Fwd: Jinjee's article

[Guest guest]

There have been a lot of requests for the article; I did not know when I sent it

that attachments were not allowed on the group, so here is the article; sorry it

is so long. Jinjee's comments are in parentheses throughout the article, and if

your computer allows, they should come through in a different color from the

rest of the text. Hope you find it helpful.

 

Peace, Valerie

 

Jinjee's Commentary on the Nazariah Interview

 

This critique of Nazariah's interview by Fred Patenaude is in response to the

many emails I have received from people saying they are now afraid to try to go

100% raw. My intent is not to prove Naz wrong but rather to show that it is

possible to be entirely healthy long-term on a well-balanced 100% raw-vegan

non-supplemented diet.

 

Here is my initial response, followed by the interview with my commentary.

Please feel free to share this and distribute it freely.

 

Re. Naz's article, even though my personal experience has been opposite to his

and I and everyone in my immediate family seem to thrive ridiculously on a

non-supplemented 100% raw vegan diet, I think that Naz's points may have some

validity.

 

Here's the thing he wrote that really grabbed me:

 

" But you don't just go from a meat eating species to all of a sudden being a

vegan species without a lot of traumatic problems. So I advise a more

intermediate step. Let's first evolve into being vegetarians for a number of

generations, then let's evolve into veganism and let evolution happen in that

way " .

 

This is interesting because it shows that deep down inside he still believes in

the " rightness " of veganism. He believes that this is where we will " evolve " to

eventually.

 

I believe that I and my family will always thrive on a 100% raw vegan diet and I

don't anticipate any problems and I believe that we will always be 100% raw

vegan. But perhaps it is " belief " that is the key here. If we believe that we

will thrive, we will. If we are looking for a way out of the diet, if we don't

really want to do it, then that is the information that will come to us. There

is plenty of " evidence " to support both sides of the issue.

 

Science is still in its infancy, and therefore very inaccurate, especially in

the fields of nutrition, biology and medicine which are largely supported by

multi-billion dollar profit-motivated corporate interests. The truth on these

matters is very difficult to get at and discern. My answer to this problem is to

go with your own personal experience. Try it. If it works for you, it works. If

it doesn't, it doesn't. You have to take it back to basic common sense. You have

to trust your own experience more than you trust anything you see in print.

 

My friend Anahata believes that the raw vegan diet is only for those who need to

vibrate on a higher frequency to do their work in the world. She believes that

different types of work require you to vibrate on different frequencies, and

that this requires different diets.

 

Quantum Physics illustrates a new scientific discovery that the smallest central

part of a molecule is able to be directed by our will, and responds to our

expectations. This gels with my spiritual outlook that we co-create reality with

God. We have a much smaller but very powerful and important part in this

creativity. And I wonder sometimes if maybe the collective consciousness of

humankind on this planet is in a quantum way even changing the very molecular

structure of foods and chemicals, affecting what kind of a diet is the

healthiest!

 

Here is my commentary along with Naz's interview:

 

March, 2004

By Frederic Patenaude

 

First Experiences With the Raw Vegan Diet

Deaths in the Raw-Vegan Movement

 

Frederic: What is your background with the raw-vegan diet?

 

Naz: I'm 46 now and I've been a vegetarian since I was 17. At that age, I not

only became a vegetarian but also a raw-foodist. I included raw dairy into my

diet because I had met an elderly Essene teacher who recommended that.

Historically, that used to be the Essene diet. The Essenes, for the most part,

were not vegans. They were vegetarians, and many of them were raw-foodists, but

they ate fermented dairy products - yogurt and kefir. So that was my diet was

for 7 years. During that time, I did great - no problems at all.

 

Then, when I had moved to another location, I became very attracted to the vegan

philosophy, because it is a beautiful philosophy. I then became a raw-vegan.

 

After 5 years on a raw-vegan diet, I lost the ability to walk. All of my

extremities - my hands, my fingers and my feet - were in such pain that I

couldn't move. I had central nervous system problems and I was B12 anemic. All

of that happened after 5 years on a raw-vegan diet.

 

(Jinjee's Note: Naz experienced B12 deficiency. He is the first case I have

personally heard of that has become B12 deficient on the raw-vegan diet.

Statistically far more meat-eaters suffer from B12 deficiency than vegetarians,

vegans, and raw-fooders. A recent Tufts study - see footnotes for website

address - shows 40% of Americans are B12 deficient. Less than 10% of Americans

are vegetarian)

 

Naz: So I switched back to eating the raw fermented dairy products. At that

point, being as nerve-damaged as I was, I also included eggs. I healed myself by

reintroducing those products.

 

(Jinjee's Note: Perhaps the ideal raw-vegan diet might prove to be one that

includes fresh raw organic goats milk as indicated in The Essene Gospel of Peace

http://www.thegardendiet.com/essene ...but Storm's response to this is that no

other adult animal in nature drinks the Mother's milk of any animal so why would

we need to? I think that if one eats a balanced raw vegan diet including fresh

organic fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, salt and oils that one will get all the

nutrients needed unless there is some extraordinary circumstance preventing

normal digestion and absorption of such nutrients. Where else can nutrients come

from? Any heating destroys the molecular structure of the nutrients, making them

harmful to our bodies. And it is unsafe to eat animal products raw. Extracting

nutrients from foods and synthetically creating supplements with them seems to

me to be un-natural. I fully believe I can get all the nourishment I need from

natural non-animal sources).

 

Naz: At that point, I was wondering whether this was an experience unique to

myself, or whether other persons had had problems on the raw-vegan diet in the

long-term. In the short term, you don't have those sorts of problems. They're

nutritional deficiencies that take several years to manifest themselves.

 

Lack of Success in the Raw-Vegan Movement

 

So I did some research. I put a call out on the Internet at different raw food

chat boards. Because I was one of the speakers at raw-food events when they were

held, I got to hang out with the other noted raw-food speakers. I started

realizing that problems like I'd had were rampant in the raw-vegan movement, but

don't get talked about.

 

When the people who lecture and write the books start themselves having problems

on the diet, they hide that fact because they are earning their livings being a

raw-food lecturer/author. I hate to say that, but it's that way. I've seen it

happen again and again, when I will personally know a famous raw-food

speaker/teacher, and because I personally know them, I know that they are going

through anxiety attacks, panic attacks, clinical depression, that they're having

pain in their joints, they're losing their teeth - things like that. And yet,

I'll see them speak at a raw-food convention and they never mention any of the

problems they're actually experiencing. They just praise how perfect the raw

food vegan diet is. And what happens is any time people are having problems on

the raw-vegan diet, they get told that they're just experiencing detox and

cleansing. But that's just a pat answer.

 

(Jinjee's Note: I have met many teachers in the raw-vegan movement, they have

spent considerable time at our retreats, they have spoken candidly with us about

their experiences, and I have not personally heard of any such problems).

 

Naz: Deaths in the Raw-Vegan Movement

 

Here, in the Eugene area, where I live, a man in the local raw-food support

group died about two years ago. He was only in his forties. For two weeks before

his death, he'd been telling the leader of that group that he was having bad

chest pains, but she just kept telling him, " oh, it's just detox, it's just

cleansing. "

 

(Jinjee's Note: Even on the raw diet you will still eventually (probably) get

old and die. Perhaps in rare cases this can even be because of the diet. We are

all so different in so many ways and health is dependent on so many many

different factors. You have to be in tune with your body and feel whether the

diet is working for you. If it isn't, don't do it! And yes, often complaints

like this gentleman's heart can be detox symptoms. However if it is your heart

or one of your internal organs that is hurting painfully, get it checked out!

The medical institution can be useful for diagnosis!)

 

Frederic: And he had been into this for a long time?

 

Naz: Yes, for a long time. He was one of the founding members of the raw-food

support group there. His doctor, when he died, told his wife (the man's wife)

that her husband had died of starvation. His body just starved to death, even

though he was eating raw foods everyday. He wasn't absorbing enough nutrients

from it.

 

I was telling that story to a woman in Santa Monica who is part of a raw-food

support group there, and she responded by saying: " Oh yeah, we recently had a

guy who died the same way, and he wasn't very old either. The doctor said that

his body just starved for lack of nutrients. " Then I was telling another woman

in Florida who's member of a raw food support group there the same story about

both these people, the one in Eugene and the one in Santa Monica, and she

responded by saying, " Oh yeah, we've had two die that way. "

 

(Jinjee's Note: Would like to hear the specific stories. Remember, a lot of

people come to the raw foods diet because they are already very sick, often

terminally ill, as a last hope, and sometimes too late. If you get so skinny on

the raw diet that you are starving you may need to include some Celtic Sea Salt

and Cold Pressed Olive, Hemp and Flax oils in your diet, or a greater variety of

fruits and vegetables, fatty fruits, water, and germinated nutmilks. The raw

diet is the most nutrient dense diet on the planet. It should not lead to dying

of starvation! These people may have been doing one of the many extreme

fanatical versions of the raw diet in which they ate either no fruits or no

vegetables, no oils or nuts, no water, or just not enough variety or quantity of

good quality fresh organic food)

 

Naz: Raw Vegan Fallacy #1: Protein

 

The more I got into looking into this, the more I found that a lot of the things

that get preached in the raw-vegan movement just aren't true. One has to do with

protein. There is a real issue with getting enough protein. On a cooked food

vegan diet, you tend to eat a lot of beans and grains, and that is a complete

protein. But if a person is a raw-vegan, beans and grains would be sprouted, and

most people don't eat such a large amount of sprouts. Even if they do, as soon

as you begin to sprout, the protein is converted into something else. So the

protein content goes down. The vitamin content goes way up when you sprout, so

there are some good things about sprouting. The vitamin content increases, but

the protein decreases. So on a raw diet, you think you're getting your protein

from the little bit of fermented seed cheeses, but you can't eat very much of

that because it really clogs you up. So over a period of several years, people

become really protein deficient.

