 because those symptoms may besymptoms of irreversible neurological damage, but just because thesymptoms of low D are reversible doesn’t mean there’s no harm in

waiting to do something about it until they arrive, because thecumulative effect of bouts of low D could be a contributing factor toserious illness.

“What about using tanning beds to get the vitamin D you need?”

Depending on the tanning bed’s light bulbs, some will create D and

some won’t. The interesting thing is that the wavelengths that make Dand the wavelengths that cause a tan are different, so many tanning beds are just that, tanning beds, and do NOT produce D! This has been shown by vitamin D testing after using such tanning beds. InEurope, the beds sold there tend to be the ones that do create D, butthe ones sold here in the U.S. tend to be the cheaper ones that say theydo stimulate D production, but don’t; they just tan you. But the bottom line with these tanning beds is get tested after using one for

two months (without supplementation) and see if you’re in the rangeof 50-80 ng/ml. If not, you can’t depend on that bed for D. Isupplement with D3 when I can no longer get meaningful sunshine onmy body. Do I like taking a pill? No. And one day I’ll be living inCosta Rica all year-round and won’t have to take one, but until then, asufficient level of D all year-round is a priority of mine. Seewww.Health101.org/bookmark#42 for a recommendation.

“My B12 test result was at the low end of the “okay” range, but

I’m pretty sure I have some symptoms of a B12 deficiency, how

can this be?”

That B12 blood test you took is not a good indicator of B12 “status”;it only shows the amount of B12 in your blood. Healthier thanaverage people very often have different test results which may look

“bad” when they’re actually fine, and the serum B12 test is noexception. There are healthy people with a “low” serum B12 testresult who have an “okay” B12 utilization, and there are people with



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an “okay” serum B12 test result who are B12 deficient and are notokay B12-wise, and this sounds like you may be in this category/

I strongly recommend you do a uMMA test, which does not test forB12 but instead tests for something that will be high if your body isn’t

utilizing B12 for whatever reason. It is the gold standard for testingyour true B12 status.

There are many factors to “body provided” B12. The body must havethe raw materials to make it (is there enough cobalt in your diet). The body has to be able to make it (no interference from things likeantibiotics, ginger, pepper, garlic, alcohol, tea, coffee). Then the bodyhas to be able to make enough of it (high emotional stress levels andhigh levels of healing require inordinate amounts of B12). And lastly,the body has to be able to absorb it to be able to utilize it (requires the“intrinsic factor” with all the reasons why that might not be availablein sufficient quantities or available at all). So taking a sublingual B12gets around all those issues and any reasons why the body might bedeficient. I’m not implying that by taking sublingual B12 you nowdon’t need to improve your health which may improve your B12

status; you always should be looking to improve your health if youvalue it.

And before someone assumes they are B12 deficient and starts B12supplementation, I’d get a uMMA test first (available through themail; contact me for a resource), and then to be on the safe side, afteryou mail away the test, start supplementing with B12. (Obviously ifyou start supplementing before taking the test, the results will be

worthless.) There is no real harm in taking some when you don’t needto, but there can be great harm in not having enough available to your body. If this test shows that you are deficient (and many people are), just how deficient you are will help determine the initial dose to take,and this is the best reason for doing this test. Obviously, if the testshows your B12 status was good, there’s no reason to take any B12.But if you just moved away from a diet that contained fortified foods,where B12 was added to the things you ate, retesting every few years

or so would also be a prudent thing to do. I do not advise waiting untilyou experience symptoms of a B12 deficiency to get tested.



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“If I am B12 deficient, what is the best way to raise my B12 level?

Isn’t it by natural means, correcting the reason I’m low in B12?”

When talking about the “best” way, you need to take a number ofthings into consideration. When dealing with a confirmed B12

deficiency, an important question would be, can you correct thedeficiency by correcting whatever’s not working right with your body? And if you could, another important question is, is thereenough time to bring my body’s B12 utilization up to speed to preventdamage from the B12 deficiency I have now? Since a B12 deficiencyis not something to fool around with because if it goes on long enoughat a certain level it can result in irreversible neurological damage(unlike other deficiencies), it is probably more important to correct

the deficiency the fastest way, and then try/hope to get your body tothe place where it will be able to supply itself with a sufficient B12status.

B12 is supposed to be made in the body; it is not an “essential”nutrient, meaning that we don’t need to bring it in from an outsidesource. But there are many things that can interfere with our body’sability to both make and utilize B12. Garlic, antibiotics, coffee, tea,

alcoholic beverages, spicy foods, ginger, onion, and mustard are someof the things that interfere with our making any B12. Then there’s theabsorption issue; some people cannot absorb enough of the B12 theyare making (if they are making any). After I had been vegan for agood many years, and then a raw foodist for about six years, I felt“off”. Nothing I could put my finger on, but I thought it might be agood idea to get an opinion from an MD+ (and MD+ is someone witha medical degree who knows that eating an all raw food diet is best).In talking over things, he thought that it would be a good idea to getmy B12 status tested (I was well tanned at the time so a D test wasunnecessary). When he got the results, he called me and told me toimmediately go out and get a sublingual B12. I said to him that I’dlike to try an oral B12 first to see if that improves my B12 statuswhich would be diagnostically revealing regarding the intrinsic factor(substance that’s needed to utilize both oral B12 and the B12 the body

makes). He was adamant that I immediately go out and get somesublingual B12 because of the very bad test result, and that there wasno time to fool around with this. The researcher in me wanted to testwith oral B12 first, but since one of the philosophies I live my life by



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is “better to be safe than sorry” I started taking the sublingual B12immediately. When I re-tested a week later, my B12 status was fine,and I felt fine too. (And by-the-way, my serum B12 level was in thelow range of “okay” when my B12 status was dangerously low,demonstrating that the standard blood test for B12 is not necessarily

indicative of an “okay” B12 status; I had been eating dried seavegetables which contain B12 analogs that look like B12 to a B12 blood test but are not active and thus don’t function like “real” B12.)

Unless you are at the doctor’s office when a super low B12 status testresult is revealed, B12 injections are to be avoided because: 1. Theyaren’t necessary even with the usual “bad” B12 deficiencies (under-the-tongue, methylcobalamin tablets are fine), and 2. Always avoidlike the plague your skin being pierced by knife or needle. This is areally good health policy to have (and is shared by many docs, off therecord).

If you are deficient, a therapeutic initial dosing protocol should be based on a uMMA test result, and then you might want to take someevery so often to be on the safe side. More info at www.health101.org/b12

“Why do some people recommend B12 injections to get B12 on a

regular basis?”

It’s not because injections are better than sublingual B12 tablets(sublingual B12 tablets work just as well), it could be because this iswhat they learned to do, or because this is what they were sold ondoing, maybe by someone who convinced them that injectable B12 isthe best. I’m all for the best, but when determining what is the best,you should look at all factors, all things considered. And you shouldlook at things on balance. If the methyl form of sublingual B12 works(and this is easily testable), why injure yourself with a sharp metalobject (and force your body to then have to repair that damage) anddeposit a substance into soft tissue that is not meant to absorbnutrients in that manner, when you can deposit that substance through

an already existing opening (your mouth) onto tissue that is meant toabsorb nutrients. Knowing what I know about all the various forms ofsupplementary B12, my guess would be that those who recommendinjectable B12 aren’t yet armed with all the facts.



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“There is so much conflicting information about B12, could you

please comment on what I heard on a recent webinar…”

“Modern soils, due to intensive and unsustainable agricultural practices, are depleted of nutrients, and it is thought that vitamin B12

is now largely absent from most soils.”While I agree that our soils are not nearly as nutrient dense as theyonce were, they are not normally a source of B12 for us. The B12 thatwe utilize is not supposed to come from the soil, nor is it supposed tocome from the raw fruits and veggies we eat. We’re supposed tomanufacture it ourselves, in our bodies, accent on the phrase“supposed to” (there are many reasons this doesn’t happen).

“Animals in the wild, herbivore, omnivore or carnivore, eat bugsalong with their greens. Our produce is very clean, and I am not aboutto start adding the tiny spiders living on my backyard garden greensto my smoothies!”

Our natural source of B12 is not insects either.

“Use B12 patches – B12 is absorbed better through the skin vs

orally.”

Yes, oral B12 (the kind you swallow) is not as good a source as a B12 patch, but this advice is not taking into account that sublingual B12(under-the-tongue) is better absorbed than transdermal B12.

“I opted to not wash my organic and biodynamic produce, hopingtraces of soil would create the necessary B12 for my system to

assimilate.”Some folks are aware of the contention that oral B12 from soil is not aviable way of getting enough B12 to meet our needs, yet they remainhopeful. But betting your health on a hope that something will dosomething is not a prudent approach in my opinion, especially whenthere is hard science that should put the issue to rest. And since youcan test your B12 utilization to know, one way or the other, if

something’s working, there’s no reason to rely on hope.

“They’ve raised a healthy family on a non supplemented raw diet –and have been living it for over 30 years. She claims celery juice is a



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nerve-cell re-builder, so seeing food as medicine opens a whole newdimension to raw food as a provider and a healer.”

Celery does contain nutrients that are good for us (assuming it’sgrown in healthy soil), but celery is not a source of B12 as this

paragraph implies because it’s part of a B12 discussion. And if thesefolks are living where there is bountiful sunshine all year-round, andthey are all manufacturing enough B12, it is entirely possible thattheir family is and will continue to be robustly healthy. But thisshould not imply that everyone can be vibrantly healthy without anyneed for any nutritional supplementation; although a lovely notion, itdoesn’t square with reality.

“I’ve seen a lot of people talk about dulse, but I’m not sure what

the benefits are. Can you talk more about that? Should we be

eating dulse? Why or why not?”

Dulse is a sea vegetable. In Nature we would not have eaten seaweedunless we were living by the sea, but even then, have you tried freshseaweed?

Dulse is known to be a good source of many of the nutrients we need,and since it is not a very popular product, dulse is still a rich source ofthose nutrients (unlike many of the agri-based foods we raw foodistseat).

There is some nutritional info for the dulse product I recommend(which I believe to be the best dulse) here…www.

Health101.org/bookmark#18 But let’s not get too dependent onnumbers because many have no real-world relevance. For example,dulse (and other sea veggie) turns out not to be a good source of oneof the often difficult-to-get nutrients, iodine (pronounced eye-oh-deen). We need sufficient iodine, and some of our food sources that

should be iodine sufficient aren’t (if it ain’t in the soil, it ain’t in the plant). People who I’ve counseled who had hypo- and hyper-thyroidism definitely benefited from supplemental iodine. Just as

chromium is a key player in blood sugar regulation, iodine is a key player for proper thyroid function (and thymus function, which keepscancerous cells in check).



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But as with most things that would not have been natural to ourlifestyle (sea veggies, smoothies, juices, labor-saving-devices), withtheir upside there’s usually a downside. The downside to sea veggiesis that when they are dried, any B12 present will become non-functional (an “analog”), yet will still be accepted by B12 receptor

sites in the body effectively competing with “real” functional B12,and this has the effect of useful B12 being crowded out of the B12mechanism. Not all, but possibly enough to be the tipping point forsomeone where an insufficiency becomes a deficiency. And a B12deficiency is not something to fool around with. So I recommend thatif someone adds dried sea veggies to their diet, they also addsublingual B12 (not oral, not injectable, and not via unwashed food).This is the second best thing to do. The first best is testing youruMMA every year to check your B12 status. But for some people thisis not feasible, so the philosophy of “better to be safe than sorry” saysto take some B12 if you’re consuming dried sea veggies because ofwhat is known about the B12 analog issue and about the dangers ofB12 deficiency.

I should add that proper thyroid function is crucial to optimal

protection from ionized radiation. And since the catastrophe in Japanwas not the fault of the technology but the fault of irresponsibledesign decisions by humans in order to keep construction costs as lowas possible, I predict that with the increase in nuclear plants there will be an increased risk of exposure to ionized radiation. Another goodreason to be in optimal health, which includes getting enough iodine.

“I notice you recommend a green superfood product called JustBarley, but you also say that “superfoods” are not all that they

are promoted to be and are often a waste of money. Why the

distinction?”

Here’s the back-story regarding Just Barley. After I realized that thefoods we’re buying from health food stores may not be fulfilling allour nutritional needs, I began investigating the subject of

supplementation. When I met Don Weaver, an expert on soilnutrition, who agreed that the foods we consume are not as nutritiousas they were meant to be, I asked him the obvious question, “Do youtake any kind of supplementation? And if so, what?” He then went on



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to explain to me why he chose Just Barley out of all the greensupplements on the market. And knowing Don as I do (someone who,like me, does his due diligence when researching), hisrecommendations are good enough for me… and there are very few people whose recommendations I would embrace without doing the

tons of research that I normally do.

Speaking from the perspective of empirical evidence, those I’vecounseled who have had health challenges who have included JustBarley in their diet, have, in my opinion, benefited from its use. That being said, Just Barley is not a magic bullet by any means, it merely provides some nutrients that are likely lacking in your diet. There areother “superfoods” that provide such nutrients but many includeingredients that are not conducive to robust health, and others startwith a decent product, but its processing degrades its nutritionalvalue.

And yes, I do realize that Just Barley is made from something that Iwould not normally make a meal out of – which is a criteria for whatis and isn’t a food that a human being is designed to eat. That’s why

it’s in the same category as, say, a vitamin D supplement. You wouldtake this admittedly unnatural product to help counteract the negativeeffects of living in our unnatural environment (eating an otherwisenatural food but one that comes to us in an unnatural way).

The taking of supplementation is a personal choice, as are all of ourchoices. My hope is that people think about the subject with an openmind, with no preconceived notions, and no biases, and use good

judgment when making decisions... and that they make this decisionfor themselves, and not simply rely on their favorite health educator’sopinion. I know it’s a lot of work to take in and weigh all of the healtheducators’ statements regarding the supplementation issue, butmaking the correct choice here is vital to your future health.Remember, we’re only human, so a health educator can have 95%correct info and 5% incorrect info, and if you follow him/her 100%,you’ll be following some incorrect info that could affect your health.



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6. Weight

“What affects body fat?”

1. If you are taking in toxins/poisons that the body can’t eliminate(usually due to lack of sufficient nervous system energy and/orhydration) rather than let these damaging substances remain systemic,which can cause a lot of damage, the body sequesters them away infat cells. This we know. But what isn’t well known is if those toxin“storage bins” are full, the body will retain more fat in its fat cells(making the cells bigger and thus you bigger) in an effort to increase

its toxin storage capacity. Makes sense doesn’t it? So another tool inweight management is to eliminate pesticides through the eating oforganically grown foods, and to get off any meds as soon as possible(they have toxic properties to them) by adjusting your lifestyle practices to healthier ones so that your body can heal itself, which willeliminate the need for managing symptoms with meds.

2. If you are now actively working out in an effort to increase muscle

mass to the level it should be for a healthy, active, and fit human being (so that you can be in good shape physically when you’re 90),the body needs to produce growth hormone to facilitate this process.Growth hormone is produced during deep sleep. So if you’re notgetting enough Phase 4 cycles (deep sleep) during the night, youwon’t produce enough growth hormone, and in the absence of enoughgrowth hormone, consumed calories will become fat instead ofmuscle. This process is of course more entailed than this, but bottom

line: lack of sufficient deep sleep can hamper one’s weightmanagement efforts (a fact not known by a lot of weight lossspecialists).

3. Your metabolism affects how much body fat you have, and yourthyroid controls your metabolism. So if your thyroid is notfunctioning properly, you can have a slower metabolism than isnormal for you, and you will weigh more than you should. And yourthyroid cannot function correctly without enough iodine, and most people are deficient in iodine. Seek the counsel of an iodine literatehealth practitioner like myself to get your iodine level tested.



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“Can’t we get enough vitamin D to supply our needs regardless of

where we live?”

Even in South Florida, USA in January, the sun isn’t strong enough to produce meaningful amounts of D. In winter, sunshine is traveling

through a lot more atmosphere, so its D-making rays are diminishedeven though its visible light isn’t. Also, even sunscreen with an SPFof 8 will not allow any D to be produced, and some people who have been conditioned to be fearful of sunshine wear sunscreen.Additionally, people with dark toned skin who live far away from theequator need way more sun than those with light toned skin forobvious reasons. This is one reason that diseases that have low D as acontributing factor are more prevalent among folks with dark toned

skin who live in very northern or very southern (opposite side of theequator) areas. This prevalence is often chalked up to a genetic predisposition, and it is, just not in the way it’s thought to be(genetically these folks are “prone” to dark toned skin and not to any particular disease). And if a person is overweight, some of the Dthat’s made is “sucked up” by the excess fat because D is fat soluble,and thus is not available to the body for its D needs. This is why whenoverweight people are treated with D to deal with a diagnosed

deficiency, they need proportionally more to bring their levels up thana person of normal weight.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but there’s a certain area in the USthat gets the least amount of sunshine out of all the regions in thecountry. And that area has the highest rate of suicide and SeasonalAffective Disorder of anywhere in the country. Other illnessescorrelate accordingly too. We’re designed for sunshine, but for the

purposes of sales, we’re also subjected to scare tactics regardingsunshine. A good article to read about the importance of vitamin D isat www.Health101.org/bookmark#6 and sunshine is a whole chapter in myfirst book.

“I’m so thin on this diet, why can’t I be the weight I want to be?”

As far as weight goes, when I ate the worst diet you can imagine,eating billions of calories a day, I never weighted more than 137.After eating an all-raw fruit and leafy greens diet (with a little nutsnow and then) for 20 years, I now weigh 125. Sure, for a while I



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wished I could have weighed more, but that feeling was just inresponse to sociological conditioning, and it didn’t respect what my body wanted. So when you think about it, when I was eating anunhealthy diet, I was 12 pounds overweight even though many peoplethought I was underweight! Also, many people will dip down under

their ideal set-weight (ideal weight) for a while when transitioningfrom an unhealthy diet to a very healthy one. As long as you’re notunder-eating, and as long as you get sufficient physical activity(which has a lot to do with eating the proper amount of food fornutritional purposes), you will eventually come back up to your idealweight. And as long as your energy level is fine during this temporaryunder-weight period, there is nothing to be concerned about. Also,many people were over-fat to some degree AND under-muscled to agreat degree. So when they lose the over-fat condition and then lookin the mirror, they don’t think they look right, and they’re correct because they are under-muscled; they just couldn’t tell they wereunder-muscled because of the over-fat condition. So instead of tryingto “look good” by trying to control the amount of body fat on you, getyour musculature up to where it should be and you will most likelyfind that you will be happy with the way you look in the mirror (and

people will stop commenting that you “look too thin” when you lookfit and strong).

“Isn’t a diet that reduces calories the best way to lose weight?”

Caloric restriction type diets are doomed to failure, and are not a goodway to lose weight. But neither is a diet that has a proper amount ofcalories to maintain your ideal weight, but too high a percentage ofthose calories comes from fat. The thing that is the most derailing to people when they transition from a medium/high fat diet to a “low”fat diet is that they fail to consume enough calories from simplecarbohydrates (I put the word low in quotes because it’s really anappropriate fat diet; it’s not too low in fat.) One reason they don’ttake in enough carbs is physical; 1,000 calories of, say, banana takeup way more room in the stomach than does 1,000 calories ofavocado (or 1,000 calories of a McDonald’s meal). Ever notice how

elastic a baby’s stomach is? After feeding, it looks distended (but thisis normal), and after the food moves along, their stomach “shrinks” back down. Over the years we lose that natural elasticity because weeat a calorically concentrated diet that doesn’t require that kind of



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elasticity. And as with many bodily things, if you don’t use it you loseit. So to try and switch to a diet where the bulk of your calories willnow come from a higher water content, higher fiber, and thus a higher bulk per calorie diet, is usually a challenge at first due to the stomachhaving lost the elasticity it needs to accommodate this higher bulk

diet.

Another reason is psychological; we think of eating bananas as asnack and that a “normal” amount of bananas at a sitting is one,maybe two. This is only 100-200 calories. Often, people whotransition to a plant-based diet find themselves “hungry all the time” because they aren’t eating enough food. Now, you might think thatdramatically under-eating on calories when trying to lose weight is a

helpful thing, but it’s not (it can scare the body into thinking that foodis not plentiful so the body goes into a “sparing mode” making itharder to lose weight). People who eat according to caloric need, andeat an uncooked fruit and green leafy diet do well if they are mindfulthat they must work at “stretching” their stomach when eating, andnot stop because they feel full. If what they are eating, when eatinguntil they feel full, doesn’t supply them with sufficient calories, theywill often be moved to eat more calorically dense foods (higher fatfoods).

Nutrients are another piece to the puzzle. Your nutrient requirementsdo not necessarily parallel your caloric requirements. When you eatfoods that have an abundance of nutrients, if you under-eat oncalories, you won’t be short-changing your nutritional requirements.But the foods from our agri-based food supply are nowhere near asnutrient dense as the foods of our biological adaptation that we onceate from the wild when they were at the peak of ripeness (whichequates to having maximal nutrition). When foods today are harvestedearly so they don’t ripen and then rot before they get to the store,well, once they are disconnected from the tree/bush/vine, that’s it asfar as uptaking nutrients from the soil. And considering that sometrace minerals and rare earth elements don’t get uptaken by the rootsystems as quickly as the more bountiful nutrients (calcium,

magnesium, potassium, etc), many of the foods we eat today arealready borderline when it comes to certain nutrients, and some aresouth of the border. And if you then cook them, you guarantee somenutritional deficiencies. But even if you don’t cook your food, if you



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purposefully under-eat on agri-based food, you will most probably bump up against a nutrient(s) deficiency. And since we can gethungry for nutrients as well as calories, this explains why many people who have plenty of stored fuel on their bodies get hungry even

when they are eating sufficient calories for fuel! This underscores the

importance of taking a high quality nutritional supplement (notCentrum, Theragram, One-A-Day etc). Sufficient vitamin D and B12are a whole ‘nuther story, and most of the people I counsel aredeficient to some degree in these two nutrients that do not and cannotcome from a healthy diet.

Metabolism is yet another factor. When under-eating on calories in amajor way in an effort to lose weight, your body does not know you

are doing this on purpose. It assumes food is getting harder to come by, and thus will dial down your metabolism in an effort to conserveyour fuel resources (if you under-eat on calories, your body stillneeding those calories, will “burn” stored fat which is its reserve fuelresource). This is when weight loss starts to “flatten out”. Then whenyou start eating a “normal” amount of calories again, your metabolismramps back up. This is a factor in yo-yo dieting.

“Shouldn’t there be one diet for losing weight and another for

maintaining weight?”

Trying to lose weight by eating a diet that’s different from the onethat you should eat once you get down to your ideal weight doesn’tmake sense when you consider that you’re designed to eat the samediet regardless of how much you weigh. True, being overweight is anunnatural condition, so you might think that an unnatural way of

losing weight would be okay, but when you consider that there aremany unnatural ways to lose weight, and that most of them do notwork, this might support the notion of eating the diet you’re designedto eat, but just eat only the amount of calories that would support yourideal weight.

To say that there is a different diet for losing weight and another onefor maintaining weight is like saying that when you’re driving at 70MPH on the highway, and then you have to slow down to 30 becauseyou’re exiting, the best way to do this is to use the left foot to slowdown to 30 and then use the right foot to continue at 30. This would



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work, but it doesn’t make any sense. The best way is to use the same foot to slow down to 30 as you’ll use to continue at 30. What youneed to do is to use that foot less to get from 70 to 30, morespecifically, reduce the foot pressure so the gas pedal changes to the position at which the car will go 30, and the car will dutifully slow

down from 70 to 30 and stay there. It’s the same with weight loss; ifyou’re overweight by 50 pounds, and you want to get from 200 to150, stop eating an amount of calories that supports 200 pounds, andeat foods that you’re designed to eat that supply the amount ofcalories that supports a weight of 150 (there are charts that can helpyou calculate approximately how many calories you need to support aspecific weight depending on a specific level of physical activity).Some would call this a caloric restriction diet, but that would beincorrect. Most caloric restriction diets have you eating an amount ofcalories that is way below what you would eat to maintain your idealweight, thinking that this is the fastest way to lose weight. It’s notonly not the fastest, but it’s the unhealthiest way to lose weight.

“A few of my friends that went all-raw became underweight for a

while. I’m already slim, and would not want this to happen. Why

does this happen?” First, that you have a few friends who are on the same path thatyou’re considering is huge! Count your blessings there.

In many cases of healing, weight will be lower than normal for a period of time. Keep in mind that the number you see on the scale isnot just body fat, it’s also muscle, and a reason for lookingunderweight when you have temporarily gotten down below a normal body fat percentage is if you were under-muscled when you were of aweight that you felt was okay, and then when you lose body fat, youwill more easily look underweight than if you were sufficientlymuscled prior to losing body fat. But regardless of your muscle mass percentage, a temporary under-body-fat condition is quite commonwhen healing, especially from gastrointestinal maladies. Just be sureto get enough deep sleep as this is a very overlooked requirement of

regaining your normal ideal weight.

And think of it this way: If you had a 104 fever and didn’t eat untilyou got your appetite back, you’d certainly lose weight. Knowing this



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in advance, would you force yourself to eat so that you wouldn’t loseweight, or would you simply be okay with this because it is a result ofthe natural healing process? And even if you decided to go againstyour body, you couldn’t, because if you ate, your body would toss it back up. But just because what you’re going through now isn’t as

serious as whatever warranted the high fever, and you could forceyourself to eat way more food than your body wants in an effort to not become underweight, this would obviously be going against your body, and that’s not in the best interest of your health.

All that said, it is possible to become underweight when this is notwhat the body wants. It happened because you weren’t eating enoughcalories. When switching from a high calorie-per-bite diet to a lower

calories-per-bite diet (higher water content food diet), the sameamount of bulk gives you less calories. So if you eat to fill yourself upas you always have, you’ll get less calories. If what you’re nowgetting is the appropriate amount of calories to support your idealweight with the amount of activity you do, then this is great. But ifit’s not an amount that will support your ideal weight, you need to eatmore medium water content food (bananas, dates), and work atstretching your stomach so you regain lost stomach elasticity. Moreon this at www.Health101.org/bookmark#7

“I’ve heard it said that females who sit on the sofa all day would

need a minimum of 2,000 calories to maintain their weight. Is this

true?”

The amount of calories a person needs is based on their ideal weight,their activity level, and to a lesser extent, how muscular they are.

There is also another factor that is not mentioned a lot, that ofefficiency. An automobile can have a very wide range of fuelefficiencies (13 MPG to 40 MPG). The human body doesn’t haveanywhere near that wide of a range, but the healthier you are, themore efficient you operate, and the more efficient you operate, theless calories you need. But since this range is so small, we don’tmention it (but it’s fascinating to know about).

If a person weighs 130 pounds (as their normal “set-weight”), theyneed approximately 1,300 calories just to exist. This is not countingany activity. So you can multiply your normal weight by 10 to get this



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bare minimum amount. Then, how active you are would dictate howmany more calories you need to consume. Here’s where you’ll finddiffering numbers. Obviously one’s level of activity occurs on aninfinite scale, and the definition of a level of activity can differ as tohow many calories are needed. Some people go by:

9 to 11 times ideal weight = amount needed to exist

12 to 15 times ideal weight = sedentary to mildly active (too low)

15 to 19 times ideal = appropriately active

19 to 30+ times ideal weight = heavy-duty “athlete” active (too high)

There is debate on just what is an “appropriate” amount of physical

activity and what constitutes being over-active (more activity than weneed to be to be robustly healthy), and therefore it is not set in stonewhat your exact caloric intake should be.

Keep in mind that we are very efficient users of fuel, unlike a carwhich give off 75% of the fuel burned as heat. We get the equivalentof 300 MPG (imagine if cars got 300 MPG).

If you are losing weight that you shouldn’t be losing, assuming youare not fasting, and assuming your body isn’t temporarily minimizingits fat cells to eject stored toxins, then you are not eating enough fruit.If you are gaining (fat) weight you shouldn’t be gaining, you need tolook at a few issues (even though this scenario is not common among people eating a truly healthy diet)…

Eating too much fat

Eating an amount of calories not warranted by your activity level

Not being active enough

Taking in toxic substances which the body stores in fat cells

Not sleeping well

Also know that the number you see on the bathroom scale representsfat, water, and muscle weight (as far as categories that we look atwhen considering how much we weigh). Think about how you’d lookin the mirror if you lose fat weight and gain muscle weight so that



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number on the scale is still the same… You’d look like a different person. This change would no doubt elicit comments like, “Wow!You look great! What are you doing?”

Also of note: Your health can not always be gauged by your body-fat

content (your weight). Some people can eat 8,000 calories a day, not be very active, and not be overweight, while others can gain five pounds just looking at a photo of chocolate cake. The speed of yourmetabolism – which is genetically predetermined – is controllinghere. And the only thing you can do about a “slow” metabolism is tomake sure it’s running normally, and not slower than normal. Andyou do this with activity (and eating more, smaller meals throughoutthe day rather than one or two big meals a day).

That last item on the above list (sleep) should help to drive the pointhome that robust health is not just about diet. If you are eating thehealthiest diet in the universe, but not paying equal attention to all theother equally important requisites of health, it is physiologicallyimpossible to be as healthy as you are capable of being… and this cantranslate into a diagnosis of something far on down the road that you

never thought you’d get.

“What’s the best way to lose weight?”

The best advice I can give regarding weight loss is to not focus on it.Instead look to improving health to the max. Those who concentrateon this find that their weight normalizes as a matter of course. Andwhen you focus on health creation, you will naturally widen yourattention to include all the basics of health, and all with equalimportance. And since they all have a role to play in your ideal weightmanagement, this is why focusing on health instead of on weight willget you better all-around results.

That said, specifically to weight loss: Sufficient sleep, eat smaller andmore meals rather than larger and less meals, be moderately active

every day with some intense activity once a week. And of course bewell hydrated so as the fat weight lowers, and stored toxins becomesystemic, your body will be able to detoxify itself efficiently.



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This has all been about your physical state, but an upbeat, positiveemotional state is important too for physical health creation, and thusfor weight loss. So have some supportive relationships, read funny books, watch funny movies, and find the humor in all the absurdities.

“Some raw food health educators insist that it is impossible to

become overweight on a fruit-based diet, do you think this is true?”

No, I know this is not true. How do I know? Because there have been people who’ve adopted a fruit based diet, and have gained weight to become higher than their set-weight (the weight they should be). Andwhen I’m saying “weight” I mean body fat weight. Another way I

know this is not true is because it flies in the face of physiology; ifyou take in more calories worth of food – any food – than you “burn”in a day, and you do this consistently, you will gain weight if youhave the type of metabolism that is geared to doing this. Admittedly,it is harder to be over-weight on a fruit-based diet than when eatingthe typical Western diet, but it is certainly not impossible.

“I’ve heard that men should eat 3,000 calories a day, and womenshould eat 2,500 calories a day on this diet. Is this advice good?”

It’s advice, but not good advice. The number of calories we should beeating should be based on our activity level and our frame size. Ifyou’re a five foot two inch tall, slender framed woman who is beingmoderately active, eating 2,500 calories is going to be too much.Obviously, the amount any one person should eat is an amount

appropriate for that individual. Making generalized recommendationslike this is not helpful. On the www.Health101.org website, in the EDUsection, is an article on how to determine how many calories you should be eating, entitled “Article on calories”.

“There's no worries about lots of calories if your activitiesdemand it. Some days I've eaten over 6,000 calories.” That may be an appropriate amount of calories for the amount of activity,

but that’s way too much activity. That amount of activity, and theextra amount of digestion to process the extra 3,000+ calories offood, burdens the body, and will not permit optimal health.



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7. Exercise & Physical Activity

“I’ve heard that exercise is necessary for managing one’s weight,

but I’ve also heard that it’s not the best way to manage one’sweight; what’s the deal?”

Exercise has its place in maintaining your ideal weight, but not for thereason most people think. We’re taught that exercise is good for“burning off” excess weight or keeping excessive calorie intake from becoming body fat, but this is not true. Let’s compare the fuelefficiency of the human body vs the fuel efficiency of an automobile.

Both these fuels – food measured in kilocalories and unleadedgasoline measured in BTUs – can be mathematically converted fromone to the other. And, unit of energy for unit of energy, the human body is very efficient when compared to an internal combustionengine. You have only to look at the wasted energy issue to see this;much of a car’s energy is wasted in heat, but not so for the human body; very little energy is wasted in heat. So we get an equivalent of300 MPG, meaning that a car would get that fuel efficiency if it was

as fuel efficient as a human. I mention this to make the point that to“burn off” the calories from a piece of junk food pie, you’d have to doa whole lotta running just to keep that piece of pie’s calories fromending up on your waist, hips, butt, or belly. It’s far more effective,from a weight management perspective, to not eat the piece of pie.

So exercising to manage weight by managing calories is often anexercise in frustration. And if you could prevent excess calories from

becoming fat with exercise, you’d be abusing the body with bothexcessive calories and with excessive activity, and both will burdenthe body. Overworking the body is not what you want if you want the best health possible.

Appropriate physical activity helps with weight management where itconcerns your metabolism. You will tend to weigh more than youshould if your metabolism is “slower” than normal. What helps keepyour metabolism normal? Being active! That’s the connection between exercise and maintaining a normal weight. So be active everyday. And this can be accomplished by doing some spirited walking



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and some non-intense calisthenics, with some intense exercise once aweek (to keep you strong). You’ll also have a more normalmetabolism if you eat more, smaller meals throughout the day ratherthan fewer, larger meals.

“You’ve talked a lot about our needing to eat the diet specific to

our species, a species-specific diet is how you put it, but what

about physical fitness needs? Is there species-specific exercise?”

Yes, but I’d term it “species-specific activity”. In our naturalenvironment we’d have no reason to run for miles and miles the waymany runners do today. It’s done that way because those doing it

believe it to be health-enhancing, but on balance, it’s not, all thingsconsidered. Avid runners can get addicted to running because it feelsreally good. But this is not because it’s good for us, it’s because whenwe damage the body while running, even in an imperceivable way,endorphins are produced to mask any pain that might result so as to prevent the STOP signal that normally accompanies pain. Why wouldthe brain want to prevent the STOP signal when it knows that damageis being done? Because on that level it has no idea that the person is

running because they want to, and not because they have to; the brainassumes that if you’re running it’s a “flight” response (as in fight or

flight ). So it wants to make it as easy as possible to run like crazy forthe purposes of self-preservation. This is why it can be difficult to talkto avid runners about the downsides of running the way they do; theiraddiction to the “runner’s high” (those feel-good endorphins) won’tallow them to hear it. And if they can be talked into landing on theirforefoot instead of their heels when they run, they find they don’t likeit as much because this way of running is low impact instead of highimpact (which is what you get when you land on your heels), and thusno micro cellular damage and therefore no endorphins.

In our present culture we can’t easily do the types of activities as wewould have in Nature, but we’ve got to do something to be in goodshape. Unfortunately what personal trainers and exercise

physiologists have been taught is not the healthiest way to get andstay in shape. Weight training is commonly done, and I dorecommend it, just not the way most people do it. Their formconforms to nothing we’d do in Nature and is potentially injurious to



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the body, and they often use way too much weight and build too muchmuscle (yes there is such a thing as too much muscle). So these aremy observations: People either do way too little exercise or way toomuch, and people have way too little muscle mass or way too much.Very few have the porridge that is just right. And very few know just

how important a good night’s sleep is to building a strong body;without sufficient Phase 4 (deep) sleep, not enough growth hormonewill be produced and therefore muscle building will be curtailed andinstead the additional calories that were consumed to fuel theincreased activity from your new strength training program can go tofattening up your fat cells.

Please do read the info at www.Health101.org/bookmark#11 which can beapplied to weight training.

“Now that I’ve lost the weight (from fat) that I wanted to lose, I

can see that I’m under muscled. What’s the best way to become

properly muscled?”

What has been found to be the most effective and efficient method of

going from an under-muscled condition to an appropriately muscledcondition is a High Intensity Training protocol, or HIT. Some of thetenets of this are: 1. Work with weights that intensely work themuscles so that you reach momentary muscular failure (MMF) within60 to 90 seconds (if you can go longer, it’s not enough weight, if youcan’t go for 60 seconds, you’re using too much weight). 2. Thenumber of reps doesn’t matter. 3. One set only. Multiple sets don’t buy you anything. 4. No ballistic moves, move very slow ormoderately slow. 5. Don’t work out again that intensely for 5 to 9days (you can be active during that time, but not to MMF). The keysare: working to MMF, sufficient recovery time so you don’t interferewith repair and new muscle growth, not doing more than is necessaryto build muscle so you don’t waste bodily resources, and of course not building more muscle than is appropriate (not building untilmaximum potential is reached, which is like driving a car at 120 MPH

all the time). HIT is further explained in this articlewww.Health101.org/bookmark#11



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“I am exercising now, but I get a pain in my side when running,

and I remember Jane Fonda saying ‘no pain, no gain’, but I have

also heard that pain means that something is wrong. So I am not

sure how to view this.”

It should be noted that Jane Fonda abandoned her “go for the burn”approach to exercise and promoted an easier regimen as the “no pain,no gain” credo lost credibility when it was revealed that nearly half ofthose engaged in high-impact aerobics suffered injuries such as stressfractures.

In general, if you feel pain when exercising, it could mean that this isnot a good thing to do the way you’re doing it. Or it could mean that

the activity you were doing isn’t a bad one to do, it’s just not a goodone to do at this time because you’re not in good enough shape to doit. Regardless of the reason, if it hurts, you should stop, and not tryand “work through” the pain as some people suggest. Pain is a signaltelling you that either you are not in good enough shape to do this, orthat this shouldn’t be done regardless of what shape you’re in. Thereare a lot of people exercising in ways that, although popular, are not ahealthy way to be physically active because they overwork certain

aspects of the body. Just because millions of people believe that dairy products are a healthy thing to consume, doesn’t make it so. Andlikewise, just because millions of people believe that a certain way to be physically active is healthy, doesn’t make it so.

