Raw Energy Hotline - Sept. 2004 (Part 3)

RAW ENERGY HOTLINE
SEPTEMBER, 2004
(Continued from Part 2)
Part 1
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

Part 3

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 {for them to recommend it}.

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.

Rhio: Or it could be that the body is not supposed to absorb the THC and eating raw marijuana protects you from its absorption.

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.

Rhio: In all comparison charts I've seen, where raw food nutrients are measured against cooked food nutrients, there are always higher percentages of nutrients in raw and sprouted foods. There are any number of reasons why people may not absorb nutrients from their foods properly (either raw or cooked) and one of them is that people usually don't chew their food enough to release the nutrients. They think that it will be handled in the stomach or the intestines but digestion really begins in the mouth. At the Ann Wigmore Institute in Puerto Rico, one of the most important classes that they teach is on chewing. Chewing food is a very, very important element in proper digestion and I would wager that a majority of us just do not take the time to chew our food enough. Food should not be swallowed until we make soup of it in our mouth. And when we eat soup and drink juice, we should also chew that. We MUST SLOW DOWN and take the time to eat properly. Doing this gives us the best chance for optimum digestion and assimilation.

And I wouldn't underestimate the value of attitude. Eating with a sense of gratefulness for the sumptuous bounty that Nature provides puts the body and soul in the perfect frame to receive all the benefits.

It really isn't about isms, but only honest differences of opinion which we are exploring.

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.

Rhio: A person could certainly achieve a good level of health on the diet that Naz suggests above. But they could achieve a good level of health on a raw vegetarian, well-rounded diet as well. These are individual choices.

More Nutrients Lacking in the Vegan Diet

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

Naz: 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.

Rhio: Seeded bananas. Purslane is eaten as a vegetable in Europe and is extremely EASY to grow and once you plant it, you will always have it because it self sows every year and doesn't need any special care. Yes, unfortunately, here in the US we disdainfully call this wonderful, tasty and beneficial plant a weed. But I say, we should try to eat more weeds because weeds are some of nature's most potent plants. The presence of omega 3s in purslane has been known for some time. It was not just discovered a month ago.

There's no doubt that scientists will keep discovering more nutrients and unknown food factors; phytochemicals are a recent example. But let me ask you, where do you think you're getting these unknown nutrients now - in raw foods or in cooked and processed foods?

Naz is saying that everything (that could be discovered in the future) is covered in the fermented dairy, hard boiled eggs, combination raw and cooked vegetables that he recommends. I think that everything (to be discovered) is also available in a well-rounded raw vegetarian diet.

In 2002 scientists in Sweden discovered that a dangerous chemical is created in high-carbohydrate foods when they are cooked. This potent nerve toxin and carcinogen is called Acrylamide. Acrylamide is present ONLY in cooked carbohydrates (particularly those that are fried, roasted, grilled, baked, barbequed, etc.) - NOT in raw carbohydrates. After this was discovered the World Health Organization and government and industry groups hastily called meetings to see how they would "manage" this information in presenting it to the public. They also wanted to provide guidelines to help consumers make appropriate choices. So far, they've come up with nothing, except to say that there are toxins in foods that can't be avoided -- except, of course, we know that Acrylamide CAN be avoided by eating a raw food diet.

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?

Rhio: Naz, because of his own experience, is assuming a person will be less healthy without some dairy and eggs. No credible evidence for this, but I do believe in following Dr. Ann Wigmore's protocol and always include fermented foods and wheatgrass juice. (I rotate my wheatgrass juice with green juices and weed drinks.) And I also use bee products like bee pollen (really flower pollen which the bees collect), propolis (which is tree bark which the bees collect) and royal jelly, which are products not acceptable to strict vegans.

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.

Rhio: Ditto!

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.

Naz: 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.

Rhio: For pictures of Jinjee, 36 years old, before and after her latest pregnancy, see pictures on her website: http://www.thegardendiet.com She is absolutely AWESOME!

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

Rhio: Jinjee is the best example that I know of that a raw vegan diet can healthfully support pain-free normal pregnancies and produce healthy children. Please take a look at the pictures of Jinjee and her most recent baby on the website above. If Naz has the scientific evidence for his claims that a raw vegan diet is risky and dangerous for pregnant women, then he should provide the source, so that we can look it over for ourselves. Not all studies are to be believed and it usually is interesting to note who is sponsoring the study in order to determine whether they have some vested interest in its outcome.

Go to Part 4