 

(Jinjee's Note: I believe that it is very easy to buy into the protein myth

which thousands of vegetarians, vegans and raw foodists have proven to be false.

For instance my husband Storm has not consumed animal products in over 30 years

and is not deficient in any way. You can go to

http://www.thegardendiet.com/storm.html to see his photos. Mothers milk is 2.2%

protein and babies double in size in six months consuming nothing but mother's

milk. Fruit is also 2.2% protein. Vegetables and nuts have even more protein.

According to articles I found on the FDA website, cooked protein turns into free

radicals that cause cancer. It has also been proven that you don't need to eat

all the amino acids at one sitting for a " complete protein " . Most fruits and

vegetables do contain all the amino acids making a complete protein)

 

Naz: Protein is what rebuilds everything in our body. Everyday we're losing

billions of cells, and they have to be replaced. Well, it's protein that is used

by the body to rebuild all those things. So what happens is that over a period

of time, the body just isn't rebuilding all of that and you end up having nerve

damage and different repercussions. That can happen even in the cooked-food

vegan diet.

 

(Jinjee's Note: Celery is a nerve-cell re-builder. If you include enough celery

or celery juice in your diet you will not end up with nerve damage, and you can

even repair nerve damage.)

 

Naz: Longevity of Vegans

 

The biggest study on the true mortality rates of vegetarians and vegans was

published recently, and the results were partly shown in Ahimsa Magazine, which

is a vegan magazine. Even though the results were not good for the vegan

movement, that vegan magazine said in an editorial that they felt that in

fairness to the readers, they needed to publish the information.

 

The information was that even though we've been led to believe that vegans live

longer, they actually live less long than many other dietary categories. Vegans

have a high incidence of degenerative brain diseases - Alzheimer, dementia, and

things of that nature.

 

In the past, all of the positive statistics about vegans, all the " less this "

and the " less that, " all the good things that were taught in books like John

Robbins's Diet for a New America - all those statistics weren't from studies

from large groups of people who actually died. They were just extrapolated

information. It was like, John Robbins would say, " Okay, fat is one of the

things that cause heart disease. Vegans are eating 30% less fat, therefore they

will die of 30% less heart disease " It was all theory. As it turns out, there

are certain things that are good about the vegan diet - such as less fat, less

cholesterol - but the problem is that there are certain deficiencies in the

diet, even in the cooked-vegan diet, that actually cause vegans to have more of

certain serious diseases, especially brain-related ones, because it's all having

to do with the central nervous system.

 

(Jinjee's Note: Insurance companies will give you lower rates if you are

vegetarian, and even lower if you are vegan. If anyone has done their homework

on health and longevity statistics it would be the insurance companies.)

 

Fred: Are there other studies to back up your claim that vegans live less long

than meat eaters?

 

Naz: See, over the years, I've read many studies that have caused me to come to

this conclusion. But I've also spoken to many experts, such as Gabriel Cousens,

who have clinical experience with vegans. But it goes back to the 1990's, when

Vegetarian Times, which is a major magazine, published the results of a study

that was geared to just women, and tried to see which ones lived longer, between

meat eaters, lacto-ovo vegetarians and vegan women. It turned out that the

lacto-ovo vegetarians lived the longest, the meat eaters lived the next longest,

and vegans lived the least long. And that was in Vegetarian Times approximately

in 1990. So as the years went by and studies were done, it just became sort of

overwhelmingly obvious that a lot of the things that we believe in the raw-food

movement and the vegan movement literally aren't verifiable by science, and

science actually discredits a lot of these claims.

 

The good news is that a vegetarian diet, which includes some dairy and eggs,

appears to be very healthy. That's the good news, is that we can be healthy

vegetarians. It's extremely questionable whether very many of us can be healthy

vegans. It might be possible, but that it doesn't seem possible for the

majority. The majority of vegans are actually not healthy.

 

(Jinjee's Note: Naz is perfectly correct in saying you can find articles to

prove either side of any story. You can read scientific medical journals online

and you'll find plenty of conflicting evidence. There just isn't enough true

non-biased scientific study being done in the field of nutrition. Who would fund

such studies? Organic farmers? Big business doesn't benefit from the simple

truths of health. My personal belief is that The Creator put everything here

that we need to be totally 100% naturally healthy without needing to use or kill

any animals).

 

Naz: B-12 Deficiency

 

Most vegans are not getting enough B-12. It's very important to take a B-12

supplement if you're on a vegan diet, and a lot of vegans don't. A lot of the

sources vegans have believed they were getting their B12 from actually aren't

good. For instance, the blue-green algae, the spirulina, sea vegetables, all of

those things are listed as having a lot of B12, but studies have shown that

they're analog B12, which can't be utilized by the human body. Analog B-12

competes for receptor sites with the real usable B-12. It results that eating

any of those things, it's not only that you're not getting the B-12 you think

you're getting, you're actually going to get less, because the analog B-12

clings to the limited numbers of receptor sites in the body for real B12 - and

then real B-12 can't cling to it, because it's already taken by the analog B-12.

So, people who have been eating those things in the vegan movement thinking that

it's a natural source of B12 and that they don't need to take a

B-12 supplement, become very B-12 anemic.

 

Gabriel Cousens, a holistic M.D., has become very concerned about the B-12 issue

and is now publishing the results of new research. He says that it's been

demonstrated that 80% of vegans become seriously B-12 deficient. He then lists

the problems that can be related to B-12 deficiency, and it's an incredible list

of problems.

 

(Jinjee's Note: I believe that supplements are far inferior to foods.

Hippocrates said " Make Food your Medicine " . If you simply can't eat food, then

take supplements. Otherwise, all the nutrients you need can be found in fresh

fruits and vegetables, including B12. B12 is being found in more and more fruits

and vegetables. According to Joel Robbins, M.D., N.D., D.C., PhD in Bio

Chemistry, author of " Eating for Health and Wellness " B12 is found in:

 

Alfalfa leaves

Bananas

Comfrey leaves

Concord grapes and raisins

Ginseng

Hops

Mustard greens

Plums and prunes

Sprouts

Sunflower seeds

Wheatgrass

 

A very prominent healer was defending his selling of supplements, even though I

wasn't attacking him about doing so. His final argument was that " you don't just

need health, you also need wealth and I have 200 clients that buy $100 worth of

vitamins a month " . I think he was looking for us to give him some kind of

approval to make him feel good about doing this. To tell you the truth, I really

don't know enough about science, medicine, and the human body to say whether

supplements are good or bad. When I don't know something I always go with

nature. Therefore I don't take supplements or sell them. Storm hasn't taken any

supplements in over 30 years. Some people do seem to be helped by them. It is a

personal decision. It could be that people who don't have access to fresh

organic produce year-round might be helped by high quality supplements.

Pharmanex is one of the supplement companies who grow all the plants organically

and extract the nutrients intact for proper chelation and better

absorption. It made so much sense I almost went in for them until my

un-supplemented family scored much higher on their scan tests of anti-oxidants

in the tissues than those who took these high quality supplements regularly.

This scanner was designed by Pharmanex to measure overall health and nutrient

levels. There may be better supplement companies too. I haven't researched this

as I don't intent to take supplements. I just happened to meet some Pharmanex

promoters at a healthfood store and took their test).

 

 

Naz: Vegetarianism Versus Veganism

 

Where I come out on all this, is that when we look at our own family lines, most

of us have not had a vegetarian ancestor. The vast majority of us, living in

America, have not had a single vegetarian ancestor, going back all the way to

this almost countless line of generations. And certainly, there was not a vegan

in that family line. Therefore, that's a pretty radical thing to do, if you look

at it that way, to all of a sudden become a vegan, when no one in your genetic

line has been a vegan, going all the way back to perhaps thousands of years ago.

We've been eating animal products for all that time, so the human system is

expecting to get nutrients that way.

 

(Jinjee's Note: Yes, we have adapted to eating meat and dairy. But the way we

have adapted is to have brought into being a society in which death by disease

is normal and expected).

 

Naz: So what I advocate now is that people become vegetarians, not vegans. With

that in mind, there are certain a smart things that you can do. For instance,

the problem with dairy products that most people have is the digestion of

lactose. Lactose is what causes mucus. But in fermented dairy the lactose is

pre-digested by the fermentation process. Even most people who are lactose

intolerant can tolerate fermented dairy. Fermented dairy is yogurt, kefir, etc.

You can also have some organic eggs from free-range chickens.

 

(Jinjee's Note: I think that including some natural organic kefir, yogurt and

eggs may be beneficial for some people. Storm does not think so. We still

co-habitate peacefully, so hopefully we will not have any huge rifts in the raw

movement just because some people want to include these things. I do not

personally include these things in my diet or intend to do so. But I think it is

better than eating bread, spaghetti, processed food, and a host of other

vegetarian items. I think if I were to recommend an animal product I would

choose fresh goats milk, which is recommended in the Essene Gospel of Peace at

http://www.thegardendiet.com/essene . However Storm is completely opposed to

eating any kind of dairy or meat. I defer to his better judgement because he

seems to grow younger every day eating his diet of just fruits, vegetables,

nuts, and seeds with Celtic Sea Salt, Cold-Pressed Olive/Hemp/Flax oils, and raw

honey. My own experience with his diet has produced only incredible

results, healing, weight loss and improvement. Many people have also reported

amazing healing, weight loss and well-being on Storm's version of the raw diet.

However even people who have experienced nothing but good from the raw diet will

sometimes be so scared by an article such as Naz's interview that they will

abandon the raw vegan diet completely and go back to a bad cooked food diet with

all its related health problems. When do we start trusting our own

experiences?).