So not only do I advise that when you feel pain, stop what you aredoing, but also think about what you were doing; pass it by a “Naturefilter” to see if it would be something that you would naturally do in Nature. If it isn’t, this means you really should give this activitycareful consideration, and not just accept that it’s a healthy thing to do because lots of people are doing it. Getting injured while trying toimprove your health is counterproductive, to say the least.



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“My personal trainer said that I shouldn’t wait a whole week to

do another intense strength building workout, that I should do

them every 3 days. But you said once every 7 – 9 days. Why is my

personal trainer – who has a degree in exercise physiology –

saying this?”

Unless they are trained in the H.I.T. protocol, personal trainers willusually furrow their eyebrows at the tenets of that protocol becausethis is not how they have been trained (and hearing contrary info callsinto question their training, which is psychologically upsetting tosome of them). I have tried to explain to personal trainers that ifcomplete recovery takes five days for someone, and they work outagain after three days, they are interfering with recovery, not gaining

anything, and wasting their resources. But if they work out again afterseven days, they do not lose any gains they have made with theirtraining by not doing another workout on the very next day after theirrecovery is completed, in this example, Day 6. In-other-words, it’s better to work out again after recovery is completed than before, evenif it’s a few days after. Intense workouts do not fall into the categoryof “more is better.” And all trainers are aware of the need for recovery but have been taught that two days is enough. But this is not enough

when the workout consists of working to momentary muscular failure,which is needed if gains in lean muscle tissue are desired.

“I notice you advocate doing physical activities that mimic as

much as possible what we would have done many millennia ago.

Why is this better than doing a workout as advised by a personal

trainer?”

I like passing things by the “Nature Test” because it sheds a great dealof light on things. No doubt that a workout has a very differentdefinition today than what a workout meant hundreds of thousands ofyears ago. Back then we wouldn’t have had to make decisions aboutwhat to eat and what not to eat like we do today. Back then (beforewe mastered fire) it would have been impossible to eat the kind ofunhealthy diets we do today, and the “decisions” of what to eat on a

particular day would have been dictated by a desire for a particularfood, and assuming we could find it, that’s what we’d eat.



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Now, what about what shape we should be in. Today we makeconscious decisions: free weights, machines, multiple sets vs one set,High Intensity Training vs something else, once a week vs multipletimes a week vs every day, etc. Way back then, we were in greatshape without any conscious decisions on how to work out. But today,

we’re not living in our biological “eco-niche”. Instead we’ve all been born into and have come of age in a culture filled with “labor-saving”devices and services, and most people, if faced with the option oftaking an escalator or the stairs, will use the “moving stairs” as if itwould be stupid to walk up the stairs when you could let the stairswalk for you.

So what about making conscious decisions regarding muscle tone. Wecan’t simply do whatever is necessary to achieve maximum musclegrowth because maximum muscle size isn’t an indicator of optimalfitness. Huh? This sort’a seems counter-intuitive, doesn’t it? Butconsider that our muscles have built-in “headroom”. Kind of like acar’s engine. Why, if you’re never going to drive at 120 MPH, is yourengine designed to be able to go 120 MPH? Because if the engineerdesigned the engine’s top speed for 75 MPH (the fastest you’re likely

to go), whenever you were driving at 75, you’d be working thatengine at its max, and it wouldn’t last as long as it would if you ran itat 65% of max capacity.

Our muscles don’t require that much headroom, but they do havesome. How do we know this? It’s simple: If you do the kind of physical activity that you would have done in Nature, a very long timeago, your muscles would become developed to a certain degree. If

you then worked your muscles using the machines and free weights ina gym, using amounts of weights you could never use in Nature, yourmuscles would get bigger and bigger until they hit their max. And thedifference between the two is that headroom. But developing yourmuscles to the max and keeping them there is a lot harder on the bodyand makes it a lot harder for the body to keep itself cool in hotweather than if you had a normal amount of muscle. And I don’t thinkI have to say that making the body work harder than it would

normally work is not good for long-term health.



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So how then does one decide how much muscle to develop ifdeveloping them to the max isn’t a healthy thing to do? Can weapproximate the kind of activity we’d normally do in Nature so thatwe’d be as developed as we’re designed to be, and not any more thanthat? It’s certainly possible, but it would take a bunch of independent,

outside-the-box thinking because of the commonly held notions offitness training.

Regarding eating to facilitate putting on muscle: If much of the foodsyou eat are eaten individually, as “mono meals” (as we would haveeaten many moons ago in Nature), the body (brain specifically) wouldhave a very good idea just what foods were better providers of proteinthan others. So it stands to reason that if your food compositiondatabase was in good shape, and you started being active enough towarrant more muscle, your body would steer you to eating more ofwhat it needed to make that muscle, without any conscious effort onyour part. I find it fascinating when seemingly knowledgeable people(in the ways of natural health) say that they must now eat more nuts because they are starting an intense training protocol.

And some go on to say that if they don’t consciously up their proteinintake, they won’t be able to develop as much muscle as they could…and again, it’s this concept of “as they could” that really needs to beexamined. When it comes to muscle mass, more is not necessarily better; after a certain point, more is counterproductive, doesn’t reallyserve us (unless we’re trying to win a contest or impress people) andmerely burdens the body.

And working out using the things that are available to us today maynot be in your best interest. Some avid cyclists develop problems inthe area that supports almost their entire weight when they’re riding,not because of improperly adjusted seats or handlebars, but becausethe human body wasn’t designed to ride a bicycle, the bicycle wasdesigned to accommodate the human body as best as possible. The bicycle was designed to be operated by our body, but it wasn’tdesigned to mimic our natural movements. Same goes for running

(the way 99.9% of runners run). Yes, we were designed to run, but notfor the distances/time that most runners do, and not with the form thatmost runners use. We were designed to run differently than is



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commonly done, and when we do, we don’t see all the high impactsports injuries that the typical runner gets, or the damage done downthe road that some runners experience.

We have expressions that speak to the shape we’re in: Being “out of

shape” and being “in shape.” But notice, there is no expression thatcontains the word shape that describes being over-trained or over-developed. Technically we can’t be in too good a shape, but we canwork out too much, be too muscularly developed as I mentionedabove, and be too active (more active than we’d need to be in order to be in great shape.

We can look at someone and usually tell if they’re out of shape; it’susually obvious: poor muscle tone, bad posture, and maybe beingoverweight. But I could show you 100 people where you’d say theylook like they’re in great shape. But a view inside their body wouldtell a very different story. Because a body that’s being too active canlook very much like a body that’s being appropriately active, unlesswe see dead give-a-ways like knee bandages, we can’t easily tell thedifference, although a trained eye can pick out telltale markers like

overdeveloped calf muscles and discarded containers of whey protein powder.

Because it’s impossible to be as healthy as we’re capable of beingunless we pay equal attention to the important requirements of robusthealth besides diet, I’ve done a lot of thinking on the subject, and anappropriate about of research, and the inescapable conclusion I’vecome to is: most people either do way too little or way too much

physical activity. Using a Goldilocks metaphor, we want the porridgethat is just right , not the one that is too cold or too hot.

Research shows that it is indeed possible to be over-active, and thatthis affects both your body’s performance and its health. Your physical condition is improved by exercise for sure, but recentresearch suggests that backing off from exercise may improve performance and how you feel. And when this is the case, it means

you were definitely being over-active. In a study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, researchers demonstrated that whenrunners reduced the volume of running by 25 percent and replaced



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that with short sprint runs several times a week, both short term andlong term performance improved. Jeffrey McDaniel, MD, sportsmedicine physician says that it is easy for highly active people to dotoo much in a workout, and that overtraining can lead to overuseinjuries and is one of the leading reasons he sees people in his office.

Over-activity can lead to a constellation of symptoms, ranging fromfatigue, persistent muscle soreness, changes in mood, and outright poor performance. And know also that the absence of acute injury isnot an indicator that you’re not doing too much.

And since allowing sufficient recovery time after a workout or intenseactivity is necessary to give our bodies time to repair, if you work outagain too soon you will interfere with recovery, and over time thiswill be counterproductive to your physical health. We know that burdening the body in any manner affects your odds of having a positive outcome years down the road, so it’s not a stretch of theimagination to see that burdening the body with too much physicalactivity can affect your odds of living a illness-free life.

So when it comes to exercise, you can get too much of a good thing.

If you were an anthropologist from another planet that came here andstudied humans, you’d eventually come to the inescapable conclusionthat most of what humans seem to eat is just about anything except what they’re designed to eat. And we get our physical activity justabout every way possible except the ways we’re designed to get it.But this wouldn’t seem out of character for humans since they alsoconsume things that they know are bad for them (cigarettes, high fat

junk food, alcohol). Upon first blush, it would almost appear thathumans have a self-destructive nature, but after further research itwould become evident that much of what humans do, they do becauseof being conditioned by that portion of society that stands to gainfrom this conditioning. But there would be observed some humanswhose thinking was outside-the-box and who looked beyond behavioral programming for habits that were truly in their bestinterests. You’d probably label these humans as “the independent

thinkers” or “the wise ones.” [ But even independent thinkers shouldhave resources they can research, and that’s why I created this book.]



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“You appear pretty fit in your video, but if you chose to put on 20

to 30 pounds of muscle don’t tell me it wouldn’t be quite

difficult.”

Yes, it would no doubt require a lot of effort, but the point is that I

want to be “appropriately” muscled, not over-muscled (or under-muscled). So it’s irrelevant how difficult it would be to put on moremuscle than I should have.

Most exercise physiologists agree that to have more muscle than youshould is not healthy. It’s harder to keep your core temperature cool inhot weather when you are over-muscled. An over-muscled condition burdens the body from the standpoint of catabolism and anabolism

(tearing down of muscle fiber that needs to be torn down, and the building of new muscle fibers).

We’re a bio-mechanical machine, but think of another machine: Theautomobile engine. It can propel the car at 120 MPH if you floor the pedal and keep it there. But why would the designer of that enginedesign it to go 120 MPH if you’re never going to go that fast?Because if the fastest you’ll ever go is 75, and the engine is designed

to top out at 75, when you drive at 75, you’ll be working that engineat it’s peak capacity, and it won’t last as long as if you operated it atmaximal efficiency (which is about 70% of peak capacity). That’swhy a car engine is “over engineered”. Human muscles doesn’t needsuch large headroom, but they do have some. So there’s a difference between building muscle to the point of peak capacity (as large as youcan make the muscle) or maximal efficiency (which is less than that).Since I’m not trying to win contests or impress anyone, I’m fine with being appropriately muscled, which equates to maximal efficiency.

So when you see someone with a massive amount of muscles, don’tassume that this equates with being tremendously healthy. In fact, inmost cases, the opposite is true, because if the person is not trying to be appropriately muscled, he (or she) is not likely to be eating a dietthat is health-enhancing, but rather a diet that (supposedly) supports

the building and maintaining of high muscle mass, i.e. lots of protein.



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“You clearly have a fairly intense strength training program, but

what do you do to stay toned?”

Climbing is the best activity to stay in great shape once you get ingreat shape. Seek out a climbing wall at least twice a month. The self-

belay types are the best (you wear a harness that you attach to a cable,the cable has a slight upward pull on it, not enough to assist you inyour climbing, but just to take up the slack as you climb. And if youlose your grip, the cable slowly lowers you back down to the ground).If there are no self-belay walls, you’d need someone to belay you(they stand at the bottom and hold on to the other end of the rope thatattaches to your harness and the cable loops through a pulley at thetop of the wall. If you lose your grip while climbing, the belay person

slowly lowers you back down. If you want to use your own friend as a belay person, you and him/her usually must take a class at theclimbing wall place to be “certified”; this for liability purposes.

Or climb trees whenever you have the opportunity. Unfortunatelymost of the good playground climbing equipment has been eliminatedfor liability reasons. When I was a kid, all I wanted to do when at the playground was to climb on the monkey bars / jungle gym. I didn’t

have any interest in the swings or that silly see-saw. You can also buyan extension ladder at Home Depot and set it up in your backyard ifyou have one, and climb that repeatedly… not nearly as much fun oras good a workout as climbing a climbing wall, but it is convenient.

The next best thing is to get a set (or two sets for maximum options)of the Bodylastics Home Gym. You’d then use these to provideresistance to keep your upper body muscle groups in great shape onceyou get them into great shape. Alternatively you can continue goingto the gym and using the machines to work out, just not as intenselyas you did when getting your under-muscled body into a properlymuscled state. Chapter 9 of my first book is devoted to the “gettinginto proper shape” protocol. Then simply do the same basic exercises, just not as intensely. But if you are currently under-muscled (as99.9% of the population is), it can take you six months to a year to get

where you should be, assuming you do a Super-Slow (H.I.T. HighIntensity Training) session once every 7 to 9 days. Seewww.Health101.org/bookmark#19 for the best resistance bands.



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“I’m an emotional eater. My biggest emotional trigger is when

I’m feeling sad or lonely. When I feel that way I eat, and it’s

usually heavy cooked food. I don’t want this happening again.

What I’m looking for is a good “comfort” fruit. Any

suggestions?”

Often the reason people turn to food to deal with stronguncomfortable emotions is because strong emotions (of any kind) anddigestion can’t take place at the same time. If the strong emotionsyou’re feeling are in the category of anger or rage, digestion will takea back seat and shut down because these emotions are associated withthe “fight or flight” response, and the body gives that priority overdigestion for safety reasons. But strong emotions like sadness can be

dulled by the need for some heavy-duty digestion, and the emotionalneural network in your brain knows this, and that’s why there can be aconnection between sadness and a desire to pile on the food, so thatyou’ll feel better emotionally. And even though another neuralnetwork (intellect) knows that this is an unwise thing to do from a physical health perspective, the other neural net “wins” because it’sthe stronger one at that moment when you’re considering, “Pizza!”

This is why a healthy food like fruit is not a good way to deal withsadness because fruit is an easily digestible food, and what youremotional neural net is looking for is digestion that requires a lot ofnerve energy so that you won’t feel sad.

This is why jumping on a rebounder and doing some heavy duty bouncing, or going out for some vigorous activity is a better solutionfor dealing with sad states. Doing so is good for the body, and because it gets the heart and respiration pumping, it makes it difficultto feel sad. The trick of course is to be able to do this when you don’tfeel like doing anything. But if you can get in the habit of forcingyourself to do some intense physical activity followed by drinkingwater and then some sweet, high water content fruit (after you’vecooled down), this is what you’ll naturally turn to when feeling down,and it will replace the “Gimme pizza!” reaction.

A few other tips to help you not be prone to sadness: Always be wellhydrated!!! (and I usually don’t use exclamation points). Get plenty ofPhase 4 (deep) sleep (see www.Health101.org/bookmark#20), and be



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physically active every day with at least some Spirited Walking (seewww.Health101.org/bookmark#21)

“We need to start looking for the optimum levels

of nutrients necessary for optimum health instead

of the minimum amount needed to preventdiseases. This is going to produce a big upsurge

in human health in the next twenty years.”

– ichard P. Huemer, M.D.



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8. Sleep

“How about some tips for better sleep?”

Not staying up past a certain hour is a great way to improve thequantity of your sleep. The trick there is “winding down” at the end ofthe day, and making sure that all the things you absolutely do need todo before going to sleep are done early enough so that they can’t beused as an excuse for not getting to bed by that chosen time.

Within an hour of going to bed: No problem-solving, no irritating

phone conversations (optimally no phone conversations at all) nowatching “stimulating” TV or movies, no loud and/or high tempomusic, and no vigorous exercise (nothing that increases heart rate orrespiration).

Also, turning down nighttime lighting – either via dimmers which arethe best, or by turning off lights – helps prepare the brain for sleep.By the time you reach the “time to hit the sack” point, the lighting in

your house should be so low, that it’s almost too dark to see whereyou’re going. And once at that point, you should never turn up a light.Even opening the fridge will throw off everything; the light in thefridge will be too bright at that point. If you go for a lite walk before bed, make sure your porch light is turned off so it doesn’t disturb your“sunset”. And if your street is very well lit, it might be a good idea towear a pair of very lite sunglasses, the kind with just a small amountof tinting. If that’s not an option, it’s probably best not to go for a

walk in a brightly lit area just prior to bed.

The goal is to find yourself waking up before the alarm clock goesoff. That will usually mean you have gotten enough sleep (andenough Phase 4 sleep). If you wake up to an alarm, you most probablydid not get enough sleep (as is the case for most people who wake upto an alarm). And of course a Sunrise Alarm Clock ensures that youdon’t get woken out of a deep phase of sleep (unless you only got afew hours of sleep, in which case a sunrise – whether real or artificial – won’t bring you to a light phase of sleep).



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“Do you know if the hours before 12:00 midnight are more

important then the ones after. Also, is ‘sleeping-in’ beneficial or

would it be better to just try to go to sleep earlier?”

I have found no credible data to support the notion that the hours

before midnight are better than the ones after. Remember, “midnight”is a human convention, just like “Tuesday” or “February”. In the wildwe’d have gone to sleep after the sun had set because we couldn’t seevery well in the dark, so there was nothing else to do but sleep. Plus,the setting sun (with no artificial lighting) would cause the body to produce melatonin which prepares us for sleep.

This notion came from the results of some sleep studies that suggested

that we get the bulk of our Phase 4 sleep (the deepest phase of sleepwhere the most nerve energy is replenished) during the first third ofour nightly sleep cycle. So if you sleep for eight hours, and you go tosleep at 10:00 PM, you’d get most of your Phase 4 deep sleep beforemidnight, according to this particular sleep research. So even if true,the hour of midnight has no significance. If you went to sleep at 11:00PM, the hours before 1:30 AM are the most “important”. But thisdoesn’t mean that it’s okay to short-change yourself on sleep and

that’s okay if you go to bed too late. It isn’t. The fact that your bodywants you to sleep for those other two thirds means that they’reimportant too. (Plus, other sleep studies showed that there was Phase4 sleep all throughout the nightly sleep cycle.)

“Sleeping in” is not as good as going to sleep early enough so thatwhen the sun starts to rise and shine into our bedroom and throughour eyelids which brings us into progressively lighter phases of sleep,we wake when we get to and through Phase 1, and we wake rested,meaning we wouldn’t fall back to sleep if we tried. But if the sun triesto wake us up, but we need more sleep because we haven’treplenished enough nerve energy yet, this is a conundrum for the body; one “department” says it’s time to wake up while another says“stay asleep” because you need more sleep. So one of the best thingsyou can do in the arena of health improvement is to go to bed earlier.

Think of it as an investment in your future health. If your body isdealing with a potentially life-threatening issue that will become“noticeable” in a few years if it doesn’t “get in front of it”, getting



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sufficient Phase 4 sleep now is critical to never knowing you wereflirting with a serious diagnosis.

“French scientist Andre Voisin in his book Soil,Grass and Cancer said, ‘Man is the biochemical

photograph of the soil’ and I suggest that in all our

thinking about ‘best foods’ and ‘best diets’ we keep

in mind that in the U.S. and worldwide, most

agricultural soils have become seriously

demineralized and de-vitalized. If we are striving for

the ‘best’ foods and ‘best’ diet it is logical we must

see that they are grown on the ‘best’ soils.” – Don

Weaver

“I know that most men, including those at ease with

problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom

accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it

be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of

conclusions which they have delighted in explaining

to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to

others, and which they have woven, thread by

thread, into the fabric of their lives.” – Tolstoy



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9. Sun & Sunshine

“I’ve heard ‘don’t sunbathe at noon’ but what does this mean?”

There is all kinds of advice concerning when to sun yourself, most ofit not helpful (because if you follow it you’ll not get enough vitaminD). In general, for fair-skinned people, it’s probably not a good ideato sunbathe at noon in July in Florida because you’ll burn in a veryshort time. But that same person should sunbathe at noon in Florida inJanuary (but even then there probably isn’t a lot of D being made).And it would probably be best for that person, in July in Florida, to

sunbathe “before 10 and after 2”, which is a commonrecommendation, but this recommendation just says, “in the summer”which doesn’t take into account where on the globe you are, and whatskin tone you have. If you have dark toned skin, and you’re inCanada, you might want to sunbathe between 10 and 2 in the summer.

Because many people no longer live in their biological eco-niche andno longer have a natural (original) skin tone (dark), they need to get

into the learning curve that will allow them to make D, naturally,when the sun is strong enough to do it for them, and to then get Dunnaturally during that time of year when the sun isn’t strong enoughto make D. And if their lifestyle is such that they can’t get enough suneven when it is strong enough to make D, they need to know how tokeep their blood level of D in the “sufficient” range because this iscritical if they want the best odds of never getting a diagnosis of aserious disease.

“You seem to be perturbed by all the anti-sunshine and ‘sun

equals skin cancer’ information. Please elaborate.”

A sunburn in and of itself is not a primary cause of skin cancer, andneither is sunshine (as the sunscreen industry would like us to believe). But there is a correlation between sunburn and skin cancer,

in that, if you live a lifestyle that predisposes you to cancer in general,your risk of skin cancer is higher if you’ve had multiple sunburns.The reason is that the skin is one of the organs of elimination, and if



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the skin is eliminating toxins in an area that has been damaged bysunburn, this can predispose that area of skin to skin cancer. Whattends to confuse this correlation is the fact that there are people whoget skin cancer, and they had been sunburned, but the cancer does not appear where they had been sunburned, in fact it appears in places

where the sun never shined on. In these cases the sunburn was not adetermining factor to the skin cancer. And there are people who getmalignant skin cancer who never got a sunburn or a lot of sun (no suntans). And there are people who got lots of sun, and some sunburns,who never got skin cancer. So as you can see, it’s not a cut and driedissue. And when you add to this mix people who got skin cancer anddidn’t want to go the traditional medical route, and instead turnedtheir lifestyle habits around and for the first time in as long as theycan remember sunned themselves (covering up the skin cancer) andthey were able to resolve the skin cancer with no medical intervention(even malignant skin cancers).

Bottom line: We need sunshine for both vitamin D production and forradiating our blood and lymph fluids with ultraviolet light forcleansing purposes, but a sunburn is something to be avoided. And

don’t believe everything you see on TV or in magazines about the suncausing skin cancer.

“Enlightenment has nothing to do with becomingbetter or being happier. Enlightenment is the

crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the

acade of pretense. It’s the complete eradication of

everything we imagined to be true.” – Adyashanti



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10. Water

“What is your general guideline for how much water to drink,

especially in the beginning when you may not feel how muchwater you need?”

I’d drink a goodly amount of water upon awakening if there is no foodin your stomach (if you ate too close to going to sleep, there very wellcould be food still in your stomach).

Then I’d get into the habit of paying attention for a sign of thirst, but

since for some this doesn’t happen immediately, I’d drink water before every meal (but then wait 20 minutes before eating). And I’dhave water with me wherever I go so that if my body whispers“water” I can comply. It’s when you don’t have water with you thatthirst can go unattended and you can become dehydrated. So even ifyou think you won’t be gone long enough to warrant bringing waterwith you, get into the habit of bringing it with you anyway.

“There’s a lot of confusing info dealing with water treatment, is

there any real benefit to ionized water and alkalinized water?”

“Ionized water” is one of many products that the water wellnessindustry markets to the segment of the public that is looking for thehealthiest water but doesn’t have a background in chemistry so thatthey can’t distinguish scientific fact from pseudo-science hype. This

is an unfortunate aspect of human nature, the taking advantage of people for the sake of profit. I had the “pleasure” of meeting one ofthese folks about six years ago after I gave a presentation at a healthfood store. In my presentation I talked about the importance ofconsuming healthy water, and mentioned the filter that Irecommended. After the presentation, I was chatted up by this gentwho was trying to convince me to be a distributor of his water filterinstead of the one I was recommending. His main sales pitch was that

there was a much higher profit margin with his filter versus mine. Iexplained that I’d rather sell a filter that only made me $50 versus onethat made me $280 if it produced healthier water, and that his filter



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(retail price of $1,200) didn’t even produce healthy water (it had acheap granular carbon filter inside it and not a solid carbon filter).Once he realized that I was “one of those” people, he didn’t wasteanother minute of his time on me (which was fine with me). His filter,which is still on the market, is one of the many water filters touted as

producing “the best” and “the healthiest” water, when in fact youcould get the same water from a $20 “pour-through” filter.

But back to ionized water. The main point touted is “ionized watermolecules form into hexagonal rings, which allow the water to be better absorbed by your body.” Water molecules in liquid water moveabout freely, so it is a chemical impossibility that a hexagonalarrangement could be formed or made stable. It really frosts mycookies to see pseudo-science chemistry and outright lies used to promote these products to consumers whose lack of scientificknowledge leaves them vulnerable to this kind of exploitation.Hexagonal arrangements of liquid molecules are not a characteristicof ionization (or of alkalinity – another water filter marketing scam).Such hexagonal arrangements in water have never been observed, sothere is no way that it could have ever been established that such

water is better absorbed by your body since it doesn’t exist. Thehuman body has never had a problem being hydrated by water, so this particular claim is a perfect example of a “solution” to an imaginary problem.

Further, it is a sad reality that many people who have shelled out$1,200 for one of these machines in an effort to improve their healthare eating a diet that has been shown to promote heart disease, cancer,

and diabetes (way too much fat in the diet). So even if their new watermachine did as it claimed to do, its positive benefits would be faroutweighed by the detrimental effects of their diet.

“The Benefits of Alkaline Water” is a typical discourse which beginswith just enough solid science to create an illusion of credibility, butquickly descends into pseudo-physiology.

The claim: Alkaline water is important for maintaining proper body pH and preventing acidosis.



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The facts: The relative pH of drinking water will have little effect onthe overall pH of the body. Hundreds of millions of years of evolutionhave adapted humans to tolerate drinking waters having a fairly widerange of pH (5-8). And any water that is sufficiently alkaline tosignificantly affect gastric pH is unlikely to be considered drinkable

water anyway.

The biggest affect on body pH comes from the food you eat. Thewater produced by those machines that make alkaline water is onlyslightly more alkaline than the tap water that feeds the machine; thisdifference is insignificant when it comes to body pH. These machinesare scams and are good for only one thing, they have a very high profit margin, which is one of the main reasons you will continue tohear a lot about these machines and the “alkaline” water they make.Unfortunately many health improvement websites, including ones run by some raw food educators, sell and promote these machines. I’m ofthe belief that most of the raw food educators don’t know the facts behind water purification, but there are a few exceptions.

The best, healthiest drinking water is water that has had any harmful

chemicals and compounds removed; the main ones are chlorine,fluoride, VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds), and trihalomethanes(chloroform, bromodichloromethane, dibromochloromethane, and bromoform). Substances that damage cells in such a way that the cell becomes cancerous (aberrant growth) are the main reason for waterfiltration. But, for the most part, those machines that make alkalinewater do a horrible job of filtering out toxins and poisons. A highquality, solid carbon block filter does the best job at removing the

above mentioned substances when combined with activated aluminacartridges for fluoride removal. The only improvement over thistechnology is distilled water that you either make yourself or buy inglass containers, but the improvement is at best only one tenth of one percent. So, on balance, solid carbon filtration remains the bestresidential water treatment option for point-of-use drinking water. Butsince you expose your body to far more shower water than drinkingwater (the skin is very absorbent when it comes to chemicals), you

should either have a whole-house filter, or point-of-use filters on yourshower arm.



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“I’m trying to decide if I should keep buying bottled water or get

a water filter. What do you recommend?”

About bottled water: Did you know that by law, bottled water cancontain up to 50% tap water! And yes, bottling companies that

advertise their water as coming from “protected springs” do availthemselves of this federal regulation… and even though they do filterthe tap water, it’s through a granulated carbon filter and not a solid block carbon filter, meaning the filtration is essentially meaninglessdue to “channeling” (the water carving a path through the filter andtherefore not getting a lot of “face-time” with the carbon), and they dothis out of necessity; granulated filtration allows a lot higher flow ratethan does solid carbon block filtration. Faster flow is not better when

it comes to water filtration.

Regarding under-the-sink water purifiers: I’ve been researching waterfiltration for over 20 years, and I’m sorry to say that the water purification industry is no different than a lot of other industries outthere; filled with scams and rip-off products (oxygenators,magnetizers, ionizers, and alkalinizers). And then there is oldertechnology that is still being sold, like reverse osmosis. Also, there

are those who insist that distilled water is the only way to go, alongwith those who maintain (erroneously) that distilled water leachesminerals from your body. And some will tell you to buy only distilled bottled water while failing to mention that distilled water sold in plastic bottles is actually worse than bottled spring water (distilledwater will pull chemicals out of plastic more aggressively than springwater will). Yes, you could make your own distilled water, and I dorecommend it for those battling a serious illness because distilledwater is “empty” water and it saves the body the task of filtering outthe unusable inorganic minerals that are normally in water. But forthose simply wanting healthy drinking water, distillation isn’tnecessary.

After you cut through all the hype and misinformation, what I’vefound to be the best water treatment system is simply a kick-butt solid

carbon block filter in series with fluoride filters (if you live in one ofthe few municipalities that does not fluoridate their water, you canforgo the fluoride filters). Unless you suspect there are radionucleotides in your water (because of proximity to a nuclear power



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plant), those two items are not only all you need, but afford the best protection, and can be had for under $500.

Also, unless your house has a “whole house” carbon filter, it is a very good idea to install a filter on your shower arm. You can actually

absorb more chlorine from daily showering than from drinkingunfiltered tap water. The best shower filter can be found here:


Get the “Sprite High Output” model; it has the most effectivefiltration.

And if you do install a shower filter, consider also installing thisreally nice gadget… it’s a water pick you use in the shower


…I love it!

The filters I use in my motorhome (which I live in full-time) can beseen on my website:


It’s the under-the-counter model with fluoride removal cartridges.These are the best units on the market bar none.

“I know that fluoride in water doesn’t help prevent cavities, but

what about its harmful effects?”

Some municipalities add fluoride to their water and some do not. Ofthe ones that do, the amounts added do not vary much from one cityto another. In-other-words, if you want fluoride out of your drinkingwater (and since it’s linked to hypothyroidism and bone cancer, youshould want it out) you should use a separate fluoride removal filtereven in a municipality that uses a lower amount of fluoride than mostothers use. A solid carbon block filter will remove some, but not all.

And even in a “low” fluoride city, solid carbon does not remove all ofit.



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There is no definitive data on how much fluoride is safe. Those whoknow what fluoride does to the body maintain that there is no suchthing as a “safe” level, even though government agencies are fond ofapplying that term to many of the chemicals in our food and water, but these so-called safe levels are often politically motivated, and

have no basis in reality.

In my opinion, the philosophy of “better to be safe than sorry” shouldapply to the issue of fluoride removal.

“I don’t use the word “vegan” or “vegetarian.” I

don’t like those words. People who chose to eat

that way chose to because of ideological reasons. I

don’t want to denigrate their reasons for doing so,

but I want people to talk about plant-based

nutrition and to think about these ideas in a very

empirical scientific sense, and not with an

ideological bent to it.” – T. Colin Campbell



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11. Fasting

“What’s your position on fasting for healing purposes? Would

you recommend that I do a cleanse before transitioning to a 100%raw diet to help get out all the backed up nastiness?”

There are two kinds of fasting: body initiated and intentional. I am afirm believer in respecting the body initiated fast. This is when your body does not want you to eat. You know that if you are running 104fever and you eat something (even though you aren’t hungry), your body will toss it back out because it doesn’t want to stop what it’s

doing (an intensive effort at dealing with an “invader”) to instead dodigestion. This scenario is obvious. But many people are alwayseating ahead of hunger, either thinking that when their stomachgrowls this is a sign of hunger (which it isn’t), or are eating on aschedule, or are eating X number of calories which necessitates eatingeven when not hungry. Real hunger is felt in the same area of the body as thirst; in the upper chest / throat area. Thirst has animmediacy to it, and is not what you would describe as a pleasant

feeling. Hunger on the other hand is certainly a pleasant feeling, and,like thirst, it makes no noise, and no one can feel it if they were to place their hand on your body (as they could when your stomach isgrumbling). Stomach noises are not hunger; they are either thestomach doing some house cleaning or latent indigestion.

Intentional fasts are done, well, intentionally, either because someonefeels it would be helpful or because it’s Tuesday and the person fasts

every Tuesday (or once a month, or for three days four times a year,etc). There is nothing that coincides, physiologically, with a Tuesday.And even though the earth does go around the sun once every 365days, the body has no digestive cleansing cycle that coincides withthat regardless of what math you use. So the “fast every xxx” issomething humans thought up and has no bearing on the human body’s needs and does not respect what the human body wants.

That said, for many people who have been eating a non-human diet, itwould certainly give the body a break by not eating for a few days.But understand this, if the body wasn’t trying to get you to fast, and



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you stop eating, the body assumes that food has become scarce andwill accordingly “dial you down”, meaning after a few days of noeating, your metabolism will shift into “sparing mode”, which is whyfasting is not a good way to lose weight. But many people, if theywaited for true hunger, would find that it doesn’t come, and this means

that your body has probably been trying to get you to fast for a longtime! So my test as to whether or not someone should intentionallyfast is to wait until you feel true hunger to eat (as described above). Ifyou get truly hungry, then your body is not looking to fast at this time,and I’m of the opinion that you shouldn’t. But if true hunger doesn’t appear, consider not eating until it does (unless this goes on too long,and you can’t do a lengthy therapeutic fast at this time).

What most people should be doing, and what would be of a huge benefit, is to simply make sure they are not overeating, which wastes bodily resources and nerve energy. The best way to ensure this is toeat nutrient-packed food (uncooked), eaten as simply as possible, andto pay attention as you eat so you can “hear” when your body says“enough”, and then stop eating at that point even if there is still foodleft on your plate or you’re only half way through the apple or banana

or avocado (especially an avocado). And what I mean by “eatingsimply” is: eat mono meals (a meal of just one item); if eating morethan one item at a meal, eat “sequentially” meaning eat the higherwater content foods first then wait a bit before eating the other foodsthat have a lower water content; and don’t eat a meal that containsfoods that don’t combine well in the stomach (known as “foodmiscombining” more commonly called “food combining” which I feelis a confusing term because it can suggest that you should combine

certain foods, which is incorrect).

NOTE: As you transition to the healthiest of diets you may loseweight and become underweight for a while. This is normal, and thereare good reasons for this. Just know that the weight will come backwithout you having to “eat more” or to eat more calorically densefood that is part of an unhealthy diet.



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“When I started eating a healthy diet (healthiest diet), and started

getting more sleep, and doing some rebounding, I found that I lost

my appetite… I just didn’t feel like eating. I’m thinking of

respecting this, but was curious why this would happen.”

When someone does a 180 from a typical cooked animal and grain based diet to an uncooked fruit and leafy greens diet, it is a majorchange for the body, but in a good way. Look at it from the body’s perspective: All of a sudden you’ve found and are now eating thefoods the body is designed to eat instead of the nutritionally lacking,irritating food that caused the body to jump through hoops to keepitself in balance, and required a lot of nervous system energy (nerveenergy) to process.

Keep in mind that the body knows what’s wrong with it at any givenmoment, and is always trying to keep disease from getting out of hand(where it threatens your life). So let’s say your body knows that it’sgot some catching up to do in the disease-resolution department, andit knows there’s a lot of housecleaning it got behind in too. When youfree up nerve energy for those tasks by eating a less nerve energyintensive and more nutritious diet, your body will shift into high gear

in an attempt to get ahead of any as of yet undiagnosed disease. Whenthis happens, you can feel worse before you feel better. And what canalso happen is you can lose your appetite completely. One reason forthis is because the body has some repair work to do on the digestionsystem, and knows that with no food coming in, it’ll be easier to fixthings, and with no digestion to do, there will be even more nerveenergy to work with, which will make the repair work more “robust”.And even in the case of a tumor that wouldn’t be detectable foranother 15 years, the body knows it’s there, and with its improvedvitality plus no digestion going on, it can now really deal with thattumor like never before. So for maximum effectiveness, your bodycould take away your appetite for a time. This is called “bodyinitiated” fasting (assuming you obey your body and don’t eat), asopposed to “intentional” fasting where you decide to stop eating basedon what is usually something arbitrary like a day of the week, or the

seasons.

But if (water only) fasting is going to go on for more than a week and become truly therapeutic fasting, this should be done under the



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supervision of someone practiced in the science and art of fasting.Why? Normally, when a healthy person becomes ill, they will losetheir appetite until their body resolves the issue, at which time theirappetite will return. The problem with modern humans is that some arealready so ill, sub-clinically and clinically (undiagnosed and diagnosed),

that when they do a fast, they aren’t capable of fasting long enough forhealing to be completed so that hunger can return. This is whyunhealthy people can’t use the criteria “fast until hunger returns” toknow when to break the fast. It may seem strange that the body can’tlet you know when fasting must stop due to the inability to fast longer, but millions of years ago, people couldn’t get so unhealthy that theycouldn’t heal within the time that the body was able to fast, so our bodies didn’t need that mechanism; fasting would normally never needto go on for more than a week or two, and we could certainly “last”that long. So evidently the body is only programmed with…

“more nerve energy = better recovery from serious conditions”

and

“fasting = more nerve energy”.

This is why, for some people, a therapeutic fast must be done more

than once for the health issue(s) to fully resolve, and certainly the firstof those fasts must be stopped prematurely because the body has usedup all available carbs and fat for fuel and starts using protein, which isthe clinical definition of starvation. And this is when a fasting practitioner will stop the fast whether the healing is finished or not.

“Is there ever a reason to not do water fasting?”

If your body is handicapped with any nutritional insufficiencies andespecially deficiencies, a water-only fast will obviously deepen thecondition. And if one or more nutritional insufficiencies/deficienciesare a contributing factor to the ill-health condition you’re trying toresolve, water fasting may help in some ways but hurt in others. Thisis why “nutritionally supported fasting” is preferred. This does notmean a calorically restricted diet, but a water fast done with theinclusion of certain nutritional supplementation and “green juices”.

