Raw Energy Hotline - Sept. 2004 (Part 2)

RAW ENERGY HOTLINE
SEPTEMBER, 2004
(Continued from Part 1)
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

Part 2:

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!

Rhio: It's unfortunate that the raw community, for the most part, does not have the holistic raw food oriented and naturopathic doctors it needs to help guide people should they get in trouble. As teachers we can only guide people in the generalities of the raw/live food diet, but people can, for any number of reasons, get in trouble and need the services of a knowledgeable physician to help them through their health challenges. For example, recently in New York a raw food teacher who was for many years on the natural hygiene version of the diet, developed a serious itchy rash on her body which started on her calves and spread upward. Fortunately, she did go to a raw food oriented doctor who did some tests and discovered that she had an essential fatty acid deficiency. Natural hygienists do not believe in using oil, and she had not used oil, except occasionally, for many years. The solution to this problem was several tablespoons per day of flaxseed oil and over a period of time her condition normalized.

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.

Rhio: It's hard to comment without knowing the details of any particular situation... like flying blind. I agree with Jinjee that there is no diet that is more nutrient dense than the raw/live food diet. Perhaps, as she states, the people were doing the more restricted versions of the diet. I have seen many people become more and more restrictive with the diet, to their detriment. They keep eliminating food after food for one reason or another, until they are eating only a few things. I believe this is a mistake. I promote eating a WIDE variety of foods from all categories except meat, fish and dairy. I also recommend foraging for or growing some wild vegetables (usually called weeds) and including some of those in the daily diet.

How would the doctor know that the person starved to death for lack of nutrients? Did he do some tests? If so, what kind of tests did he do? Or did he just voice his prejudices when he learned that the person was on a raw diet?

Many people have Celiac Disease and don't even know it. In this disease, gluten foods, like wheat, barley and rye, create a situation in the intestines which prevents nutrients from being absorbed.

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.

Rhio: I seriously doubt that the raw food diet could cause a shortage of protein. More problems are created in a body by too much protein than too little. Dr. Schnitzer of Germany has written extensively about this in many of his books. All fruits and vegetables are LOADED with amino acids, and as most of us know, amino acids are the building blocks of protein. When a seed, bean or legume is sprouted it does not diminish its protein, (as Naz suggests) instead the protein is broken down into its simpler amino acid form. If a person eats meat or dairy, the body must first break down the protein in these products to amino acids before they can be utilized. The body builds thousands of different kinds of protein out of different formulations of amino acids. There is no such thing as an incomplete protein - this is simply a myth created by the meat and dairy industries who profit from people believing their propaganda. The body has an amino acid pool from which it draws to build proteins at any time. Unless a body is starving to death, it will always have amino acids to build the proteins it needs. The body also recycles 70% of its protein waste.

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.

Rhio: The study that Naz cites in Vegetarian Times was comparing vegans with the other two groups, but it wasn't comparing raw food vegans specifically. I think there may be a huge difference between a raw food vegan and a cooked food vegan's health. I have not seen the article but it doesn't seem to be a study that applies to the raw food diet.

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 intend to take supplements. I just happened to meet some Pharmanex promoters at a healthfood store and took their test.

Rhio: B12 becomes available in food through the action of bacteria that grows on or is present in/on food. Since a family of yeasts and bacteria is what causes foods to ferment, B12 would be present in fermented foods, as well as the foods that Jinjee mentioned. B12 as well as other vitamins of the B-complex family are produced in a well functioning intestine. Some have said that Vit. B12 is produced in the intestine past the point where it can be absorbed. I'm not sure I believe that to be true, but small amounts of Vit. B12 are also secreted directly into the duodenum (first part of the intestine) from bile. Dr. Robert Young says in his book Sick and Tired? that as long as you have plenty of friendly bacteria (probiotics) Vit. B12 is synthesized.

We are living in an age where everything is washed and over sanitized, but if we were living closer to the earth, like on a farm or even if we cultivated a backyard vegetable garden, we could occasionally eat our veggies straight from the garden without washing them and that should, with the right soil environment, provide us with some B12. Because B12 is so important, I suggest getting it checked out if you are concerned about it. I don't think most raw food enthusiasts would have a problem IF they ate a wide enough variety of foods, including fermented foods, seaweeds and pollen. Pollen, is from flowers but it is collected by the bees on their feet, so methinks there may be some bacterial action there which provides B12.

The argument between analog B12 and "true" B12 strikes me as a similar argument to the complete and incomplete protein myth of the past. I don't pretend to know the answer to this issue and so am doing some study to try to understand it better, but for myself for the present I'm not worried about it because in Nature there are many animals who are frugivores and herbivores and where do they get their B12? Of course they don't wash their food, so they are probably getting a little soil too. (Some say they are getting it from eating some of their feces, a solution that is not appealing to humans.)

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.

Rhio: Going back to our vegetarian or vegan diet is NOT a shock to the system; RELIEF would be a better description. It's NOT radical to eat as nature intended no matter how long we have flaunted her laws. Of course there is detox and adjustments to contend with in the beginning but it does NOT take generations to adapt. We don't have to evolution into our... original diet...

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?