 

Naz: Fallacies in the Raw Movement #2: Cooking

 

Another one of the fallacies of the raw food movement is the idea that once you

cook vegetables, you destroy all of the nutrients. The reality is that it simply

isn't true, according to some tests that have been done.

 

They did a test for cancer purposes where they knew that there were certain

nutrients in certain vegetables with anti-cancer properties. So they fed one

group of people raw vegetables and they fed another group cooked vegetables.

Then they checked their blood, to see which group had the highest level of the

positive anti-cancer properties from the vegetables in their bloodstream, and it

was the people on the cooked vegetables that had it, far more than the people on

the raw vegetables.

 

(Jinjee's Note: I have been present at such testing and the results were quite

the opposite. It is known even by the medical community that raw-vegans score

outrageously higher in anti-cancer nutrients than other people do).

 

Naz: The reason is simply because most people digest cooked vegetables better

than they digest raw vegetables. More nutrients get in the bloodstream from the

cooked vegetables.

 

(Jinjee's Note: This is a myth. If you juice your raw vegetables, there is no

faster easier way to absorb the nutrients. Juicing is a known cure for every

imaginable disease and this has been proven by tens of thousands of people. The

only reason mainstream medicine doesn't promote juicing is because you can't

patent vegetable juice! And it is so much more effective than anything they have

patented that it would be counter-productive).

 

Naz: There's an example that I give to a lot of the people that I know - younger

people, college students, old hippies, people like that - who have at least at

one time or another in their lives eaten marijuana brownies. The interesting

thing about eating cooked marijuana is that you'll get high if you eat cooked

marijuana, but you won't get high at all if you eat raw marijuana. And a lot of

those people can relate to that. They tried raw marijuana - eating it, and

nothing happened to them. They've tried cooking it and eating it, and they did

get high. Well, the reason is because only when the marijuana is heated does it

break down the fibers enough to where the THC seeps out and can be absorbed into

the human bloodstream.

 

(Jinjee's Note: It is quite likely that the increased toxicity of the cooked

brownies were the reason that people got more " high " eating those.)

 

Naz: What I point out is that it's the same thing with a lot of the nutrients in

vegetable matter. A lot of times, you'll eat the raw vegetables and your body

doesn't really break down the fibers enough to absorb certain of the nutrients.

In a tomato, for example, you find lycopene, which is one nutrient that they've

found which is really good for the human heart and has anti-cancer properties.

Lycopene is not digested in a raw tomato. It is digested in a cooked tomato. So,

there are some nutrients that are more absorbed in cooked vegetables than in raw

vegetables.

 

(Jinjee's Note: I've read around 20 articles that oppose raw food because " many "

vegetables are easier to digest cooked. They always mention only one nutrient,

lycopene, in one vegetable, the tomato! I've never heard of any other vegetable

that is said to be easier to digest in its cooked state. Isn't it rather bad

logic mathematically speaking to prefer a cooked diet because of one vegetable?

Actually a tomato is a fruit, but that's a different subject.)

 

Naz: If a person isn't defending a particular " ism " , but is just looking for

truth, you'll find that the healthiest diet is one that includes a lot of both

cooked vegetation, and raw vegetation - because that's the best of both worlds.

You're getting the things from the raw vegetables that you can't get from a

cooked vegetable and you're getting things from the cooked vegetables that

you're not going to get from the raw vegetables.

 

(Jinjee's Note: All people are different and each of us has a unique path. We

travel our unique path sharing what works for us and accepting what works for

others. I appreciate Nazariah sharing what works for him. I just don't agree

with his blanket statement that the raw-vegan diet is dangerous simply because

his particular raw-vegan diet didn't work for him).

 

Naz: The Healthiest Diet

 

That is the healthiest diet. A vegetarian diet that's not a junk food vegetarian

diet - but one based good, whole, organic foods.

 

The healthiest diet would have one meal a day that is a raw vegetable salad - a

major vegetable salad, not a little iceberg lettuce, but with romaine lettuce,

broccoli, etc. - a real heavy-duty salad.

 

Another meal would be cooked and feature things like steamed veggies, or a

stir-fry, so it would have a lot of cooked vegetation in it.

 

A third meal simply would be fruit, like a fruit breakfast or a smoothie.

 

In there, somewhere, you've got to get your protein. So either with your salad,

or with your cooked meal, you want to have yogurt or kefir, or hard-boiled eggs

on your salad, or something.

 

Frederic: Could that be beans?

 

Naz: It can some days, but if it were going to always be that, then that would

be vegan, and the whole point of everything I've just told you is that it seems

that the vegan diet isn't beneficial in the long-term. If a person were going to

be a vegan, they could be having some tofu, tempeh, or some sort of a bean-type

protein with their steamed veggies. That diet would be a healthy vegan diet, as

far as vegan diets go. But what I'm saying is that the latest research is that

the vegan diet itself is deficient in the long-term.

 

More Nutrients Lacking in the Vegan Diet

 

What about supplements? If someone takes B-12, vitamin D, etc., could that be

complete?

 

They keep on discovering certain little things that we didn't know, even three

years ago, five years ago, ten years ago. You really can't be sure that there's

something else that they haven't discovered that's lacking in the vegan diet.

 

For example, we only found out a few years ago about the need for the omega-3.

Omega-3 fatty acids are very important, and it's very difficult to get them on a

vegan diet. Several years ago, when that got discovered, we got told that it's

in flax seeds. So then people in the vegan movement started having a lot of flax

seeds or flax oil, and stuff like that. Well, now, as recently as a year ago,

they discovered that we only absorb something like less than 6% of the omega 3

in flax oil. So in other words, you'd have to eat an incredible amount of flax

oil to get very much omega 3 from it, because most people don't absorb very much

of it from flax oil.

 

And then, they discovered as recently as one year ago that there's a long-chain

fatty acid, which is really important to the brain and is not found in any vegan

source of food. Then about a month ago, Gabriel Cousens said that this long

chain fatty acid, called EPA, is present in this kind of wild plant called

purslane. But hardly anybody knows that in the vegan movement, because that just

got discovered a month ago. And most of them don't know that they're even

missing this long-chain fatty acid.

 

What I'm telling you that for is that, even though the general idea is that you

just combine some beans and grains and maybe take a B-12 supplement and you're

going to have everything that you need, actually, there are little things, like

certain fatty acids that they keep on discovering that aren't in the vegan diet,

until they figure out some way that you can get it from a vegan source. So I

wonder, whether or not in the next five years, or 10-20 years, they're going to

keep on discovering little things like that, that they didn't know before.

 

It's certainly has been happening my whole lifetime. They keep on discovering

ether new tidbits of information. So if a person were concerned about health, I

wouldn't recommend a vegan diet.

 

(Jinjee's Note: Yes, science discovers nutrients in animal products. Then

science discovers that these nutrients are present in a far healthier form in

raw vegan foods. This is the continual pattern that presents itself if you look

at the larger picture. First they said the milk was the best way to get calcium.

Now they say that it is dark leafy greens. First they said that meat was the

best way to get protein. Now they say that nuts are the superior protein. With

iron it went from beef to beets. With B12 it is only a matter of time before

they swing from eggs to bananas ).

 

 

Naz: Ethics and Health

 

If your main reason for being a vegan is the ethical concerns for the animal

world and if you're willing to take on the personal karma of being less healthy

because of your ethical considerations for the animal world, then, that's an

okay reason to be a vegan, but not health, because it doesn't seem to be healthy

in the long-term.

 

(Jinjee's Note: Where is the evidence of this, other than the " facts " generated

by industry-backed research which have been proven time and again to be false?)

 

Naz: So you have to just decide, where you're at on that. If you don't care

about your own health, or if you're willing to sacrifice your own health because

of the ethical considerations for the animal world, then I don't have any

problems with that. If a person knows that they're going to have an increased

chance of dying prematurely, and having different health problems, but are

choosing that path knowingly, because of their love for the animal world, well

then that's fine. As long as they're doing it knowingly.

 

(Jinjee's Note: Einstein said you could tell when you had found a true

mathematical formula because it was beautiful. Things in this universe make

sense and are beautiful. It is a beautiful thing to evolve to a point where you

don't kill any more. The raw vegan diet is a thing of beauty that makes

harmonious sense on every level. If one has faith that this universe is good,

true, and beautiful, then it is easy to embrace the raw-vegan diet

wholeheartedly. When one has doubts, then it is easy to find reinforcement for

ones doubts).

 

Naz: My viewpoint is that I think that for the animal world, our generation is

making a good step in the right direction by simply stopping eating animals.

We're making a good step in the right direction for our species. After a certain

number of generations of our family line actually being vegetarian, we could

probably evolve from a vegetarian species into a vegan species - the way

evolution works.

 

(Jinjee's Note: Yes, I believe it will be a slow evolution to a vegan and raw

vegan world. Most people still don't believe it is possible to survive without

meat. It is a challenge living on a planet with this mind-set, to stick to ones

own convictions and go against the current. However the tides are turning. The

current SAD diet is so awful that even people en masse are seeking alternatives.

When Storm went vegetarian in Detroit 37 years ago people told him he would die

within a year.)

 

Naz: But you don't just go from a meat eating species to all of a sudden being a

vegan species without a lot of traumatic problems. So I advise a more

intermediate step. Let's first evolve into being vegetarians for a number of

generations, then let's evolve into veganism and let evolution happen in that

way.

 

(Jinjee's Note: This is naturally happening. Raw Vegans are still a very small

group of people.).

 

 

Raw-Veganism During Pregnancy

 

I don't think that it's wise for a woman who is pregnant to eat a raw-vegan

diet, and the reason is that there are numbers of studies and view points that

believe that there is an insufficient amount of nutrients comes in - especially

vitamin B12. If a woman were taking the vitamin B-12 supplement, and certain

other supplements, then she probably could stay on a raw-vegan diet. However, a

lot of the people that are on the raw-vegan don't believe in supplements - they

don't believe in taking vitamin B12. And according to the latest research from

Gabriel Cousens, 80% of vegans are B-12 deficient. A vitamin B-12 deficiency in

children leads to irreversible brain damage. So even if later in their life,

they're eating plenty of B-12, there's been irreversible brain damage already

done.