Optimally, tests for certain “problematic” nutrients should be done,and any insufficiencies/deficiencies corrected, before fasting. Iffasting doesn’t help, or makes matters worse, it’s likely thatnutritional issues were the problem.



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12. Cravings

“Why do we still desire foods that are bad for us?”

Some of it is programming: If your body has been programmed (viadecades of eating a certain way) to know that, for example, grain products are where it can get calories and some nutrients (even thoughnot enough), that’s where it will point you; that’s what it will seek.The best way to get beyond this programmed behavior is to re- program ourselves. This is best accomplished by totally stopping theconsumption of those items that do not serve us or do not serve us as

well as something else, and replace them with the foods we aredesigned to eat. Then sticking with this for a period of time tells the body that these items are where it can now get what it needs. This iswhy when people transition from a mostly cooked diet to an 80/20uncooked/cooked diet and still consume some of those foods that theyhad always consumed, trying to consume those all-uncooked mealscan be a lot more difficult than if they had simply eliminated all thecooked non-human food from their diet. When we hear that the best

way to stop eating chocolate and to get it out of your life is to juststop eating chocolate, there is a lot of truth to this.

“I believe in this lifestyle! I want to be raw, I want to be vegan

and I want to eat a low-fat, high fruit diet, but it feels like an

everyday fight against my cravings. What causes this?”

I’ll describe a few reasons for this

1. “Detox hunger”

This reason for cravings for harder to digest food – relative to fruit –resembles the consumption of cigarettes or heroin, just milder ofcourse. When you start eating a healthier diet, more nervous systemenergy (aka nerve energy) is freed up for healing, and since there’susually a bunch of housecleaning and repair to do, when this kicksinto high gear, you will feel worse. And since no one wants to feelworse, we naturally crave whatever will stop these bad feelings. If weeat hard to digest food (relative to a simple fruit meal), energy



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demand for digestion goes way up and so energy available for internaldetoxification goes way down and the “detox” process stops, and youfeel better. So this “detox hunger” is not real hunger, but a desire tofeel better.

2. Hunger for nutrients

Your body needs food for two reasons: fuel and nutrients. Whenyou’re eating the foods you’re designed to eat that come fromnutritious soil, the foods will provide all the nutrients that you need.When they don’t (because they were disconnected from the soil toosoon because of early harvesting or because the soil is over-farmedand not fertilized with all the nutrients that we need), since your body

still needs them, when it isn’t getting them, it will signal you to eatmore food in an effort to get them. This is not hunger for fuel(measured in calories) which should be the normal type of hunger weexperience, it is a hunger for nutrition. When people eat a typicalWestern diet containing processed foods, those foods are fortifiedwith important nutrients that are lacking in the diet. When we stopeating those foods, if those nutrients aren’t in the foods we’re eating,in sufficient quantities for our body’s needs, we can experience a

desire for “more food”.

It should be noted that eating a diet that is devoid of variety can alsocause this type of hunger.

This scenario can be helped by eating more nutrient dense food(organically grown food instead of conventionally grown food), and by taking a very high quality, well-formulated nutritional supplement,which is not Theragram/Centrum/One-A-Day or some of the high- priced health food store brands. If trying these things resolves theissue, then it was this type of hunger that you were experiencing.

And remember that fat, even though we don’t need a lot of it, is anutrient. If you do a 180 and go from a high-fat diet to a 4% fat diet(no overt fats at all), this could throw your body off initially because

it has come to associate “food” with “high-fat”. So eating someavocado or durian is a good idea. It doesn’t have to be every day, andit doesn’t have to be a whole avocado, but making sure you eat someovert fat may make the transition less challenging. If you post what



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you eat to Fitday.com, make sure that the fat content of your dietdoesn’t go over 10% of total calories.

3. True hunger

When you’re not getting enough calories, you should be hungry(unless your body wants you to fast so it can deal with a semi-serioussituation to prevent it from becoming a serious situation). But at anaverage of 3,000 calories, this may not be your problem (unlessyou’re very tall and are very active). One method of determining yourcaloric need is to multiply your ideal weight (which may notnecessarily be the weight you are now) by an “activity factor” whichI’ve listed above. That will give you a ballpark.

4. Emotional eating to prevent feeling strong emotions

Since digestion and strong emotions both require large amounts ofnerve energy, they can’t occur simultaneously, so one will take precedence over the other. When someone eats a meal, and then gets a phone call about a very tragic situation, or has a very heatedargument, this elicits a very strong emotional response that goes on

for a while, and digestion will stop during that time (as demonstrated by indigestion). When people lose a loved on, research shows thatthey fall into one of two distinct categories: They go through agrieving period, and while doing so they have no appetite at all (noone will be able to get them to eat a thing), or their eating increasestremendously in a sub-conscious effort to not feel the strong emotionsassociated with the grieving process. So a craving for food foremotional reasons is an attempt to not feel some kind of strong

emotions that your sub-conscious doesn’t want to deal with. And eventhough this works, it’s only a temporary solution because you willhave to deal with the emotional situation sooner or later, and if it goeson for an extended period, weight gain is usually the result.

5. Emotional eating to feel happy

Some of us associate certain foods with certain pleasurable

experiences or fond memories. If there are things happening in ourlives right now that are “bringing us down”, we can naturally desirewhatever will bring us up and make us feel happy again. Some peopleturn to recreational drugs, and others want to eat those things that



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have psychological connections to “happier times”. When I was a kid,my family didn’t always eat the evening meal together for variousreasons, but every now and then we’d all get together and orderChicken Delight (chicken delivered to your home). I have fondmemories of these family get-togethers, so when I smell fried

chicken, my mind gets a smile on its face (even though another part ofmy brain feels revulsion at the smell).

You should know that when you are dealing with emotional cravings,it can seem like there’s a battle going on. Imagine there’s one voicecoming from your right which says, “You know you don’t want to eatthis cooked food, you know how bad it is for you, you’ve decided notto eat it any more” and at the same time from over on the left youhear, “Oh go on, eat it, you know you want to, you know how good ittastes, c’mon, go ahead, you deserve it, you’ve had a hard day…” Sohow is it that we can experience these conflicting thoughts at the sametime? It’s because they come from two different areas of the brain;there’s a rational neural network and an emotional neural network both trying to control your behavior, and unlike Congress orParliament, there’s no Chairperson or someone with the final say.

Who wins depends on who’s stronger at that moment. And there areways to help the rational side win (the side that will get you bestresults from a health perspective).

“I’ve ruled out numbers 1, 3, 4 and 5, but I’m still getting what

seems like an unquenchable appetite.”

Consider carefully #2 above. I can’t tell you how many times having

sufficient nutrition has helped people conquer their cravings. “Noteating enough calories can cause cravings” is never debated, butthere’s a lot of miseducation when it comes to the subject of the link between cravings and nutrient insufficiencies/deficiencies. And keepin mind, if one is under-eating on “good source of fat” food, like anavocado, here the fat is a nutrient, and not a potential source ofcalories. We can lose sight of things when we look at a substance likefat from the perspective of “…as a percentage of total calories…”.

This is just a convenient way to measure the relative amounts of thethree macro-nutrients. But normally, fat (and protein) is used as anutrient and not as a fuel source. And it has been theorized that during



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detox, when the body is dropping excess fat, it can bring the fatcontent of its fat cells down below the normal level, maybe in anattempt to clear out the fat that had been serving as a home for toxinsfor so long. So maybe during detox, you’ll need a somewhat higher percentage of fat in your diet (nearer to 10%), and after you’re

rebalanced and the main part of detox is done, you can go down to amore normal level of 4 to 6 percent.

But I can guarantee you this, if you focus on just one nutrient – fat forexample – you’re missing the boat. And if you’re also payingattention to making sure you’re eating enough leafy greens for theirminerals, but your source for those minerals is lacking (the greenswere grown in not the most nutritious of soils), you could be doingthings right, technically, but still have problems like cravings ifthey’re caused by reason #2.

Also, when your brain’s two neural networks – the ones responsiblefor intellect and emotions – start battling it out for control of your behavior regarding what to eat, the stronger network will “win”. Andthings like insufficient nutrition, insufficient calories, insufficient

sleep, insufficient hydration, and lack of appropriate exercise canweaken the network that would allow you to “just say no” to thosethings you, intellectually, don’t want to do. It’s like having a two party political system in your brain… you need to strengthen the onethat will give the wise, rational part of you what she wants.

Take heart, your resolve will become stronger, and more importantly,the internal arguing and cravings will diminish. It just takes time and

the correct application of Nature’s Laws.



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“What are good ways to deal with cravings for emotional

reasons?”

A good tool is to create new associations. As a child, I remember thefun times when the whole family ate dinner together (normally we all

ate at different times), and fried chicken (delivered) was always themeal. So to this day I associate the smell of fried chicken with happyfeelings. This takes place in one part of the brain. In another part ofthe brain is the association between the smell of fried chicken and thehorrors of the poultry industry and the intellectual knowledge of theunhealthy practice of eating cooked dead animals. Those twoassociations can coexist because they come from two different neuralnetworks in the brain. When you create for yourself new associations

that serve to help you avoid whatever it is you’re trying to avoid, theydon’t replace the old “pleasant” associations, they are in addition tothem. So you need to “side” with the new ones when faced with a“pull” from something you used to do that was perceived to be pleasurable. When you do this long enough, this becomes the strongerof the two associations, and therefore easier to do, and this is when people report their cravings for “bad” things no longer having a“hold” on them.



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13. Disease

“What’s the best way to get rid of a particular disease?”

When people ask me “how do I get rid of __________?” I say thesame thing regardless of what they’re trying to get rid of. Some people are looking for a targeted approach, because that’s whatthey’re used to in our modern society, but true health doesn’t comefrom that kind of approach. We all need to STOP doing the things thatcause the problems in the first place, and STOP doing the things thatinterfere with the body’s attempts at repair, and START doing the

things that support the body’s healing efforts. These things are thesame for everyone, regardless of the symptoms. There may be certainconsiderations for certain conditions (like no overt fats when gettingrid of diabetes and not losing excess weight too fast if the liver is notworking well), but in general, everybody needs the exact samethings… enough sleep, enough D, enough EFAs, appropriate amountof calories, appropriate hydration, etc.

If you want the best odds of resolving whatever’s causing yoursymptoms, you first need to be paying equal attention to all the basicsof health. And don’t give your body anything “extra” to work on thatit doesn’t have to.

“What interferes with healing?”

1. When there is healing and repair work to do (and you may not beaware of it) if there is any unnatural substances coming into your body – especially the kind that burden or irritate the body – healingwill be interfered with.

2. When some major improvements are made in diet (and otherlifestyle practices) to the extent that healing/detoxing is kicked into ahigher gear, if burdensome/irritating food is still consumed – even a

little – things like rashes (and other symptoms) appear and stickaround. Look at it this way: Over the years, tons of junk and garbagehas been brought into your house but you were too devitalized to do



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anything about it except to keep it out of the way so you didn’t tripover it and break your neck. Then things changed and you now havetons of energy, so you begin to deal with this junk, and the area byyour curb starts to fill up with bags of garbage. If during thishousecleaning, more junk continues to come in to your house, this just

makes more work for a cleansing/maintenance system that is alreadyworking full-blast. Why overburden your body?

3. If you are undernourished when changing to much healthier habits(less nerve energy intensive habits) you need to bring these nutrientlevels up to where they belong. What good is having more nerveenergy if you don’t have the tools to effectively utilize it? Taking arealistic approach to what you eat, not in terms of eating a diet, but interms of getting enough nutrition, will allow you to make sounddecisions that will help ensure you are getting the nutrition your bodyrequires, even if it doesn’t come just from food.

You’ll likely find that it can be difficult, if not impossible, to talkabout this issue rationally when speaking with those whose positionsare based more on a particular school of thought that can’t be

challenged. So in this case, dogmatic positions can interfere withhealing.

So if you’re not getting all the nutrients your body needs to heal,healing will not be complete. There are those who believe that we canget all the nutrients we need from an all-raw, fruit and vegetable dietif we eat enough calories of it, and if we eat a wide enough variety.But sadly, if this food is coming from an agri-based system, this is not

likely. It’s a lovely thought though. But just because a person believesthat they can get all they need from this diet, doesn’t make it so. Andonce you stop believing in the various dietary dogmas that abound,and think for yourself, you can come to some conclusions that allowyou to improve yourself and get past that “sticking point” to where anagging symptom finally resolves.

There are those who proudly say, “I don’t take any supplements of

any kind” and I ask them where are they getting their vitamin D fromsince they live in an area where the sun isn’t strong enough to make Din their skin all year-round. I’ve heard some incredible answers such



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as, “My body will make whatever it needs” which is not true, and, “Iget enough in the summer to carry me through the winter”, also nottrue. And when I ask, “How do you know?” I don’t get an answer, because the person is following someone else’s position on the issue.If I ask “Do you do a D blood test at the end of winter to see how you

fared?” the answer is no because they are trusting the informationthey are following… but what if that information is wrong?

What about B12? It doesn’t come from food (in any meaningfulamounts), and if your body isn’t up to making or absorbing it, youwill run low, which is a contributing factor to ill health. So is it betterto run low and risk disease (sometimes irreversible neurologicaldamage) or take a B12 supplement? Same question for vitamin D. Sowhen someone has adopted a sweeping policy of “NOSUPPLEMENTS” it shows me that they’re not giving consideredthought to the issue. But if certain opinions are sacrosanct and notopen to discussion, and are not to be questioned, how can we get atthe truth?

D and B12 should be obvious areas of concern, but what about the

other essential nutrients – the ones that should come from the foodswe eat? The operative word there is “should”. Those people whosteadfastly insist that they do can come up short in their nutritionalneeds.

“Why does it take so long to heal a condition when using natural

methods when it takes no time at all using modern medicine?”

The short answer is because modern medicine doesn’t heal ill-health,it manages ill-health. Allowing your body the time it takes to dealwith whatever it is trying to deal with, and not burdening its efforts,instead supporting them, results in a real resolution of the health problem. Modern medicine is very good at managing a condition,often by dealing with its symptoms. But these symptoms are usuallyan expression of the body’s attempt at healing. An example of this is a

fever. A fever is not caused by a pathogen that invaded your body andstarted messing with its thermostat. Your body, in response to a pathogen, turned up its thermostat on its own in response to the pathogen as a way of dealing with it. Now you might say that it



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doesn’t matter; that the fever is a result of the pathogen one way orthe other. But there’s a big difference between those two scenarios. Intrying to reduce a body-initiated fever, you are interfering with the body’s attempt at dealing with the pathogen, which is of coursecounterproductive.

If you have a headache, you could take a medication which willalmost immediately end the headache, but the medicine doesn’t dothis by dealing with the cause of the headache, it does this by simplymasking the pain. You may feel better, but the underlying cause of theheadache is still there. In contrast to this, if you let your bodyeffectively deal with the underlying cause of the headache, theheadache will go away because the cause of the headache goes away.Again, two very different scenarios. And, yes, it takes a lot longer forthe body to do what it needs to do so the headaches stop than if youwere to simply take an aspirin, but with the latter you’re suppressing asymptom, and with the former you’re healing a condition (that hadmost probably been causing other problems besides the headache thatyou weren’t aware of, and if allowed to continue, well, this is whatresults in a diagnosis of degenerative disease.

And as I’ve implied, there is much you can do that affects how long ittakes for natural healing to resolve whatever’s ailing you. The closeryou live in accordance with your bio-physiological imperatives, thequicker you will heal. But you didn’t get into the shape you’recurrently in overnight, so total and complete healing will not be anovernight process either.

There are also things you can do to slow the healing process, or prevent it from happening entirely: making decisions based on personal preferences or philosophies, refusing to consider hard-science based facts because they interfere with what you’d rather believe, following someone’s advice as if it were the Gospel truthwithout questioning anything, and worse, continuing to follow it 100 percent even after some part of it has been called into question.

The choice of which route to take obviously requires the awareness ofthere being a choice, but it also requires the wisdom to not take the“quick fix”.



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“Have you witnessed people going through many health

challenges turn many around through a low fat vegan diet and

addressing deficiencies?”

Yes, provided they paid equal attention to all the other requirements

of health (besides diet), and if they used some supplements (for thereasons mentioned here…


It is not an overnight turnaround; many conditions of ill health tookyears to get to that point, so they don’t resolve overnight. Alsoconsider that the body has its priorities; it can’t heal all that’s wrongwith it at the same time, so it picks the most serious things to deal

with first. But we may have a different list of priorities based on whatwe see is wrong with us, and on what we feel is the most importantthing to deal with. And when we don’t see the top things on our list being dealt with by our body, we may conclude that what we’re nowdoing isn’t working, when in fact it is working, it’s just that we don’tsee it.

Making more nervous system energy (nerve energy) available for

healing is key, so it’s not just eating healthier food, but it’s also: Notovereating (wastes nerve energy), reducing stress (uses lots of nerveenergy), getting more/better sleep (replenishes nerve energy), and being physically active enough to keep our lymph fluid moving.

“I’ve heard that people don’t become diabetic from too much fat

interfering with sugar metabolism, but from eating too much

sugar. But you say otherwise. Why so?”

This is a commonly held belief, but it is nevertheless incorrect. If thiswere indeed the case, then all the Type 2 diabetics I have counseled,and all the ones my colleagues have counseled, and the approximately500 Type 2 Diabetics who participated in the Pritikin LongevityCenter study who were all able to no longer require insulin to managetheir blood sugar levels by bringing the fat content of their diet down

below 10% (as a percentage of total calories) from a much higher percentage, would be the exception to the rule. Yet it seems to be the



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other way around. Contrary to popular belief, simple carbs (sugarfrom fruit) do not require a lot of insulin to move out of the blood andinto the cells. And in reality, too much fat in the diet does interferewith sugar getting out of the blood and into the cells. (If you want tosee what too much fat looks like, visit www.Health101.org/bookmark#8 )

The healthiest diet and the one that is best able to enable people to ridthemselves of type 2 diabetes is an all-raw diet of fruits andvegetables (which is the diet humans are designed to eat). As long asthe fat content of the diet is kept “low” (under 10% of total calories),and as long as no unnatural things are consumed (oils, butters) and aslong as you don’t overeat on “fatty” foods (avocados, nuts), there isno reason you can’t resolve type 2 diabetes. That said, people in the process of healing from type 2 diabetes may need to start and end ameal of sweet fruit with some celery or lettuce. The added fiber willhelp to slow down the uptake of the sugars into the bloodstream, andthus prevent blood sugar “spikes”. So if you do eat those recipes yousaw, which consisted of sweet fruits, a diabetic may find benefit ofeating some greens before and after it. Also, I am not a fan of makingthose concoctions unless you know what combines “okay” with what.

For example, watermelon should be eaten by itself and not mixedwith other foods. So mixing watermelon with a dissimilar food suchas oranges is not the greatest combination. And if you are trying toresolve a health condition, eating bad combinations will slow and/orinterfere with the healing process. The reasons for this are many andspace does not allow me to detail this scenario here.

Bottom line: it is too much fat in the diet that causes and perpetuates

type 2 diabetes, not the sugar (and cooked animal fats are the worstoffenders). Sure, in the presence of too much fat in the diet, easilydigested sugars can play havoc with blood sugar levels, but the sugarsthemselves are not the problem, although they appear to be. Thosewho blame sugar and sugar rich foods like fruit are essentially sayingthat if putting seven people in a car causes the car to run poorly, thatthe problem is putting seven people in the car. But since the car isdesigned to be able to carry seven people, the seven people are not the

problem although they appear to be the problem. When the true problem is dealt with (a badly tuned engine), then putting seven people in the car no longer is a problem.



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I’ve been eating a diet of mostly fruit, and of that fruit, mostly sweetfruit, for over 20 years, since 1992. My weight has been steady, andmy energy levels great, and this is as long as I eat a variety of foods,and as long as I pay equal attention to the other equally important“basics of health” (sufficient sleep, activity, sun, etc.). And I also pay

attention to keeping stress down to a dull roar, and making sure myB12 and D don’t get too low (they don’t come from food; and you getlittle to no D in the wintertime in most places in this country). AndI’m not the only one who does just fine when eating the healthiest ofdiets.

In my experience, the people who don’t do well on a low fat, vegandiet are the ones not doing it as it should be done (I know how thisstatement sounds, but there’s a lot of truth to it). And in our cultureit’s easy to not do it right with all the misinformation and confusingconflicting information, and having to deal with our being born intoand having come of age in a society where donuts, burgers, pizza andsoda were/are the norms. If we were still in our biological “eco-niche”many, many moons ago, there would be no decisions to make, so noincorrect decisions could be made. And we would have been born to

parents who had been eating a normal human diet, and we would have been raised eating the same diet, so eating healthy (and being healthy)would have been like falling off a log. But today is different; if we areto make correct choices that will continue to be serving us well 30years from now, we need to rely on logic, wisdom, and (un)commonsense, and to be careful not to allow personal preferences to cloud our judgment.

“Who should someone with type 2 diabetes listen to regarding

diet, raw foodists or people who have devised diets and food

combinations for diabetics?”

I see diabetes diets whose design guarantees that the person willremain a diabetic, even though the diet will be helpful in regulating blood sugar (what I’m inferring here is that a diet that is the natural

diet for a human being can help to allow a person with type 2 diabetesto get rid of it). And some of these diets appear in diabetes publications and even come from the American Diabetes Association!



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I think the goal should be to get the body back into a state where itcan regulate its own blood sugar levels, because it normally makesthose adjustments automatically thousands of times a day, comparedwith a person doing it manually under a dozen times a day. And sincea blood sugar level that is not managed as best as it can be will cause

complications down the road, and will shorten both the person’s lifeand quality of life, I think that letting the body do the regulating is inthe person’s best interest.

There are many raw foodists who do not know the relationship between dietary fat (and exercise and vitamin D and chromium, etc)and blood sugar regulation, so asking someone who is miseducated onthe subject will just get you misinformation. So don’t assume that allraw foodists know how to prevent and resolve diabetes. Only the oneswho have studied the issue or have learned the facts from those whohave studied the issue will be able to advise you correctly. And beware, there are popular raw food health advocates who are PhDswho have helped people rid themselves of diabetes but have done sowith a diet that is not sustainable in the long term. Yes, their methodworks, but for how long? What good is short term improvement

without long term viability and success. People who advocate healingdiabetes with a diet that contains little to no fruit are on the wrongtrack. Again, their methods will work, initially, but the diet will onlyallow them to survive, and not thrive.

“Could you please comment on these quotes from an article that

maintains that sugar feeds cancer…”

“Too much sugar of any kind not only adds pounds, but is also a keyculprit in diabetes, heart disease and stroke, according to theAmerican Heart Association.”

It should be noted that of all the “key” culprits in the above mentionedconditions, in reality, too much fat tops the list, not too much sugar.The human body can deal with excess sugar in a low fat diet a lot

easier than it can deal with excess fat in a low sugar diet. Type 2diabetics can actually rid themselves of the condition while eating“lots” of fruit (which contains “lots” of sugar) if they keep their fatintake down below 10% of total calories. And yet we’re told there is



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no cure for Type 2 Diabetes, which is obviously untrue (unless theyare talking about a pharmaceutical “cure” which is true… and P.S.there will never be one because diabetes management is simply too profitable). But if your blood sugar is between 90 and 110 a few hoursafter eating without the aid of insulin or other diabetes meds, you do

not have “diabetes”. And this is now the case for many former Type 2diabetics. Even Type 1 diabetics improve their condition by keepingfat down below 10% (and I know one Type 1 Diabetic who no longerneeds any insulin now that he is eating a truly healthy diet).

“They grew pancreatic cancer cells in lab dishes and fed them bothglucose and fructose. Tumor cells thrive on sugar but they used thefructose to proliferate.”

While High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS ) is an unhealthy substancein the quantities consumed by many people, it should be noted that invitro tests don’t always mimic what happens in the body. And theabove statement has been taken in isolation and used by opponents ofdiets where one’s calories are obtained from fruit to demonstrate thatthese diets promote cancer. Even though the subtitle of the article

clearly says, “Research shows that refined sugar helps cancer cells proliferate”, the title is what people are drawn to, and it boldly states,“Cancer cells feed on fructose…”. And since many people take the“fru” in fructose as meaning “fruit”, fruit then gets a bad rap. It should be noted that the fructose in fruit is not the same as HFCS, and iscertainly not the same as “refined sugar”.

And we also need to keep in mind that all cells are fueled by sugar

(simple carbohydrates), not just cancerous cells. So it is not possibleto selectively starve cancer cells of sugar while feeding all your othercells. Yet there are people who believe that fruit feeds cancer, and byeating no fruit, cancer cells won’t be fed, and this is simply not true.People have resolved cancer (while eating fruit) by stopping whatthey were doing that caused cancerous cells to form in the first place,and by starting to do the things necessary to support the body’s effortsat eliminating the cancerous cells, and by not interfering with their

body’s efforts by eating too much fat and/or too much food.



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This article focuses on cancer, yet the biggest causes of malignantcancers have turned out to be pesticides and other toxins (theydamage cells), dairy products (they help damaged cells proliferatemainly due to the hormone IGF-1), a high fat diet (excessive fatmakes it difficult for the body to deal with cancerous cells, interfering

with cell respiration), and an “acid forming” diet (cancer cells thrivewhere body pH is lower than what it should be, and animal and grainfoods leave an acid “ash” after they are metabolized… which is also ahuge contributing factor in osteoporosis).

Since the article says, “Several states…have weighed a tax onsweetened soft drinks to defray the cost of treating obesity-relateddiseases such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer” and since we hadno obesity epidemic in 1970 when children were consuming moresoda than they do today, it would be prudent to read this article that puts the “soda as a villain” in perspective.


“Hopefully…there will be some effort to step back on the amount ofhigh fructose corn syrup in our diets…”

While I applaud such an effort, and am happy that this was includedin the article, I think articles should be balanced. And if talking abouta contributing factor to cancer, I think the other factors that areequally implicated, and especially the ones that are more causativethan fructose, should be mentioned, if only briefly, so that sugardoesn’t get an undeserved or disproportionate amount of blame, andso that the public is made aware of the other dietary issues that impact

cancer.

“Is it really not known why the earlier a woman starts their

reproductive cycle the more likely they are to get cancer?”

It is widely known and reported that females are starting theirreproductive cycles earlier than ever before. And it is also widely

known and reported that the earlier a women starts her reproductivecycle, the higher her risk of hormonal related cancers like breastcancer. But the dialog at this point says, “…but we don’t know whythis is.” Well, it is known why, but people cannot say it because their



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careers will be ruined, or they’ll be ridiculed by the media, or they’ll be taken to court under the Federal Food Disparagement Act (likeOprah Winfrey was).

The reality is that the more hormones girls take in, the more growth

hormones they get, and the earlier they will turn into adults. Andwhen you consider that growth hormones make cells grow, and thesehormones do not distinguish between healthy cells and pre-cancerouscells, it’s no wonder this correlation exists.

And where do these hormones come from? Fruit? No. Veggies? No.They come from animal products. And if you look at the rise inanimal product consumption comparing today to 50 years ago, you’llsee that it has gone way up per capita. And so has hormonal relatedcancers in women, and so has the onset of a woman’s menstrualcycle. In fact, if you overlay these three parameters on a graph, youwill be struck by the correlation between them.

Now, a correlation doesn’t automatically mean there’s a cause-and-effect relationship, but when you take into account what hormones do,

and that we’re not supposed to consume them except while we’reconsuming breast milk (from our own species), it’s not hard to see thecausal relationship.

But public knowledge of this relationship means potentially largemonetary losses for some industries who shall remain nameless (meat,dairy, pharmaceutical, medical). And when there are trillions ofdollars at stake, the truth takes a back seat… but it is still there.

“My understanding is that when people are in a toxic state, an

acid state, their skin might be casting toxins thru its pores, and

that the sun’s interaction with these toxins can cause skin cancer.

Correct?”

The biggest risk of skin cancer occurs when skin – with an outpouring

of toxic waste – gets damaged by the sun; it is then that a skin cancermay form (not will form). Keep in mind that many people who getnon-malignant skin cancer never got a lot of sun or any sunburns, sotheir cancer just developed in a place of weakness and/or opportunity



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(maybe helped by the elimination of toxins from pesticides and/ormeds). Yes, malignant skin cancers do have a correlation to sunburns, but these were sunburns of people living a not-so-healthy lifestyle(and vastly improved health equals improved sun tolerance i.e. lesslikelihood of burn compared to people in less-than-optimal health). So

all this simply means avoid sunburns, avoid sunscreen as an answer tosunburn prevention if at all possible, and get sufficient sunshine tocleanse your fluids and make D (yes, the sun’s ultraviolet rays penetrating the skin help to cleanse the blood and thus your body).The best moisturizer for skin is a diet of high water content foods, ahumidifier in the bedroom in the winter, and aloe for those dry skin problem areas when the humidity goes down.

“What’s a good resource for finding out about the cancer

industry?”

The Politics of Cancer by Samuel Epstein was published in 1998, butthings haven’t changed that much since that book was written; then asnow, the cancer industry maintains that we don’t know what causescancer (when it’s been known for a long while what causes it), and

they still advocate cut, poison, and irradiate as the standard of care.And they still try mightily to suppress any alternative care that canhelp resolve cancer (see www.Health101.org/bookmark#26 ). What haschanged is the degree they will go to to make money off cancer. Now,surgeons are ready and willing to remove a woman’s breasts as a preventative measure; in a perfect world, these people would bethrown in jail along with those surgeons who do gastric bypass andlapband surgeries. And the pharmaceutical industry has now broughtto market something they’ve been trying to create for a long time(because it’s a fabulous potential money-maker), drugs that may prevent cancer (accent on the word may). Of course these drugs willnot prevent cancer because for the most part cancer is a disease oflifestyle. But that didn’t stop the governor of Texas from trying tomandate that all teenage girls be vaccinated with Gardasil (but then itwas discovered that he had ties to the drug company who

manufactured the drug). It’s no surprise to anyone that there are people who take advantage of animals for the sake of profit; peoplewho seemingly have no conscience. But some find it hard to believethat humans could take advantage of other humans for the sake of



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profit at the expense of people’s health, but the cancer industry is agood example of this. A more recent book by Samuel Epstein,

National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society: Criminal

Indifference to Cancer Prevention and Conflicts of Interest is a highlyrecommended book.

“My husband is a scientist (Ph.D. Microbiology) and doesn’t

necessarily agree with the cooked food - autoimmune disease

hypothesis. What say you?”

One of the traits of a scientist is that we can hold multiple hypothesesin mind at the same time, and we accept a hypothesis as possible and

– using the limited tools we have in our toolbox – try to prove anddisprove it. When a study is done, the empirical evidence that resultsis one of those tools. Granted, scientists like to see large studies before we can say that the results are meaningful (statisticallysignificant), but there isn’t (and won’t be) any large, multiple, placebo-controlled, double-blind, peer-reviewed studies to show thecause-and-effect relationship between cooked food and autoimmunedisease (although some small studies have been done that show this).

This is why besides pointing out the existing anecdotal empiricalevidence – which even in small numbers is hard to ignore – I alsogive the science behind it in the hope that this is compelling enough totry it to see if it gets rid of your autoimmune health condition.

Since there have been many people with an autoimmune disease (whowere told there was no cure for it and all they could do is manage it)who were able to get rid of the condition by eliminating (all) cookedfood from their diet, this is pretty compelling evidence that there is acooked food connection. And even if we have it wrong, and thecooked (denatured) proteins are not the villain, in a certain sense,what does it matter if it is clear that cooked food (for whateverreason) is at the heart of autoimmune diseases. Since there is nothingto lose by eliminating cooked food from the diet, and it has beenclearly shown that you have everything to gain, for many people the

“why” doesn’t matter when they can be cured of asthma, diabetes,lupus, MS, Crohn’s disease, Graves disease, psoriasis, rheumatoidarthritis, and ulcerative colitis. This correlation between cooked foodand ill-health, while not technically a causal relationship in the eyes



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of scientists, is never-the-less a good enough reason to try goingwithout it for a period of time to see if there are any positive results.

So I’m fine with there being no definitive positive link betweencooked food and autoimmune disease, because I know there is one

just as I know there is one between cigarette smoking and lungcancer, and between cell phones held up to the head and brain cancer.Yes, there are people who will not consider no longer holding a cell phone up to their head until there is a clearly defined cause-and-effectlink, and there are people who have told me they will not consider noteating any cooked food until there has been sufficient peer-reviewedevidence that cooked food is harmful, but I have a feeling based on past experience that people with such rigid positions would find someother reason to not make any changes in their lifestyle habits even ifthere appeared very compelling evidence to do so.

“Please tell me how to best deal with psychiatric disorders.”

I just watched a show on psychiatric disorders consisting of a panel offive experts, hosted by a Nobel laureate, an obviously brilliant man.

They were discussing the causes and treatment of bipolar disorder,schizophrenia, depression, etc. What was conspicuous by its absencewas that there was no mention of lifestyle factors! The closest anyonecame to this was the admission that identical twins had a 48% chanceof both getting the disease meaning that genetics wasn’t the onlyfactor, and that “environmental” factors had to play a role. But thediscussion of this issue went no further. He even said that otherdiseases, like some neurological disorders, affected identical twins100% (even though the genetic factor has been found to be lesscontrolling than lifestyle factors even in so-called “inherited”diseases).

Then that brilliant Nobel laureate had to go and say, “But there is astigma with mental diseases, unlike other diseases that also have nocure, like diabetes and hypertension.” That really churned my butter!

Really? There is no way to cure diabetes and high blood pressure?There most certainly is! Maybe he doesn’t know there is, or hedoesn’t think that a diet other than what everyone eats can beconsidered as part of a cure.



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I guess this infuriates me because I had a client who had bipolardisorder, who would be very symptomatic (scarily so) if he went offhis meds, but when he stayed “pure” as far as diet, exercise, sleep,etc., he didn’t need meds to control his disorder… meaning, that whenhe lived as Nature intended, he didn’t have bipolar disorder! If he fell

off the healthy diet and lifestyle wagon, the disorder manifested itselfagain, but this doesn’t mean that he always has it, and that a “special”way of living manages it. It’s more correct to say that, because of hisgenetic weaknesses, if he doesn’t live as Nature intended, he won’tfunction normally. But that applies to everyone in some form orfashion!

I guess if you can’t put it in pill form or deal with it using accepted practices such as psychotherapy, it is not to be considered. All theseexperts have high hopes of finding better ways to manage thedisorders like electrodes implanted in the brain with a box you wearon your belt and when you feel yourself slipping into depression youturn on the box and voila! you’re normal again. The only downside isthat you need to have a ready supply of batteries handy.

I’m sure if I asked these experts about using lifestyle modifications toeffect an actual cure (or in their way of thinking, managing thecondition) they each in turn would say that since most people won’tadopt healthy lifestyle practices, the best way to deal with these andother diseases is through effective medical/pharmacologicalmanagement. And they’d say that it’s often a battle to get patientswith mental disorders to take their meds when they should, which justinvolves popping a pill; imagine trying to get them to stay on a raw

food diet and daily exercise wagon! But the reason my client didn’tlike taking his meds is because, although they prevented the psychoticepisodes, he didn’t like the way the meds made him feel. Andconversely he loved the way healthy eating and exercise made himfeel.

Another client of mine who was clinically depressed, and didn’t likethe way the meds made her feel, was also cured by healthy living…

and no batteries needed!



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“My dentist says the cause of my cavities is all the fruit sugar in

my diet. He advised that I start using a high-fluoride toothpaste,

or watch the decay keep progressing. If the fruit diet is healthier,

why then am I getting cavities?”

What your dentist said is to be expected... I wouldn’t expect him tosay anything else. Although the fear tactic of saying, “…or watch thedecay keep progressing” would rub me the wrong way.

Does he not know that a tooth placed in a glass of sugar water doesnothing, but a tooth placed in a glass of sugar-free soda dissolvesaway. It’s the acid produced by bacteria that contributes to cavities,along with lack of enough D. I can see how eating lots of pineapple or

citrus fruit combined with coating the teeth with glycerin (fromtoothpaste) and maybe genetically “weak” enamel/dentin, that one’sdental health would be poor.

The advice to not eat fruit is because this robs mouth bacteria ofsugar. But since you’ve got to get your calories somewhere, you’llthen eat only avocados and nuts and complex carbs from cooked food.For reasons of overall health, this is not a good option. A better option

would be to eat what you’re designed to eat (fruit) and adoptmeaningful oral hygiene practices (which does not include usingfluoridated toothpaste).

I floss after eating stringy mango, oranges, or anything else that getsstuck in between teeth. I rinse my mouth with water after eating citrusor pineapple so the minerals in the water can dilute the citric acid.

Since the bacteria that live in our mouth eat when we do, as we ingestfoods which contain sugars these bacteria get a meal too. And withinminutes they start producing the acids that can cause tooth decay. Soif you do have weak enamel (genetically) or weakened enamel (fromyears of lack of enough vitamin D), it might be wise to rinse yourmouth with water after a sweet fruit meal, forcing the water in between teeth by “pressurizing” it. But first, simply brush your teeth

(no toothpaste necessary) as this breaks up bacteria colonies.

From eating all the high refined sugar junk food and candy I did as achild, I got 15 cavities, and my teeth have been compromised by all



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the antibiotics I had as a child, yet my high fruit diet isn’t riddling mewith cavities anymore (now that I floss – didn’t used to – and nowthat I rinse at night). And it turns out that brushing with toothpastedoes more harm than good. Dentists in the know will tell you that alltoothpastes contain glycerin which coats the teeth. This was thought

to protect the teeth from the ravages of acidic bacteria poop, but itturns out, it doesn’t. What it does do is keep your saliva fromremineralizing the teeth, which helps to prevent cavities. (So why isglycerin still in toothpaste?) Flossing and rinsing before bed are the best things you can do, orally, but brushing with Peelu dental fibers or just “dry brushing” with a “soft” toothbrush can help to prevent plaque build-up (if acid “sits” between plaque and tooth surface,that’s bad).