 

(Jinjee's Note: I have experienced two raw vegan pregnancies and two cooked

vegan pregnancies the raw ones were far easier and resulted in pain-free labors!

All four of my children are raw and above average in brain development. I took

no supplements during pregnancy or lactation or any other time during the past

11 years).

 

Naz: I understand the reasons that a woman would choose to be a raw vegan

herself and to attempt to raise her children that way, and even to attempt to

maintain that diet while she's pregnant. The reason is that she believes that

it's good for her and that it will be good for her children. The problem is that

actual scientific evidence shows otherwise. It's very risky and dangerous for a

pregnant woman to be on a raw vegan diet, and it is risky and dangerous to raise

small children on a raw vegan diet.

 

(Jinjee's Note: Unfortunately there simply hasn't been any scientific testing on

this matter done, so this evidence he speaks of is non-existent. The medical

institutions have nothing to gain by testing the raw-vegan diet. If you want to

see living proof of the raw vegan diet being exceedingly healthy for pregnant

women and small children, visit our family's website at

http://www.thegardendiet.com )

 

 

Naz: Now, one might say, are there other problems besides the B-12 issue? Well,

the B-12 issue is very important. There would need to be a B-12 supplement to be

raising your child on a raw-vegan. But B-12 isn't the only issue. Many children

who are being raised on a raw-vegan diet are suffering various nutritional

deficiencies that affect them later in life. And even if a person believes that

perhaps a child can be raised successfully on a raw-vegan diet, they owe it to

their child to research the issue before attempting to actually raise the child

as a raw-vegan. It's not enough to research the issue by asking raw-food

experts, because as I've pointed out in this interview, raw-food experts have

been spreading incorrect information for a number of years. You have to actually

get into talking to other sources of information, including nutritional

scientists - people who actually study nutrition.

 

Frederic: Have you seen yourself children who've been raised on a raw vegan

diet?

 

Naz: I know friends of the family of the infant that died recently in Florida,

and they tell me that even the older children in that family were emaciated and

looked like Nazi workcamp inmates.

 

(Jinjee's Note: That family fed their children about five different kinds of

foods only. Avocado, corn, and three other things. It was a freak situation.

Hundreds of children on a " normal " diet die every day from obesity-related

diseases but they never make the news individually).

 

Frederic: Is 100% raw ideal?

 

Naz: Here's what I think now: a person on a raw diet, including fermented dairy

products or eggs, will do fine. But if a person was going for what the

healthiest diet is, I think having one meal of cooked vegetables per day -

steamed vegetables or an oriental stir-fry, or something like that - is actually

even healthier than being 100% raw for this reason:

 

Studies have shown that certain important nutrients in vegetables are better

absorbed and utilized by a human being from cooked vegetables. And other certain

important nutrients are better absorbed and utilized by a human being from raw

vegetables. So, the best of both worlds is each day to have cooked and raw

vegetables in our diet.

 

(Jinjee's Note: Don't you mean eat all your vegetables raw and one cooked

tomato? By the way the latest studies are now showing that the cooked tomato is

only beneficial for women while the raw tomato prevents prostate cancer in men).

 

Naz: So actually, as far as what would be the most healthy diet, I think it

would be one meal each day that includes cooked vegetables, like some steamed

veggies or stir-fry and one meal per day that's basically a big, raw, vegetable

salad, and, if there's a third meal, that can be a couple pieces of fruit or

fruit smoothie for breakfast, and that would be raw. So the diet that I just

described would be two third raw. And then there's got to be a good source of

protein in that diet, which means that perhaps with the cooked meal, one might

have some kefir, some yogurt, or perhaps, on the salad a couple of hard-boiled

eggs.

 

(Jinjee's Note: I'm not saying that this diet wouldn't be good. It is still a

huge cut above the Standard America Diet. Dr. Walker lived to be over 100 years

old and healthy on a 75% raw diet including fruits for breakfast, a big salad

for lunch, vegetable juices once or twice a day, and rice and steamed vegetables

for dinner. If you can't be happy on a 100% raw diet long term, don't do it.

Happiness is at least as important to your overall health as diet is! Personally

I am happiest when eating living foods. This may or may not be true for you.)

 

Frederic: What's Missing in the Vegan Diet

 

Naz: This leads me to question the protein theories that I have learned. The

current RDAs for protein are 0.8 grams for every kilo of ideal body weight,

which seems fairly easy to get on a raw-vegan diet. So where do you get the

impression that protein is such an important element in the diet?

 

Where we get the impression is from the actual crippled people and people with

nervous disorders on the vegan diet. See, on paper, like you're saying, it all

looks fine. But in reality, you have people on long-term vegan diets having real

problems.

 

So that's where we find out that there are problems. So then the investigators

say, " Okay, even though we thought that there was plenty of these nutrients in a

long-term vegan diet, we have these degenerative brain diseases and things like

that happening to vegans: so what's the problem? " Then they discover that there

are certain long-chain fatty acids and other things that we're not really

thinking about when we're just looking at how many ounces of protein is in this

or that.

 

The real complexity comes in that there'd be these things that we haven't

factored in. And then even right now, there's no reason to think that in the

next five or ten years they're not going to discover more of those little things

that we don't currently know about, because they keep discovering more. You have

to realize that in the 1900s, nobody knew what B-12 was, nobody knew what

vitamin C was, nobody knew what vitamin A was - that's all stuff that got

discovered later. And as the years go by, they keep discovering more things.

Rather than look at all the things they've discovered so far, and then look at

whether or not you can get them on a certain diet, it's good to look at groups

of people who have been following a certain diet and if they're healthy or not.

 

(Jinjee's Note: Yes, and these things are usually discovered in plant foods.

Even if they are discovered in animal food sources, what happens to these

nutrients when you cook them is that they are altered into toxic molecular

structures. And it is simply unsafe to eat raw animal foods due to the high

levels of bacteria that break down dead meat).

 

Naz: Long-Term Vegans Don't Look Good

 

One of the things that I've just noticed, with my own eyeballs, is that a lot of

long-term vegans actually don't look healthy. They look kind of emaciated, their

skin is kind of yellow, they've got bags under their eyes, their hair's not good

- it's splitting, their fingernails aren't good. So just looking at long-term

vegans, like if you go to a vegan's organization's meeting and look at the

people and you'll realize that they actually don't even look healthy, especially

when you look at the people that have been on it for longer than 10 years. So

then you start finding out that they're having really major health problems

related to certain nutritional deficiencies.

 

(Jinjee's Note: I have met so many raw-vegans who look extremely well. The most

beautiful people I have ever met are raw-vegans. They have a glow, a clarity of

the eyes, youthful skin, a wonderful energy, and a bearing that is beyond

beautiful. You meet a fair amount of them who look sickly because that is why

got into the diet, they were sick to start with. And you do meet some who look

depleted because they are going through some level of detox or they haven't yet

dialed in the diet to get enough nutrition from it. With vegans, often they live

on processed vegan foods, which aren't any better than any other processed

foods. Then you factor in the spiritual elements. Many raw vegans have trouble

dealing with the levels of power that they encounter within themselves after

going raw. Power tends to flip people out. Like the nouveau riche, like

celebrity, like the clergy, like political leaders, the power in these positions

can corrupt. The corruption from raw power can be seen in some

people's faces manifested as anger, greed, egotism, alienation, fear, paranoia,

snobbishness, fanaticism, and arrogance. This is not the norm, but it does

happen to some people. Most work through it and end up in a really good place).

 

Naz: I want to emphasize that I was a vegan. I was a radical vegan. I was in

favor of the philosophy, and I still think it's a beautiful philosophy. I still

think it's fine for a person, in spite of all that I've said - to just knowingly

become a vegan. But what they shouldn't be under is the false illusion that

they're following a diet that's healthier than other diets, which is what they

thought. In fact, it's probably not as healthy as certain other diets. And it's

okay to do it, as long as you realize that you are taking a risky dietary

choice, and you're doing it for ethical reasons, not health reasons.

 

(Jinjee's Note: If its good, its good. If its bad, its bad. Its an orderly

universe that makes a lot of sense. What makes sense is beautiful. What is

beautiful makes sense).

 

Naz: Raw-Vegan Fallacy #3: Enzymes

 

You're probably familiar with the very recent case in Florida, where a small

child died on a raw-vegan diet. When that happened, there were a lot of

newspaper articles in Florida about the raw-food diet. And those reporters were

going around, asking different nutritional experts for their opinion on the

raw-food diet. Well, some buddy in Florida sent me a couple of newspaper

articles, and in those articles, there were a few nutritional scientists

interviewed. They were pointing out, like I've mentioned before, that most of

the nutrients get absorbed better in a cooked vegetable, and a few get absorbed

and utilized better in a raw vegetable. Therefore, the healthiest diet would be

one that included both raw and cooked vegetables, because then you're getting

the nutrients that are better absorbed in each way.

 

But there are other fallacies that nutritional scientists pointed out. One of

which is the whole living enzyme thing. Only one researcher, in the 1940's, that

Dr. Howell, who always gets mentioned in the raw food literature, believed that

there was a chance that, when you ate raw foods, those enzymes in the food would

make it to the part of the digestion process where they could be helpful, before

they got themselves completely fried. But, your other 99% of researchers don't

believe that. And this is what people in the raw-food movement don't realize, is

that the idea that the raw enzymes in food that you eat are going to help you

digest your food is not believed to be true by 99% of researchers. The reason is

because before food every gets to the point where the nutrients are being

extracted, it's already been totally broken down by your own digestion process.