I favor using only a dry brush. Blot the brush on a paper towel, tap theslobber out on the basin or “sip” the fluids out of the bristles periodically (my preferred technique). To “blot” the groove betweenthe teeth and gums, direct the soft bristles at a 45 degree angle beneath the gum tissue and wiggle the handle of the brush back andforth about ten seconds in each area. It’s the mechanical action of the

bristles that effectively loosens the sticky bacterial colonies in plaque,not so much the chemicals on the brush. Liquid, toothpaste, etc.mainly clogs the spaces between the bristles of the brush that, if leftdry, allow plaque to be lifted out of the gingival sulcus (that groove between the gums and the tooth) by capillary action.

It’s hard to imagine that the minerals necessary for strong bones andteeth can’t be adequately supplied from the food sources that are best

noted for this, if we don’t cook them (fruits and leafy greens). But ifthose minerals are lacking in the soil, they will be lacking in the foodswe eat. And if those minerals are added to the processed foods of thetypical Western diet through the process of fortification, in somerespects, that food may have some nutrients that non-fortified agri- based produce may be lacking in. And this is why I suggest a goodnutritional supplement in combination with a diet of natural foods asan insurance policy.

Another thing to consider: A good dentist should catch this, but somedon’t. If you clench your teeth while you sleep, this can loosen some



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teeth creating a pocket between tooth and gum where bacteria cantake up residence where it is hard for your oral care efforts to affectthem. The acid they produce can wreak havoc there. Ask your dentistto specifically look for signs of teeth clenching or grinding.

And if your vitamin D level was on the low side long enough, it couldhave weakened your enamel enough to make it susceptible to cavities(not surprisingly, insufficient D is also a contributing factor toosteoporosis).

Bottom line: There are so many reasons someone could be havingdental problems when eating a lot more sweet fruit, but to deal withthe problem by making people question the validity of a high fruit dietis not the answer to the problem. My take: 1. Be as sure as you canthat you are consuming enough minerals, like you would have fromfood eaten from the wild, which may mean you take a multivitamin-mineral supplement that has highly bioavailable minerals. 2. Brushand floss and rinse before bed. 3. Stay away from dried fruit and goeasy on the dates. 4. And think about doing what some primates doand eat some leafy greens after a sweet fruit meal; maybe the reason

they instinctively do this is to bathe the teeth in “mineralized juice” toneutralize any acid production, or maybe it helps clean the teeth ofany lingering sugars.

“Jameth Sheridan wrote that fruit sugar is worse than junk food

sugar on the teeth, and that fruitarians have low B12. How can

this be so?”

I’m not buying his explanation that fruit sugar feeds mouth bacteria better than the sugar in candy “because fruit sugar is live, it’s vital, ithas life force…”. His answer to avoiding dental decay of “don’t eatthat much fruit” is not a credible answer to me. He’s right when hesays that fruit is low in minerals, which to me means that we shouldeat some leafy greens and utilize a worthwhile mineral supplementtoo (I do). And to say that fruit eaters get transparent teeth is alarmist.

I know people who eat a lot of fruit and they don’t get transparentteeth, myself included. They eat a balanced diet of fruit and someleafy greens, they take an efficacious green powder supplement, and



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they practice truly effective oral hygiene (the specifics of which arenot necessarily what a dentist will mention).

So, just as we shouldn’t blame diabetes on fruit sugar, we shouldn’tnecessarily blame cavities on it either. And his statement, “I’ve never

met a long term fruitarian who was healthy or who didn’t cheat” ismeaningless as far as I’m concerned. He obviously hasn’t met all thelong term fruitarians. And what if those long term high fruit eaters hemet who were unhealthy weren’t adhering to all the basics of health,or they weren’t making/getting enough D and B12, or they felt thatthey didn’t need to floss/brush because in Nature they wouldn’t, orthey weren’t getting a proper “sugar : minerals ratio”, meaning, theywere eating lots of fruit so lots of sugar but the leafy greens weren’tgrown in the most nutrient dense soils so they weren’t getting enoughminerals; this is why I advocate supplementing with a worthwhilegreen powder nutritional adjunct to the diet. We need to deal withreality when it comes to the nutrient content of the nutritionally sub- par fruits and vegetables most people are eating.

And yes, he does say, “I’ve seen so many fruitarians who were B12

deficient…”, but a B12 deficiency does not automatically go hand-in-hand with a fruitarian diet (there are a lot of people eating many othertypes of diets who are B12 insufficient/deficient). If, for whateverreason, your gut isn’t making B12, and you transition to a raw fooddiet from a diet containing processed foods which are fortified withB12, then you can certainly bump up against a B12 deficiency atsome point. But don’t blame the healthy diet; try to figure out whythis is happening (continued use of the things that interfere with your

gut’s ability to make B12?) and take a “methyl” form, sublingual B12supplement every so often based on B12 testing (uMMA test).

“What’s the difference between osteoarthritis and rheumatoid

arthritis, and would you do the same things to treat both?”

Osteoarthritis (OA) involves degradation of joints and loss of

cartilage. Obviously there are varying states of the condition with themore severe being more difficult for the body to resolve. Part of the protocol for resolving this condition is stopping all the practices andlifestyle habits that contribute to OA. An acid-forming diet is



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certainly one of the biggest contributors, as is chronic sub-clinicaldehydration. Obesity is often associated with OA, so body fat contentshould be brought down to normal. Inflammatory conditions (likerheumatoid arthritis) and diabetes also disposes one to OA.

And high-impact activities like hind-foot running (landing on heels vsforefoot) is to be avoided. Rebounding is helpful in resolving OA because you do need weight-bearing exercise, just not high impactactivities.

Then care must be taken to ensure that enough of all the nutrientsneeded by the body to rebuild are present, with vitamin D being a big one to look out for. In cases of OA I recommend a high qualitynutritional supplement, and in severe cases, you may want to considera supplement containing glucosamine (in hydrochloride form) as thishelps to create glycosaminoglycans which is a building block ofcartilage). Also, avocado and a dietary source of sulphur like durianfruit are helpful (but these should be part of everyone’s diet). Yes, Iknow, glucosamine would not be a normal part of our life, but neitherwould osteoarthritis under normal conditions. So this is one of those

scenarios – like surgery – that can help to correct the consequences ofunnatural living. The body was not designed with the causativefactors of OA in mind. And unlike a nutritional supplement, aglucosamine-containing “joint formula” supplement wouldn’t be anongoing practice.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory condition thatcan affect many tissues and organs, but primarily affects synovial

joints which is why it’s commonly associated with our joints. It toocan lead to cartilage damage, though from a different process thanOA. Since RA is an autoimmune disorder, and we know that damaged proteins cause autoimmune reactions, the elimination of all cookedfood, and the adoption of a health-enhancing diet (and other healthfullifestyle practices including rebounding) is usually all it takes toresolve RA. In those cases where there has been cartilage damage, a“joint formula” supplement as described above may be something to

consider.



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“My wife changed to an all-raw diet, and started exercising, and

now she’s passing kidney stones. Is this diet causing them? What

can you tell me about how they form and how best to get rid of

them?”

In most cases, kidney stones are the result of an unhealthy diet, andeven though it’s painful to pass them, getting them out is a good idea.But just as important is not continuing to make them. This is where ahealthy diet comes in.

The fact that your wife’s body is now able to get rid of them is a goodthing, and is not a sign that her new diet is bad for her… just theopposite.

If someone has stones that are calcium oxalate, then they should avoid beans, beets, blackberries, celery, chocolate, dark leafy greens, parsley, eggplant, coffee, tea, nuts, nut butters, raspberries, soy products, and strawberries until the stones have finished passing. Ofcourse, even then, some of those items should not be consumed, asthey are not part of a healthy diet.

Also to be avoided: cheese, yogurt, and other dairy products, sardines,fortified cereals, breads, and other grain products, and orange juice.Salty foods are also a huge no-no.

And the most important preventive measure is drinking ampleamounts of water every day while at the same time not consumingdiuretics (things that cause your body to pull water out of its tissues todilute the substance) such as salty foods, spicy foods, foods thatcontain irritants (like garlic, pepper, ginger), alcoholic beverages, andsuper-low water content foods. If you are consuming enough waterand water-rich foods, the urine should be light yellow or clear.

She can also try drinking coconut water, as this may help the passageof the stones.

Exercising and keeping active is a good way to make the kidneystones shift and move along. Spirited walking, rebounding, andwalking up and down stairs are good ways to keep your body activeand moving.



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Using urine as a “liquid tool” to help move a stone along

(Note: This technique works for stones no larger than 6-7mm which isthe maximum size for spontaneous passage.)

The pain often felt when passing kidney stones is due to the stone being an obstruction in the ureter (the tube that goes from the kidneyto the bladder) causing urine to build up above the stone dilating theureter. A way to help pass stones into the bladder is to use gravity toact on the built-up urine to help move the stones along. Jumping upand down a few times on a hard surface has been shown to help movestones (assuming you are drinking enough water). Then wait aboutfive minutes and repeat. After about five or six “sessions” the stoneshould pass into the bladder. The reason you wait about five minutes between jumping sessions is because when the urine movesdownward due to inertia, some urine will slip by the stone, so youneed some time for some more urine to be generated by the kidney toact as an effective “tool”. Obviously some high bounces on arebounder can accomplish the same thing.

An animation of the effect of this procedure can be seen atwww.Health101.org/bookmark#27

Also, after about five to ten minutes from the first pair of jumps,empty the bladder, and continue to do so about every 10 minutesthereafter. There is a good reason for keeping the bladder nearlyempty during this procedure: there is less resistance by the bladder tothe transfer of urine from the ureter to the bladder when the bladder is

empty than when it is full or partially full, and a stone will go into the bladder more easily when the bladder is empty, or nearly empty, thanwhen it is full or partially full.

Note: When a stone does move into the bladder, the pain it had beencausing in the ureter may take a few minutes to diminish.



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“I have been getting confusing information on the best way to rid

the body of candida. I found out one month ago that I am starting

to get a build up of yeast in my body, what is the best way to

eliminate the yeast without medication? Also, they told me to cut

out all sweets, even fruit. What is the correlation between fats and

sweets to the yeast infection? What is the best type of diet to eat

while I am letting my body heal itself naturally.”

Firstly, there is lots of mis- and dis-information regarding the bestthing to do for __________. (fill in the blank with any illness orcondition).

If what you’re talking about is candidiasis, I have never seen a case

that didn’t resolve relatively quickly if the person adhered to thefollowing:

No “overt” fats for three weeks. This includes all oils, avocados,nuts, seeds, coconuts, durian, no processed foods that have any oils,no salad dressings. This is non-negotiable.

Take a probiotic product such as Bio-K (rice-based formula, not the

dairy or soy formulas) available at Whole Foods. Take one on anempty stomach and no eating for at least half an hour. Do this twice aday for four days. This helps to balance gut flora. Yes, I know, this isan unnatural thing to do, but it was due to unnatural lifestyle practicesthat candidiasis was allowed to develop in the first place. And this isnot something that deals with the symptoms of candidiasis, it helpsaddress one of the underlying causes.

No garlic, ginger, onions, mustard, pepper, coffee, tea, spices, orspicy food. This is also non-negotiable.

As far as what you can and shouldn’t eat: I’ve covered the fat issueabove, which is the most important issue. I should say that you canlive just fine with the “small” amount of fats in the uncooked fruitsand veggies you are (hopefully) eating. A banana for example has all

the fat and protein your body needs if you don’t cook it, and if you eatenough. I know, many people will say that this can’t be true, butmany people said that the sun revolved around the earth manydecades ago. Saying it isn’t so doesn’t make it not true.



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Those who say that you need to stay away from sweets becausesugars “feed” yeast do not understand how the human body works.Unless you plan to fast (no food at all, only water), you need toconsume food that provides you with calories, maybe 2,000 a day.Leafy greens and other vegetables are not a good source of calories;

you’d need to eat 40 heads of lettuce to get the calories you need. Theonly choices for calories are carbs, fats, and protein. Your body onlyuses protein for its major fuel requirements when it’s in “starvationmode” (after it has used all available stored carbs and then stored fat).So practically speaking, our fuel options are carbs and then fat. If youstay away from carbs, the only source for calories is fat. And fat is thecontributing factor in yeast overgrowth conditions. Yes, yeast “eats”sugar, but if you eliminate sugars and attempt to get your caloriesfrom fat, that’s a road to disaster health-wise. And keep in mind evenif you only ate avocados, your body must convert that fat into sugar because sugar is the only fuel the cells can use. So it’s technically animpossibility to avoid sugar (the key is avoiding unhealthy carbs likecandy and grain products).

Too much fat in the diet interferes with the cells’ blood sugar uptake.

When this happens, blood sugar rises, which is dangerous. One waythe body can reduce excessively high blood sugar is to allow candida(which we all have, and it’s a good thing) to go into the blood and eatthe sugar, bringing blood sugar down. But when you feed a colony, it blooms, and now you’ve got candidiasis (too much candida), but it’sthe lesser of the two evils. Sustained high blood sugar can seriouslydamage you pretty quickly, even kill you; candidiasis is a bignuisance comparatively speaking. So it’s important to note that, just

like a fever, candidiasis is body initiated in an attempt to deal with a problem. So trying to kill the yeast overgrowth is not the answer; theyeast overgrowth is a symptom of a problem… it is not the problem.When you correct the problem, symptoms will diminish of their ownaccord.

See the short video at www.Health101.org/bookmark#10

So if you abstain from all “overt” fats as mentioned above, and takesome Bio-K (which some health educators say is not necessary, but it



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helps rebalance gut flora), you should be fine in a week or two (butkeep all overt fats out of your diet for at least three weeks).

Another helpful tip: When eating sweet fruit (which you can eat whileresolving type 2 diabetes and candidiasis), start and end that sweet

fruit meal with some romaine lettuce. The added fiber from the lettucewill slow down the uptake of sugar by the blood, helping to ensure nooverreaction by the pancreas (which may be one very overworkedorgan if you’re dealing with candidiasis).

What have been the most interesting improvements in someone’s

health that your information has been responsible for?

There have been a number of cases where people were put onmedications for an “incurable” disease, such as asthma, cancer, Type2 Diabetes, mental disorders, etc, and then were able to stop takingthe meds and be “normal” after adopting healthful lifestyle practices.Some would say that this is “amazing”. I do not agree. It is simply the body normalizing when it is treated in a normal manner. What is amazing is that humans can abuse their bodies with cigarettes, the

consumption of poisonous liquids (alcohol), unhealthy food, and live75 years. Now THAT’S amazing!

An interesting side-note to this is the response of medical professionals, who supposedly became medical professionals becausethey wanted to help people. The vast majority of these folks, whenthey discovered that their patient who they diagnosed with someincurable disease and put on medication, was able to cure themselves,they simply attributed it to misdiagnosis or “spontaneous remission”(having nothing to do with lifestyle changes). Or, after being told bytheir patient how the patient cured themselves, they would say, “Wellwhatever you’re doing, keep doing it” and didn’t actively seek thespecific information on how it was done so that they could share itwith their other patients. I understand why this is, but it is never-the-less a sad state of affairs.

Another interesting improvement is seeing how some people’sdemeanor changes when they move from an unhealthy animal-baseddiet to the healthiest plant-based diet. They are less stressed, more



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pleasant, more even tempered, and generally happier. And this is notmerely because they resolved a serious condition because this wasobserved in some who weren’t dealing with anything (at least theydidn’t resolve any noticeable serious conditions; there can always beones they didn’t know they had).

And lastly, there are the improvements that allow people to onceagain participate in life; their debilitating arthritis is gone, theirmelancholy is gone, their very embarrassing skin condition is gone,their total lack of energy is gone, etc.

The opportunity exists for so many people to improve their health inso many ways, but the only reason this is being kept from people isthe “Mr. Potter” syndrome (see the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”with Jimmy Stuart… if you don’t intend to see the movie you canread this account of the character of Mr. Potter herewww.Health101.org/bookmark#28But reading it will likely ruin parts of the movie for you.)



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14. Conflicting Information

“I see you say that garlic is bad, but I’ve heard that it is good.

Why the conflicting info?”

Most things have pros and cons. Some people focus on the upsidesand don’t talk about or know anything about the downsides. And ifthe downsides outweigh the upsides, and you can get the upsides fromsomething else that has none of the item’s downsides, this should bethought about when considering using something. Such is the casewith garlic. It’s irresponsible to talk about garlic’s benefits and not

talk about its detriments.

We often hear that garlic has antibiotic properties; and it does. But isthat what you want? Instead of trying to battle bacteria that comesinto your body (which is the only thing garlic can fight; it can’t haveany effect on viruses), why not simply have a healthy immune systemthat can deal with bacteria (and viruses like the “flu”) without needingany “help” from things like garlic. And consider that an antibiotic that

you take in can’t distinguish between bad and good bacteria, so it kills both, but your immune system can and does distinguish between both,so it deals with the bad bacteria while not disturbing the good bacteria. But when we get involved in the business of healing (whichis the body’s purview), we invariably turn to palliative measures, theresults of which are mistaken for healing. Make no mistake about it,only the body is capable of healing.

If eating garlic put people in the hospital, no one would eat it. Butsince its negative effects aren’t that apparent, and since there is somuch “pro” information surrounding garlic, people will continue toconsume it, and the debates will be whether to take it in its wholenatural form or in pill form, and these two camps will then debate the“pharmaceutical antibiotics are better” camp. All the while everyoneis coming from a point of view that is based on faulty premises andmissing information, so they are all defending positions that have norelationship to reality… which is where I prefer to live (because that’swhere my body lives).



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If you want to have the best odds of not coming down with the flu,make sure your vitamin D level is in the proper range during thewinter, and keep your hands away from your nose and eyes, and washyour hands well during “flu season”.

So when you take an antibiotic, whether in the form of garlic or a pharmaceutical version, it will interfere with the correct functioningof the body. But what if a person is so unhealthy that their own bodycan’t mount an adequate defense against invading bacteria and ifnothing is done they will die, then, yes, turning to garlic, or if needed,to pharmaceutical antibiotics would be a prudent thing to do. Andafter their life is saved they can deal with the negative affects of theantibiotic (although most people don’t because they are unaware ofthis). But for a healthy person to eat garlic is no different than ahealthy person taking prescription antibiotics. And if a healthy personcomes down with a bacteriological infection, their body should be perfectly capable of dealing with the foreign invader if the personrespects their body’s wishes and gives their body what it needs toheal. This can include bed-rest (but some people insist on going towork), and fasting, because the body stops hunger (but some people

continue to eat anyway).

To say that I need to consume something special when I’m sick tomake me well, but I don’t need to consume it when I’m well to keepme well is the very definition of “remedy”, and these always deal withsymptoms and not with the cause of those symptoms.

Here’s a quote from a book called “The Healing Power of Garlic”…

“Healing traditions have recognized garlic as a natural ‘wonder drug’for thousands of years. Now medical research indicates garlic may prevent and even reverse high blood pressure, heart disease, andcancer, as well as a host of other serious health problems. In fact, arecent head-to-head comparison proved garlic just as effective as theleading cholesterol-reducing drug in lowering cholesterol levels. This book describes exactly how to use garlic as a versatile, powerful, and

effective medicine for a tremendous variety of common illnesses.”



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Notice that garlic’s so-called benefit is attributed to a drug-effect.Indeed many drugs are derived from natural substances. In naturalhealth creation we learn that a nutritive effect is beneficial but a pharmacological effect is not because it addresses the symptoms of acondition.

And the beneficial nutrients that are ascribed to garlic can be obtainedfrom foods that have no adverse affects (if the foods are uncooked).And unlike garlic, these foods are scrumptious.

And no discussion of antibiotic effects would be complete withoutmentioning “acquired resistance”. About a century ago, prostituteshad the bright idea that they’d take an antibiotic as a preventative measure against getting an STD. After all, it seemed to make sense:when they got an STD, an antibiotic was prescribed, so taking onebefore they got infected would prevent the infection, right? Whathappened was that after a while, the antibiotic had no effect on theSTD anymore; the bacteria involved became resistant to theantibiotic. This is the reason that the antibiotic of choice when I was achild – tetracycline – can no longer be used effectively today. Why?

The animal food industry also used tetracycline to deal with theinfections that cattle and chickens got, then we ate those animals, ineffect dosing ourselves with that antibiotic when we were well. Thenwhen we got sick, that antibiotic wouldn’t work anymore, so newantibiotics had to be invented.

Another interesting side effect of garlic: Garlic is toxic to brain cells;the sulphone hydroxyl ion penetrates the blood brain barrier. This was

discovered by accident by someone who was calibrating EEG biofeedback equipment. When some of the subjects came back fromlunch, they looked clinically “in bad shape” on theelectroencephalograph (a device that measures brainwaves), whichwas used in the calibration process. This was traced to the garlic thatwas heavily consumed at an Italian restaurant that these particularfolks had gone to. The same food without the garlic had no sucheffect (more on this point in a moment)

FACTOID: Garlic is also used as a very effective natural pest controlin gardening.



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Garlic interferes with synthesis, or breakdown, of lipids (fats) in yourliver. This is why the cholesterol level of those ingesting garlic over a period of time is lower. However, the body synthesizes cholesterol inthe liver for a reason, and it is needed for certain cellular functions(like for making vitamin D). Paavo Airola describes one experiment

where one-fourth pound of butter at one time was given to fivehealthy volunteers. Three hours after the volunteers had eaten the butter, their cholesterol levels had risen from an average of 221 to237. Later, the same volunteers received the same amount of butteralong with the juice of 50 grams of garlic. This time the cholesterollevels, instead of rising, went down from 228 to 212 in three hours.Let’s examine why. The cholesterol levels in the blood wouldnaturally rise after a high fat animal food meal. But this is where thecholesterol should be after the meal – in the blood. When thevolunteers were given garlic with the butter, blood cholesterol levelswere reduced. Where did the fat go? Did it disappear? No, it is still inthe body, but it is now in the tissues instead of the blood, andtherefore blood cholesterol levels will be lower. Allicin – a substancein garlic – makes the cells and tissues more permeable, andsubstances can then enter that would not ordinarily enter. Another

way to look at this is just because a statin drug lowers cholesterol,doesn’t mean that the health-damaging effects from the diet thatcontained the cholesterol are also lowered, which is why people onstatin drugs still get heart attacks and Coronary Artery Disease.Again, dealing with a symptom is not the same as dealing with thecause of the symptom.

Then there’s this from an air force pilot: “I was in flight test

engineering in Doc Hallan’s group in the 1950’s. The flight surgeonwould come around every month and remind all of us: ‘Don’t youdare touch any garlic 72 hours before you fly one of our airplanes, because it’ll double or triple your reaction time.’ You’re three timesslower than you would be if you’d not had garlic.” (And regardingAttention Deficient Disorder) “Well, we didn’t know why until 20years later, when I owned the Alpha Metrics Corporation. We were building biofeedback equipment and noticed that garlic seemed to

desynchronize brain waves. So I funded a study at Stanford and, sureenough, they found that it does have this affect; the sulphonehydroxyl ion penetrates all the brain barriers including the corpus



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callosum. If you have any patients who have low-grade headaches orAttention Deficit Disorder, if they can’t quite focus on the computerin the afternoon, just do an experiment – you owe it to yourselves.Take those people off all garlic and see how much better they get.And then let them eat some garlic after about three weeks. They’ll

say: ‘My God, I had no idea that this was the cause of our problems.’And this includes the ‘de-skunked’ garlic products like Kyolic.”

Here’s another interesting tidbit: The Taoists realized thousands ofyears ago that plants of the alliaceous family were detrimental tohumans. They labeled this group of plants – onions, garlic, leeks,chives, and spring onions – the “five spicy-scented plants.” Theynoticed that onions are especially harmful to the lungs, garlic to the

heart, leeks to the spleen, chives to the liver, and spring onions to thekidneys. Hindus also avoid this group, which they have called the“five pungent plants.” As well as producing offensive breath and bodyodor, these plants can induce varying levels of aggravation, agitation,anxiety, and aggression. Thus these irritating substances are harmful physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

There will always be those who contend that garlic has no negativehealth effects, only positive ones. And some who recognize garlic’snegative affects will say that garlic’s positive effects outweigh thenegative ones. For some folks it simply comes down to what theywant to believe. And in a sense, I am no exception to this, but what Iwant to believe is the truth, not what I’d rather believe, not whatsounds good, or what others would like me to believe. And this is whyI strive to seek the truth, even though “the heavens may fall”.

Bottom line: If you’re wondering if some supposedly natural thing ishealth-enhancing, put it to the test… the Nature test: Can you make ameal of it, as it appears in Nature, with no processing or cooking, andis it delicious (assuming your taste buds are functioning properly). Ifthe answer is ‘no’, the item must be looked at with suspicionregardless of how much “positive” information there is for it. Just because the vast majority of people “know” that dairy products are

good for us, doesn’t mean that this is true; in fact, and in reality, itisn’t. Which brings up one of my favorite sayings:

“What can do you the most harm, is what you know, that just ain’t so.”



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“Are there different diets for different people?”

I’ve been researching and teaching how to create health and avoiddisease for a very long time, and if there’s one thing I’ve discoveredit’s this: We are all more the same than different. We all have livers,

we all have pancreases, and if you look up the definition of theseorgans in a medical dictionary you won’t see millions of differentdefinitions; all our organs work the same way, what differs from person to person is the relative degree of functionality, not how theywork. So even though there are many experts who state categoricallythat there are different diets for different people, this is not so. Allhumans are designed to eat the same diet regardless of blood type,metabolism type (fast/slow) or hair color. The reason why differing

dietary practices appear to work better for some people is because ofwhere they are health-wise. Someone with a weakened pancreas (dueto eating too much fat) that is labeled with Type 2 Diabetes may haveto eat celery or lettuce with sweet fruit for a while because they needthe additional fiber to aid in slowing down the sugar uptake, but oncetheir blood sugar regulatory system is working properly again (and itis very possible to heal from Type 2 Diabetes) they will not need toeat a “special” way.

So the way some people eat the healthiest of diets may need to differslightly in the beginning, but we’re all designed to eat what everyother animal on this planet eats: A species specific diet.

“Why do some health educators recommend low or no fruit?”

Two main reasons, in my opinion, that some raw food healthadvocates advocate low/no fruit and high fat or complex (sometimescooked) carbs are: 1. To garner more customers (sad but I know thisto be true), 2. Because they feel that even if they tell people the truthabout how, in the presence of too much fat, sugar will not be handled properly by your body and can cause problems, they feel people willstill overeat on fat anyway, so the safe thing to do is to simply adviseagainst fruit (the person’s body will simply convert fat to sugar as

needed to feed the cells, and this circumvents the havoc that can beexperienced when eating healthy amounts of sweet fruit in the presence of too much fat). They see it as the healthier of the two



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scenarios, even though it isn’t the healthiest way to eat. Plus they tellthemselves it is still healthier than what the person used to eat. And itdoes result in short term improvements, but I’m interested in longterm viability and success, and that’s why I tell those I counsel thetruth about the human diet. If they don’t follow it, it’s not because I

didn’t share the facts with them.

Some health educators warn people away from fruit eating because:

1. They are unaware of the body’s blood sugar regulatory mechanism.All they know is that when their patients eat a lot of fruit, they geteither hypo- or hyper-glycemic reactions. And when the patient stopseating fruit, the problem goes away. But as I said, it is not the fruitthat’s causing the problem, it’s too much fat in the diet that’s the real problem. The only source of fat in a healthy human diet comes fromthe naturally occurring fats in the natural foods we are designed to eat.So processed oils are a huge no-no, and are a huge contributor to ill-health in the future. And it doesn’t matter how cold-pressed or virginthese oils are, all oils are health damaging. Yet there are healtheducators who advocate their use.

2. The practitioner knows full well that fruit is not the problem, andthat it is excessive fat that is the problem, but believes that his/her patients simply will not get their fat levels down to a healthy level,and will instead continue to eat too much fat. So to prevent any bloodsugar regulatory issues from occurring, the practitioner advises,“No/low fruit”. But this does a disservice to their patients, becausewith not enough fruit in the diet, where is the person going to get

enough calories from? Ultimately from too much fat and/or complexcooked carbs. And true, if there’s little to no sweet fruit, there’s areduced risk of blood sugar metabolism issues, but with a diet of toomuch fat still comes the risk of coronary artery disease, heart disease,stroke, Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis, etc. But these are all “way downthe road” illnesses, and the practitioner is not likely to be aware oftheir occurrence, and a patient diagnosed with something like this willno doubt assume it was unavoidable (many people truly believe that

chronic degenerative disease is unavoidable, and this is absolutely nottrue).



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3. Knowing that the food items that are part of medium to high fatdiets are loved by many people, some practitioners choose to notadvocate a low-fat diet because they want as many patients/clients as possible. It’s unfortunate that a practitioner will be far more popular ifhe/she recommends a not-100% raw diet and says it’s okay to eat the

amounts of fatty foods that will result in fat contents upwards of 40%.This is a shame. Sometimes these people exhibit other traits that canhelp identify them as a “category 3” individual; they often promotethings like raw chocolate and other manufactured products that have“yummy appeal”, and they often advocate (and sell) lots of “healthenhancing” and “immune system boosting” superfoods and evensome “magic bullet” type products.

I know some alternative health practitioners who fall into the number2 category above, and this is sad. Sad that they make the decision forthe patient instead of giving the patient the facts and letting the patientdecide. And I know some who fall into category number 1, and this isremedied by education. But unfortunately some of these folks, don’twant to hear it for reasons mentioned in category number 3.

One of the folks I used to consider a colleague is now bashing thehigh fruit, low fat diet. Not because of any new information or newstudies that show that this is an unhealthy diet, but simply because hehas now adopted the thinking of someone else. It’s unfortunate thatthis person has never really given independent thought to these issuesand has instead embraced other people’s opinions that sounded goodto him at the time, making them his own. When he states,categorically, that there have never been human cultures that have

eaten a high fruit diet, this does discredit him in many people’s eyes because: 1. This can’t be known with any degree of certainty. 2. Thereis plenty of evidence that there certainly have been cultures who werefruit eaters. (See the article at www.Health101.org/bookmark#1 ). And thefact that there are people alive today who have been eating a high fruitlow fat diet and who are doing well (and who have been doing it for along time) makes this person’s statement, “There are no people alivetoday who are doing well on a high fruit diet who have been doing it

for a long time” appear to indicate that he is not someone whodisseminates credible information. But he is nevertheless popular with



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those who also do not do their own independent research and who,instead, rely on others who they like for their information.

It is great that the raw food movement has become so popular, but it’sa double-edged sword in that it’s now an industry, and with that

comes those who would participate in it for reasons of profit and popularity, and when that happens, truthful information which wouldlimit sales takes a back seat to marketing.

“I’ve been told to ‘do whatever works for me’ and to base what I

do on what my body is telling me, but you say this is not the best

approach. Could you explain.”

These are some of the most misunderstood and potentially ruinouslines of thinking I’ve encountered in my practice. Indeed, manyhealthy diet advocates tout the “do whatever works for you” philosophy. The problem is that many people don’t understand whattheir body is telling them when it says something; often if the body is“silent” this is taken to mean that whatever was done is an okay thingto do, and if the body reacts in what is perceived as a negative way, it

is assumed this was a bad thing to do when in reality the opposite issometimes the case. And what if the sensors that tell you what’s goingon aren’t working properly? If your car’s oil light tells you to put insome oil, but it’s malfunctioning and your oil level is fine, and youthen put in some oil, you’ll be overfilling your engine’s crankcase,and that’s bad. So it can be said that until you’ve regained lost healthand all your body’s organs, systems, and sensors are working properly, it may not be in your best interest to trust what your body issaying or not saying; it may be best, in the beginning, to trust what’sknown to work and not work.

And speaking of what works and what doesn’t, many people won’tknow if something actually worked for them for decades, manydecades; they won’t know if the recommendations they followed wereactually successful for quite some time. We should define “success”

as living to approximately 95 with a high quality of life and dyingfrom “natural causes” in our sleep, and not merely the resolution ofour current symptoms or an increase in perceived vitality. So the problem is that if what we did didn’t work in the long run, we can’t



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go back in time and try something different. This, and the fact thatwe’re not living in our biological “eco-niche”, means we need to givecareful thought to what we do and don’t do, and not assume that ifsomething we’re doing isn’t causing digestive distress, is making usfeel more “energized”, or got rid of some symptoms that were

plaguing us, that what we’re doing is “working for us”. That’s why,when living in a world where there are lots of dietary roads to take,and some of those roads will turn out to be downright wrong, we needto use “bio-logic” (hard science + unbiased common sense) andempirical evidence to decide what is most likely going to work for uslong term, and not be influenced by what gives us some short termimproved results. Short term improvement is great, but it is notnecessarily a guarantee of long term success.

And we must be careful not to fall into the “preferred belief” trap;there are a lot of health practitioners who, for various reasons, try to push our buttons and appeal to our emotions to get us to follow theirapproaches and buy their programs and products. “Let the buyer beware” applies to those offering health advice too.

Some educators teach that “everybody’s different” and that there is noone diet that works for everyone, and they try to promote the idea thatyou need to consult with them or buy their book/DVD to find outwhat is right for you based on your body type, metabolism type, bloodtype, astrological sign, ayurvedic type, hair color, etc. I’d say thatthose educators are irresponsible, but I can’t paint them all with a broad brush because I’m sure there are some who honestly believethat there are different long-term diets for different people. But there

are some who know better, but they are salespeople first.

A good analogy: If you try using a ladder to reach the gutters to cleanthem out, and your feet hurt from climbing the ladder and you couldhardly make it to the top, to say that using a ladder “didn’t work foryou” and that you need to do it a different way leads you away fromthe understanding that you should be able to climb a ladder withoutyour feet hurting and without you almost having a heart attack. So if it

caused you trouble, you need to address the problem by figuring outwhat do you need to do so you can climb a ladder (because yourealize that you should be able to do so). But many people simply take



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the discomfort and difficulty as a sign that “this way isn’t for me” andthey judge what “works for them” by trying different approaches untilthey find one that “works” from the get-go; in the above scenario,renting a bucket truck “works”, but doesn’t address the underlying problem.

Recognizing that you should be looking to correct an inability thatyou have that shouldn’t be there is admittedly a more involved road totake, but since it corrects imbalances, oversensitivites,undernourishments, and weaknesses that are not natural for the human body, this approach will serve you a lot better than merely findingsomething that your body can handle or something that you like betterthan something else.

“Dr. Julian Whitaker wrote an article titled, ‘A Cupful of Health

Benefits’ which appeared on Mike Adam’s website in which he

spoke highly of the practice of drinking coffee, but I’ve heard that

coffee was not a healthy thing to consume. What’s up with that?”

This article is why I have trouble wholeheartedly recommending

Mike Adams’ site to people; it’s filled with a lot of health promotinginformation and a lot of health damaging information.

Dr. Whitaker’s statement, “If coffee were harmful, then everymorning emergency rooms around the world would be choked with people suffering the ill effects of our favorite breakfast beverage” is avery irresponsible statement in my opinion. That’s like saying if pesticides were harmful, we’d have people flooding emergency roomsafter every meal that contained non-organically grown foods. Butwhen you think about it, we do have people dying every day – lots ofthem – and most of them from preventable diseases like cancer thatlikely had pesticides as a contributing factor if these people consumedconventionally grown foods (as opposed to organically grown foods).So why can’t the negative health affects of coffee be a contributingfactor to some of the many preventable deaths that occur each day?

Dr. Whitaker goes on to say some positive things about coffee, but Ican find something positive to say about anything if I look at a particular issue in isolation. I can find something positive to say about



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cocaine usage, but on balance cocaine usage is an unhealthy thing todo, all things considered . And that’s what many so-called “alternativehealth practitioners” do; they don’t look at things on balance, becauseto do so would mean talking trash about the garbage many peopleconsume, and therefore minimizing their popularity (and bank

accounts). Harsh words? Yes. Do these folks deserve them? In myopinion, yes.

Coffee is a central nervous system stimulant. It stimulates the vagusnerve and causes acid secretion. Coffee consumption results in or is acontributing factor to: hyperacidity, high blood pressure, anemia,diabetes, and cancer. Coffee can impair digestion, and alsocontributes to kidney disease, incontinence, premenstrual syndrome,and osteoporosis. And coffee crops are one of the highest pesticidesprayed crops, so unless you’re drinking organic coffee, you’regetting a serious dose of carcinogenic compounds in every cup.

Coffee also:

• Affects the stomach lining and can lead to inflammation and pain

• Increases pre-menstrual breast pain in many sufferers from the

caffeine• Can interfere with REM sleep from the caffeine

• Is dangerous for pregnant women due to the caffeine

• Causes dehydration

• Slows down the passage of waste through the small intestine

• Can be harmful to some hypertension prone people

I think if one would weigh the pros and cons of coffee, the cons

would far outweigh any pros. And any of coffee’s positive attributes

(antioxidants) can be obtained from things that contain none of

coffee’s detriments, something Dr. Whitaker fails to mention. I’dlike to be popular too, but I won’t try to get there by saying things that pander to certain segments of the population, like referring to coffeeas “our favorite breakfast beverage”. The fact of the matter is thatmost people drink coffee because they “need to” not because it tastesdelicious. The fact that they need it can be a good indicator of theirrelative state of (ill) health. So by speaking positively of coffee, asupposedly informed health advocate is not acting in the best interestsof the general public in my opinion.



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And further, if you apply the “Nature Test” to coffee, it fails (rawcoffee beans aren’t delicious, they are bitter, and bitter is a warning tous to not consume something.)

Here’s a description that, on the face of it, would put me off to coffee:

“Coffee contains a complex mixture of chemical compounds.Some components, particularly those related to the aroma,are produced during roasting of the green beans. Thesubstances which during “brewing” dissolve in water to formthe beverage are classified as “nonvolatile taste components”(including caffeine, trigonelline, chlorogenic acid, and phenolic acids) and “volatile aroma components” (includingorganic acids, aldehydes, ketones, esters, amines, andmercaptans).”