When you eat food, it goes to a place in your stomach where there's these

incredible " fires " with acids, and stuff like

that, and it totally breaks down your food before it gets to the point that

those enzymes could help in the way that raw-foodists believe they help.

 

But, the other thing is that the enzymes of a plant are not the same as the

enzymes of a human being, in our digestive tract. The enzymes of a plant are

designed by a plant to help the plant digest its nutrients, its food. So the

enzymes of a broccoli plant are for the broccoli plant to digest its food. If

you look at them with a microscope, they aren't the same as the enzymes in a

human digestive tract.

 

(Jinjee's Note: perhaps plants have enzymes that help them digest their food,

but apparently they also have enzymes that make them grow, ripen and rot. These

are the ones that help the plant to decompose in our system. The enzyme doesn't

make it to our stomach if it is cooked. But my understanding is that the enzymes

in raw food are absorbed through the saliva while chewing, setting up the right

enzymatic activity in our stomach. With cooked foods the enzymes are dead before

the food even goes into our mouth, so the body doesn't know what kind of food to

get ready to digest, and so it generates all kinds of digestive juices which

takes away energy from our metabolic enzyme reserves).

 

Naz: Now there are a few plant enzymes that have been found to help digest

certain things, like for instance in papayas you have papain. There are a couple

of plant enzymes that seem to have a beneficial effect in digesting certain

things, but the idea that we have when we are eating our salads and our raw

foods that all of those living enzymes in those plants are somehow going to aid

our digestion process actually is not what science has found.

 

(Jinjee's Note: Again, if you read the medical journals you'll notice that these

scientific studies have all been done using cooked foods. Also, they have been

done on people who eat a cooked diet. The inner terrain of a raw-foodist is very

different from that of a cooked foodist. Nutrients react differently in

different terrains. So fruit sugar will affect a raw foodist very differently

than a cooked foodist).

 

 

Naz: Underweight Raw Vegans

 

If we go to a raw food conference, you notice that a lot of men look quite

skinny or emaciated. Some say it's detox and that the weight will come back, but

then many have been on this diet for quite a while and still are quite

underweight.

 

(Jinjee's Note: If they worked out, they would put on weight. Also, being skinny

is not a bad thing. We're just conditioned to think it is. Why is it that women

are supposed to by skinny and men aren't? And could that fact be associated with

the fact that women live longer? The calorie restriction diet has been proven to

cause longevity in all animal groups tested. See CalorieRestriction.org . Also,

all people I've seen pictures of who lived to be over 100 were skinny).

 

That's the big problem now, but there are a few exceptions to the rule: people

who have amazing digestive systems and are able to digest nutrients properly on

an all-raw diet. But the important thing is that those are the exception to the

rule. The vast majority of people does not adequately break down and digest all

the raw foods that they're eating. And that's why they can't reach a healthy

weight.

 

(Jinjee's Note: I would say that it is a minority of people who can't break down

and digest raw foods. These are people who would have just as much trouble

breaking down cooked foods. They simply have digestive problems, which would be

healed on the right raw-vegan diet for them that included ample vegetable

juices, germinated almond milk, and fruits).

 

Naz: I mentioned to you that several people have died on a raw food diet and

that when they died; the doctor said that their body had starved to death. Those

weren't people that were fasting; they were people that were eating raw foods

everyday. But their body starved to death because these individuals had less

effective digestive systems than the average person. So, even though the average

person would not digest as many nutrients from the raw vegetables as from the

cooked vegetables, people with poor digestion digest so few nutrients on the raw

food diet that they can actually starve to death even though they are eating

everyday.

 

And so, when one sees things like that happen and then try to bring that up and

talk about it in the raw-food movement, then everyone gets really defensive and

starts attacking you and labeling you in some negative way.

 

(Jinjee's Note: Standing up for what one believes is true is never bad. I would

not label Nazariah for it. I don't think it is bad that he is doing this. But

those who have other beliefs and experiences should stand up too, so that both

sides can be considered).

 

Naz: What raw-foodism has become is just another " ism, " that is defended by the

true believers. And any information that I've provided you in this interview,

what the true believers will do with it is that they'll simply look at it and

immediately start forming arguments and opinions to counter it, without ever

being open to the possibility that it might actually be true. Just like a

Jehovah Witness would defend Jehovaism, and a Mormon would defend Mormonism,

raw-foodists will defend raw-foodism.

 

(Jinjee's Note: On the contrary, I believe that one can be very healthy on the

diet Naz is outlining. He however is stating that the raw food diet is

dangerous, which I disagree with. Every body is different. Every mind is

different. Every spirit is different. There are many factors that contribute to

health; diet, sleep, water, exercise, environment, mental state, spiritual life,

family life, social life, work life, genetics, attitude, beliefs, and probably

other unknown factors. How can one say that one diet is right for everyone? Or

that one diet is right for you for your whole life? I ask only that you think

for yourself. And that you don't devalue your own experiences. Believe in your

experiences. Trust your intuition, your instincts, your inner guidance, and the

true desires of your heart. There is no such thing as scientific fact. There are

only scientific theories which each generation of scientists build upon with new

theories. Science is the study of truth, which is

infinite in its mystery).

 

 

Naz: The Raw-Vegan Movement

 

When we talk to these leaders, people like Gabriel Cousens, they'll acknowledge

the B-12 issue. But you don't just recommend supplements but move away from the

vegan diet completely. Why?

 

The thing is that I'm not so personally invested in having to defend the

raw-food diet or the vegan diet. I simply got into all of this because I was a

seeker of truth, and I was looking for a diet that was spiritual and healthy,

and wherever truth has led me, I followed.

 

(Jinjee's Note: If truth led him to the raw vegan diet, what led him away?

Health problems? Perhaps these could have been solved by fine tuning the raw

vegan diet for him. Perhaps his health problems would have been worse if he

hadn't been raw. It could be that the problems were set up a long time before he

went raw. It could also be in his mind. If he was excessively worrying about

deficiencies and focusing on them, they could have been brought about that way).

 

The problem is that with most of these noted leaders of the movement are

authors. That's how they got to be the noted leaders, because they were writing

the books. And they're on the lecture circuit, they have clients, they're

earning their living from being an authority on veganism or raw-foodism. If they

completely just shift and say, " I no longer believe that the raw-vegan diet is

anything that should be advocated to the large number of people, " then the

problem is that it pulls the rug from underneath them, personally, in regards to

how they're learning their living. So I hate to say a thing like this, but from

what I've seen with my own eyes, it seems to be part of the problem.

 

(Jinjee's Note: I don't think that the people who write about raw foods would be

able to live with themselves for very long if they knew they were giving out

false information. I don't think these authors are the kind of people who would

do something like that. One doesn't get rich as a raw food author and lecturer.

I can speak from experience on that. Their motivation is usually a passion to

help people as they have been helped themselves. And I think most of them firmly

believe what they are teaching).

 

Naz: The leaders, the authority figures, are earning their living from being

promoters of this particular diet. So therefore - and even the best of them -

when they start to see some problems, their instinct is to just recommend a

particular supplement, or something like that, and of course, usually they sell

the supplements that they're recommending. You'll notice that most of them do.

So they sell those things, but if they were to simply say, " Gosh, you know even

though I became a famous author on this topic, it doesn't actually seem to be

valid anymore, " they would have to change their entire career. The thing that

they're famous for would not be something that they aren't in favor of anymore.

It's a radical thing that they would have to experience and go through.

 

(Jinjee's Note: I can only speak for myself and say that if I ever found out

that this diet was harmful in any way or caused any problems in the long-term

that I would publish that information far and wide on my website, my newsletter,

raw forums, and articles. My goal is not to make money but to be able to make

money doing my right livelihood, my calling, which will always be aligned with

my highest truth with no compromise).

 

Naz: Look-Term Raw-Food Authors Eating Cooked Food

 

Are you saying that these leaders may actually not be vegans themselves but

won't come out publicly and say that?

 

That's not what I just said. But since you are saying that, on whether or not

they are vegans or not, all I can say is that I have seen with my own eyes

certain things... One incident occurred when I was one of the speakers at the

raw-food convention in San Francisco, a few years back. Two of the speakers were

really insistent that one has to be on a 100% raw-vegan diet and that 80% raw is

not okay to get the benefits. They said out loud that you have to be 100%

raw-vegan. And each of those speakers claimed to have been 100% raw-vegans for

20 years. They were the most aggressive, assertive speakers in the entire

convention, really negative towards anyone that would just eat partially raw.

Well, before the end of that weekend, I saw each of them sneakily eat cooked

food.

 

I went for a walk and a few blocks away from the convention center and I walked

by a pizza restaurant, and there was one of the speakers who had said those

things, and he's eating a pizza. You can order a pizza with no cheese on it, but

even then it would be cooked food and he was claiming that he hadn't eaten

cooked food in 20 years. And it looked like it was a cheese pizza.

 

Then when I was leaving the San Francisco airport, and I was walking around that

round concourse in the airport, with little restaurants and things like that,

and there was the other speaker who had been so aggressive and assertive about

having to be 100% raw. He was sitting at a table having a plate of spaghetti. I

don't know whether that was vegan or not, but it was certainly cooked. And, as I

was approaching him and he saw me coming up, he stuck up a newspaper and hid his

face behind it. But I didn't embarrass him by walking up to him.

 

One of the real problems in that raw food movement with those experts and

authors is that they have a lot of guilt because they get into this thing about

having to be 100% raw. And when they themselves have a binge or sneakily eat

some cooked food, they don't want to admit it because it would wreck their

reputation as the great raw-foodist that never eats cooked food. So therefore

they eat the cooked food on the sly and then have guilt about it. They start to

get into a very vicious cycle psychologically. Yet, when you speak to them or

when they do their lecture, they just still claim to have never eaten cooked

food in all these years. They put on a fake front to the public. So I saw that

with my own eyes with a number of the leading individuals.

 

So, are there some of those leaders who really are 100% raw-vegans through the

years and are healthy? There might be. But, they also might not be. I mean, all

I know is that the ones that I get to know, the more I get to know them, the

more I see them eating cooked food on the sly, or having really severe problems

like anxiety attacks, panic attacks, clinical depression, teeth falling out,

fingernails breaking, hair falling out. So I'm just not personally impressed

with my experience of the raw food movement and the raw-food experts! That's

just my own personal experience with all that.

 

Frederic: But I'm sure some people will come to you and say, " Oh, I know this

guy who's been a raw-vegan for 30 years, and he's muscular and he's really

healthy. "

 

Naz: Yeah, and what I always think of when I hear that is those speakers that I

saw that said that they had been 100% raw for 20 years and that very weekend of

the raw food convention both of them ate cooked food. So, I take it all with a

grain of salt. In other words, those people might believe they know somebody

that's been raw-vegan for 30 years and is in great physical condition, but

whether that person really has been or not, or whether that person really is

healthy and isn't suffering some things behind the scenes, one doesn't know. And

so, I remain open to the possibility that there are some individuals whose

particular body type has permitted to be a raw-vegan for thirty years and be in

good health. I admit that possibility, but my own experience tells me that that

would be few and far between - it wouldn't be most people.

 

(Jinjee's Note: It is an interesting co-incidence that Naz has run into so many

raw leaders cheating on their diets. I have heard such rumors before, but it

would seem a very freak accident to happen upon even one such incident in ones

lifetime. I have also heard several raw leaders openly say that they are not

100% raw all the time. And those that do say that they are 100% raw I believe.

Their sincerity, commitment, and dedication is very clear to me. It hurts me to

see them maligned here as a group).

 

 

Naz: Lack of Honesty in the Raw-Vegan Movement

 

There's not much honesty in the raw movement, as you're saying...

 

See, there's a definite problem there. And it's not, a " problem of the raw

movement. " The problem is just human beings. Whether you're talking about

politics, whether you're talking about sports, whatever field you're talking

about, you find that there are a lot of things that are done for the profit

motive. That individual people are usually looking out for how they're earning

their income.

 

Now we see that and criticize it, in things like the oil industry and the

munitions industry, but the same exact thing is true in the health food

industry. It's true in health movements, raw-food movements, and things like

that. There gets to be certain groups of people who are earning their living

from it and feeding their egos by being the authority figures. The human species

seems to, in general, still have a problem struggling with basic honesty.

 

In the raw-food movement, you sort of set yourself up for the worst of human

nature, simply because you get into a one-upsmanship thing where, " what percent

raw are you? " , " How long have you been 100% raw? " You get into this sort of like

" raw-food one-upsmanship, " which cultivates the worst in human behavior

patterns.

 

Supplements

 

Many of the authors in the raw-movement, who used to recommend really simple,

basic raw-vegan diets, are now getting into all these supplements and

super-foods. It seems that they're noticing that this basic raw-vegan diet seems

to be deficient. Why is that?

 

There are two reasons for that. One is because of what you just said. There's an

interesting thing about the raw food movement, which is different than other

field. In the raw-food movement, if you come into it and are a raw-foodist for a

fairly short time - like two or three years - you tend to start writing your

books.

 

In the raw-food movement as a whole, people get into the idea of the pristine

version of the raw-food diet, which wouldn't include supplements. They do that

for a period of time and write a book or two while they're on that version of

the diet. Then, all of the sudden in their own lives, they start having the

problems of the nutritional deficiencies, and then they start looking for the

answers. At first, the idea is that the answer is like some simple fix, like,

" Gosh, if I just take a B-12 supplement, or if I just eat this algae " or

something like that. So then, they start looking for the answer in that

direction. So, that's one reason why all these raw-food guys end up getting into

pitching supplements.

 

But the other reason is that once you've become a raw-food author and are

getting to speak at the raw-food events and are earning a bit of money being on

the lecture circuit, you quickly realize how much more money you could make if

you were selling supplements. It just becomes really obvious that if all of

these people who are attending your lecture had the opportunity to buy from you

some vitamin C or buy from you some fatty acids or something like that, well,

you're going to walk away from that event with more money in your pocket. Plus,

you can only be in so many places in a year, you can only do so many lectures,

you can only earn so much money from that. But the amount of money that you can

make over your webpage if you're hulking supplements is astronomical -there's no

limit to it. So, once a person is viewing their career as being a raw-food

teacher, they soon learn that they'll make a lot more money if they're also

selling supplements.

 

(Jinjee's Note: In my opinion the above is a gross generalization but with some

truth to it. A lot of the speakers on the circuit are doing a lot of social raw

food, dehydrated food, not enough fresh organic foods, which could lead to

depletion).

 

Naz: But that first reason that we talked about, which was, they themselves

start to experience nutritional deficiencies and are looking for answers -

that's in there too. So there's these two.

 

Then, the question is, would that be possible to go on a raw-vegan diet that

wouldn't include supplements?

 

I'd recommend Gabriel Cousens' latest information. It's not in his book. It's in

his e-mail bulletin, and he actually contradicts what's in his book - he admits

that. He says that what he put in his book is what he believed at the time. He

now believes that problems with B-12 in the vegan movement are much more severe.

Before, he was saying you could get B-12 from certain sources, like spirulina

and blue-green algae and certain sea vegetables. He now does not believe that.

He believes that those are analog B-12 that can't be absorbed by the human body.

And so now he's advocating that people take a B-12 supplement. He says that

maybe 20% of human beings could do a vegan diet without having to take a B-12

supplement, but at least 80% can't. And people shouldn't just assume that

they're in that 20% category, because the odds are against them.

 

He believes that 20% might be able to go without a B-12 supplement simply

because when he tests vegans, 80% of them are found to be in serious B-12

deficiency. But to me, that doesn't necessarily mean that 20% of the people can

go without B-12 supplementation on a vegan diet. Because in fact, of those 20%

people that he's testing that right now, aren't deficient - how do we know that

three years from now, 10% of those people won't have become deficient? In other

words, a best-case scenario, which is what Gabriel is talking about, is that

maybe 20% of the people on a vegan diet wouldn't need the supplement.

 

(Jinjee's Note: I respect Dr. Cousens' work, but if the above is an accurate

account of his research my initial question would be whether these people were

B-12 deficient on paper only or if they were actually experiencing poor health?

There are recommended daily allowances and measurements that are exaggerated

beyond what a person really needs).

 

Naz: Long-Chain Fatty Acids

 

But that's just B-12, though.

 

Yes, like I was was indicating, and it's really complex. What we know, based on

that article, the research published in the American Vegan that I cited, is that

vegans die more of degenerative brain diseases.

 

(Jinjee's Note: This is probably from all the processed TVP and soy products

eaten by vegans).

 

Naz: Now, then the question is why? And this is new information; it didn't used

to be known that vegans get more of these brain-wasting diseases. Now that that

is known, people are looking for the answer. And they're coming up with certain

answers, like that there's a particular long-chain fatty acid that is not

available in a vegan diet.

 

(Jinjee's Note: In my opinion, if its a long-chain fatty acid that isn't

available in raw vegan foods then its either because it hasn't yet been

identified in raw vegan foods or because we don't really need it).

 

Naz: What I stick on there as an extra is that we don't even know right now what

brain nutrients might be lacking in the vegan diet, because they're just barely

discovering this. They barely discovered this long-chain fatty acid that isn't

present in the vegan diet. So for us to now buy a supplement of that one thing

and think that we've solved the problems with the vegan diet, I don't think that

would be valid.

 

How do we know that two years from now, six years from now they're not going to

be discovering other little things that we didn't know existed before that are

lacking on the vegan diet? What we do know is that there are some sorts of

nutritional deficiencies in the vegan diet, and we're starting to discover what

some of those deficiencies are. For instance, David Wolfe and Gabriel Cousens

want to develop a supplement for that long-chain fatty acid.

 

DHA?

 

EPA. That's a long-chain fatty acid and one of the things it protects against is

depression, which is one of the reasons vegans also have a higher incidence of

suicide, clinical depression, anxiety attacks and panic attacks.

 

(Jinjee's Note: I'd like to see the statistics/evidence for this statement).

 

Naz: It may be because they're not getting enough of this EPA long-chain fatty

acid. So Gabriel and David Wolfe are interested in developing a supplement they

would sell that would be a vegan source for EPA. Right now, there's one plant

source that some people can get their EPA from. It's an herb that grows wild

like a weed and is called purslane. The thing about that is that only people

with good digestion can absorb the EPA from the purslane. People with good

digestion can do that. But people with less than average digestion can't.

 

If you were a vegetarian who eats dairy and eggs, would you get EPA from the

animal products that you're eating?

 

Here's what we know: we know is that vegetarians who eat a bit of dairy and some

eggs live longer and healthier and have less nutritional deficiencies.

 

(Jinjee's Note: Again, I'd like to see the studies. I've done extensive research

on my own and read the medical journals and haven't heard of any such thing. How

old are these studies? Are they from before the relatively recent proliferation

of organic produce?).

 

Naz: You've got the possibility to eat some dairy and/or eggs, but since some

people have problems digesting dairy, eggs are a good option. Eggs seem to have

some nutrients that dairy doesn't have, and it seems to me that eggs seem to

have everything in them that meat has, but the dairy only has most of what meat

has. So I think that the person who eats dairy will be helping themselves

nutritionally, but not as much as if they eat eggs. So then the thing is to get

organic eggs from free-range chickens.