And here’s another way to look at the issue: If the first time you drankcoffee, it put you in the hospital with something serious, I doubtyou’d ever drink it again. So why is it “okay” to drink it if it puts youin the hospital with something serious 40 years later because it was a

contributing factor to that serious condition? To me, there is nothingworth the devastation of my health; not coffee, not chocolate, not cowice cream, not tofu, not beer, etc.

And if you’re trying to give up coffee, remember this: Trying to doanything is always harder than doing it. As that wise Yoda said, “Door do not. There is no try.” From a psychological perspective, whenyou try to do something, you acknowledge that you may or may not

be able to succeed… “I’ll try to lift the couch, but I may not be able todo it”. So if you really want to stop drinking coffee, the best way, theway that is guaranteed to work, is to just stop drinking coffee.Seriously. If it helps to think about how the coffee industry is takingadvantage of you each time you have a cup, at the expense of yourhealth for the sake of profit, then do so.

So as you’re reading this, treat this moment as a golden opportunity to

give yourself a pat on the back, and take this very minute as the perfect time to give yourself what you truly want: No more coffee,and have no more from this moment on (when you think about, there



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really is no reason to continue to drink it). And that being the case,you can now toss out any that you have in the house, not because itwould be a temptation (because it wouldn’t) but as a symbol that youcan do anything you want to do.

And if you want proof that coffee was really ruining your health,you’ll feel it as your body detoxifies itself. And although it’s not a pleasant feeling, it will make you feel grateful that you’ve eliminatedthis health-degrading monkey from your back… forever!

“I’ve heard that papayas are heat treated with a hot soak to kill

surface bacteria, and that this process turns them into an empty

calorie food. Is this true?”

This quick hot soak may diminish the nutritional quality of the pulpdirectly below the skin somewhat, but it doesn’t turn the fruit into an“empty calorie” food, meaning little to no nutrition at all. But we canadd this process to the list of other agri industry practices that degradethe nutritional quality of the foods we eat.

Early harvesting Less than optimal soil quality Heat processing

Our food wouldn’t be subject to any of these issues if we ate from thewild. Since this is not practical in our present society, this is why Ichoose to use a nutritional adjunct as part of my diet. True, there is noway to know with 100% certainty that this practice is necessary foroptimal health and optimal disease avoidance, but logic wouldsuggest that it is a prudent thing to do if those two things areimportant to you. And since a worthwhile nutritional supplement isnot going to harm you, the philosophy of “better to be safe than sorry”applies here too. Since supplements aren’t a natural food found in Nature, the trick is knowing what not to take, what to take, and howoften to take it.



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“I thought fruit can decay in the stomach if it is “held up” by

other foods being there at the same time that require a lot more

time in the stomach than fruit would. But when asked, ‘Must you

eat fruit on an empty stomach so it won’t mix with other foods

and cause fermentation?’ Dr. Mark Pochapin, director of the

Monahan Center for Gastrointestinal Health at New York-

Presbyterian Hospital said, “The answer is a definite no, fruit can

be eaten at any time… Nothing can rot in the stomach.”

Reading the article you referenced reminds me that most of what people “know”, i.e. the information they have in their brains, comesmostly from without and not within. What doctors and lawyers know,they are taught. If that teaching is flawed in any way, they will have

and know flawed information, but owing to the way they got it, theywill spout that information with the confidence of someone whoknows that they are most definitely in the possession of the truth. Andif they possess any amount of ego or arrogance, their belief cannot beshaken; meaning there will be nothing you can share with them, noevidence you can offer that will give them reason to revisit the issue.(And his initial answer to the question with “The answer is a definiteno” when in truth the answer is a qualified ‘yes’, says a lot about this

person, at least to me… qualified because you can eat fruit with leafygreens, but not on top of hamburger or avocado).

Another thing to consider with experts is this: If they are not taughtsomething specifically, but the answer to a question belongs in theirarea of expertise, many will provide an answer that has no basis infact and is just a guess on their part, because the only other option isto say, “I don’t know”, and many professionals can’t say that for theyfeel it diminishes their credibility. And this becomes a problem whenthey pass something off as fact when it is merely a guess.

I don’t know which of the two above scenarios is in play here, but I’mreasonably sure it’s one of them. Here’s why.

Dr. Pochapin said in the interview, “Food takes 6 to 10 hours to reach

the colon, which explains why it does not really matter when fruit iseaten”. This can be a false statement because you can’t lump all foodsinto the category of “food” as he uses the word. Different foods have



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different transit times; this is fact, a fact that he should know. So thisis a misleading statement.

He also says, “The place where fruit produces gas is in the colon, notthe stomach”, then what causes gas to emanate from the stomach, as

in burping? Sure, if you consume soda, you’ll burp immediately dueto the carbon dioxide gas being released from the liquid transportmedium, but what about burping after you consume non-carbonatedfood? Sure, if immediately after eating you are exposed to a superstressful situation and digestion grinds to halt to provide maximalnerve energy for fight or flight , food will sit there and rot, and youwill burp soon after, but this same thing can happen when eating twofoods that have two vastly different transit times.

For me, it is informative to hear him say, “Nothing can rot in thestomach” because it is a clear indication that the training that medicaldoctors receive is not necessarily training that translates into the bestadvice possible when you’re trying to improve your health (especiallywhere it concerns dietary practices).

“The nutritionist I saw before finding out about what humans are

really supposed to eat had me eating all kinds of things that didn’t

help me at all (dairy, whole grain, lean meat). And then I saw a

TV ad run by the people who are saying that high fructose corn

syrup is a GOOD thing! But what I found interesting is what was

implied about nutritionists. Did you see that ad?”

It was the same as a full-page ad in Better Homes and Gardens that portrayed two women engaged in the following conversation: “Mydry cleaner says high fructose corn syrup is loaded with calories.”

The other woman’s reply: “A registered dietitian presses your shirts?”

This implies that registered dietitians know what is and what is nothealthy nutrition… and most of them don’t. They only know what

they are taught, and they are taught a lot of incorrect information, andthere’s a lot of correct information they are not taught. I mightactually have a better chance of getting correct dietary information



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from a well-read dry cleaner than from most dietitians andmainstream nutritionists, and that is truly a sad statement.

“What do you think of Frank Lipman’s article on vitamin D

(attached)? Seems there is some conflicting information in it.”

I do know his work, and it is great the way he gets the point acrossthat the sun is not your enemy, and that there is no easy answer to thequestion of “how much sunbathing should I do?”. There are, however,two inaccuracies in the article.

He says, “Be aware that the current “normal” range for Vitamin D is

20 to 55 ng/ml.”

Hardly any labs list the “okay” range as 20-55 anymore, butunfortunately many labs still list “normal” as 30-74 even though it’snow known to be more like 50-80.

If you research the “okay” range on the internet, you will find somewildly varying results (which makes teaching this information a lot

harder)…

10 to 55 ng/ml – Philip Batty, M.D.16 to 74 ng/ml – healthguide.howstuffworks.com25 to 50 ng/ml – answers.com30 to 74 ng/ml – NIH (National Institutes of Health - U.S. Government) 40 to 65 ng/ml – Mark Hyman, M.D.50 to 80 ng/ml – many vitamin D related websites

He also mentioned in the article…

“In the winter or if you don’t get enough healthy sun exposure or ifyour blood levels are low, make sure you supplement with at least2,000 IUs a day of Vitamin D3”

Although he does say “at least” when referring to that 2,000 IUrecommendation, it’s been found that 4,000 - 5,000 is a moremeaningful and beneficial amount especially if blood levels of D arelow. Two-thousand units is a safe recommendation, but it is probably



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not enough for many people. And because when 4,000-5,000 isrecommended it behooves the practitioner to mention that a D bloodtest should be done after two months, many health advocates simplycome down on the side of safety and practicality and recommend2,000 which doesn’t warrant any follow-up testing… but like I said,

2,000 is probably not enough for many people to give them thehighest degree of vitamin D protection where it concerns degenerativedisease prevention.

So, yes, 2,000 units is better than the paltry 400 units found in mostmultivitamins, but if you want the best protection, you’ve got to beyour own health practitioner and know when to order your ownvitamin D test and what to make of the results. Fortunately this info isavailable and is easy to understand. I’ve penned an in-depth articleabout vitamin D here… www.Health101.org/bookmark#6

“How do you explain when a very well respected health educator,

and one who you agree with, comes out and says that vitamin D

supplementation is not advised, when you say it is?”

I think much of what he says is important information that everyone

should know. But we must understand that when a well-known healtheducator gets asked a question on a public e-forum, he’s tasked withcoming up with an answer. If you were a health educator, andsomeone asked you a question on a public forum, and it’s a questionthat you don’t know, and a question that someone who counsels people should have an answer for, you can’t simply say, “I don’tknow” because that would call into question your credibility, so youmust then do the research necessary to answer the question, and thatcan consist of lots of very time-consuming study. So what some people do in cases like this is to rely on other people’s research, andthis is what was done.

Being that I have vitamin D recommendations, when those statementsregarding D were made, I was asked to comment about this and thenhad to do the (time-consuming) research to parse his information. So I

have looked into what was said, and there are some things that werenot taken into account, and he appears to have relied on some infothat seemed, on the face of it, to be correct but was based on someflawed researching. I’m not going to harp on the little things like his



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use of an incorrect form of measurement when referring to a specificamount of 25(OH)D in the blood (nmol/L instead of ng/ml), but it is aclue; anyone who is fluent in “D” would have known that nmol/L wasincorrect when describing the amount he mentioned. So this typocame from the text he was copying/pasting (I came across it during

my research too).

But other statements such as…

“Yes, there is an association between low D and heart disease,diabetes, cancers... but treatment with supplements have not beenshown to be effective with these conditions.”

and…

“Evidence remains insufficient”

…are irresponsible statements even if true. Just because there has been no positive proof of a direct link between vitamin Dsupplementation and ill-health improvement via multiple, peer-

reviewed, double-blind, placebo-controlled, long-term studiesinvolving large groups of people doesn’t mean that a direct linkdoesn’t exist. This is the same rhetoric that the cell phone industry isusing to downplay the results of the recent study that shows a clearassociation between cell phone use (held up to the head) and braincancer (see my article at www.Health101.org/bookmark#29 ). Surely hismotivations are very different from the self-serving motivations of thecell phone industry, but to say that until we know for sure that

supplementary D is effective in reducing risk of degenerative disease,we shouldn’t take any, is irresponsible in my opinion, and is not airing on the side of caution, as some people maintain, because ofwhat is known about D’s correlation with certain diseases.

And then to say…

“Sunshine plays a part in overall health, but a small part in prevention

of Western diseases.”



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…just after he essentially said that there is as of yet no definitive proof one way or the other, is disconcerting. And to say that therehave been more deaths from taking D than from not taking it is bothabsurd and unprovable. I know the data that he was relying on forthis, and it is junk science to say the least. Even someone who

accidentally took ten times the recommend dose of D didn’t die.

This does not discredit his other information, but it does call intoquestion his method of researching areas that he was not initiallyfamiliar with. But he, like the rest of us, is human, and I’ve found thatthis way of forming a position is more common than most peoplerealize. And it’s fine if the research that’s accepted and then offered iscorrect, but if it isn’t, well, this is the risk that is taken.

But to show you another example of this very thing, other healthadvocates took what he wrote and used it as the sole source of their position on vitamin D in an article they wrote (in response to aquestion on their blog about D). One of these folks is 100% anti-supplement (even B12). Another is one of the world’s most outspokencritics of dairy consumption, and is probably the world’s leading

expert on the hazards of consuming dairy products, yet he highlyrecommends using soy products instead, and says that anything thatsuggests that soy is bad is untrue (but in reality there are many issueswith soy consumption). If you know him as I do, you’d know that heis a strong defender of animal rights, and his goal is to get everyoneoff of animal products, and since a D supplement is made from thewool of an animal, this could be affecting his recommendations.

I am not going to simply parrot what one side of an issue says becauseof my personal philosophies. This is highly irresponsible. So I takegreat care to take the time to get to the truth if it is knowable. Andwhen it isn’t, and we have only to go by associations, I will useempirical evidence along with common sense and logic to come toconclusions. This all comes under the heading of dealing with reality.

In my practice, I have seen clients resolve conditions where there was

a “too low” blood level of 25(OH)D, and supplementary D was theonly change made. If there is a philosophy that I pass things by, it’s“better to be safe than sorry”. If a blood level of between 50-80 ng/ml



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of 25(OH)D reduces risk of degenerative disease, and supplementingwith prudent amounts of D3 has shown no inherent risks of its own,then when I’m not living where that level can be maintained solelyfrom Sol (Roman sun god), I will maintain that level artificially with asupplement, and this is what I and many of those who are

knowledgeable in the science of vitamin D recommend.

Another point to consider: A lot of the sunshine and Drecommendations are only for enough D to prevent rickets, which is acondition caused by the most severe form of D deficiency. But aninsufficiency of D, although not bad enough to cause rickets, can be acontributing factor to many of the common degenerative diseases.Deficiencies are not an on or off issue, there is an area in between“sufficiency” and “deficiency”. Some call this an “insufficiency”where there is damage done but not to the extent where overtsymptoms are noticed… the damage simply contributes to preventable degenerative disease, and is most likely a contributingfactor to the cause-of-death that is entered on a person’s deathcertificate. I acknowledge this because this deals with reality, which isan area of study that I’ve pursued for over 30 years.

Bottom line: Even though there are some so-called “health educators”who dispense totally bogus information (usually for the purposes ofself-enrichment), there are other “real” health educators who, for themost part, disseminate truthful, reality-based and very helpfulinformation, but who will occasionally provide some incorrect info,even though they are very well-intentioned people. This is why it’sgood to not “follow” any one particular person, but instead to keep an

open mind and actively consider multiple positions so you can get tothe truth of the matter. It’s more work than simply relying on onesource for all your health information, but since it’s your future healththat’s at stake, it’s worth it in my opinion.



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“Don, could you please comment on the following article! My

boyfriend photocopied it and gave it to me to prove that eating

fruit is a bad thing to do. Thanks!”

FRUCTOSE INTOLERANCE:

A LITTLE-KNOWN PROBLEMby Carol Milano

We all know we need to eat our fruits and vegetables. Yetthose healthy apples, peaches, pears, tomatoes and orangesmay be a cause of a little-known problem, called fructoseintolerance. This is an inability of the body to properly digestfructose, a naturally sweet carbohydrate found in many fruits.

The problem is more common in women, and may be mistakenfor other medical problems or food intolerances.

With fewer calories and lower cost than sugar, fructose isbecoming more common in Western diets. Manufacturers arebeginning to use it in many canned foods – including fruits,

juices, vegetables, soups, sodas and corn syrup – as well assome cooked foods sold in stores. It’s sometimes listed on

nutritional labels, yet few people know much about fructose.Unfortunately, “industry doesn’t understand that, while you caneat any amount of table sugar without a problem, humans havelimited ability to absorb fructose,” reports Satish Rao, MD, PhD,a professor of internal medicine at the University of IowaCollege of Medicine in Ames. “Twenty five grams is the limitmost people can handle. If you can’t absorb that quantity,you’re fructose intolerant.”

How can you tell if you’re in that category? Women with thiscondition experience problems ranging from bloating andabdominal pain or tension to gas, excess belching anddiarrhea. Since incorrect diagnoses are common whensymptoms are this general, “it is very important for peopleexperiencing them to speak with their physician so thecondition can be accurately tested and diagnosed,” advises Dr.

Rao, a gastroenterologist who sees patients with thesedifficulties.



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However, fructose intolerance is still little-known amongphysicians: Dr. Rao estimates that perhaps 5% ofgastroenterologists and an even smaller segment of internistsare familiar with the condition. His team discovered it becausethe University of Iowa, a major referral center, sees many

patients with unexplained symptoms. Investigating possiblecauses, their initial study of 80 patients who had beendiagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome found that for 30%,their symptoms were actually caused by fructose intolerance.“When we put them on a fructose-restricted diet, we found,anecdotally, that most improved,” says Dr. Rao.

Reducing fructose intake may involve some lifestyle changes

“Because Western diets contain so much fructose, it can bedifficult for people to adjust. Modification will have an impact onwhat you buy and what you cook for your family,” he finds.

Dr. Rao’s group recently developed the first clinical test forfructose intolerance. The simple, painless breath test requires

drinking a sugar solution, then exhaling into a bag every halfhour for three hours. The contents, analyzed by a lab, detectmost malabsorption.

Don’s comments…

“The simple, painless breath test requires drinking a sugar solution”

Maybe if the sugar were accompanied by fiber, as it would be innature, there’d be no adverse reaction. And maybe if the person takingthis test had healthy lifestyle habits, there’d be no adverse reaction.

Red flag: “while you can eat any amount of table sugar without a problem…”

Really Dr. Rao? So what you’re saying is that the creator of fruit

messed up by choosing fructose instead of sucrose?



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Telling statement: “Because Western diets contain so muchfructose…”

Hmm, this can’t refer to fruit because Western diets do not containlots of fruit, so it probably refers to High Fructose Corn Syrup. So to

say…

“…those healthy apples, peaches, pears, tomatoes and oranges may bea cause of a little-known problem, called fructose intolerance. This isan inability of the body to properly digest fructose, a naturally sweetcarbohydrate found in many fruits.”

…is misleading because it’s followed by…

“With fewer calories and lower cost than sugar, fructose is becomingmore common in Western diets. Manufacturers are beginning to use itin many canned foods – including fruits, juices, vegetables, soups,sodas and corn syrup – as well as some cooked foods sold in stores”

…and the two “packages” (fruit and sweetened products) are not the

same from our body’s perspective.

Maybe if people wouldn’t eat watermelon after consuming hot dogs,hamburgers, and potato salad, things like “bloating, abdominal pain,gas, and excess belching” could be avoided. (By-the-way, what is“excess” belching? I no longer belch since eating only fruits andveggies with no miscombinations… does “excess belching” infer that

some belching is natural?)

Bottom line: It’s intellectually irresponsible to lump fructose fromfruit with fructose from High Fructose Corn Syrup. Health discussionoften seem to suffer from the problem of not distinguishing the goodfrom the bad, like good carbs from bad carbs, good protein from bad(cooked) protein, and good fructose from bad fructose.



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“This health guru said that if we’re eating fruits and vegetables,

we don’t need to drink water at all. Is this correct?”

Not correct at all. And it’s good that you heard him say this becausenow you know that anything else he says may not be credible.

Your body requires a certain amount of hydration depending onoutside temperature, your level of activity, and your level ofdetoxification (especially for someone new to healthy eating). Ifyou’re leaning towards creamy fruits (as opposed to the very highwater content fruits), and you’re under-eating on them, and you’reneeding more hydration than the food you’re eating is supplying, thenyou will be dehydrated to a certain degree, and this can be very health

damaging. So drinking some water in between meals, and alwaysupon awakening in the morning, is a good idea, especially in hot ordry weather (winter air can be very dry), and especially whensomeone is losing excess body fat (toxins are released and need to beushered out of the body efficiently via urination).

“I went to a Naturopath who said I should get tested for all the

essential nutrients. Do you agree?”

Blood tests are not always meaningful, and I don’t advise going bythem in a wholesale manner. Blood tests are good for things like B12and D, but are not necessarily useful when it comes to things likecholesterol, calcium and certain other nutrients. Some health practitioners will look at test results, and if they see no “out of range”red flags, they often say, “Everything looks good” and the patient

assumes the practitioner is implying “keep doing whatever you’redoing” even though what the patient is doing is sowing the seeds ofill-health. Since there are no tests for some nutrients, you’ve got torely on what foods are you eating, how are you eating them (cookedor uncooked), how much of it are you eating, and how nutritious arethe foods that you’re eating. A knowledgeable health practitioner canassess how well you’re probably doing in the nutrition departmentfrom looking at these factors.

In regard to Naturopaths: I’ve counseled people who’ve gone to Naturopaths where they were told not to eat fruit at all, ever, and



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based on their blood work, they needed to take $400 worth ofsupplements a month. What I’ve found is that Naturopaths are likeauto mechanics; there are good ones and there are ones who don’tknow what they’re doing, and there are ones in between, so this is oneof those areas where “Let the Buyer Beware” applies.

“I’ve read that we should go to sleep with a full stomach and I’ve

read that we should not eat before going to sleep. Am I reading

both things because there are times when each of them is

appropriate?”

It can make perfect sense that if you’re hungry before going to sleep,

that you should eat a meal, but doing so is not a health-enhancingthing to do. The reason it’s said that eating just before sleep is not agood thing to do is because the body must work on the food you putin it; to not digest it would allow it to rot inside you, and the body willavoid that very unhealthy scenario at all costs, even at the expense ofsome (often much needed) Phase 4, deep, sleep, which is where the bulk of your nerve energy replenishment takes place. So it could besaid that the more eating you do just before going to sleep, the less

Phase 4 you’ll get, and the less “battery recharging you’ll get.

So a good rule of thumb if you do eat just before sack-time is to eat alittle bit of very high water content food, like grapes, melon, or berries, as opposed to bananas or dates. Very high water content foodis processed much quicker. And be mindful to not over do it; don’tmake this a “full meal”. Naturally the more sweet fruit you eat duringthe day, the more calories you’ll get in during the day, and the lessyou will feel the need to eat just before bedtime. And of course, try toeat this meal as far in advance of bedtime as possible. If you knowyou’re going to bed at 10 PM, check in with yourself at 9 PM to see ifyou’d like to eat something.

And if you’re still not sure whether to go to sleep with a full belly ornot, look to our closest cousins in the wild, the Bonobos. They don’t

turn in for the night with a full belly… so we probably shouldn’teither.



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“There is so much conflicting information about salt. We need it,

we don’t need it, it’s needed for optimal health, it’s harmful, it

shouldn’t be table salt, it should be sea salt, it shouldn’t be sea

salt… so obviously it’s not a clear-cut issue. So that I don’t have

to reinvent the wheel, what have you learned? Can you shed some

light on this?”

First, a little foundational material. The human body requires sodium,not salt. Why not call it “salt”? Because “salt” is known as NaClwhich is the chloride of sodium… salt is not sodium. And if peoplehear that “salt cured my problem” they may think that their idea ofsalt (table salt or Celtic or Himalayan sea salt), is something weobviously need, when it isn’t.

That said, sodium is supposed to come from our food, just likechromium and hundreds of other nutrients, and the food is supposedto get it from the soil. When sodium is in the soil, it’s in its“inorganic” form, just as it appears in sea water, and when the plantgets a hold of it, the sodium is turned into the “organic” form that wethen eat. We can utilize about 95% of the sodium that is part of ournatural foods, but only about 5% of the inorganic form of sodium.

But what if someone had some symptoms, and took some inorganicsea salt, and the symptoms went away. What’s the big deal if someinorganic salt solves a problem? Two issues:

1. What about the 95% of the inorganic sodium that the body can’t utilize? It must process that out.

2. Was the inorganic sodium directly supplying something we needed(some much needed bioavailable sodium, or did it affect the body in away that caused the symptoms to stop manifesting for some reason?(Although the art of health is very simple, the science of health is verycomplex.)

And let’s suppose that it was the usable portion of the sea salt that didsupply the body with much needed sodium… is that the best form toget it in when we can’t get it from the foods we’re eating? Would it be

healthier to get some delicious celery (meaning it’s got sodium), andmake celery “salt”? (notice the quotes), or more aptly called “celerysodium”.



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I’ve heard someone swear by table salt, not realizing that it was theiodine that table salt is fortified with that resolved their symptoms(which were symptoms of insufficient iodine by-the-way). Sure, ifthey were also insufficient in sodium, there was that 5% they got fromthe table salt, but I say let’s find the best way to get that which we

need, not simply “a” way (and often, the easiest way is not the bestway).

We should take a clue from the fact that we can’t drink sea water(we’d die). Yes, this is obviously because the salt concentration is toohigh, but that shows that the inorganic form of sodium (salt), can havetoxic effects. So when you consume sea salt in any of its incarnations,you get both some usable sodium along with a lot of unusable sodium.I think it’s prudent to try and get just the bioavailable sodium (if weneed it) without the unneeded portion.

Another problem with the salt issue: If you Google “natural salt”thinking that this will show you the bioavailable sodium products, thisdoesn’t work. Most of the salt products you’ll find are made frominorganic salt (like sea salt) and are labeled “natural” because they

come from this planet. And if you Google “organic salt” thinkingthis’ll do it, you’ll get misleading info here too. The word “organic” isapplied to some inorganic sea salts because the sellers figure thatsince it is pesticide-free, and since using the word “organic” increasessales, they’ll use it (you’ll notice they don’t say “certified organic”).

I have known many people who were sold on consuming sea salt bysomeone who sold them a little box that they wore around their neck

which had special sea salt in it, and they would take a pinch of someevery so often. This is due to an industry that is very good at sellingthings to people for the purposes of making money. And this industrycreates some very compelling “evidence” in support of their productsand services. So what a health-seeker should be opposed to is the useof products that are marketed by using some real/true sciencecombined with pseudo-science to sell people on the use of the product.

And I’ll take this opportunity to make this important point: If you aretruly deficient in a nutrient, like sodium, it is highly improbable that



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this is the only nutrient you are low in. So even though upping that particular nutrient solved a noticeable symptom, what about the non-noticeable problems you have that are caused byinsufficiencies/deficiencies of other nutrients? So maybe instead oftaking a sodium supplement or a chromium supplement, it might be

wise to take a worthwhile broad-based supplement. But then the issue becomes, if this nutritional supplement aids with some of the nutrientsyou were low in, but it doesn’t contain enough iodine (or enough B12or D), and you’re also low in that, then what do you do? This is why Isay that there is no single magic-bullet supplement.

And while we’re on the subject of important points: Many peoplefocus, understandably, on the issue of “which diet?” or “whichsupplement?” but we need to look at nourishment from a much broader perspective. If we want the biggest positive impact on ourhealth, we should be thinking about things like diet and exercise interms of giving ourselves that which we require to be robustly healthy both in the short term and in the long term.

So my point is that if you focus on getting what we require instead of

on a specific diet, that’s when things will fall into place. Because nowinstead of adopting a particular diet wholesale, you’ll first investigateit to see if it meets all our nutritional needs, and “diets” usually don’t,even the healthiest of the raw food diets. So what we need to adoptinstead of a diet is an “eating plan” that includes the healthiest diet,and the healthiest way of eating that diet, and any nutritionalcomponents that this diet should have but doesn’t for some reason.And since there are other essential nutrients that are not supplied by

food (D and B12), this expansive way of looking at our needs willensure that those needs are also addressed.

Lastly, why do some practitioners recommend sea salt vs makingcelery sodium? Because sea salt “gets the job done”, and becausemost people won’t put the time, energy, and effort into making celerysodium or growing their own greens and tomatoes in super nutritioussoil. So, on balance, it’s better to present the body with an inorganic

form of sodium and help the problem that was caused by not enoughsodium, than to do nothing. And maybe more people will be helped by following that “second best” info, but what about the people who



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would follow the best info? Why don’t all practitioners offer all sidesof the issue and let the person choose? (In this case, also informingthem about making celery sodium and how it’s preferable to sea salt.)I’ll leave it up to your imaginations.

So I don’t say that when you can’t find adequate minerals in your rawfood diet, taking sea salt is a bad or good route to take… it’s a route totake. I prefer the best route.

The bottom line for me, if I’m deficient in sodium, I’ll try to increaseit by increasing foods that are supposed to be sodium-rich liketomatoes or celery, and if I can’t get enough that way, I’ll make celerysodium or eat concentrated tomatoes (sun-dried tomatoes that have noadded salt or sulphur, the ones that say just “tomatoes” on theingredient list), but if those tomatoes were grown in sodium-deficientsoil, I’ve got the same problem as when I try and get enough sodiumfrom most store-bought tomatoes and celery. If I can, I’d certainlygrow my own tomatoes in soil that I’ve made absolutely sure issodium-rich (some people who do this use rock dust and diluted seawater if they can get it). A great resource for growing your own food

is at

www.

Health101.org/bookmark#43

. If all else fails, I’ll add some of thebest unprocessed, unrefined, naturally occurring salt that I can, beingcareful to not add too much (since it is the inorganic form and since italso contains chloride); this comes under the heading of making the best of a bad situation. By-the-way, this product may be one of the best inorganic salts: www.Health101.org/bookmark#44

Another way to help ensure you don’t need more sodium than normal

is to not be overactive because you’d then have to take in more waterto remain hydrated, as this can affect your electrolyte balance,requiring more sodium than normal.

We can’t talk about salt without mentioning what was done to tablesalt to deal with a dietary nutritional challenge faced by the general public. I’m referring of course to iodine. It was added to table salt as away to ensure we’d get some (not a great delivery system). We do

need iodine, but in small amounts (unless you have an iodinedeficiency) which, under ideal circumstances, can be provided by a plant-based diet (assuming there’s enough in the soil). A way to



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increase your odds of getting iodine from your diet is to eatorganically grown food (organic farmers tend to take better care oftheir soil than conventional farmers). Looking at the other side of theequation, one way to keep your iodine requirement down to normal isto refrain from eating cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower as they

interfere with the thyroid gland (by interfering with iodine) whichincreases your iodine requirement. Isothiocyanates are the category ofsubstances in cruciferous vegetables that have been associated withdecreased thyroid function. Isothiocyanates reduce thyroid function by blocking thyroid peroxidase, and also by disrupting messages thatare sent across the membranes of thyroid cells. This was not thereason I didn’t make cruciferous vegetables part of my raw food dietwhen I was figuring out what I should and shouldn’t be eating. Isimply didn’t like these foods in their uncooked state. And since thefoods we’re supposed to eat are the ones that make us make yummysounds when we eat them, I deduced that cruciferous vegetables werenot part of my dietary.

“A raw food class taught that we had to eat fermented foods to be

healthy, and that it’s impossible to be raw if we don’t, and thatwe’d get sick if we didn’t… is this correct?”

The raw food classes that you’ll find at places like health food storeswill rarely be about the healthiest raw food diet. This is because thereare so many raw food educators who teach the high fat “gourmet’ rawfood way, or the low fruit high greens raw food way. And some ofthose educators teach students to become teachers, who then go outand teach incorrect info they were taught (I wrote about this scenarioin one of my newsletters; http://health101.org/newsletter/002 ).

And those who teach a “high greens” diet will often includefermented food because this is a mainstay of the “Ann Wigmoremethod”. And many people don’t question what they’re learning.Most students – which the instructor of that class was at one point –don’t question what they’re learning; they may ask questions, but

those will be questions of clarification, and not questions that questionwhat’s being taught. This is fine when what’s being taught is correct, but when it’s not, well, this is why we have the situation we have…lot’s of people teaching information that’s not in the best interests of



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the general public. And this includes mainstream nutritionists anddoctors too, because they’re not taught the things that can truly benefit those they counsel.

As far as fermented food is concerned, the reason they are held in

such high esteem by some people is that they are known for their probiotic effect. There are many things we do that disrupt the normaldigestive tract bacteria population, and when this environment is outof whack, digestion is negatively affected (and B12 production too).So the thinking is that consuming “good” bacteria on a regular basis isa healthy thing to do. And the person who taught that raw food classyou attended who said that it is impossible to be 100% raw andhealthy if you don’t have fermented foods is almost correct; it isimpossible to be 100% healthy without balanced gut flora. But thisdoesn’t mean that fermented foods are needed as part of the diet. Itcould be said that if someone is constantly consuming the thingswhich disturb proper gut bacteria, it would be a good idea toconstantly try and fix it by also consuming something that’s a“probiotic” (opposite of an antibiotic which destroys bacteria). Andthat’s what fermented food is said to do. But since there are tons of

healthy raw foodists who don’t consume any fermented foods, theteacher of that raw food class is obviously in error (unless the rawfood diet he’s promoting contains things that disturb gut bacteria like“raw” wine, garlic, raw onions, cayenne pepper, and “raw” tea).

But he’s just defending what he’s been taught. Some people don’t likethinking about the scenario where they discover that one aspect ofwhat they’ve been taught is actually wrong, because that calls into

question everything else they’ve been taught, and that can beunsettling to say the least. So to avoid the internal conflict ofcontinuing to teach what may be incorrect info, and to avoid having togo back to square one and try and discern what they must now unlearnand relearn, some people simply get defensive and refuse to believewhat they’re teaching is incorrect in any way, even when given boatloads of scientific proof and irrefutable evidence. And somecontinue to teach incorrect info that they know to be incorrect because

it’s more marketable. Ah, human nature… gotta love it.



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So let’s look at things logically; is it better to continue to disrupt proper gut flora and then to try and repair it on a daily basis by eatingsomething that will supply good bacteria, or is it better to simply stopconsuming the things that interfere with proper gut bacteria? If youcompare the two scenarios, it’s just common sense that one will end

up giving you way better health over a ten year period than the other.And if that is one of the things that make the difference betweengetting and not getting a serious illness, well, need I say more.

But let’s be realistic, what do we do when we do something that does mess up our gut’s bacterial balance? Maybe we did a course ofantibiotics because we thought we had to in order to fight a bad bacterial infection. Maybe we fell off the wagon and had a cookedmeal that was laced with garlic, or we drank an alcoholic beverage…then what do we do? We could make and eat some fermented food fora few days to help get things back to normal, but as anyone who hasmade fermented food knows, it’s a lot of work, you can’t just whip itup and consume it like you could a smoothie, and the batch doesn’talways come out good (it is possible to ferment both good and bad bacteria, and although this is not common, it does happen). Or might a

better way be to simply consume some probiotics available at yourlocal health food store for a few days. The one I recommend iswww.Health101.org/bookmark#30

“Both science and mythology tell us about our

origins in the tropical forests and our frugivorousdisposition. It is our ancient symbiotic relationship

with fruit that formed the environment where the

exquisitely advanced neural architecture of our

brain emerged. As with any symbiotic relationship,

these structures were dependent on the relationship

being maintained.” – Tony Wright



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15. Tips

“What tips do you have for a raw foodist to help them stay warm

in the winter?”

Since a healthy raw food diet is a “cooling” diet, it is great for youwhen you live in a warm or hot climate. But when the temperaturegets cold, this diet can present some challenges.

Here are some of the tips I teach in my classes.

Take food out of the fridge so it can get to room temperature before

eating it.

If you have an electric crock pot, set it to the lowest setting and youcan heat up soups (at the lowest setting it won’t damage the food).

Upon awakening, drink some warm (not hot) water. And drink somethroughout the day.

Eat smaller, more frequent meals; this will result in a highermetabolism, helping you keep warm.

Avoid succumbing to advice like, “Eat warming things like hot,spicy foods, and dense foods, and cut down on high water contentfoods.” If you could do things to thicken your blood, that would helpto keep you warmer, but that would also be an unhealthy thing to do.

Forgo banana ice cream until the summer.

If you come in from the outdoors with a chill, jump right into awarm shower for a few minutes (and use cool water to rinse; thewarm water opened your pores, the cool water returns them to“normal” so you don’t lose heat after the shower).

Wear warm clothes even indoors.



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Use a steam humidifier in the bedroom while sleeping to help keepthe room warm and to avoid dehydration from the drier air that wintertemps bring.

You can use an electric blanket to warm up your bed and bedding

(but unplug it before getting into bed).

Be appropriately muscled; muscles generate heat even at rest. Nowis a great time to start a strength training program.

Even though you may be going outdoors less, stay active. If youdon’t belong to a gym, spend $10 for a day pass or join for a month soyou can use the treadmills and StairMasters to keep your activity levelup. Or invest in a high quality rebounder for your home so you canraise your heart rate and respiration without having to go outside.

Wear clothes right out of the dryer.

So from a health perspective, you are better off staying on a raw dietduring the cold months and making the necessary accommodations as

listed above than turning to cooked foods to warm you up.

“What can I do about dry skin?”

Some people’s skin simply does better than other people’s skin in thedrier weather. The “advantage” of a high fat diet is that with some people, the skin can better withstand drier air. Of course this “plus” isnegated by the ill-health that develops over time in those who eat ahigh fat diet. I’m getting plenty of A, E, and D, and certainly enough bioavailable fats, and I’m definitely well hydrated, and yet in dryweather my skin is dry. When it’s humid, my skin is fine. So a way oflooking at it is: Some healthy people living a very healthy life canhave dry skin if they’re not living where their body is designed to live(a much higher humidity than is found in the U.S., especially in thewinter). The answer, then, is not eating a higher fat diet in the drier

weather, but rather staying well hydrated, and, if needed, using anatural skin moisturizer like aloe vera (preferably from an aloe plant)or coconut oil.



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“What are your suggestions for simpler living that results in

healthier living?”

Keep in mind that these tips are not from a “special” diet or “special”lifestyle; and it’s not something that only ill people need to follow…

it is a natural diet and a natural lifestyle that you’d be following if youwere living in nature with no technology, no pets, no schedules, nodeadlines, no monetary system, etc. And it is doable once you get pastthe notion that it’s not.

“Lights out” (for you) by a certain time regardless of deadlines

Eat mono meals only, no exceptions

Remember to take food with you wherever you go so if you gethungry you can eat. Just as mainstream folks are advised not toovereat, you are advised not to under-eat.

Have water with you, always! You can get “behind” on eatingwithout any ill-effects, not so with drinking.

No eating past ## PM even if hungry (the time is based on whenyou go to sleep so that you don’t go to bed with food still in yourstomach).

No eating if upset even if hungry

Make time every day for relaxation regardless of the “To Do” list ordeadlines

Use of white noise device, hot soaks, artificial sunset when going tosleep… you need to be relaxed and ready to fall asleep when going to bed

No crazy jam-packed schedule on a regular basis

If the water heater breaks, find the money to throw at it and forgetabout it, don’t agonize over it.

You AND the kids come first versus kids first, you second



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No rushing around; if it doesn’t get done in time, it doesn’t meanyou didn’t rush enough. It means you’re scheduling too much in aday.