 

I guess this is my point: rather than try and figure out what exact supplement

or what exact fatty acid we need to take to be a vegan, it seems to me that by

far the safer thing to do is just be a vegetarian who eats some eggs and a bit

of dairy, because of that point that I keep coming back to. They keep

discovering these different things that are deficient in the vegan diet every

couple years. So even if right now you take a particular supplement that's

supposed to handle some particular problem now, you don't really know that in

two years or eight years they're not going to discover that vegans are still

dying of these problems and so, we still are lacking something. We don't know

how this is going to come out. So, the safest thing to do is to simply start

eating some organic eggs.

 

Is Fish Healthy?

 

But then, if we take your arguments further and someone was just interested in

health, would that be healthier not to be a strict vegetarian, and have fish

occasionally?

 

If a person doesn't have the ethical considerations, then the healthiest diet

might be to include some fish. However, I do have myself the ethical problems

with that, so that's not what I'm recommending to people. I feel that if we can

make the step to become vegetarian, this generation, that we're doing a great

thing. We are making a giant step in the right direction of ethics. Just

becoming a vegetarian is doing a good thing. But to answer your question, if a

person didn't have the ethical problems with eating fish, would that be healthy?

Well the answer is probably yes, as long as it wasn't fish from a polluted

source that has mercury or something like that.

 

 

Raw Versus Pasteurized Dairy Products, Eggs

 

Here in Canada you don't find raw dairy products, except cheese. You only find

pasteurized dairy milk. So what would you recommend?

 

What I would recommend is going to a health food store and buying the

health-food store variety of yogurt or kefir. The reason is that those are

live-foods, because of the fermentation process and the culture, even though

they're not raw.

 

So that still would give you the benefits?

 

You see, even though we all hear about all the problems with pasteurization, we

shouldn't forget the problems with non-pasteurized dairy. For instance, dying of

the worst case of diarrhea you can possibly imagine! Because when you drink raw

milk, there's the possibility that it's contaminated with E-coli. So there are

the pros and cons of unpasteurized dairy products. If a person is not concerned

with things like E-coli in a raw egg, they could simply put a couple of raw eggs

in their smoothies, if they are trying to be raw-foodists.

 

Just the yolk or the whole thing?

 

I would say the whole thing, and the reason is because the egg white has the

protein, but the yolk has certain fatty acids that seem to be important for the

brain.

 

The Latest Raw Vegan Diets

 

Some people recommens a fruit-based, low-fat raw diet, and say that you actually

won't get the problems that all these other raw-food people are getting because

they're eating so much fat. What are your thoughts on this?

 

Over the years, I've seen every imaginable variety of the raw food diet, and the

one common denominator that I've seen over a period of time is that the

raw-vegan diet over a period of years seems to be nutritionally deficient.

That's my opinion. It seems to me that a raw-vegan diet, over a period of years,

leads to severe nutritional deficiencies.

 

This is one of the problems: there will always be people pitching some

particular variation of the raw diet, which is going to be the true solution, if

you just do this. And of course they'll write a book about it and will be on the

lecture circuit about it. The problem is that a couple years go by and that's no

longer the " in " variation - it's some other variation take its place, a couple

years later some other variation. What I've seen is that no variation that is

raw-vegan for years in a row seems to be adequate.

 

The diet that you're particularly mentioning there: where is it going to get

that long-chain fatty acid that we're talking about? Where is it going to get

its B-12, where is it going to get its complete protein? Those are very real

issues. In the raw food movement, people will read an old Arnold Ehret book,

which talks about the possibility of making protein from the air we breathe, and

they'll just believe they can do it. And yet, not one human being has ever been

shown to be able to do it. They'll read in an old fruitarian book that suggests

that we could make B-12 in our gut, like some of the animals do. And even today,

if you ask vegans, if they believe that they can make B-12 in their own gut,

more than half of them believe that they do. Because I've asked that question,

and most people have that belief in the vegan movement that we are making our

own B-12 in our gut, in a way that we can live off that B-12 and utilize it. In

reality, not one human being has ever been shown to

be able to do. That's the science. Not one human being has ever been able to

demonstrate that they were living off the B-12 in their gut. In Gabriel Cousens'

latest bulletin on this B-12 problem, he says that the only way a human being

could live off B-12 made in their gut would be if they ate their own feces. And

I don't think that that's going to become a popular option.

 

(Jinjee's Note: According to Dr. Gina Shaw and others B12 is created in our

bodies in our small intestines, which is where many nutrients are absorbed into

the blood stream. Storm has had no animal products in over 30 years and is not

B12 deficient so either he is manufacturing it in his gut or he is getting it

from the raw fruits and vegetables he eats or he doesn't need B12 to be a fully

functioning 54 year old who looks 30. Now if a person doesn't have access to

fresh organic foods, and if they feel or look deficient, and if they have tried

to handle it with a balanced raw vegan diet including juicing and that didn't

work, or if they don't have the time or desire to do juicing, then perhaps a B12

supplement would benefit them).

 

Naz: That's the problem with these variations of the raw-vegan diet, like the

one you asked me about specifically. Those variations don't supply the essential

fatty acids that the brain needs; they don't supply enough of the complete amino

acids. They don't supply enough of the B-12 and other essential nutrients, and

that's why people, after they've been on those diets for lengths of time, end up

having nutritional deficiencies. So I don't know that there are exceptions to

the rule, but I acknowledge that there might be. What I say about that is that

the dangerous thing for everyone who comes to the raw-food movement is to just

believe that they are going to be the exception to the rule, when statistically,

most likely they're not going to be.

 

(Jinjee's Note: I would like to see some of these statistics but put together by

a party that doesn't sell supplements).

 

Naz: But then these people, like in the case of that diet, would take your

argumentation and dissect it and then explain with science how you can find all

these things in their diet. That's usually what happens.

 

You're right, that's usually what happens. However, if one takes their science

and shows it to a nutritional scientist, the nutritional scientist will

pooh-pooh their argument, and will show the flaws in it. It gets as bad that in

a lot of these books that are used in the raw-food movement where it lists the

amount of protein available in certain food sources, and a lot of those table

are just plain old non-accurate. They're printed in a book, and it looks

scientific, but it's just not true. There are people that believe that there's a

whole bunch of protein in watermelon because one of the old raw-food authors

used to claim that and put it in his book. There are people that I personally

know who started eating only watermelon, or made that the chief element of their

diet, thinking it's their primary protein source.

 

In the raw-food movement the problem is that you have a lot of pseudo-science,

which doesn't hold up to the scrutiny of actual science.

 

True Raw-Vegan Believers

 

I want to say that you will never convince " true believers " of any " ism " that

there are problems with their " ism. " And so I don't even attempt to do that. For

the interview, I simply honestly answered question that you've asked, but I'm

not attached to changing anybody's mind, and I'm not living in the illusion that

I'm going to change a bunch of raw-vegan minds, because I've already experienced

the fact that I'm not going to. Already, all that's happened to me is by sharing

honestly the information that I've shared with you is that I got kind of

blackballed by the raw-vegan movement. They just tried to discredit me, instead

of deal with these realities of nutritional deficiencies in a raw-vegan diet.

 

(Jinjee's Note: Actually, I'm getting lots of letters from people saying that

this interview has affected them and that they are considering going off the

100% raw vegan diet).

 

Naz: But there are some regular folks who come to the raw-food movement because

of all the hype and then start to experience problems in their own bodies. If

they see the information that I've given you,

 

(Jinjee's Note: What you have given us is opinion and personal experience, which

is valid. The information that you have given us would be more useful if backed

up with studies, articles or sources).

 

Naz: a few of them might be moved to take positive steps, which could result in

saving themselves a lot of pain and misery,

 

(Jinjee's Note: Or it could lead them TO a lot of pain and misery).

 

Naz: and that's why I bother to share this information at all. It's not because

I have the delusion that I'm going to convince the defenders of an " ism " to give

up their " ism " - rather, I'm more concerned about members of the public

receiving all this hype, that if you get into the raw-food vegan diet, you're

going to live to be 120 years in really good health. See, I used to believe

that, and I used to teach that. I believed it because that's what people told

me, and that's what was in the raw-food books, and so I parroted it.

 

A Challenge to the Raw-Vegan Movement

 

Is there anything you'd like to add before we end this interview?

 

I want to with a challenge to the raw-vegan movement. Find us one really old

raw-vegan. One. I've been in the raw-vegan movement for over twenty years, and I

have never met a healthy, really old raw-vegan, who's been on the raw-vegan diet

for decades or anything like that. In other words, if by eating the raw-vegan

diet, we're going to live to be a 120 years old and be disease free, then how

come, when you attend a national raw-food conference, there any isn't old

raw-vegans there? There's some in their 60's and 70s who have been trying to do

the diet and have problems in their own lives. But why aren't there any 100 year

old raw-vegans anywhere? The raw-food movement is not new, but was popular in

1800's, when the first Natural Hygiene movement started advocating the raw diet.

Then it was really big in the 1940's with Shelton. Why have we never seen a

single 100 year old raw-vegan? Why has there never been a 90-year-old raw-vegan

speaker at any of raw-vegan conferences?

 

(Jinjee's Note: The raw-vegan movement has always been a fringe movement. It is

now for the first time coming into the mainstream. I think we will definitely

see some examples of 120 to 140 year old raw vegans in the next 70 years or so.

Enough of us have to hold fast for this to come about. What happened to a lot of

the raw-vegan gurus of the past is that they were so passionate about sharing

the diet that they burned their candle at both ends, working insanely to get the

information out there, seeing hundreds of people a week who came to them for

healing, often charging nothing, that they overworked themselves. Then when

their health started failing they would fall prey to self-doubt, and they would

start eating meat. But as we age on the raw-vegan diet we have to realize that

we are still mortal, that we will age, and realize that we would age much faster

if we weren't raw, and keep the faith. Another thing that happens is that really

successful raw-vegans often go into seclusion

as Storm had before I brought him out of it. They get tired of the teaching,

healing, public grind. It doesn't pay that well, and can be an incredible drain.