An eye towards minimal drama

“My 12-year-old never liked cow’s milk and has grown up

drinking rice milk. But all of her friends’ moms say she should

have drunk more (cow’s) milk to get taller like her friends (she is

just 4’11’’). Now I feel lucky she didn’t drink cow’s milk! Still,

I’ve been putting regular chocolate milk in her lunch every day

for the past two years. I guess I should stop that, but if so, what

should I give her to drink at lunch?”

Most, if not all drinks that are sold in health food stores are pasteurized, so they contain no bioavailable nutrition… they aremerely tasty liquids. And since it is unwise and not health-promotingto drink any liquid with a meal, this would lead one to realize thatwater is our body’s drink of choice, and optimally should be

consumed between meals. Also considering that most of what humansare supposed to eat are medium to high water content foods, wewould get a lot of our hydration needs met from the foods we eat. Butin warm/hot weather, some water should be consumed too. Therecommendation to drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day ismeant for those eating a low to no water content diet. What it meansis that we should get at least about 64 ounces of water a day, and ifyou’re getting that from water-rich foods (most fruits and vegetables),very little water, as water, is needed to be consumed (unless it’s veryhot out and you’re sweating).

If it were me, I’d send my kids to school (or anywhere for that matter)with some water to drink when they’re thirsty. The practice ofdrinking with a meal as a matter of habit is to be discouraged. Itwaters down the digestive juices which interferes with digestion. Yes,

if one is eating potato chips, one would naturally want to drink water because our body needs water to make that meal a medium to highwater content meal, which is what we’re designed to eat, and to diluteany salt that is on those chips (that kind of salt is a poison and the



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body will draw water out of its tissues to dilute a poison thusdehydrating us and making us thirsty).

And if you include high water content foods (like fruit), she won’tfeel the need to drink as much as if there are low or no water content

foods in her lunch bag.

On the matter of “taller”, how does being taller than what we’redesigned to be serve us? Men used to be an average of 5’5”. Todayit’s 5’9” (and rising). How does this serve us? It doesn’t. Theseincreases, along with increases in cancer, are attributed to the growthhormones (both naturally occurring and the ones added to animals)that our society ingests.

If one of her taller friends visited a planet where no one ate animal products and everyone was shorter that those in this country, shewould look very out of place, and your daughter would fit right in. Sothis height thing is relative. And the standard “normal” height/weightcharts for kids is simply being restructured to allow for the increasedgrowth (both vertically and horizontally) of today’s children who

consume more animal and less fruits and vegetables than kids didmany decades ago (and thanks to computers, Play Stations, and hand-held devices they are spending far more time sitting on their butts andfar less time being active).

And by-the-way, if the chocolate milk you referred to is cow’s milk…well, do read the articles here…

Want Osteoporosis? Drink Chocolate Milkwww.Health101.org/bookmark#31

Early Sexual Maturity and Milk Hormoneswww.Health101.org/bookmark#32

Milk Industry Admits That Milk Made Japanese Kids Grow Tallerwww.Health101.org/bookmark#33



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“I see now that cell phones should not be held against the head. So

what are the safe ways to use cell phones?”

Knowing what I know about RF energy and cell phones (I have builtmy own transmitters and am well versed in RF wave propagation), I

would never hold a cell phone to my head, even for a “short call” assome do. And it sounds like you have gotten this very importantmessage.

I use the cell phone’s speakerphone if I can, laying the phone downon something while I talk. And I also use a wired earpiece but I’mcareful not to clip the phone to my belt or to put it in my pocket whiletalking (for the same reason you don’t want to hold it against your

head). When I’m using the wired earpiece, if I can lay the phonedown on something while talking, I do. If I must walk while talking,I’ve attached a strap to the cell phone’s vinyl case, and I let the phonedangle from my hand while speaking. It may look “weird” but I don’tcare, my health is more important than how something looks.

Even a Bluetooth device is a safe alternative to holding the phone toyour head. Yes, the Bluetooth earpiece is a wireless device, but it is

nowhere near as powerful as a cell phone. The waves from aBluetooth earpiece do not penetrate the skull, whereas the waves froma cell phone do. (The Bluetooth device in your ear needs to only be powerful enough to reach the phone, not some cell tower miles away.)

Not holding a cell phone to one’s head is a tough one because we’ve been used to decades of holding a phone that way with the wired phones and short-range cordless phones. But that doesn’t take away

from the fact that cell phones are hazardous to our health when we usethem as we’ve always used phones.

And to those who say, “If cell phones were really that dangerous, ourgovernment would warn us”, well, governments don’t warn us aboutthe hazards of a lot of things like pasteurized cow products, cookingfood in a microwave, and cooking food at all, so we shouldn’t look toagencies that are in collusion with industries for safety info. “Let the

buyer beware” applies to everything, including cell phones.There are some articles on cell phones on the www.Health101.org website,and it’s the lead article at www.Health101.org/bookmark#29



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“I’m having a problem eating enough fruit to get the calories I

need, I just feel so stuffed after a few bananas.”

Did you ever see a little baby after chowing down? Big stomach!Almost looks overweight if you just look at the belly. But an hour

later, small stomach! This is stomach elasticity in action. But as withmost things we’re able to do, if you don’t use it, you lose it. So afterdecades of eating calorically dense, low fiber, low water contentfoods which don’t require stomach elasticity (except one day a year atThanksgiving), you lose that ability. So when you adopt a diet offoods that are not as calorically dense, you’ll get a “I’m stuffed”feeling before you get a “stop eating” signal. This can make it achallenge to consume enough calories. So what happens when

calories in are less than calories out ? You’ll lose weight. And that’sfine if you’ve got some weight to lose, but eventually you won’t. Thehope is, by then you’ll have regained enough stomach elasticity toconsume enough calories. But if you’re already at your ideal weight,here are some tips to help you get to the point where you can eatenough fruit at a sitting…

1. When you’ve “eaten your fill” of a particular fruit, have a little

more.

2. Be more active. You’ll require more calories, and therefore you’llneed to eat more often and thus have more opportunities to “have alittle more”.

3. Sit up straight when eating.

4. Don’t eat quickly; the slower you eat, the easier it is to eat morefood at a meal.

5. Chew each mouthful really well; don’t be in a rush to swallow…eating is not a race. You can fit more food into your stomach if youchew it well enough. This is why people who can’t eat ten bananas,can eat them if they are blended into a smoothie.

When I first started eating an all-fruit diet, I wasn’t able to eat ten bananas. Now it’s no problem to have a “banana belly” for a while



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after eating a meal of bananas (but it doesn’t look that pronounced ifyou have good abs).

Another possible reason for not being able to get enough caloriesfrom a high fruit diet is eating unripe fruit. Eating fruit before it’s ripe

is counterproductive because the sugar (your natural fuel) is not asabundant as it would be if the fruit was fully ripe. So if you’re eatinga lot of your fruit unripe and eating until “full” you may be under-eating on fuel, and this could be another reason for “I can’t eatenough fruit to fulfill my needs”. I show people how to make bananaice cream, and many people who try making it tell me it didn’t comeout like mine, which sounds weird because the recipe is just bananas.It turns out the reason theirs didn’t taste good was because they werefreezing unripe bananas. When you consider that many restaurantsserve unripe fruit, it’s not hard to see why the average person doesn’tknow what ripe fruit really is. If bananas are a staple of your diet, readthe “banana page” at www.Health101.org/bookmark#34 for the scoop onripe bananas.

Eating the diet nature intended is very different from the way we’re

used to eating. We’re used to being able to just reach into a cabinet orfridge when we’re hungry and pull out something to eat. Maybe wehave to pop it in the microwave, but eating is immediate, and the foodmost people eat is at the ready, always. And if they run out of ready-to-eat food at home, usually within a mile’s drive there is food that isfast (aka fast food). When we make the foods of our physiologicaldesign the only foods we eat, there’s a learning curve because thesefoods, when purchased from a store, are often not like the foods of the

typical Western diet which can always be consumed immediately.Some natural foods can be eaten as soon as you buy them, like apples,oranges, cucumbers, and lettuce, but most of the foods that make up ahealthy human diet must ripen first, so they must be bought inadvance of eating, like bananas.

So to make sure you always have ripe bananas to eat, always have plenty of bananas in stock in your home. Yes, sometimes some may

ripen beyond edibility (especially in the hot weather), and need to becomposted or trashed, likewise for other foods that need to ripen athome, but this just comes with the territory. By using the fridge and



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warm places in your home you can slow down and speed up theripening process. I’ve known people who put bananas on all the stepsof the staircase that leads up to the second floor of their home becausethere’s a temperature difference between the first and second floor,and the bananas will ripen at different rates on the different steps.

Other people, in the winter, put some in a closet or bathroom and usetheir dehydrator to make that a “warming room” for their fruit thatneeds ripening.

“What are some ‘tells’ I and others can look for in people who

may be ‘brought around’ in the future?”

Firstly, those who attack whatever you say are not attacking you perse, they’re just defending their way of life; no one likes to have their boat rocked, and if you say things that they perceive as acondemnation of their lifestyle practices or beliefs, they willsometimes lash out and shoot the messenger. To these people, all youcan do is set a good example and let them witness youraccomplishments and improvements.

Here now are the other types of people who are able to “hear” amessage that implies a healthier life.

1. They will ask questions

Here you’ve got to determine what type of question it is. “Where doyou get your protein from?” can be asked for two reasons: a) they aregenuinely curious, or b) they’re looking for you to answer “I don’t

know” because they don’t believe you can get enough protein from afruit and leafy greens diet… or they don’t want to believe you can.You can immediately tell if this was their reason for asking becausethey will either attack your answer or dismiss it out-of-hand with a“oh you don’t know what you’re talking about” or “I don’t believethat” kind of remark.

If they seem genuinely interested in the information, resist the urge to

“lay it on ‘em” or you could blow them away if they think “this is toomuch to have to know”… after all, you didn’t learn it all in tenminutes, so you don’t want them to feel that this is how they must



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learn it. If you can structure what you say in such a way as to get themasking questions, this is the best way to help guide them onto ahealth-creation path. Instead of trying to explain things in detail,which could turn them off, explain just enough to make it obvious thatyou are well educated on the subject, and that you know what you’re

talking about, and then offer to send them “more information” (thatthey can then digest at their pace). You could even take the approach,“Yuh know, Don Bennett wrote a great book on this very subject, andhe explains it a lot better than I can, I’ll lend it to you.”

Another way to get someone who seems interested to read some goodinfo is to say, “I just read a great book on all this, and I value youropinion on things, would you read it and tell me what you think ofit?” People love having their opinions valued, so this is a great way toget a family member to find out more (because even if you’re anacknowledged expert, family members often only see you as “cousinDon”, or as just their brother, or someone who used to be this goofykid, so what could you possibly know about anything).

2. They’ll be the quiet ones

In a group of people where some are attacking your statements, theones who are open to what you’re saying are usually the quiet oneswho say nothing, but who may come up to you later (when no oneelse is around) and ask a question.

3. Eye-opening events

People who’ve seen first hand what certain lifestyle practices can do

to a person because they just lost a family member or close friend tocancer/heart attack/etc can be made to see this as a wake-up call forthemselves if you can “connect the dots” in a way they canunderstand.

4. People who are trying something

When someone joins a gym or Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers, or

someone buys a “curative” product online, this can mean that theyhave become aware that they’ve got to do something about the path-to-ill-health they’re on, and they may be open to hearing about betterways to accomplish their goals.



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5. They see your improvement

People who respond to your noticeable improvements, even with justa “hey, that’s great” (that you no longer need to wear glasses or needto take a medication), can often become open to hearing about how

what you’re doing can improve their lives.

6. People who respond to injustices

People who get fired up when hearing about how some company orindustry is harming others with their deceitful practices are often opento hearing about how their health and quality-of-life is being stolenfrom them without their knowledge or consent (consent in the way anadult cigarette smoker who has no intention of quitting continues tosmoke knowing the danger). It may be tough for these people to hearabout how the dairy industry knows full-well that dairy productsactually cause osteoporosis because they may love their cheese. But ifyou offer a lifeline in the way of non-dairy cheeses such as nut andseed cheese (not soy cheese), they may calm down enough internallyto embrace the info. (And by-the-way, I don’t call nut cheese oralmond milk or banana ice cream “alternatives” or a “health food

version”, I just say “a cheese that doesn’t cause osteoporosis ordiabetes”. And when they ask “what kind’a cheese is that”, youanswer, “nut and seed cheese” in a way that suggests that many people know about nut and seed cheeses. And when they say, “nutand seed cheese?” you say, “Oh yeah, you don’t know about nut andseed cheeses?” If they feel what you’re suggesting is embraced byother people in some way, they are more likely to consider it.

Yes, some of the above techniques may seem more like tactics, andmay resemble the mind games salespeople use to win over people, butyour motives are very different. And if it takes a tactic to get someoneto consider adjusting their lifestyle practices so that they willexperience improved health, I’m reasonably sure they will thank youone day for caring enough to do so.



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“When I make a banana smoothie from bananas that came from

my fridge, they’re still too cold, and I like my smoothies at room

temperature, so can I simply keep blending in my Vitamix until

the mixture warms up to room temp?”

It’s far better to let the blended mixture sit so it gets more towardsroom temp, and here’s why. First, even if you place your hand on ahot frying pan only for a split second there’s damage. Second, keep inmind this term: “heat of friction”; if you rub your two hands together,fast and hard, you can experience this. Third, we know that if you putwater into a Vitamix and run it long enough, it will boil. And fourth,if the temperature of the ingredients that are going into the blender is75 degrees, and after blending the mixture is 79 degrees, you might be

tempted to think “no big deal”, but read on. When a part of themixture in the blender is pulled down and comes in contact with aVitamix’s blades, the temperature of that part of the mixture can goway above 79 degrees for a brief moment in time due to the heat offriction, but it then moves away from the blades and circulates and“gives up” that high heat to the rest of the mixture that is not at the blades, in-other-words the temperature of the mixture is an averagetemperature except at the point of contact with the blades.

Fascinating, huh! So the million dollar question is: How high doesthat temperature get at the blades. Unfortunately I can’t say with anydegree of certainty. So since I apply one of my favorite philosophiesto this issue, better to be safe than sorry, I opt for pulsing (or if youhave a blender with a variable speed, use a slow speed), and then ifthe blended mixture is still too cold, I’ll hand stir it as I let it standuntil it’s the temperature I like. And in order to do as little blending as possible, I’ll pulse a smoothie, stop, use the Vitamix’s tamper to pushdown the unblended stuff at the top, pulse, repeat. Yes, this is morework than simply turning on the blender and letting ‘er rip, but I valuethe nutritional quality of my food too much to damage it in any way.(And I didn’t discuss the oxygenation effect that high speed whirling blades have on the mixture; it’s good for your lungs to oxygenateyour body, but oxygenating your food damages nutrients.)

“What would you consider to be ‘detoxing requirements’?”

While “detoxing” you should be mindful to get the following:



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1. Enough hydration.You should be going to the bathroom 6 to 8 times in a 24 hour period.And waking up to go once or twice is normal and does not adverselyaffect your sleep (or nerve energy replenishment).

2. Enough sleep.This is an often overlooked aspect of detox. When you wake up in themorning, if you can fall back to sleep, you didn’t get enough Phase 4sleep, and since Phase 4 sleep is critical for detox, healing, and robusthealth, you need to look at the reason(s) why. It may just be you needto go to bed earlier, or there could be reasons your Phase 4 sleep wasdisturbed (eating too close to bedtime).

3. Enough physical activity for enough lymphatic movement.Your lymph system is responsible for ushering out of your body thewaste products of cellular metabolism and formerly stored toxins thatare becoming systemic due to any fat weight loss. Unlike yourcardiovascular system which has a heart to pump its fluid, your lymphsystem only moves when you do, especially from up and downmotion. See www.Health101.org/bookmark#35 andwww.

Health101.org/bookmark#21 to learn what are the best activities forthis, and are not energy intensive (which can be a good thing if youare inadvertently under-eating on fruit or your body is wanting you torest).

The kind of physical activity that can change body shape (due toimproved muscle tone) is different than the above “lymphaticexercise”. You can read about a healthy way to improve your overall

physical fitness at www.


“Thanks to you and your colleagues, I have a lot of education

now, but I feel that I’d benefit from some motivational knowledge

too.”

There are certainly tons of testimonials which you would no doubt

find inspiring. You can find them on many of our websites and insome of our books. But I’ll share one of my favorite stories.



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Dave (not his real name) had been eating the typical Western diet,then adopted the healthiest of diets (and other lifestyle practices). Fastforward two years. Dave went to Connie’s annual Labor Day party.Dave had always loved Connie’s burgers, and although Connie wasn’ttrying to tempt him with one (Connie was a supportive friend), Dave

wanted to experience that wonderful taste “for old times sake” so hesaid to me, “I’ll just have a half of one” looking to me for approval. Isaid, “Hey, you’re an adult, and I’m not the food police, you can dowhatever you want.” He then said, “Maybe just a bite then” againlooking at me. He snuck a burger, and came back over, and with alook of anticipatory glee on his face, took a bite. I wish you couldhave seen his face; it changed from “Man-oh-man this is gonna tastesooooo good” to “Oh my God, this is yuk!” The experience he hadremembered and was expecting, wasn’t there. Why? His vastlyimproved health, besides affecting his liver, thyroid, and lungs alsoaffected his taste buds (because all your cells improve when yourhealth improves). Plus, I’m sure there had to be an instant comparisonmade with what he had been eating for the last two years(scrumptious tropical fruits) and garnished dead animal muscle didn’tstand a chance.

I then asked him, “Looking forward to another bite?” and his answerwas a decided ‘no’.

This just goes to show that what we expect to experience from these“wonderful” things are just in our mind. So now Dave no longerdaydreams of Connie’s delicious burgers. And take my word for it,after a goodly amount of time of not using a particular “shift in

experience” substance, and after your health has improved, there’ll beno point in having “missing it” thoughts because it won’t be the sameexperience.

Think of Dave if you ever start thinking longingly of having another bite, hit or drink.

“How best to get back on track after falling off the wagon?”

You asked what is the best way to get back on track. In myexperience, here’s what works best for most people:



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First the “foundational” stuff.

1. It is critical that you believe you can do it. That there is no reasonin the world that you can’t. There is only can.

2. It is important that you take time, every day, to visualize andimagine what your life will be like five years from now. This is thekind of self-fulfilling prophecy that works for you.

3. I know people talk about not “dwelling on the negative”, but I believe it’s important to think about reality regardless of whether itcan be categorized as negative or positive. And that reality is: withevery cigarette someone smokes, with every hamburger or dish ofdairy ice cream or bowl of pasta that someone eats, there are hugeindustries that smile from ear-to-ear, which includes themedical/pharmaceutical industries. These industries take advantage ofthe public, for the sake of corporate profit, at the expense of people’shealth. Yes, it’s unintentional, but it is never-the-less real. And it’simportant that you decide if you’re going to be one of those peoplewho are taken advantage of. And if I were to ask you point blank, I

know what your answer would be, but to be successful in your journey to a healthier you, you need to not only know what thatanswer is, but to live that answer every day. This doesn’t mean therewon’t be some “two steps forward, one step back” every now andthen, but those will serve as learning experiences, so there will besomething to be gained from it.

Okay, now for the “nuts ‘n bolts” of it…

4. A fast is best for doing a physiological “reset”. No doubt about it.But it isn’t necessary (unless you need to fast to resolve something);you can get back on track and stay there without fasting. One of thereasons a fast is great is because there are no eating decisions tomake. So if you’re going to have to make eating decisions, here’swhat’s important:

A) Be educated. It’s said that a confused mind always keeps thestatus quo, so if you’re trying to change to a new quo, you need tounderstand not just that it’s the best thing to do, but why it’s the best



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thing to do. As you’re no doubt aware, there is a lot of contradictoryinformation out there, even among the raw food community. Ah,human nature, gotta love it!

B) Understand why you may find it a battle to do what you want to

do. Recognize that for a while you will have a voice on one shoulderand another voice on the other shoulder, and they will be polaropposites of each other. Understand that they are both you, but thatone is the wise you, and the other is the result of sociological programming… programming that wasn’t in your best interest. Learnhow to deal with the “old guard” that is essentially the product ofindustry but is empowered by very primal human characteristics(want, the desire not to be denied anything, pleasure, etc).

C) Get support! It’s a rare person that can make this transitionsmoothly all by him or herself. Fortunately there is tons of supportnow-a-days. This wasn’t so two decades ago. Join an online raw foodforum or a local raw food group, watch DVDs about the path you’reon, and read the testimonials of those who are where you want to be.

5. Find foods that are a treat for you, and eat plenty of them. For me it

was papaya, mango, and durian, and I’d make sure to always havethose around.

6. Understand that your body requires food for two reasons (see thesetwo short videos: www.Health101.org/bookmark#9 andwww.Health101.org/bookmark#12 ). The point of item number six is that itis possible to get cravings for food even though you are eating enoughcalories. Know that all your organs, including adrenals, require

certain nutrients to be at their best, and obviously to regain lostfunctionality.

7. When regaining lost health and vitality, get plenty of deep sleep(not just sleep). This may mean going to bed earlier than usual. Dialdown the lights very low an hour before you get into bed, and duringthat hour, absolutely no bright lights of any kind even for a second. Ifyou have to use a tiny flashlight to see something, that’s preferable to

turning on a room light, even for a few seconds. This all has to dowith melatonin production which is needed for getting to sleep in atimely manner, and for deep sleep.



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8. Be mindful to keep the fat content of your diet waaaay down (under10% of total calories). In fact it won’t hurt you to avoid overt fats likenuts and avocados for a while to make sure you’re not taxing your pancreas, which can, in turn, tax your adrenals which, for most people, are in need of a rest.

9. This brings me to state of mind. It’s important to keep a positiveand lighthearted attitude. There is really nothing magical about a positive attitude, it’s just that when you are in a positive frame ofmind, what are you not in? Right! A negative frame of mind. And anegative attitude is counterproductive to your health-creation efforts.So read only funny books (besides the educational ones) and watchonly funny movies. And hang around people who make you laugh,not around people who see your lifestyle changes as a condemnationof their own lifestyle habits so they attack yours in an effort to bringyou back to “their team”.

10. Look for opportunities to pat yourself on the back. What you’retrying to do may be simple as concepts go, but it’s not necessarilyeasy at first. So when you clear a particular hurdle, acknowledge each

little success. And know that it does get easier with time.

“How do you use clove oil as a mouthwash?”

Mix a little less than one teaspoon of clove oil with 8 ounces of waterin a 10 ounce container (so that you can shake it up well). Shake this before each use (the oil and water will separate when sitting on theshelf). Put some in your mouth along with a little air so that there can be agitation as you swish the mouthwash around in your mouth(picture a front-loading washing machine trying to wash clothes if it is100% full of water… it can’t unless there is some air in there too).

If you rinse too long, it will start to lightly sting the soft tissues of themouth (inside of cheeks), and certainly end the swishing then. Youwill likely notice that after spitting out the mouthwash, your mouth

may salivate a little; remain at the sink and spit this out. This isnormal (it is in response to the antiseptic properties of the clove oil).



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Do not rinse your mouth with water afterwards. In fact, you shouldnot ingest anything after this mouth washing… it should be the verylast thing you do before bed.

“Any advice for how to stop smoking weed and drinking booze?”

If this is of any help, here is what I’ve observed from those I’vecounseled over the years. When someone isn’t in the best of health,using things like pot or wine brings them up from a 3 to a 6 so theyfeel better, and thus are understandably drawn to continue the practice(after all, we all want to feel good). But when you improve yourhealth to the extent where you take it from a 3 to a 9 or even 10, then

when you smoke or drink, those things still take you to the same placeas before, except now, you’re going down to 6 instead of going up toit. What all this is saying is that when your health improvesdramatically, you won’t enjoy those things you used to enjoy, and itwill not be hard to stop, in fact, you’ll probably just stop for thesimple reason that it isn’t enjoyable anymore. True, for this to happen,your health has to improve much above that point where the drugsused to take you, and continuing to use them will make this process

take longer than it has to, so if you can “just say no” and stop coldturkey, and deal with the detox (if any), that would more quickly getyou to a number higher than where the drugs used to take you.

And when you’re up at 10, that’s when you get to be “high on life”…how’s that for a great incentive to create vibrant health!

Here’s another observation. In some of my lectures, I ask theaudience, “By a show of hands, who here likes to be taken advantageof?” No one ever raises their hand. And I’d imagine that if I askedyou the same question, you wouldn’t either. I ask this in a lecture because I’m about to talk about the dairy industry, but the same thingapplies here. So when you’re thinking about the wonderful feelingyou could get from drinking beer, wine, or liquor, or from smoking pot or a cigarette (or from taking a pain med for that matter), think

also about how you’re being taken advantage of, for the sake of profit,at the expense of your health… the most precious and valuable thingyou have! I mention this because it has helped people “kick the



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habit”; it does this by evoking a strong emotion, which can be a greatfacilitator.

“You mentioned that smoothies have a downside; what’s the

downside? I’ve been eating a lot of smoothies (it’s the only way I

can get in enough bananas) and I didn’t know there WAS a

downside!”

When there is no equivalent in Nature of something we do, we needto think about it to determine if there are any downsides… if we justfocus on the upsides, that does not take all things into consideration,and is not a balanced approach. Since there is no equivalent of a

smoothie in Nature, we should give it some considered thought.

1. The normal process of eating the things that would go into asmoothie involves chewing. Chewing starts the production ofdigestive “juices”. When there is no chewing, digestion takes a hit.

2. Normal eating also mixes saliva with what we’re chewing, andsaliva plays a part in starch and fat digestion; if you drink down a

smoothie as some people do, digestion will take a hit for that reason.

3. A blender allows us to easily mix together multiple items; indeed italmost invites us to do so. Yet in Nature what we send down to ourstomach would not consist of a “pre-mixed” mixture of different fooditems. This short-changes the ability to utilize your brain’s foodcomposition database which can give you an appetite for specificfoods depending on the body’s needs. But more importantly, a blender can allow you to mix together items that are not a goodcombination from a digestive perspective; if you ate those itemsseparately, digestion would be easier, and you’d get more out of them,nutritionally speaking.

So this is what I recommend when consuming a smoothie:

1. Take a bite of the items you’re putting in the blender so you canchew them and get digestive juices flowing.



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2. Every mouthful of smoothie should get to spend some time in yourmouth before being swallowed. When consuming banana smoothiewhere you purposefully swish it around in your mouth for about thesame amount of time as you would if you had taken that mouthful of awhole banana, the chewing will be a chewing reflex, it won’t be

something you need to think about doing. And you’ll find thisautomatic chewing won’t be forceful, it will be more like “token”chewing, just enough force that the part of your brain that senseschewing sees that you’re chewing something (a different part of your brain is actually controlling your jaw muscles… don’t ask me whythose two parts can’t simply talk to each other directly, but theydon’t).

3. Mix items that combine well together. The food that combines bestwith a banana is… another banana! But seriously, there are foodmiscombining guides, like the ones in Ellen Livingston’s book thatmake it clear what not to mix with what. (Her book is The Ultimate

Raw Food Diet Detox and Wellness Program www.Health101.org/bookmark#36 )

And one of the reasons people can get more bananas in their stomachvia a smoothie versus eating them whole is that they don’t chew the bananas well enough. Have you ever noticed how the chunks of bananas that sit in the blender prior to blending can come right up tothe top of the container, but after blending, the container is only alittle more than half full? Now of course there is no way to chew amouthful of banana into a consistency that a blender would produce, but most people could get closer to it by chewing longer, and thus

they would be doing a lot of natural chewing and saliva mixing whichthey’d miss by drinking down a smoothie.

One trick to making sure you chew your smoothie is to chop up somecelery into small pieces, and add them to your smoothie after it’s blended.

And some people report that they have better digestion of a banana

meal when they eat it whole (with good chewing) versus consuming it blended.



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Lastly, since fruits are not as calorically dense as other foods becauseof their relatively high water content, and one of your goals should betaking in enough calories, the last thing you want to do is to waterdown a smoothie. If you do, and you consume your fill, you’ll not beable to take in as many calories as if you ate your fill of a smoothie

where no water was added. Granted, some smoothies need somewater to be able to blend, but ripe bananas should not need water tomake a smoothie.

“I am anywhere from 80 to 90 percent low-fat, raw, vegan. I have

2-4 cooked vegan dinners a week, and one of those is usually out

at a restaurant. I don’t know why I haven’t transitioned

completely. My family is accepting of me eating cooked, vegan

dinners, but that’s it. Any tips as far as being able to get to 100%

raw without feeling like the odd man out during our family

dinners?”

There are reasons why people hold on to pieces of their old ways andhold themselves back from transitioning fully. Not wanting to be seenas detaching from friends and family is one such reason. But know

that those who truly care about you and love you will support you.Sure, you can share with them printed information or videos, but oftenthose closest to you won’t be convinced by you, because it’s… you.I’ve been researching health issues for over 30 years, eating an all rawvegan low-fat diet for 20 years, and have been counseling peoplehelping them get rid of diabetes, asthma, chronic fatigue, and a host ofother conditions, and yet my own family and close friends (from my pre-LFRV days) don’t seek my counsel for their health problems. Butat the same time they support what I’m doing for myself.

You know in your heart that your family cares about you. They wantthe best for you. So even if they’re not convinced that what you’redoing is best for you, you know it is. So have confidence in yourself,in your decisions, and in your abilities, and your family will come tosupport you, and as long as you don’t preach, they will not feel that

what you’re doing is a condemnation of their lifestyles. Andtherefore, at dinner, even though you’re eating “your food”, you’renevertheless one of the family from their perspective. And if in reality



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they’re okay with what you’re doing, but you feel they’re not, that’ssomething you’ve got to get over so that you can move forward.

And think of this: When your family goes out to a restaurant, doeseveryone order the same thing? No. Most are eating something

“different” from one another. So what’s the big deal if you do thesame. I can eat in almost any restaurant, and the ones I’d have a toughtime with are the ones my family will not choose if I’m dining withthem. Just as if one of my family members were allergic to seafood,we’d all agree not to go to a seafood restaurant.

Friends can be a different story. In my “travels” I’ve lost the friendsthat I needed losing and I made new ones along the way. But evenwhen going out with “old” friends to a restaurant where’s there’snothing for me to eat, I simply bring in my own food and happilymunch away; I’m not there for the eating experience, I’m there for thecompany (and that should be seen as a compliment by those you go torestaurants with). It is (hopefully) rare that an eatery would havenothing you can eat, but if it happens, you can still socialize and betrue to yourself at the same time.

This diet and lifestyle is not for everyone. But if it’s for you, likeanything else, you should go for it! Once begun is only half done, and,anything worth doing is worth doing well . The sooner you give your body everything it needs, and the sooner you stop giving it what itdoesn’t want, the sooner it can catch up with any healing that it hadgotten behind in.

“I believe that you can, by taking some simple and

inexpensive measures, extend your life and your

years of well-being. My most important

recommendation is that you take vitamins every day

in optimum amounts, to supplement the vitamins

you receive in your food.” – Linus Pauling, Ph.D.,Two-time Nobel Prize Laureate



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16. Perspective

“What can my son do to get rid of his skin conditions? He is

allergic to milk, soy, and grain products.”

Since I have very limited information about your son, I can onlyspeak in generalities, but fortunately what I will suggest applies tomost maladies and to most people.

Firstly, there is no such thing as having an allergy to wheat, soy,cow’s milk products, etc. If you ate a bar of soap, and had a badreaction to it, would you conclude that you are allergic to soap? No,

you wouldn’t, because you know that soap is not a normal, natural part of the human dietary. So why when we consume other substancesthat are also not meant to be eaten by humans, and we have a badreaction to them, do we conclude that this is an abnormal responseand is something to be treated, when in reality it is a very naturalresponse, and is a good thing; if you consume something that you arenot meant to consume, and it is bad for you in some respect, wouldn’tyou want your body to let you know? The wise answer is ‘yes’, but

some people who enjoy consuming things that are not healthy forthem would like to be able to do this and not have their body react inan uncomfortable way, because they want to be able to eat burgers orice cream or drink alcoholic beverages and not have “alarm bells”interfering with their enjoyment. But if you don’t know thatsomething is an unnatural part of the human diet, it is understandablethat you would think you are simply allergic to it if it elicits a badreaction.

So your son may have “food allergies” according to commonly held beliefs and standards, but in reality he does not. In the case of nuts orthings he should be able to eat without a problem, if he does react badly, it is due to an oversensitivity and not because he is “allergic”.This is not merely semantics, because “allergies” are dealt with bytreating the person, and hypersensitivity is dealt with by bringing the body back into a normal state of operation utilizing natural methods;methods that square with Nature and with the human body’s designand requirements.



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In my practice, I have seen what some would term “miraculous”reversals of many conditions that the common notion would dictateare meant to be dealt with medically and/or pharmacologically, yetneither were responsible for the condition’s departure. If your car isdesigned to run on 91 octane gas, and you’ve been using 87 octane

since you bought it, and in an effort to get it to stop running badly youtry putting in 91 octane gas, and it then runs great, would you say,“that’s amazing!” or “it’s a miracle!”. No, you wouldn’t, because allyou’ve done is to give the engine what it was designed to run on inthe first place. What I think of as amazing is the ability of the human body to be burdened with cigarettes, liquor, pesticides, toxicchemicals, insufficient sleep and physical activity, and food that itwas never meant to eat, and it can keep going for 72 years… nowthat’s amazing! But imagine the condition of that same body if itsowner had not smoked, or drank, and had known what his bodywanted and needed and had respected that; there probably would have been at least another 20 years of life, and more important, a betterquality of life, especially in the last one-fifth of life.

But as to your son’s possible nutrient inadequacy, if he has one, it is

not due to not consuming dairy, wheat, or meat products. People whodo eat those items are: 1. Very often nutrient deficient because theymust cook what they eat and cooking damages or totally destroysmany nutrients, and 2. People who transition from an animal-baseddiet to a plant-based diet improve their health (eventually) across the board (regardless of blood type, body type, or hair color). So if thereare any nutrient deficiencies, they are most likely due to not eatingenough of what he should be eating, and also there’s the distinct

possibility of not enough vitamins D and B12 which do not comefrom food (and have a lot to do with healthy skin). And if what he has been eating interferes with nutrient absorption and burdens thedigestive system, this then is another possible reason for hisconditions.

So what I would do if I were in your son’s shoes, is stop doing thethings that cause these problems in the first place (and these are

known, they are just not common knowledge), and stop doing thethings that burden the body’s ability to deal with what it knows iswrong (which are the same things), and to start doing those things that



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support the body’s efforts at healing. The things in these STOP andSTART categories are covered in detail in my first book, but let itsuffice to say that if your son starts living in accordance with his bio- physiological requirements, and starts respecting his body, there is noreason why his conditions wouldn’t go away (regardless of any so-

called genetic predispositions).

“We don’t know how things we do now will affect us a decade

from now. Really, there’s no way of knowing how something new

will affect us. There are hundreds of examples of disastrous

results – one I can think of off the top of my head is that medicine

(some strange name which I can’t remember) was being given to

pregnant women to fight morning sickness and it caused

deformities in children! So when you sound so sure that the

approaches to health that you recommend will result in improved

health, don’t you sound the same as those TV commercials for

pharmaceuticals?”

I do! The difference is this: What is at the heart of my motivation forsaying what I am saying is very different from what is at the heart of

the pharmaceutical industry’s motivation for saying what they aresaying. They are trying to sell something to you, while I am trying tosell you on an idea; the idea that robust health is a possibility, and ifyou’re doing what needs to be done to achieve it, a probability. Andmore specially, they are trying to convince you to manage ill-healthwith their products, and I am trying to convince you that you canreplace ill-health with robust health with knowledge. (And yes, I have products too, but they support health caring, not ill-healthmanagement.)

To your point about pharmaceuticals: The disastrous effects fromdrugs are often not realized until millions of people have beennegatively affected by them. But pharmaceuticals are not natural tothe human body; they are at the opposite end of the “health-care”spectrum. And accordingly, the long term effects of those things that

we can do to positively affect our health – that are in line with Nature – are far more knowable than those things that are unnatural, like anew drug or chemical food additive. My point is that it is known whataffect natural practices have on the human body, it is just not common



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knowledge. And that’s why, with so many choices (most bad, a fewgood), it is crucial to be educated on health creation and diseaseavoidance issues. This realization is what initially put me on the pathto finding out about all this, and thirty years later, I had discovered alot about health, and about how human nature can be subverted to the

point where we’re not in touch with our natural instinctive desire to be healthy, because our culture has no model of what robust health isanymore.

“Did you have health issues before making the lifestyle

improvements you’ve made?”

None that I was aware of, but as I am always quick to point out, just because you may not be aware of a serious condition when youmodify your diet and lifestyle practices to vector towards improvedhealth, doesn’t mean you weren’t five or ten years away from adiagnosis of something serious. So someone in my position may neverknow if they “dodged a bullet” and that’s a good thing! I can say that by inference, my body was probably dealing with something serious based on the industry I used to work in and the chemicals I was

exposed to, and based on the fact that I had a bad case of tinnitus(ringing in the ear) for ten years, and as any neurologist whospecializes in ear conditions will tell you, if you’ve had it for thatlong, with never any lessening of severity, then you will have it aslong as you live. Yet after having it for ten years consistently, it wentaway! “Unheard of!” said all the docs. But the explanation is actuallyquite simple when you think about it; tinnitus, although veryannoying, is not life threatening. And after I made many positivechanges in my lifestyle practices, my body was able to starteffectively dealing with resolving whatever serious conditions I had,and obviously would have directed all its “healing energies” to anylife threatening conditions that did exist. And after it/they wereresolved, my body was able to turn its attention to the non-lifethreatening conditions on its list, like my tinnitus (all the docs agreedthat if the body was able to heal tinnitus, it wouldn’t take ten years).

The reason the docs all said that if you’ve had it for five years (nevermind ten) it never goes away is because that is their experience; thosewith tinnitus are most probably battling serious illnesses up until theday they die, and that’s why they take tinnitus to the grave with them;



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because the body never had the opportunity to go to work on thenerve damage that causes tinnitus. Now, just because there have never been any research studies done to prove this theory, doesn’t mean thatit’s not true; it just makes sense that this is the mechanism by whichthe body heals itself. And knowing what is known about healing, this

theory is very likely true. And this is the theory of “prioritizedhealing.”

Now imagine my delight when I realized that my tinnitus was gone…not just because it had been very annoying, but because I realized theimplications regarding the possibility of having any as-of-yetundiagnosed serious conditions. A woo-whooo! moment if ever therewas one. So did I have any health issues prior to improving myhealth? Well, based on the above, probably.

“Are you just a gung-ho health nut that’s never had to face

weight or other health issues, or are you coming from an entirely

intellectual basis, or are you somewhere in the middle?”

My reasons for pursuing the health sciences were more logical than

anything else: I wanted to be as healthy as I could be, and I wanted tolive like my grandparents did (they lived to over 100 and died in theirsleep), and not like other family members who died at 65 from somehorrible illness and who had a horrible quality of life in the last one-fifth of their life. So I made those lifestyle improvements as aninvestment in my “future health” – which we all have. If people todaygave as much thought to their health investments as they do with theirfinancial investments, they’d be better off (even if they “losteverything” financially).

And although I personally did not knowingly battle any seriousconditions, I’ve counseled many people who have, and I’ve met many people who have resolved serious illnesses by adopting truly healthylifestyle practices. Some other folks also saw improvements in theirserious conditions, but did so with healthier lifestyle practices and not

with the healthiest of lifestyle practices, and these folks ultimatelydidn’t fair as well. When following something that causesimprovements, one may believe that this is “the way to go”. I am notinterested in just short term improvements, I am interested in the long



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term viability of a set of lifestyle practices, and in them giving you thebest odds of living a long life with robust health and vibrant spirit.That is why I do what I do. Initially it was for self-centered reasons, but now, knowing what I know and seeing what I’ve seen, my passionhas become making what I’ve learned available to others for their

consideration and benefit.

“We are all individuals and everybody is different. Don’t our

differences depend very much on which part of this globe we

come from and where we grew up?”

This is another popular notion, but it has no basis in science. We are

more alike than different when it comes to the design of our digestivesystems, and other physiological needs. If you look up the word“liver” in a medical dictionary you won’t see a different definition fordifferent people or for people from different parts of the world. Andas far as being designed to eat what grows in the region where I was born, if I was born on the International Space Station, what thendetermines my dietary character? If my mom had two kids, one bornat the North Pole and one born in Africa, are these two kids supposed

to eat two different diets? When we research these kinds of notionsand give them a lot of considered thought, it will be clear that theydon’t square with human physiology, biology, or anatomy.

“What is this ‘biological eco-niche’ I often see you mention?”

The definition of our “biological eco-niche” is living where we can

eat from the wild the foods of our biological adaptation, or at the veryleast, where we can grow those foods all year-round (on nutrient-dense soil) and eat exclusively of them. And the humidity of the air iswhat we’re designed to breathe (sufficient humidity), and the stressorsare way less than what we’re exposed to in our modern civilization,and where we go to sleep when it gets dark because we don’t haveelectricity to maintain artificial daylight up until the moment whenwe, ‘click’, turn off the sun, and where we’re going to be naturally

active (in the pursuit of food), etc.



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And yes, I know people who are growing for themselves some ofwhat they eat in a year, but for most who grow their own food, theyare eating only a small percentage of their total food intake from theirgarden, and very few of these foods are tropical foods. And keep inmind that although “home-grown” is better than store-bought for a

number of reasons, it is no guarantee that the food will be asnutritious as it would be if it grew in the wild. I’ve eaten some home-grown tomatoes that tasted “okay” and others that were out of thisworld. One “farmer” paid more attention to soil quality than the other.

Does eating food that you grow yourself have a positive impact onyour health? To a degree, yes. The issue is, how much of an impact? Isit enough to tip the scales in your favor regarding your goal of nevergetting a diagnosis of something serious? Owing to the percentage offood consumed by most home growers, probably not. If you’re gettingmost of your food from your own nutritious land, then probably yes.

“It’s mentioned that digestive leukocytosis is a reason for not

eating cooked food, because when you do, your white blood cell

count rises indicating that your body is fighting something. Butmy boyfriend, who’s an opponent of a raw food diet says that the

research behind digestive leukocytosis is flawed and doesn’t mean

anything. Can you shed some light here?

The phenomenon termed “digestive leukocytosis” was discovered byKouchakoff in the 1920s, but there are questions as to how his testingwas done, meaning that it can’t be taken as “positive proof” (some ofhis temperatures have been shown to be inaccurate, so his testing procedures are obviously in question. I am more impressed byempirical evidence than by someone’s tests because test results can beskewed towards a bias or can be wrong because the test was donewrong. My “normal” white blood cell count (WBC) was much higherwhen I ate cooked foods than it was when I was eating no cookedfoods at all. This same thing has been observed by others I’vecounseled, and by folks my colleagues have counseled. This says

more to me than some possibly flawed research from the '20s.

So my position is that it is the lower average WBC count that issignificant, and not the concept of digestive leukocytosis itself, but



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digestive leukocytosis is interesting in that one’s WBC rises whencooked food is consumed but not when eating raw food.

Those who bash a raw food diet and who maintain that there are nohealth damaging aspects to cooked food, as long as you don’t eat

animal products, have no answer for why one’s “standing” WBCwould be lower after a few years of eating an all-raw diet. And theywill say that until accredited scientists come out and state that a lowerWBC count (lower than the standard norms) is better than a higherone, this phenomenon along with digestive leukocytosis should not bementioned as a reason for not eating cooked food. And there’snothing, no dialog what-so-ever, that can get them to rethink theissue, so defiantly sure are they that cooked food is okay (as long asit’s not animal). This is why I am such a fan of empirical evidence –as long as one is able to correctly interpret what is observed – becauseit’s hard to argue with. But hard science – correctly interpreted – ishard to argue with too. And just because “accredited scientists”haven’t placed something on the tablet of commandments yet, doesn’tmean there isn’t anything to it.

“Your article on sleep was very helpful. But you seem to mix facts

supported by reputable studies with statements that are totally

unsupportable by any reputable studies as far as I can tell. For

example: “…ingested irritants, …and toxins (like pesticides),

…can get in the way of a good night’s rest…”. In another article,

you discuss the difference between what someone believes and

what someone knows . I would be interested in how you know that

toxins can get in the way of a good night’s sleep. (I assume you arereferring to minute quantities of toxins, not to drinking a bottle of

Drano, which I agree would probably disturb sleep).”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my 30+ years of researching,it’s that there are many things that affect our health that have never been, nor will ever likely be, researched and studied. Andunfortunately, there are many folks who will not consider any alleged

links between certain lifestyle practices and ill-health until there have been multiple, placebo-controlled, double-blind, peer-reviewedstudies on thousands of people over many decades. And I say“unfortunately” because for many of these links there will never be



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such studies done, and the lack of studies of course do notautomatically equate with “no link”.

This is why I am more a fan of empirical evidence. When this type ofinformation is scrutinized by someone with a good working

knowledge of the issues, much truth can be discerned.

The advantage of counseling many people in the ways of optimalhealth, and guiding them using the tenets of Natural Hygiene (seewww.Health101.org/bookmark#2 ) allows observations to be made such asthe acquisition of better, i.e. deeper, sleep when irritating foods areremoved from one’s diet. And in the case of lifestyle changes that are positive “in theory” because no acutely noticeable improvements can be observed, certain assumptions, based on “bio-logic”, can be madesuch as, the more immune system involvement there is, the morenervous system energy is required, and if there is an inordinateamount of immune system involvement due to exposure to toxicsubstances, which the body will always act upon, this can interferewith Phase 4 (deep) sleep. And there is usually some hard-science toconsider, such as in this case, the toxic effects from pharmaceuticals

interfering with Phase 4 sleep.

When sufficient knowledge of the workings of human physiology iscombined with some known cause-and-effect scenarios, an unbiasedmind with a passion for the truth can usually put together a lot ofthese puzzle pieces to get a very accurate picture of what’s reallygoing on. True, this line of reasoning doesn’t equate with “positive proof”, but if you inquire of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and

ask if there has ever been a positive link between cigarette smokingand lung cancer, they will tell you, ‘no’… because there hasn’t beenany, only tons of empirical evidence.

I realize the use of common sense and logic would be deemed bysome to have no place in true scientific inquiry, but I’ve found thatoften times these are the best tools at a researcher’s disposalconsidering all the junk science and loaded studies that are out there.

And when you consider that results from solid, multiple, placebo-controlled, double-blind, peer-reviewed studies can still be dismissedout-of-hand by some people (meaning there is no proof or evidence



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that they will consider), how useful is a piece of information is oftendictated more by the “wisdom level” of the end-user.

“A colleague of yours says that about 98% of all health issues

have to do with excesses and only 2% has to do with deficiencies.

You seem to disagree with this… why?”

It’s true that I don’t agree with either part of that contention, but I willalso explain why those two categories are not the best definition ofthe issue.

Animal products of any quantity degrade health. There is really no

such thing as “excess” of animal products, coffee, chocolate, cookedfood, or any harmful substance because the use of “excess” would beone end of the spectrum, the other being “none” and “everything inmoderation” in the middle. Meaning that if you consumed animalfood/coffee/alcohol not to excess, but in moderation, that would beokay from a health perspective, i.e. not harmful. And this is clearlynot so. In my earliest presentations I had said that contributing factorsto ill-health fell into two categories, DEFICIENCIES and

EXCESSES. I’ve rethought this and now say that the contributingfactors to ill-health fall into these two categories, “DEFICIENCIESOF HEALTHFUL REQUIREMENTS” and “INCLUSIONS OFUNHEALTHY SUBSTANCES & CONDITIONS” where excessescan be a sub-category. Here’s how that rethinking of the issue came to be. Someone at a talk I gave, during Q&A, said that I had describedthe deficiencies but could I mention some of the excesses. Wellthere’s obviously “excess” stress (that stress that’s unmanaged), andexcess(ive) physical activity, and overeating, but when the personasked which category cooked food and meat fit in, I realized that thecategory of EXCESSES doesn’t adequately cover all the unhealthy practices. So all I could say to try and answer the question was thatthey belonged in the DEFICIENCY category because when you eatmeals of things you aren’t designed to eat, this food crowds out otherfood that you do need for robust health, thus creating a deficiency of

healthful food in your diet. But obviously this is not a good answer,which is why I renamed those two categories.



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But more to the point: Issues of ill-health having deficiency as acausative factor accounting for only 3% has to be way too low afigure (if a figure could accurately be arrived at). Just becausesomeone corrects their diet and in so doing resolves some noticeableill-health issues, doesn’t mean that there aren’t some as of yet sub-

clinical ill-health issues due to insufficiency of, for example, D orB12 or chromium that will not begin to show until decades down theroad, long after a stretch of vastly improved health. With what is nowknown about the role of sufficient D in the prevention of cancer,osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s, skin disorders, and autoimmune diseases,how can it be said – with upwards of 95% of people deficient to somedegree in D – that only 3% of ill-health is due to deficiency.

So what I’m saying is that I do not believe it is possible to attach percentages to these two categories. But with that said, and with whatis known about nutritional deficiencies, I do not feel that of all the ill-health that is plaguing our society today, only 3% can be attributed tonutritional deficiencies (which includes D and B12 among others).

“I use Himalayan sea salt in my diet. Leafy greens are supposedto be good a good source of minerals, but it’s hard to find greens

that have enough minerals especially ones that can give us the salt

we need, so I think the salt route is a good route to take. I know

that this practice will alarm a lot of natural health people who are

opposed to this, but tell me, what’s so bad about this approach?”

No one should be alarmed that an insufficiency of a nutrient(s) mightaccount for some biological malfunctioning. But you’re correct thatcertain remedies like sea salt can be seen as “the answer” when theyare of a help with the problem even though it’s not the best answer,and that’s what some people have a problem with. And I’m nottalking about those who are philosophically opposed to allsupplements, I’m talking about folks like myself who are advocates ofthoroughly researching something which appears to have benefits to be sure that, on balance, it has more positives than negatives, and that

there is no alternative that has only the positives without any of thenegatives. [I address the salt/sodium issue on page 226.]



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“When I look in the mirror, I don’t think I look that good.

Should I adjust my diet to deal with my belly fat, or is there an

exercise I can do?”

How you look in the mirror is not just diet related, and it’s not just

exercise related, it’s both. And it also has to do with getting a goodnight’s sleep (so the added calories consumed due to your newworkout protocol to build an appropriately muscled body does not goto fattening up your fat cells). Most people are over-fatted and under-muscled; the number on the scale represents both. So paying equalattention to both is necessary when working on how you look. But inreality, the best way to look your best is to not focus on doing thingsto look a certain way, it’s focusing on doing the things necessary to

regain and maintain optimal, vibrant health… if you do that, you’llautomatically look your best.

“How does one ever figure out what is good for our bodies and

what isn’t?”

Ah, the one-thousand-dollar question. A good rule of thumb is to give

the item the “Nature Test”. If we’re talking about something to eat,can you eat it all by itself, as it appears in Nature, and find it to bedelicious. There are many so-called superfoods that are touted to begood for us, but on balance, all things considered, most are not helpfulfrom the body’s perspective. Wheatgrass juice is one such item, atleast the way its advocates recommend its use. As to its nutritional benefits, there is nothing wheatgrass juice offers that you can’t getfrom a healthful plant-based diet, and doing so would prevent the

potential injury that too much wheatgrass juice can cause (harm to theadrenal glands).

Another example: Lemons have a reputation of being cleansing, andthis is because lemons are a diuretic. But what this means is this: theyare an irritant to the body, so the body pulls water out of its tissues todilute the irritant, and the organs of elimination are kicked into highgear to get the irritant out, and in so doing, other toxins are cleared

out as well. So while lemon (and ginger, and cayenne pepper) willelicit this cleansing reaction, it is wiser to let the body cleanse at itsown pace and not force this process because it is hard on the body.



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That said, of all the items that cause this effect, lemons are probablythe least problematic.

And lemons are highly touted for their medicinal effects (in cases ofanemia, diarrhea, CAD, gout), so for someone who eats a typical

Western diet who is not interested in changing to a healthier diet, I’dsay yes, this person should drink lemon water every day in an effort tomitigate the damaging effects of their unhealthy diet. But this isobviously a “treatment” mentality, and is nowhere near as effective atdisease avoidance as eating a non-damaging, health-enhancing diet.

Here’s another way to look at it: If your body wanted lemon orginger, eating them whole as they would be found in Nature would bean enjoyable experience. Yes, we can make things such as peach teacontaining ginger, or a juice containing wheatgrass juice, but whenwe do we usually design them to be delicious, which is why we likethem (although some concoctions are bitter and nasty tasting but weingest them despite this because we are told they are “good for us”).

And while the Nature Test is a good way to help figure out what is

and what isn’t good for us, some knowledge of our bio-physiology isgood to have too. This helps when cases are made for eating animals,which we humans did at one point in our history (when we were“hunter-gatherers”). You could counter these contentions by pointingto our pre-hunter-gatherer existence as foragers, but these kinds ofdebates can go on and on and are subject to a lot of conjecture andarguing. But it’s hard to argue with the hard-sciences of physiologyand comparative anatomy (but not impossible, as you’ll find).

And then there’s empirical evidence. If closely scrutinized, it is toughto argue with. But if explained away with junk science and illogicalarguments, it too can be a frustrating way to make a point to others.But if it’s just you that you’re investigating for, and you look at theempirical evidence with no biases or preferred beliefs, the conclusionsyou come to will probably be spot on, and therefore in your bestinterest.



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“Why do people talk about how our average life expectancy has

improved when our average health has gone down?”

You’d think that there should be a correlation between the two, but inour society there isn’t. Although the medical industry takes credit for

it, the improvements in life expectancy from 56 to 72 were due mostlyto improvements in sanitation and the invention of refrigeration. Themedical industry did play a part though, and I’ll mention that in amoment.

But let’s put things in perspective when talking about average lifeexpectancy (ALE). Primates tend to have an ALE of 7 times their ageof puberty. We’re a primate, so our ALE should be about 124. I’ve

seen humans live to over 100, and they weren’t living in a pristineenvironment or eating a 100% diet of their biological design…imagine if they were. I have no doubt that humans once lived to a ripeold age of 124 when in paradise. But let’s see what happens as wecontinue with our “evolution” as a species. If present trends are anyindication, we will see more humans living longer and healthier (thosewho’ve caught on to living in accordance with their bio-physiologicalrequirements), but we will see far more humans dying at earlier ages

of diseases that used to hit us in “old age” (it’s already happening).With the rise in obesity, heart disease and cancer, all at earlier ages,there may come a time when, as a species, we don’t see 60 unlesswe’re supported by artificial pancreases, hearts, and livers, and withmeds, and portable kidney dialysis. And that may be good for themedical/pharmaceutical industries, and for an economy where onehalf of it is ill-health-management based, but for a civilization, it’s adisaster.

So when talking ALE, let’s not compare 56 up to 72, let’s compare 72down from 124.

If we combined the improvements in sanitation and refrigeration thatoccurred over the last 100 years with healthy diet and lifestyle practices (which include the avoidance of negative-health

technological inventions like cell phones and living near power sub-stations), we’d get closer to our genetically predetermined ALE of124. But because of damaged genetics that are passed on fromgeneration to generation, and the stress of keeping a roof over our



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heads, and unavoidable health hazards like polluted air and man-madeEMR waves that bathe us every day, we are not likely to ever see anaverage of 124 again. And the current ALE is artificial in the sensethat it is affected by life-extending medical practices like pacemakers,meds, surgeries, and defibrillators. Think what the ALE would be in

the U.S. without any of those things! (Plus the method of calculatingthe ALE was tinkered with when it was decided that all deaths underone year of age would no longer be used in the calculation, andovernight we gained some ALE.)

“You suggest rinsing your mouth with diluted clove oil before

going to sleep (in addition to flossing and brushing) to help

prevent damage to tooth enamel, but you don’t advise using garlic

because it kills good bacteria along with the bad. How would you

put clove oil in a category separate from garlic in terms of killing

bacteria, the good with the bad?”

I put the use of garlic and the use of something like clove oil inseparate categories for the following reasons:

1. The reasons often given for using garlic are nonsense, or belong inthe category of “remedy”, meaning they are dealing with symptomsrather than with the underlying cause. Using diluted clove oil isdealing directly with a cause of tooth decay.

2. The killing of bad bacteria in the body by garlic is far outweighed by the killing of the good bacteria when you consider that the immunesystem can control bad bacteria without damaging good bacteria. Thekilling of any good bacteria in the mouth by the use of clove oil is faroutweighed by the prevention of acidic excretions by any bacteria inthe mouth as it is these excretions which damage tooth enamel as wesleep.

3. There are no natural means by which you can prevent tooth decaywhen dealing with “weak” tooth enamel or unresolved stress that

causes night clenching which loosens teeth creating pockets where bacteria can live safely but damage tooth dentin in the process; nohealthier alternatives. But there are healthier alternatives to usinggarlic.



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4. I look at something like clove oil as the lesser of the evils. Ways todeal with decay other than a clove oil or essential oil rinse are:remove all teeth and get dentures, take sleep drugs so you don’tclench your teeth while sleeping, don’t eat any fruit, or go to thedentist once a month and treat the decay as it happens. None of these

are preferable to a clove oil rinse.

“We were hunter-gatherers, but you say we were foragers…

what’s the difference?”

I distinguish between foraging and gathering for two reasons: 1.“Hunter” is always connected with “gatherer” as if to imply that the

foods we hunted (animal) were just as much a part of our natural dietas the foods we gathered (fruits). 2. “Gathering” is more like what wedo when we go shopping in the produce department of a supermarket;it’s akin to collecting . In the wild, many moons ago, when we didn’tlive in caves, and instead roamed about and made camp for theevening wherever we were, we didn’t “gather” anything; instead we

foraged for our food, eating what we found when we found it, like allother primates did, and still do.

“Will older folks be as likely to embrace a change to healthful

living as younger ones?”

You might think that those who have so many years behind them aretoo set in their ways to consider any lifestyle changes, but you’d besurprised; it really has more to do with how in love with life the

person is versus how in love with their present lifestyle practices theyare. In that sense, chronological age has nothing to do with it. And forsome people, as their “remaining years” get less and less, the valuethey place on the time they have left can increase, and so they can bevery open to hearing about ways to extend their life.

And even more important than life-span is life-quality. Often peoplewho have lived a life filled with less than the healthiest lifestyle habits

end up with a poor quality of life in the “winter” of their lives.Assuming they’re open to hearing about how this is not the naturalconsequence of “old age”, and that it is an unnatural condition to be



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in, and most importantly, that they can still do something significantabout it, you might find the person to be very attentive to what youhave to say, and very willing to try improving some of their lifestylehabits if doing so will dramatically improve their quality of life.

It is often the younger folks – who haven’t lost a noticeable portion oftheir vitality yet – who will not be open to the notion of changingtheir self-indulgent-pleasure-seeking-behaviors… unless they are verywise for their age.

“I’m a vegan and I understand that a vitamin D3 supplement is

not a vegan product, but a D2 supplement is. You eat a vegan diet

but you recommend the non-vegan D3, can you tell me why?”

The type of supplementary vitamin D that effectively raises bloodlevels of D is “D3”. Unfortunately it is made from the wool of sheep,so technically it is not a vegan product. It is also unfortunate that thereis no effective D supplement that is truly vegan. But if you can’t getenough D throughout the year from the sun (because of where youlive) as demonstrated by a vitamin D test, what are your choices?

Take D3 or become deficient in this vital nutrient and run anincreased risk of certain degenerative diseases.

I have been a vegan for 30 years; I wear no clothing that comes froman animal, I don’t visit circuses, zoos, or aquariums, and I eat noanimal products, but I do take D3 during certain times of the yearuntil I can relocate to a more tropical environment where I won’t haveto take any at all. But this is a personal decision for all vegans. Thosewho are vegan for health reasons obviously don’t have an issue withtaking D3, but those who are vegan for moral/ethical reasons can havea tough choice to make.

The brand I take is at www.Health101.org/bookmark#37

The vegan source of D that is sold in stores is “D2”, but like a lot of

products that are marketed to the health conscious and vegan crowd,D2 doesn’t “do it”; D2 doesn’t raise your D level to where it needs to be to be effective in helping to prevent degenerative disease. You’dhave to consume an impossible amount of D2 to get your blood level



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to within 50-80 ng/ml, which is the range you want to be in. D2(ergocalciferol) has lower bioactivity, poorer stability, and shorterduration of action, resulting in approximately 63% lower potencycompared with D3.

Some D2 info…

“Vitamin D2, or ergocalciferol, should not be regarded as anutrient suitable for supplementation or fortification.” From‘The case against ergocalciferol (vitamin D2) as a vitaminsupplement’. – Houghton LA, Vieth R.

“…Vitamin D2 is only about 30% as effective ascholecalciferol…” – Michael F. Holick, ‘The Vitamin DEpidemic and its Health Consequences’.

“One consequence of vitamin D deficiency is that theParathyroid Gland becomes overactive, altering calciummetabolism. When vitamin D is replenished, then parathyroidhormone is lowered back to normal levels. But in a few studies,

the parathyroid hormone was NOT decreased to normal with theadministration of vitamin D2, but it did decrease to normal withthe Vitamin D3.”

If you haven’t already read the article on vitamin D which is atwww.Health101.org/bookmark#6 please do.

Personally, I have a responsibility to myself to be in the best health possible so that I may effectively serve others, including the other

animals that share this planet with me. And believe me, I lookforward to the day when I don’t have to take any supplements at all.

“Isn’t it possible to catch up on lost sleep?

If you’ve been sleep deprived, you can “catch up” if the sleepdeprivation wasn’t too extreme. Keep in mind that the main function

of sleep is to recharge your batteries with nerve energy, so the problem with having to catch up on sleep is that while you’reoperating at a depleted nerve energy level prior to catching up, your body is not operating at anywhere near peak efficiency, and therefore



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the healing and health creation work your body wants to do can’t bedone. So people who constantly burn the candle at both ends and areconstantly “catching up” are at a greater risk of becoming ill thanthose who never run low on nerve energy.

“Why do bones heal at different rates? I’ve been eating a raw

food diet for five years, and when I broke my arm recently, it took

longer to heal than it did when I broke it ten years ago.”

There are other reasons that one’s healing speed can vary. Plus, theway a doctor judges healing speed is via an x-ray, and an x-raydoesn’t tell the whole story about bone health. Remember, you can

have “dense” bones (as shown by a bone density scan) but those bones can be brittle as opposed to having the ability to bend a littlewithout breaking. Could it be that those “bendable” kinds of bones(which most people don’t have) take a little longer to heal becausethere’s more to them than a simple density scan can reveal?Remember that the doctor’s perspective comes from treating peoplewho eat a typical Western diet and live a typical Western lifestyle,and these practices don’t tend to give one strong, resilient bones.

Plus, healing in general requires goodly amounts of nervous systemenergy (a.k.a. nerve energy), and when you’ve freed up more of it byeating a diet that requires less of it (and by getting more restorativesleep), there is more nerve energy available for healing serious problems that weren’t sufficiently being attended to before. And nowthat they are being attended to, something as non-life-threatening asan arm bone break may get less of a priority than, say, something elsethat could be life-threatening if not dealt with in a timely manner. Soin this scenario, a bone break might heal slower than normal.

Just know that, in general, the healthier you live, the healthier you’ll be, and you’ll be better able to heal.



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“I liked what the guy said, but I understand you have a problem

with this approach.”

Here’s what was said, “Ultimately, if you are sincerely honest andseek to understand what diet is best for you, it is my recommendation

to abandon any previously held convictions you might have about dietand listen to your body… Let your body tell you what foods you weredesigned to eat… You can experiment for yourself and observe yourreactions.”

While it’s certainly good to abandon previously held convictionsregarding your old diet (assuming it wasn’t a truly health-enhancingdiet), when transitioning from a relatively unhealthy diet to a much

healthier one, this “listen to your body” and/or “do what works foryou” approach is not helpful because the results are oftenmisunderstood, and therefore erroneous conclusions are reached. Ifyou’re experiencing detox symptoms (and many people do), whatyou’re experiencing is not going to be pleasant. If you take what your body is saying in this case, and associate it with your new diet offruits and veggies, the uninformed may take this to mean that their body is saying, “This diet is not for me” when the opposite is true.

And if your body’s sensors – including taste sensors – aren’t workingright (due to years of non-health enhancing diet and lifestyle habits),you may get reactions that you wouldn’t get when those sensors areworking properly. Also, if you’re lacking in a certain nutrient, youmay not like the way your new diet makes you feel under certaincircumstances.

So listening to your body is a great thing to be able to do, when you

are in good health, and when you have an understanding of what your body is saying. Remember, most people have been raised notknowing how to correctly interpret what their body’s whispers mean:certain aches and pains are thought to be normal (when they’re not),and eating or doing something that makes you feel “good” may not begood for you (and usually isn’t).

So since we really can only experiment on ourselves with diet if we

can try something, then go back in time and try something different tosee what worked best, it’s important to incorporate logic and commonsense when deciding what diet to follow, and how best to follow it.



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This, along with reality-based information that squares with human physiology, will help you get to the point where you truly can trustwhat your body is saying.

“What is cayenne pepper good for?”

Besides being good for pepper company sales, not much. It is anirritant from the body’s perspective. The reason it has a reputation for“cleansing” the blood is because it does cause the blood to be rapidlycleansed when it’s consumed. But this is because the body wants thisirritant out ASAP, and in so doing, the blood gets cleansed in the process. But there are better ways to cleanse the blood without

ramping up the body’s defense mechanisms because of an “irritantinvasion”.

Additionally, there are some people who say cayenne pepper is goodfor getting rid of parasites, but the body is normally capable ofkeeping itself free of parasites. It is only when we burden the bodywith lifestyle habits that devitalize it that the body has trouble keepingitself parasite-free. So the answer is not turning to “remedies” but

instead living in such a way where they need not be considered. What people who have a “remedy mentality” need to understand is thatthere isn’t a remedy for all the problems that the body would normallytake care of itself if it was kept in good condition, i.e. the body isnormally able to keep cancerous cells from developing into cancer aswe know it, but a devitalized body usually has trouble keeping aheadof growing tumors.

“I see that up and down motion is important for health because it

moves lymph fluid which is part of the body’s waste disposal

system, so why shouldn’t I get this from my daily 10 mile run?”

Physical activity that includes up and down motion plays a big part inhealth creation. Some people get this from running/jogging, but ahealthier source comes from spirited walking, rebounding, and some

running as we were meant to run, i.e. landing on the forefoot insteadof the heel, aka “barefoot running”. And this running is best done



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with respect to your body, i.e. only as much as your body wants, nothow much you want.

To experience this healthier (and safer) footfall, run in place with nofootwear and see how you land. It isn’t on your heels, it’s on the ball

of your foot. This should remain your type of footfall when that in- place running turns into forward-motion running courtesy of youleaning forward so gravity grabs at your body and tries to pull it downto the ground, but to prevent this, you keep swinging a leg out in frontof you, and thus you get forward motion. Your heel will just barelytouch down just before that foot lifts off again, and in this way youare using the shock-absorbing feature of your calf muscles (which youdon’t use when running as most people run).

When running with a forefoot strike gait, you’ll find it’s easier to landthat way the slower you run. The faster you run – the longer yourstrides – the more prone you are to landing on your heels. But sinceyou shouldn’t be running to accomplish a certain amount of miles in acertain amount of time (not respectful to your body), running slowerthan you would if landing on your heels is just fine, and will keep you

in great shape with a much reduced risk of injury. And if you run onlyfor as long as your body wants to run, you’ll be sure to not waste anynerve energy or bodily resources.

And it goes without saying that if you want to land with a morenatural footfall, wear more natural footwear. Proper shoes for“barefoot” running will not raise your heel, and will be very flexible.Do check out the “Contact” and “Connect” running shoes atwww.


“How do you account for there being people who are willing to

change and people who are not willing to change?”

I’ve been lecturing about a raw food diet, healthy eating, healthcreation, and disease avoidance for a while now, and have been

researching health issues for over 30 years, and I can tell you thatthere are folks who love their diet of cooked foods and will nottolerate any derogatory things said against it. They do not want theinner conflict that comes from realizing that something they are doing



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is unhealthy yet they also know that they are not going to change theway they live, so they choose to disbelieve any and all informationthat suggests that the way they live is unhealthy. They care moreabout the foods they love than they do their health, and it’s sad to saythat they will not get serious about their health until they get a

diagnosis of something serious (and even then, some people will stillnot make any positive changes).

And these folks will defend their way of living by saying whatevermakes them feel okay about what they’re doing. They will be quick toembrace anti-raw food propaganda (of which there is plenty), and willdismiss out-of-hand anything you share with them. There will be nostudies you can offer, no evidence you can give them that will causethem to re-think their position about the issue. And the one thing thatis most important for you to know is: This attitude of theirs in no waychanges the reality of the situation. Your body exists in the samereality as a raw food opponent’s body does, and both bodies aresubject to the same laws of Nature. Humans are the only species withthe ability to believe in what they prefer to believe and disbelievewhat they don’t want to believe. This is courtesy of the same brain

that gave us the cell phone, computer, and walking on the moon.That’s what I find amazing about the human brain. This free-will ofours is a double-edged sword of sorts.

Above I described a person who will never consider the advantages ofa healthy diet, but there are also those who are initially resistant to theinfo, but who can eventually come around if they come to realize thattheir “future health’ is really an extremely important thing. They don’t

need to be hit over the head with a diagnosis of cancer or a heartattack, they just need to reshuffle their internal list of priorities, and“see the light”. But these folks can initially appear to be like thosewho will never adopt healthier eating/living habits, so you just don’tknow who will come around (although there are “tells” that you canlearn to look for to save you time and breath). Being a good exampleis a great way to get through to someone. When you start looking andfeeling better, and maybe rid yourself of a noticeable condition, some

“reluctant” people may start wanting to know more about what youare doing. Bottom line: Some people make changes because they seethe light; others need to “feel the heat” (of disease) first, and some



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will never change because life is simply not worth living without their bacon, cow-milk ice cream, pork chops, beer, etc. and they are willing(now) to give up 20 years of life for the things they love. As we know,the trick is coming to love different things, and loving the things that“love you back”.

“Why do we choose what we choose to eat?”

Consider the psychological addiction to junk food. Someone once toldme after a lecture I gave, “I’ll consider changing my level of activity,my sleep habits, my sunshine habits, but don’t talk to me about mydiet because it’s the only area of my life where I have total control. I

don’t have any control of what I wear during the week, what I doduring the week and much of the weekend (married with kids); mylife is not my own in so many ways, but if I want to, I can set myalarm clock to wake me up at 3 AM so I can go downstairs and eat a pint of Haagen-Dazs ice cream if I feel like it… so, no one tells mewhat to eat!” I responded by asking him about some of the fruits heloves.

And then I said, “So you like mangoes?” “Yes.” “You likewatermelon?” “Yes.” “You like strawberries?” “Yes.” “So why, outof all the things you love to eat, did you choose Haagen-Dazs icecream?” He said, “Because I like Haagen-Dazs ice cream.” “But youlike so many other things that are also healthier for you than Haagen-Dazs ice cream… so consider that you are not as in control of whatyou eat as you may think. Haagen-Dazs is not a naturally occurringfood, it is a manufactured product, and they designed it so you’d put itat the top of your list when choosing something to eat at 3 AM in themorning… so who really chose that food for you.”

This made him think. And I’ve had success getting through to peopleabout differing diets when I come from the perspective of how peopleare being taken advantage of, for the sake of profit, at the expense oftheir health… because when you get right down to it no one likes to

be taken advantage of. And if people only knew how much of theirquality of life and life-time was knowingly being traded for corporate profits without their knowledge, some folks would be furious. And I



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say, don’t get mad, get even; stop giving them your money and yourfuture quality of life.

“Do Natural Hygienists think for themselves, or do they simply

follow a set of dictates?”

There are many who consider themselves Natural Hygienists wholiterally adopted that philosophy from someone else, and many ofthese people follow it in lock step, not giving any of the tenets anyindependent thought. Maybe they don’t do this because they feel theycan’t, or that they’re not qualified to, or because it would shake theirconfidence in Natural Hygiene (NH) if they were to uncover a “flaw”

in the way a tenet of NH is interpreted by someone they arefollowing. The point is, they are not open to debating any aspect of itand simply follow it 100%.

I came to discover the tenets of NH not from any of the NH literatureor from its proponents, but from figuring out NH’s principles formyself. This surprises some people, but it shouldn’t. After all, the principles of NH weren’t handed down from above; humans figured it

out. Sure, it helps that I was raised to be an independent thinker, and Iwas always someone who liked to think about things, and not simplyaccept things as the Gospel truth.

This evidently has served me well as I am able to give independentthought to the subject of NH. Even Dr. Vivian Vetrano – who workedwith Dr. Shelton (a pioneer of NH) – has changed her position on thesubject of nutritional supplementation (a no-no to most NaturalHygienists). But other well-known Natural Hygienists have not. Andthe problem is that some people are “followers” and they don’t do anythinking for themselves, preferring to simply follow therecommendations of their “mentor”. This will work for them in thelong run if what they’re following is healthful advice and 100%correct, but if it isn’t, they won’t thrive way on down the road. If theythen become a health educator, and teach what they were taught, and

those teachings are 99% correct, they will be teaching people one percent incorrect information. And to me, that’s a sin. So I strive toonly teach the facts. And even though I’m entitled to my ownopinions, I am not entitled to my own facts. And an awareness of this



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maxim of life goes a long way towards being a seeker and teacher ofthe truth. In my writings and lectures you will rarely hear me say, “inmy opinion…” because if people are trying to make realimprovements in their health, they shouldn’t be interested in opinions,only in facts.

So consider that people teach what they teach from their perspective.My perspective is obviously different from that of mainstreammedical doctors, but it’s also different in some respects from that ofsome of the other raw food health educators. This is why it’s good toconsider information from more than one source.

“What do you think of hair analysis to determine mineral

deficiencies?”

From what I’ve gathered, it may be of use in determining if there’s aheavy metal issue that should be dealt with, but for determining if the person has mineral deficiencies, I don’t believe it has any efficacy.The labs that do hair analysis don’t have standards, meaning one labmay say a reading of 50 means the person is not deficient in calcium

while another lab may say 50 means there is a deficiency, and there isno standard by which “50” is determined. There have been consumertests where the same hair was given to a dozen labs, and the resultswere anything but consistent, but what was consistent was that all labsfound deficiencies and recommendations for a slew of supplementswere made. So unless I can find evidence to the contrary, I’m not afan of hair analysis for determining if there are any mineraldeficiencies. Personally, I can get a better idea of the probability ofthis by finding out what the person has been eating, including wherethat food came from.

“According to Wikipedia (when you look under ‘Raw_veganism’)

it was fire that made us the humans we are today. It says,

‘Additionally, cooking food makes digestion much easier on the

digestive tract. The additional nutrition gained as a result is likelyto have assisted in the advanced development of the human

brain.’ So how does this figure in to what you contend?”



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One thing to remember about Wikipedia, as compared to the oldhardcopy encyclopedias that no longer adorn people’s bookshelves athome: Anyone can post something on Wikipedia, including anti-rawfood propagandists and those who think they know all about the rawfood diet, but don’t have the whole story. To say, in the Wikipedia

entry, “The evidence for health benefits of raw veganism is purelyanecdotal. There is no body of scientific evidence to support theseclaims” is incorrect. There is a body of evidence that the author iseither unaware of or chooses to ignore.