There comes a time when you say, why try to help all these people. Its really

simple knowledge. Just do it. I'm going to use my raw energy to just have a good

life myself).

 

Frederic: So that's your challenge?

 

Naz: Yes, that's my challenge. And even if someone were to come up with one 90

year old raw-vegan, I think that my point is still made, because they'd have to

struggle pretty hard to find that one. There aren't a bunch of old raw-vegans!

I'm a child of the 1960's. I was born in the 1950's, and so, I was shaped by the

1960s, and believe me, in the 1960's, we had raw-food gatherings then. Ann

Wigmore, before her Shelton - all these people existed back then. All of them

died. All the great leaders of the raw-food movement in the 1960s are dead. And

at no raw-food conferences in the 1960s was there ever a 100-year-old speaker,

or a 90-year-old speaker even. And in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, I've never met

any of them. You hear legends about Dr. Walker...

 

(Jinjee's Note: Let's take up this challenge and become the examples he is

looking for! Walk that second mile! Any 90+ year old raw-vegans lurking out

there?)

 

Frederic: But he wasn't a raw-vegan?

 

Naz: He wasn't a raw-vegan and he wasn't a vegan. In one of his books, he talks

about how important goat's milk is, and he was drinking goat's milk. And even

with him, who wasn't a vegan, definitely there are questions about how old he

actually lived to be. Because, you hear all sorts of different numbers. Unless

someone actually produces a birth certificate, we don't really know how old he

was. But he's the only example I've heard people give. And then I point out to

them that he wasn't a vegan. So you have to admit that most people who come in

and hear the hype believe that if they become a raw-vegan, they are going to

experience some great health benefits, and are going to live a long time. And

yet, if that's true, since the raw-vegan movement has existed since the 1800s,

and certainly was very popular since the 1940's with natural hygiene and became

even more popular in the 1960s, why aren't there any old raw-vegans speaking at

the raw-vegan conferences?

 

 

Final Comments by Frédéric Patenaude

 

Nazariah's experience with the raw vegan diet is not unique, although not

everybody will experience such dramatic problems. The conclusion we can clearly

draw from his experience (as well as backed up by my own experience and

research) is:

 

1. The raw vegan diet is not a guarantee for health.

2. Eating 100% raw is not necessary for optimal health. If this is practiced, it

should be done with careful planning.

3. Every vegan should be taking a B-12 supplement to insure optimal health in

the long-term.

4. We shouldn't believe invariably raw-vegan " experts " or what is written in

books, because the information is often not accurate.

 

As for whether we should be vegans or not, I do not necessarily go in the same

direction as Nazariah. I do not believe that everybody should start eating some

animal products. I believe that every vegan should be taking a B-12 supplement,

but also that the inclusion of some animal products in the diet can be useful to

many people.

 

I wish to say that I'm personally not convinced that a vegan diet cannot be

healthy. I think it depends on each individual. I personally have found benefits

in including some animal products in my diet, and many others have found that

too.

 

There are many health benefits to becoming at least mainly vegetarian or even

mainly vegan, as well as increasing the amount of raw fruits and vegetables that

we eat.

 

(Jinjee's Note: Storm has in the past taken groups of young gang kids to

McDonalds and bought them all hamburgers, then taken them running in the heat of

the high-desert summer in the mountains. He enjoys watching them drop like flies

along the trail, as he preaches raw food to them. In conclusion, plenty of

evidence is available to support whatever you want to do, raw, vegan,

vegetarian, cooked, or SAD. My Mother pulls out studies showing that smoking may

be good for you. I don't know how she finds them, but they are out there! Search

your own soul. Examine your own experiences honestly. Experiment with different

variations of the raw vegan diet. Maybe the raw-vegan diet is for you and maybe

it isn't. I only hope I have dispelled any fears that the raw-vegan diet is

unsafe for everyone in the long-term. And I hope that I have shown that nobody

really understands the whole complex composition of foods, diet, and the human

body. Science can't prove very much. One person's experience

can't prove very much. Human health, the journey of life and death, is a

mysterious journey that is not just scientific and not just spiritual but that

is a dance between the two, within each one of us, and created by all of us as

we move together through the ages towards our breathtaking destiny!)

 

Contact me, Jinjee at info or visit our family online at

http://www.thegardendiet.com

 

 

Jinjee's Sources:

 

* http://www.rawfoods.com/articles/b12issue.html

-article by Dr. Gina Shaw explains well how vitamin B12 is absorbed in the body

 

* http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2000/dec2000_report_b12_3.html

-B12 supplements are better than meat for B12 deficiency. Cooking meat may

affect vitamin B12

-Symptoms of B12 deficiency include: dizziness, numbness in extremities, chills,

erectile dysfunction, irritability, painful tongue, white spots on tongue, and

exhaustion

-Americans in general are B12 deficient because of over-cooking of meat and

pharmaceuticals which rob the body of B12

 

 

* http://www.mercola.com/2000/aug/27/vitamin_b12_deficiency.htm

-Tufts Study shows 40% of Americans are B12 deficient

 

* " Eating for Health and Wellness "

-Joel Robbins, M.D., N.D., D.C., PhD in Bio Chemistry

 

 

 

 

rubianne2002 <rubianne2002 wrote:

Hi Valerie,

Would you kindly send me Jinjee's article?

Thanks!

Annette

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out the new Front Page. www.

 

 

 

 

Check out the new Front Page. www./a

 

 

[Guest guest]

Valerie,

 

Thank you for posting this article. I read the original interview

with Nazariah, and it affected me deeply. I am relatively new to raw

food, and Ive seen both promising and suspicious elements to the

movement and the people involved.

 

For instance, Naz refers almost exclusively to Dr. Gabriel Cousens

for evidence supporting his claims. I worked for Dr. Cousens for

three months this summer. He claims to be an enlightened being and a

spiritual guru. However, few other people agree with him about that.

Almost everyone who has worked with him or spent much time around

him seriously questions his claim.

 

Besides that, he sells *a lot* of supplements. Further, he has no

qualms admitting thats where most of the income is recieved. He is a

practicing Dr. there, and every single patient leaves with a long

list of supplements to get from our store, often costing as much as

$2000 just for the first 3 months supply.

 

Besides that, Id heard more than one person say they had seen or

knew of him eating cooked food. Of course, he states some cooked

food is ok, so it wasnt hypocritical of him. However, even the

gourmet raw food they served had a huge amount of dehydrated food

included. Few long term employees ate the food from the cafe,

because it was actually painful on the digestion to do so. When I

personally complained about this, I was told " If you dont like it,

dont eat it. Its not the food, its your weak digestion! "

 

But besides all this, how can Naz complain that very few scientists

support raw food, when he just cites one over and over for his own

assertions? I understand modern nutrional scientists (FDAists

really) believe cooked food is absolutely necessary. Just like they

thought meat was, and now think dairy is. And nobody really knows.

 

Has anyone seen Super Size Me? The " experts " thought the worst that

would come from eating an exclusive diet of McDonalds food for 30

days straight would be a slight increase in cholesterol and some

weight gain. By the end of the movie, they were urgently suggesting

that the guy cease his diet immediately or he could die from liver

failure or heart attack! They dont know all that much, because the

belief that food is a major factor in health is a relatively new

paradigm in our system.

 

It really all does come down to trusting oneself, but we've been

taught for so long that thats the last person you should trust.

Trust your government! Trust your teachers! Trust your parents!

Trust the TV! Trust your peers! But whatever you do, dont trust

yourself!!

 

This is, needless to say, difficult programming to overcome, since

it involves trusting oneself enough to start trusting oneself.

 

I wish everyone, including myself, the best of luck.

 

JasonL

 

 

 

 

rawfood , Valerie Mills Daly <valdaly>

wrote:

>

>

> There have been a lot of requests for the article; I did not know

when I sent it that attachments were not allowed on the group, so

here is the article; sorry it is so long. Jinjee's comments are in

parentheses throughout the article, and if your computer allows,

they should come through in a different color from the rest of the

text. Hope you find it helpful.

>

> Peace, Valerie

>

[Guest guest]

Thanks for sharing your information, Jason; I was especially interested in what

you had to say about Gabriel Cousens. I have read two of his books, and while

there was some good information, I just did not connect with his program.

 

I think one of the most helpful things I have read is a short simple book by

Victoria Boutenko, " 12 Steps to Raw Food; " in one of her chapters she talks

about the importance of listening to your own body, mainly because there are so

many conflicting voices out there. I've gotten to the point that I am believing

the simpler the process promoted, the better for me. I know folks have

benefited from a variety of takes on the whole raw food thing, and I guess that

is a good thing. But the more we learn to trust ourselves, the better; but if

you have spent your whole life trusting outside voices, it can take a while to

learn how to trust yourself. Still, it's good to read and listen to other points

of view. We are all learning.

 

Peace,

Valerie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Dear Valerie

thank you very much fo sending this article.i felt big

relief to contue to my journey to Raw.after reading

Nazariah`s article i was bit confused, but intuitively

i knew there is something wrong...

peace

Briksha

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out the new Front Page.

www.

[Guest guest]

You are welcome! I was thankful to see her response as well; I am learning, as I

go along, to not accept everything I read as soon as I read it; it definitely

pays to take some time and do some research, and to learn to listen to your own

body as well.

 

Peace,

Valerie

 

Mahendra Agarwal <BRIKSHALAL wrote:

Dear Valerie

thank you very much fo sending this article.i felt big

relief to contue to my journey to Raw.after reading

Nazariah`s article i was bit confused, but intuitively

i knew there is something wrong...

peace

Briksha

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out the new Front Page.

www.