And to say, “Additionally, cooking food makes digestion much easieron the digestive tract. The additional nutrition gained as a result islikely to have assisted in the advanced development of the human brain” would make sense… if it were true. The cite for this statementis the book “Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human” byRichard Wrangham, and this book is based on a proposed idea, notscientific evidence. In fact, his premise goes against the acceptedevidence of when humans started cooking much of what they ate.

From a review of the book: “His argument begins with the odd spend-

money-to-make-money aspect of digestion: You must burn calories inorder to release calories from food (a fact deeply cherished by celery-chewing teenage girls). Because raw food is harder to digest, it takesmore calories to get the calories out of it, and you get fewer caloriesfrom it anyway.”

First of all, this is absurd. Raw food is not hard to digest. And to usecelery as an example shows how little the writer understands about a

healthy diet, which has fruit as the predominating source of calories,not high cellulose/low calorie items like celery.

I’m not going to spend time addressing every one of Mr. Wrangham’scontentions because they are guesses; a theory, and a theory with a lotof holes and inaccuracies in it. And besides, when you base a theoryon a segment of human evolution where humans were living outsideof their natural environment and having to deal with food sources that

they weren’t adapted to, any conclusions drawn from this way ofliving have no correlation with what humans are actually designed toeat.



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And when the Wikipedia poster writes, “The evidence for health benefits of raw veganism is purely anecdotal”, even though theevidence is not “purely anecdotal”, I do put a lot of stock in empiricalevidence. If someone battling a serious illness changes from a mostlycooked animal diet to a 100% uncooked fruit and leafy greens diet,

and their health improves, what does this say about the notion that weshould be eating cooked food because it was cooked food that madeus what we are today? (And really, when you look at what we are

today, plagued with degenerative diseases, and not living to ourgenetically programmed life expectancy, and certainly not enjoying ahigh quality of life in our later years, this is thanks to cooked food.)

As long as there are people who love eating cooked food, there will be people advocating (read “defending”) the eating of cooked food.And they will come up with plenty of “evidence” to support theircontentions. And if their audience contains people who want to believe what’s being said, those people will. But if their audiencecontains people who are trying to get at the truth (of what we’resupposed to be eating), those folks will take information like Mr.Wrangham’s at face value and try to both prove it and disprove it.

And if that can’t easily be done, they will try to weigh it against theopposing information in an effort to find the “higher truth” or, themore likely information.

Okay, here’s a few I can’t resist: “Wrangham even meets with somemodern-day raw foodists, who are all very slim. He finds ampleevidence that people who eat mostly raw food thrive only in richmodern environments, and they usually feel very, very hungry.”

Well, I, for one, feel satiated when I’m not eating, and that’s most ofthe time. I get hungry a few times during the day (depending on howmuch I eat and how active I’ve been of course), and as of 2012 I’ve been eating an all-raw fruit and leafy greens diet for over 20 years.There are many people who would self-identify as a “raw foodist”who under-eat on fruit (and thus calories), which is one reason forfeeling perpetually hungry. Another, more complicated reason is the

sudden change in diet. Going from an energy intensive diet – processing-wise – of cooked food (contrary to what is written inWikipedia) to a diet of easier to digest fruits and some leafy greens



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frees up nervous system energy which is then directed and utilized bythe body for some long overdue healing. This (now increased) processcan, understandably, require proportionally more nutrition to “get the job done”. If the person is eating a “narrow” diet without enoughvariety, or the foods they are eating have a poor “nutrient-to-mass”

ratio (because of early harvesting and/or being grown on nutritionallyinferior soils and/or long transit times from picking to eating), thisinsufficient nutrition can cause the body to send you a signal, “I’mhungry” but it’s for more nutrition not more calories. People who eata typical Western diet can get this signal too because of eating foodsthat lack nutrition (due to cooking making nutrients less bioavailabledue to damage or totally derangement), but they take the signal tosimply mean they’re hungry for more food, so they then overeatwhich leads to being overweight and obese. In Nature, we couldn’t eatnutritionally inadequate food because there was no such thing; we’deat food at the peak of ripeness (and therefore at its nutritional peak).So we as a species have (evidently) never developed the ability todistinguish an appetite for calories from an appetite for nutrients. It’sonly when we understand the reasons for the difference between thetwo, and then make sure we get all the essential nutrients we need,

that we can have an appetite only for calories, and thus we’ll eat onlywhen hungry for needed fuel, which will keep us from beingoverweight (for those capable of being overweight).

As for only being able to eat a raw diet in a rich, modernenvironment, then how do our closest cousins – who eat mainly fruitsand leafy greens – manage to survive in the wild? And granted, if wedecide to live in one set place, and our food came only from the

surrounding area, food may become hard to come by and our choiceslimited. But if we roamed within a certain geographical area, and sleptwherever we were at nightfall, instead of returning to a specificlocation at the end of every day, barring drought and fire, we would be fine food-wise, just like our cousins.

The other criterion is not being over-active (too active, over-training).Some raw foodists adopt an “athlete” lifestyle where they burn way

more calories than they would if they lived in Nature. They elect torun X amount of miles or minutes in a day, to lift weights far inexcess of what they would encounter in Nature, etc, and this over-



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activity requires “enough” calories to support it, and thus they eatmore food than someone like myself would eat. I self-identify as being “active” but I am quick to say that I am not an “athlete”.There’s no argument about people being under-active and under-fit;you can usually tell who these people are by looking at them. But

there are no terms like “over-fit”, and we don’t hear the term “over-active” used much (unless we’re talking about a thyroid). Where theline is drawn between being “in shape” and in a shape where the bodyhas been over-worked, is not thought of by most people who workout.

I mention all this to say that just as we shouldn’t under-eat on thecalories needed to fuel a normally active lifestyle that would keep usin good shape without the risk of injury or damage, we should also bevigilant not to be over-active so that we require more calories than we

should be eating, which requires more digestion, and thus more nerveenergy. (Not to mention needing more recovery time to deal with theincreased anabolism and catabolism of being over-active.) Beingover-active is another reason some raw foodists are “always eating”and seem to always be hungry.

“An actual ‘evo’ diet, Wrangham notes, would deliver even fewercalories; require some actual hunting and gathering; and, being morelike the diet of chimps, need to be chewed for hours and hours everyday.”

Has he ever studied chimps in the wild? True, the anthropoid primatesthat are furthest from humans tend to eat more vegetation and less

fruit, so they do more chewing, but the anthropoid primates that areclosest to humans eat more fruit and less vegetation, and do not spendgreat portions of their day chewing.

The more I read of Mr. Wrangham’s work, the more I see his proposed idea being based on incorrect assumptions and opinions, andvery little hard-science-based research. Everyone is entitled to theirown opinions, but everyone is not entitled to their own facts, and Mr.

Wrangham is playing fast and loose with the many theories ofevolution.



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One last observation regarding the author of the review of Mr.Wrangham’s book, Christine Kenneally. She says, “In any case,letting ourselves get carried away with the healthful benefits oforganically grown or well-cooked food may not be the evolutionarilycorrect way to go if Wrangham is right. Remember, the reason

cooking had the colossal impact that it did was not that it made ourskin clearer and our hair glossier but that it bought us many hours inthe day to do and think about other things. The real fruit of cookingwas time. There is nothing wrong with free-range eggs, farmersmarket preserves, or the slow-food movement; complicated cookingand leisurely eating are wonderful pastimes. But come 8 p.m., thenatural thing to do is drop food in microwave, eat it, and then go reada book.”

Obviously Ms. Kenneally approaches this issue not from a health perspective, otherwise she would not have suggested cooking food ina microwave.

Bottom line: If the contention is that it was fire that made us thehumans we are today, this is probably true in the sense that if we had

never gone down the road of putting fire to our food, we’d likely be akinder, gentler species today; one that, after walking on the moon,doesn’t constantly engage in wars, genocide, mass rape, damaging theearth, and the various ways humans have come up with to takeadvantage of fellow humans, and other animals, for personal gain; ifthese things eventually contribute to our undoing, what case does thismake for putting fire to the food we eat?

See the book review, “Food and Behavior” atwww.Health101.org/bookmark#39

“I’ve got poor digestion, and someone said my gut bacteria may

be way off because of how I have been eating, and that I should

take a probiotic to help re-balance things, but that’s not natural,

and I want to now live a natural life.”

There are many reasons for poor digestion, and I’ll mention a fewhere. If your gut flora had been off (because of having takenantibiotics or consuming things like garlic, ginger and other items that



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can put off gut flora), the digestion of raw food can be more“noticeable”. This is where fasting can be helpful (but this is a wholenuther topic). Some people, when doing a dietary 180 will take anoral probiotic for a few days to help the body rebalance things… notthat the body couldn’t do it all by itself, but because of other

circumstances, and of how impaired digestion can negatively affectthem, this may be a case of “the sooner the better”. Yes, there arethose who say that taking a probiotic, even for just a few days, isunnatural. But so were the things you were doing prior to adoptinghealthful habits, and this “good” unnatural thing is just helping toundo the damage done by the “bad” unnatural things. But of coursethis is a personal decision. When faced with info on doing positive butunnatural things, I advise researching the issue and not simplydismissing it out-of-hand because of following a certain philosophy.As a pragmatic realist, I’ve found that certain philosophies – eventhough they’re good ones – only work for you if you were followingthem from the very beginning of life. And if you’re now following a philosophy of “give the body what best serves it”, and it would benefit from regaining optimal gut flora ASAP, then some unnatural but otherwise helpful practices might be in order.

“I’ve been eating a 100% plant-based fruit and vegetable diet for

four years, but my cholesterol is on the high side. I don’t know

what to do. My doctor gave me a pamphlet that says, ‘Many

patients have a defect in the enzymes in the liver that regulate

cholesterol properly’, maybe that’s why mine is high?”

What usually follows that statement is, “so in addition to their healthydiet, they may require medication to help normalize their cholesterollevels.” Let me try to put things in perspective regarding cholesteroland triglycerides.

High serum cholesterol is only an indicator of ill-health if there’s alsocardiovascular damage. Let me say that another way. When it wasnoticed that people with Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) also had

high cholesterol, that became a market for the pharmaceuticalindustry. But just because there’s a correlation doesn’t mean there’s acause-and-effect relationship. If someone who’s eating a low-fat, plant-based, raw food diet who is active, has no CAD or heart disease



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or restricted arteries or blockages of any kind, what does it matterwhat their total cholesterol or triglycerides are. The only usefulreadings are the ratio of HDL to LDL, because a “bad” reading wouldindicate that the person needs to increase his activity level (when theydo, the ratio changes for the better).

People who use medications to bring down a so-called highcholesterol reading run the risk of a vitamin D deficiency amongothers because cholesterol is needed to make D; it is a precursor formany things the body needs to be healthy. And besides, using meds toartificially lower cholesterol doesn’t actually decrease the risk of heartattack! See the article at www.Health101.org/bookmark#40

If someone is concerned about high cholesterol/triglycerides theyshould know that it is only a problem if there is damage being done tothe walls of the arteries; cholesterol is used in the repair process. Sothe focus should be on eliminating the causes of damage to ourcardiovascular system, and not on managing the mechanism that the body uses to repair damage.

Also, I’ve seen some data that would suggest that if D is too low, thiscan elevate cholesterol in otherwise healthy people. There’s arelationship between D and cholesterol, so it’s not a stretch to say thatif D was high (normal), there wouldn’t be excess cholesterol. And asD increases, this can also contribute to triglycerides normalizing (andkeep in mind, what is “normal” for a truly healthy person may not beconsidered normal for a person in a continuing state of ill-health, yetthat “normal” is what the medical industry applies to everyone).

So let’s worry about the things that damage the arteries, andcholesterol doesn’t damage or block arteries in and of itself; it’s only being used to repair damage caused by things that damage the arterialwall, which are things in bad diets, diets that usually contain animal products so they usually contain cholesterol, which is why cholesterolcan be high when there is also CAD (so the correlation is actually between CAD and an unhealthy diet, and it’s not just a correlation,

it’s a cause-and-effect relationship).



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Again, a correlation between CAD and high cholesterol/triglyceridesis not the same as a cause-and-effect relationship, but the pharmaceutical industry creates a market for meds based on anythingit can get away with.

“I heard you mention something about real estate in your lecture,

and was wondering if you could repeat it.”

The most valuable real estate there is, is “stomach real estate”. Youcan only put so much into it in a day and no more. What helps a lot of people switch to a raw food diet and stay with it is thinking aboutwhat they’d rather put in their body versus what they’d rather eat.

Every meal of steamed veggies could have been a meal of somethingmore beneficial, so in a way, a steamed veggie meal, while certainlynot as unhealthy as other meals, is still a missed opportunity.

And when you consider that most of us weren’t born into and raisedon the healthiest of diets, and didn’t start out our lives with thehealthiest of lifestyle practices, we’ve got some lost ground to makeup. Meaning? For many of us, there’s a race going on, unbeknownst

to us: Health vs Degenerative Disease. And you can’t know for surehow it’s going, you can only make certain assumptions. But I, for one,want to give “health” every opportunity I can to get ahead.

Another point to consider when thinking about what to eat, and a point that has helped many people “stay the course”: If you need to boil, bake, steam or cook something in any way in order to be able toeat it and/or enjoy it, it’s a sign that it isn’t something you’re designedto eat. Of course you can still eat it… I’m not the food police… but isit what you really want? The closer you get to wanting the samethings that your body wants, the better odds you’ll have of nevergetting a diagnosis of something serious. And when you think aboutthe fact that most people don’t get serious about their health until theyget a diagnosis of something serious, and we’ve been given theopportunity to get serious way before that happens, so that it never

happens, well, it’s something to think about when considering what tofill your stomach real estate with.



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“Apart from the general treatment of advising raw vegan food,

exercise, sleep, sunlight, etc, do you have any treatments for

specific maladies?”

If someone presented with an enlarged thyroid gland, the first thing

I’d test is their iodine level. Not just because that’s the most likelysuspect, but because I’d want to see just how iodine deficient the person is so they can know how much iodine to supplement with. Butit should be noted that, guaranteed, there were other symptoms ofiodine deficiency present before seeing an enlarged thyroid (fatigue,depression, dry skin, weight gain, poor muscle tone), and these are notnecessarily obvious symptoms of an iodine deficiency.

But the downside of this approach (treating based on observedsymptoms) is that we waited until there were noticeable symptoms.What about the other deficiencies a person may have that contributeto the growth of a cancerous tumor that is not as of yet causing anysymptoms? It’s obviously not a good idea to simply wait until thereare symptoms.

We need to step back and look at a bigger picture. If soil is deficient

in iodine, it’s a good bet that it’s also deficient in other essentialnutrients, a lack of which may not bring about an obvious cause-and-effect scenario like insufficient iodine and enlarged thyroid.

Allopathic medicine is primarily reactive; wait for a symptom andthen we’ll deal with it, meaning with the symptom, and not the causeof the symptom. One may be tempted to say that if a symptom iscaused by a tumor, by dealing with the tumor, modern medicine is dealing with the cause of the symptom. But the root cause of thesymptom is not the tumor, the tumor is a symptom of an underlying problem – unhealthy lifestyle practices – which can also be causingcardiovascular disease for example. What’s the point of having asuccessful cancer treatment if you die from a fatal heart attack thatwas caused by the same lifestyle practices that contributed to thetumor?

It should also be said that modern medicine does recommend a non-reactive approach, which is “come in for a check up before you aresymptomatic”. Some would call this “prevention”, but I don’t. And



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modern medicine also makes available “preventative” drugs (“thisdrug may help prevent cervical cancer”), but this is also not what Ithink of as prevention (because these drugs, in reality, do not preventthe illness). True prevention is not doing the things that cause anillness and doing the things that help support the body’s efforts at

staying ahead of any illness and making sure you don’t get adiagnosis of something serious. To distinguish this kind ofmeaningful prevention from what is commonly thought of as prevention, I call it disease avoidance.

The above example of goiter (an enlargement of the thyroid gland thatoften results from insufficient intake of iodine and is usuallyaccompanied by hypothyroidism) is an obvious one as far astreatment (and is considered the first example of “take X for Y” inmodern medicine). But the need for supplementary iodine is a redflag. Like I said above, if the soil is iodine deficient, that soil is mostlikely also deficient in other essential nutrients, and the lack ofenough iodine was just the first one that caused noticeable symptoms.So goiter should be seen in the context of a much larger problem than just insufficient iodine. But what did our society do when goiter

reached near epidemic proportions in certain areas of the country? Wesingled out iodine and added it to something that was part ofeverybody’s life… table salt. Problem solved! But what didn’t we do?We didn’t investigate to find out just why people were lacking enoughiodine to prevent goiter. We just put a patch on the problem and wentabout our merry way. The same can be said for scurvy and vitamin C,rickets and vitamin D, beriberi and vitamin B1, and pellagra and B3;simply fortify the foods people were eating with these “missing”

nutrients. Although these are all termed “deficiency diseases”, the point can be made that cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc all have adeficiency component. Some believe that if scurvy didn’t appearwhen it did, and instead appeared today, that it would be dealt with by prescribing a medication (that contained mainly vitamin C); luckily back when the causes of the above mentioned deficiency diseaseswere discovered, big Pharma wasn’t big yet.

It should be noted that goiter was originally dealt with by prescribingdesiccated thyroid, which solved the problem, but back then curiousdoctors, who wondered what it was exactly that caused something like



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goiter, searched for a better understanding of the condition, and in sodoing discovered that it was a lack of iodine, and then stopped givingdesiccated thyroid and made iodine solutions, and then iodine pills.Later, government simply directed that iodine be added to salt andfoods as a way of dealing with the ever-growing problem.

But more to your question: If someone presented with a very specificset of symptoms, I’d say, yes, there is probably a primary culprit thatis causing the symptoms, but since there are probably secondarycauses as well, I’m not going to first try and discern the primarycause. Instead, the philosophy of Natural Hygiene says to first look atthe person’s lifestyle habits (that affect health) and bring them intoharmony with their biological imperatives, and doing so will usuallycorrect the problem (and other problems that they didn’t know theyhad).

Many times, the problem is caused by the consumption of somethingthat shouldn’t be consumed, and a hygienic approach will solve this.But sometimes it’s not a problem of excess, but a problem ofinsufficiency (although usually it’s both if you’re talking about the

average person). The hygienic approach will work if the healthy dietthat the person then adopts is made up of foods that are nutrient-rich.But if those foods are lacking in something, their symptoms might notgo away. An example: A person with hypothyroidism because of alack of iodine in their typical Western diet, then adopts the healthiestof diets (and starts exercising, getting more sleep, taking D3 etc) buttheir symptoms don’t resolve because they are still iodine deficient.This is why I don’t only adhere to a “natural” philosophy because to

dogmatically follow its practices in an environment where those practices can’t all be fulfilled, is a recipe for disaster. So I take a morereal-world, pragmatic approach, and this is why I recommendnutritional supplementation, not just when I can’t help a personresolve some symptoms that don’t go away after they adopt 100%healthy lifestyle practices (the supplements then being given in areactive manner), but also as a pro-active (preventative) measure.

So, yes, if someone presents with symptoms of an XYZ deficiency, Icould recommend a “take this for that” approach, but this is whatmedical doctors do, and it ultimately does not address the root cause



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of the problem. A more wholistic approach, and one based on reality,works best in the long term, and is in the person’s best interest health-wise.

“What can you say about dealing with addictions?”

Weaning yourself off of something is not as effective as just saying“no more!”. Cold turkey, for most people, works best. As DougGraham says, the best way to stop eating chocolate, is to just stopeating chocolate. Now, you might be tempted to say that cigarettes arenot the same as chocolate because cigarettes are physically addictive.But let me share with you something that Rozalind Graham was

always fond of saying in her lectures: Pot, booze, cigarettes, cocaine,heroine, etc are not physically addictive! What you are addicted to isthe “shift in experience” that these things afford you… it is a psychological addiction. Oh sure, when you go cold turkey, you cango through “withdrawal”, and that’s certainly a physical experience, but this is not an apt name for it. What you’re actually experiencing isdetoxification. But some people who can’t handle the “withdrawal”and go back to doing what they were doing, and find that the

withdrawal stops, draw the wrong conclusion by thinking that theywere physically addicted to the substance, and it was their bodycraving it that they were feeling when they stopped. But the actualreason they feel terrible when they stop is because the body is thenable to do some massive detoxification which will never be pleasant.And the reason that those terrible feelings stop when they partakeagain, is because detox is stopped. So you can see how easy it is tomisinterpret what is going on if you aren’t educated about what toexpect.

I should mention that some pharmaceutical medications that haveaddictive properties should not be stopped cold turkey because thatcould be very dangerous. If you want off of the med, coordinate thiswith the prescribing doctor.



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“Are onions okay to eat?”

Here’s a way to think about questions like this which can give you theanswer you’re looking for: Could you make a meal of onions and findthat meal yummy and delicious as you would a mango for example?

Also, something that can give you “bad breath” is something to thinkabout. I’d rather eat foods that give me “good breath”.

Another way to help determine if something is a food you’re designedto eat or not is to keep in mind that the foods of our bio-physiologicaladaptation follow the same oath that medical doctors take; “Do noharm”. So let’s see if an onion can follow this oath. When onion cells break open, the onion’s enzymes decompose amino acid sulfoxides in

the onion, which form sulfenic acids which react with othersubstances in the onion and form a mild sulfuric acid. When this process happens while you’re cutting an onion, the sulfenic acids being gaseous, reach your eyes and tear ‘em up. The same processgoes on inside your body. True, you could keep a few lit candles nearwhere you’re cutting an onion to burn off the sulfenic gas before itreaches your eyes, but there’s nothing you can do to mitigate thedamaging downside of an onion you’d eat.

Since there’s a downside there may be an upside, and nutritionistswill point out that onions have antioxidants, but so do all the fruitsand veggies that we eat, therefore – on balance – this is not a reasonto eat onions.

So try letting your body be your guide and listen to how it reacts tothings, like an onion (when eaten as you would eat it in the wild). But be careful not to misinterpret what your body is saying. When my brother would eat sushi, he’d pile on the wasabi mustard, and fluidswould pour out of every orifice on his face… but he’d tell me this wasa “good” thing. People who once enjoyed this stimulatory effectfound that after they turned their health around from years of adheringto the basics of health, they did not like it one bit. Interesting how youreact to things depending on your state of health.



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“I’ve heard that eyesight can be improved when improving your

health. How does this happen?”

When I see little kids wearing eyeglasses, it is disheartening. Whyshould beings who should have perfect eyesight right up until old age

need corrective lenses at age twelve? It should be obvious thatsomething’s wrong with this picture. Turns out, the cause of this issugary junk food. The processed refined sugar raises the osmotic pressure inside the eyeballs, changing their shape, which changestheir focus to something other than perfect.

I tell you that story to mention the way your eye focuses. Whenthinking about the workings of the eye, we usually think about the

pupil which gets bigger and smaller to admit more or less light. Butwhat controls the focus? Hint: What moves the eyes around? Smallmuscles. And it is also small muscles that control focus by changingthe shape of the eyeball.

Here’s a neat thing to do that demonstrates the use of the eye musclesthat control the eye’s focus by controlling the shape of the eyeball.Close your eyes. Gently place your first two fingers on the lid so you

can feel the eyeball beneath. Then visualize sitting at the edge of alake looking across it. You see a deer on the other side… it’s faraway, but you can clearly see that it’s a deer. Watch the deer for a fewmoments. It’s foraging for food. Then suddenly your camping partnersteps in front of you. When you imagine this happening, you shouldfeel a “shift” in the eyeball. This wasn’t the eyeball moving, this wasits shape changing to refocus on your camping partner.

Now that you’ve felt the mechanism for sight focus, and know thatfocus is controlled by muscles, think about how some people holdstress in their shoulders (their shoulder muscles), or in their neck(neck muscles), and realize that we often hold stress, and thus tension,in those muscles that control sight focus. This is why it is important to be relaxed to have good eyesight, and why relaxation practices canhelp with vision improvement.

The good news is that adopting the healthier lifestyle habits that leadto robust physical health, also result in less stress being manifested,



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which results in a more relaxed bunch of eyeball muscles (and neckand shoulder muscles).

So there’s the connection (one of ‘em) between improved physiological health and improved eyesight.

“You seemed to lump health educators into one of two categories.

You said, ‘One cares more about helping to lessen the plague of

degenerative disease that has been thrust upon many of us, and

one cares more about amassing a huge email list.’ How can you

lump leaders in categories when you don’t always know for sure

what each one’s core motive is?”

While it’s true that I don’t know the core motives of all the raw foodleaders, those two categories are very real, and I see no reason why Ishouldn’t make mention of them. I know there are people who havean “it’s all good” attitude, and they love all the health educators, butthe reality is that it’s not all good; there is some bad out there too, andI feel it’s not in people’s best interests – health-wise – to gloss over it, pretend it’s not there, assume that all people in the raw food field are

doing good work, or to see them only through rose-colored glasses.Let’s see it for what it is, and let’s recognize those who are panderingto the public for the sake of profit.

We have no problem criticizing pharmaceutical companies orcompanies like Monsanto when they try and pull something that putsthemselves first and people’s health second, so I don’t see why weshould treat people in the health movement any differently. There are people who are enamored of David Wolf and therefore buy whateverhe recommends, but if I know that a product does more harm thangood, I am obliged to say something because of my profession.

It may be good to follow this motto in your personal life, but if we’retrying to find and promote the truth, the philosophy of “if you can’tsay anything nice about someone, don’t say anything at all” allows

people with less than honorable motives to flourish. And FYI, it painsme to have to talk about the unscrupulous folks in the raw foodmovement, but I don’t like seeing people being taken advantage of,



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for the sake of profit, at the expense of their most valuable possession… their health.

“I have a question that could come under the heading of ‘A

healthier raw food diet vs the healthiest raw food diet.’ This

women, I forget her name, when she found the gourmet raw food

diet she was elated, but after a while she found herself faced with

the same food issues she had before finding the raw food diet, and

when she thought about going to the next level (raw fruit diet) she

chose to stay with her relatively high-fat raw diet saying, ‘Like all

honeymoon phases, the euphoria starts to fade slowly as the

newness factor wears off.’ Does this happen with all raw food

diets?

There are challenges that can come up when trying to stick with anynew diet, but in my experience what she described does not happen tomost people, and it doesn’t seem to happen to people who do ahealthy raw food diet because of the Body-Mind connection; theyreally get their physical health back, and one’s improved physicalhealth affects one’s emotional health for the better. But some people

improve their diet a little bit, and feel a little improvement, but because they didn’t go far enough, they didn’t improve to the levelwhere the “euphoria” stays with them and doesn’t fade. When you getsuper healthy, your need to eat for comfort diminishes over time. Nowit should be noted that a super healthy diet doesn’t magically makenegative emotional situations go away, it just makes them easier todeal with. But there are some people who still need comfort foods todeal with them, and high-fat foods are often good comfort foods because they can dull our emotions due to the high digestive load they place on our body… you can’t experience strong emotions and digestfood at the same time because they are both huge users of nerveenergy; one will take precedence over the other.

It is true that the “cleaner” we get inside and the easier our digestion becomes, the more energy is available, and thus we have more

vitality, and we can be more aware of, well, everything. This is goodwhen we can now enjoy the enjoyable things that we weren’t able tonotice before, but we can also notice the sad things that we didn’t



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notice before. We’re more sensitive now, to everything. A double-edged sword if there ever was one.

So the trick is to seek out more happy stuff, and allow yourself to beexposed to only as much saddening stuff as you can comfortably

handle. But we’re also a lot healthier physically when we eat thehealthiest diet and give equal attention to all the other requirements ofrobust health, and that accounts for a lot… or rather that will accountfor a lot when we don’t get a diagnosis of serious disease. And thosethat were laughing all the time because they were drinking wine, andnot dealing with sad things by dulling their emotions with anunhealthy diet, and turning to comfort foods whenever they werefaced with an unhappy situation, well, they will not likely be able toeat their way out of the unhappiness brought about by a seriousdiagnosis later on down the road.

“Some raw food educators say when transitioning to a low fat raw

vegan diet, if you wait for hunger to eat then you won’t succeed.

This sounds counterintuitive; does it apply to everyone?”

This does sound like a set-in-stone statement, and it’s true that some people don’t know what true hunger is and can therefore not notice itand can inadvertently under-eat, in the same fashion that the general public mistakes other things for real hunger and overeats. But as anacross-the-board thing, this statement is not true for everyone. And Iknow this for a fact because I counsel people who want to improvetheir health.

The reason for this approach is this: When doing something new,some people work best if they are simply given a set of rules tofollow; if you try giving them information by which they can learnand make decisions on their own, they don’t do as well as they could.So health educators provide these folks with a plan to follow so theycan be successful. And when some health educators write a book,since there’s a large market for a book that has a plan to follow, this is

how the book is often written.

But not all people need to be held by the hand in this fashion. Andsince a “one size fits all” approach will yield the best results for some



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people but will hold others back, teaching people how to tailor theirnew health practices for themselves can yield the best results if that person is capable of following an understanding of an approach, andnot merely a plan based on the approach.

So I prefer to first give people some credit, and share with themtruthful information about how things work, and not start off bygiving them a plan. I do give suggestions and tips, but I won’t say thata plan is best for everyone. Yes, there is one diet that is best for everyhuman being (just as there is for all other species), but very oftenthere is a fair, good, better, and best way to get the results you want.A specific plan may be a good way to get everyone there eventually, but for many people, it isn’t the most direct route to their destination,and if time is of the essence (because of undiagnosed ill-health), themost expedient route can make an important difference. And since Iam all about the best way to do something, especially when it comesto issues of health, I cater to those people who want to be in the“driver’s seat.”

People who read my book and find they can’t easily put the

information into practice and would benefit from some coaching canget coaching from someone like myself or any one of a number ofgood health practitioners who teach a truly healthy diet and the otherequally important requisites of robust health, and who are good atcoaching someone along on this new path. My colleague EllenLivingston in Ann Arbor, Michigan comes to mind.

And I can’t say “beware of sweeping statements” because I make

some of them myself where it’s appropriate. But just as statementssuch as “everyone needs dairy products in their diet to be healthy” areuntrue, there are other “global” statements which are true, such as“dairy products do far more harm than good to everyone whoconsumes them.” Knowing which across-the-board statements aretrue and which ones aren’t requires independent thought; thinking foryourself using common sense, good judgment, and logic can helpdiscern if a sweeping statement like the one you mentioned applies to

everyone, or in reality, just to those who would be helped by it.



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“We’re told to listen to our body, but you say that isn’t always the

best thing to do?”

You shouldn’t listen to your body when it has been fooled into tellingyou it wants something, as is the case with processed, designer food

products. The designers of chocolate cake know that humans naturallycrave sweet things. They know that there are opioids in grains whichare addictive. They also know that grain products raise our serotoninlevels, making us feel good. And they are also aware that chocolatecontains a substance that elicits feelings of being loved. So they alsoknow that they can get you hooked on their product.

So when you eat chocolate cake, and your body says, “Mmmm,

more!” don’t listen to it. This is where wisdom comes in. Technologycreated cake, and wisdom is the only thing that stands between youand the damage that cake will impart to your body. But if we’re toldthat the dairy in the cake is good for us, and it is, after all, a low-fatcake, sweetened with an FDA approved artificial sweetener, and that,with exercise, you can go ahead and indulge your sweet-tooth withoutthe cake going to your waist, who are we to fight it? But obviously,fight it we should.

This is a war that has been going on ever since humans discoveredhow gullible we are, and how we can be taken advantage of for thesake of profit. These are two of our weapons: Information + theunderstanding of the information = knowledge, and wisdom allows theuse of that knowledge.

“I’m allergic to watermelon, I have a violent reaction to it, even

the tiniest amount. Even a little watermelon juice. What gives? I

thought watermelon is one of our natural foods.”

The three potential allergens in watermelon that cause reactionsinclude profilin, malate dehydrogenase and triose phosphateisomerase, and reactions can correlate with allergy season (high pollen and ragweed counts).

The good news is that these kinds of allergies are actuallyoversensitivities, and they can go away completely when the person’s



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health improves dramatically. I used to be extremely sensitive to catsand ragweed, so much so that I dreaded “allergy season”. But now Ican hold a cat and not react, and I’m no longer bothered by seasonal“allergies”.

So you might want to see your reactions not as allergies but assymptoms of a less-than-robust level of health (which also accountsfor the celiac disease you mentioned previously… it’s not that you’reallergic to wheat, because you can’t be allergic to something thatyou’re not designed to eat. Here’s a good article on the issue of“Allergy or Oversensitivity?” www.Health101.org/bookmark#41 )

And a less-than-robust level of health can manifest in these annoying

conditions now, but can manifest as serious, life-threateningconditions down the road. So even a simple thing as an allergy should be seen as a warning light on your body’s dashboard.

“Why is it so hard in the beginning?”

Transitioning is unarguably the most non-easiest time. And even

when you go 100% with dietary and lifestyle practices, that’s not theend to transitioning… your body still has a lot of transitioning to do…usually years. But the toughest part – the part where the mostuneasiness is felt – is always in the beginning. You just have to lookto getting beyond it, to where it’s easy. Feeling in the pink with anormal weight, sleep patterns, and vitality levels certainly helps withthis. You just have to get over the “hump” of weight normalization,detox/house-cleaning/rebalancing, and the mental adoption of the new

lifestyle practices that create health.

And it’s in the beginning that you (hopefully) sort out who’s got the best information to adopt, so there can be some learning, unlearning,and relearning, along with the realization that health educators aren’tnecessarily all-knowing, and that some aren’t even well-intentioned.

And remember, your body didn’t get into the shape it’s in overnight,

so a reversal of all that’s not working right won’t happen overnighteither. But whatever you must go through to get there is worth it…maybe you don’t feel that way now, but you will one day. And you’ll be so thankful you endured whatever you went through to get there.



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Closing thoughts from the author

I hope these dialogs have helped to shed some light on anything thatyou’ve been wondering about, and have got you thinking about things

you weren’t thinking about before. Obviously the various issues ofhealth creation and disease avoidance are not as cut and dried as we’dlike them to be, but if my insights and observations help you toimprove your vitality and longevity, then I am very glad I was able to be of service.

Sincerely,

Don Bennett

At a young age, Don discoveredinconsistencies within the health field, suchas doctors who smoked, and nutritionists

who ate foods that were known to beharmful. Being a seeker of truth, he set out tolearn the realities of health for himself.Discovering that traditional curriculumswere filled with biases, hidden agendas,misinformation, and missing information,Don became self-taught, avoiding thehurdles set up by academic tradition. He

took a common-sense approach to such subjects as physiology,anatomy, and biology, and learned the value of looking past the“conventional wisdoms”. This approach, in conjunction with studyingthe teachings of the pioneers of healthful living and their modern dayequivalents, and putting into practice what he had learned, allowedhim to discover the realities of health. Thirty years later, as a DiseaseAvoidance Specialist, Don now shares this wealth of enlightening andempowering knowledge with others for their consideration and

benefit. Don lives his life by these two mottos: “Seek the truth thoughthe heavens may fall” and “Do unto others as you would have othersdo unto you”.



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To help put the information in this book into practiceand make it a meaningful part of your life, consider

taking a class on DVD. Here are two good ones.

Raw Foods

Foods That You and

Your ody Will Love

How the foods we're designed to eat can help yourealize your health, longevity, and happiness

potentials. Thrive, don’t merely survive.

It may surprise some people to learn that there are manyvariations of the raw food diet, some very different thanothers in the way they can affect your health. They all mayconsist of uncooked, plant-based food, but that's wherethe similarity ends. And if you want long term healthviability, and not just short term health improvements, youneed to know what you're designed to eat so you canmake informed choices; choices that will lead you downthe path that will give you the best odds of creating robusthealth and of never getting a diagnosis of serious illness.

• Discover how people become ill, so you won’t

• Learn what most nutritional experts don’t know

• Get the facts about the raw food diets

• Find out how physical health affects emotions

• See how to feel a lot better than you do now

Video clips and more information at www.Health101.org/DVDs



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Video clips and more information at www.Health101.org/DVDs

A healthy diet is great, but it’s only one part of the

“formula for health”. If you want real robust health, a vibrantspirit, and the absolute BEST chance of avoiding seriousillness and of effectively resolving it if you already have it,this video is for you! If you have a solid foundation inhealthy eating, what you'll discover in this presentationwill help you get the most out of life; without payingattention to the other equally important requirements ofvibrant health, it is physiologically impossible to be as

healthy as you are capable of being.

Just as a chain can only be as strong as its weakest link,you can only be as healthy as the weakest link in your"chain of health". But to know how your "chain" is doing,you need to know some specifics regarding those lifestylepractices that have just as much influence on your health

as your diet does.



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Do you want to know how to avoid a diagnosis ofserious illness, and allow yourself to experience yourtrue health potential, longevity potential, and happinesspotential?

Did you know that only your body can cure you ofwhatever's ailing you, and that it can do this if you start supporting it with what it needs to heal you and stop subjecting it to those substances and conditions thatinterfere with its ability to heal you and that caused yourillness in the first place (the causes of serious diseasesare known, they're just not common knowledge).

True health-care is self-care! Take charge of yourhealth. Talk with someone who has seen how healthfulliving yields a healthy, disease-free body, and (becauseof the Body-Mind Connection) a happier disposition

Counseling and

Coaching Services

“...These changes in our lives would not have taken

place without your patient efforts to share what you

know about health with anyone who is willing to

listen. We all greatly appreciate your dedication to

natural health, and your kindness and support of

others who are looking for answers. You have made

such a difference in our lives.” – Sue Mahany, Publisher, Natural Awakenings magazine

For more information see www.

Health101.org/counselingor call (954) 889-7178



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Don Bennett’s free occasional newsletter

To sign up to receive an email notifyingyou when an issue is published, go to

www.Health101.org/contactand fill out the green box.

eeeTo see some back issues, go towww.Health101.org/newsletter/contents

To read about Don’s

first book, visitwww.Health101.org/books



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The new USDA “My Food Plate” campaign

My “My Food Plate” campaign



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Documents

Don Bennett - The Raw Food Diet Q&A