[ url= [www.rawfoodsupport.com]] Brains are…[/url]

I was looking for this thread, think it deserved to be back in the main forum


TheStockholmSyndrome wrote:
"I definitely think I have mental health impairments, particularly about food"

Khale wrote:
Probably. About food I mean. Afterall, very few of us don't. We are either shoving every conceivable (and inconceivable) thing into our mouths or hyper-vigilant concerning every thing we put in our mouths. Neither resonates true health to me.


To me it is in fact that "hyper-vigilance" and attention most people are spending on their bodies which probably distract (at least temporarily) from the creative endeavors. I have to agree with some of your cynicism TSS...a lot of times when Frederic Patenaude and others (Roger Haeske) speak of their expanded creativity; they're really speaking of their expanded marketability and increased number of raw domain names.

Khale:
"As you undoubtedly realize, transitioning to raw isn't just about food or what you eat. It's a major social and spiritual transformation as well; a move beyond consensual reality"

I think this is another major component which khale touches on is this movement from one type of thinking to another. If one wants to divide the supermarket into say: the section of the living, and the mausoleum, then one tends to start viewing the entire product of civilization in much the same way.

This obviously is going to have an effect on a cultural (creative) product that you would choose to make from such a standpoint and how others outside of that would tend to view it.

For instance someone obsessed with the world of say..Tarot might not have much interest in say the importance of Andy Warhol, and of course vice versa. Being someone involved in a contemporary creative field, and someone who looks at a lot of different kinds of visual information, both have value. And quite often I can ‘see’ through what people pass off as ‘spiritual art’ just as easy as one might dismiss the insiderness or irrelevancy of out of touch nature of some contemporary art. But for many on each side of the fence the other looks all the same, you get it?


The only thing I have to add is that based on my experience; the first 6 months of being raw I experienced major intellectual clarity and creativity, and then that sort of petered out, or so it seems. Its hard to say, threes always that idea that you forget how one is used to functioning, its possibly I simply slowed acceleration.

I’ve been experimenting with as you say a “higher glucose” diet resembling 811 for the past two months, and so far no beneficial brain functioning. (not that I would expect major results after 2 months)

however knowing many long term raw or high raw non-811ers I have to say many are incredibly intelligent, and that brain functioning has probably way more to do with spiritual balance and poise on a raw diet (then the actual diet itself). It is also clear that individuals without any of the proper elements of living: diet, biologically appropriate environment, rest time, play time, social interactions, mental, emotional and spiritual balance and poise (John Nash, Stephen Hawking) achieve high brain functioning, again whether that is something that truly ‘functions’ form the perspective of those on the ‘healthier’ path - as already discussed - is another issue.


I really don't understand why this thread got moved.

Anaken - <TSS...a lot of times when. Frederic Patenaude and others (Roger Haeske) speak of their expanded creativity; they're really speaking of their expanded marketability and increased number of raw domain names. > This was SO funny (and true). Gee, thank you for reposting this! I meant it to be a general question about raw-food and about raw-foodism, and to get people's dietary ideas, practical advice for what sort of eating or even foods might boost intellectual and perceptual functioning. Maybe just the title of the post seemed like a musing about anatomy, or maybe khale and I turned it into personal mud-slinging, but I really didn't know why it wasn't a question that people couldn't weigh in on here on this forum, and talk about what has worked or not worked for them.

So I have a few questions...I take it that your diet didn't change at that 6-months-raw mark, right? Where you eating raw omni for those 6 months? Any particular foods predominating?

I also think that the "brain fog" post was very sensible. I DO have brain fog. Do people find brain fog goes away after several months of raw, or must it be a particular type of raw (low-fat raw, raw with "superfoods", low-mycotoxic raw?)? Any point in worrying about those neurotransmitters specifically and giving them a nutritional boost, or is it one of those things that legitimately balances healthfully out just by being 100%?
<however knowing many long term raw or high raw non-811ers I have to say many are incredibly intelligent, and that brain functioning has probably way more to do with spiritual balance and poise on a raw diet> Very intriguing! Some stupid questions about this, just because I am obsessive: would you then (dare to) say that they are more intelligent than the 811ers that you know or know about (say, Fred & Rog)? Would you say that they have greater spiritual balance and poise than the 811ers you know of? I realize that this is not what you are saying when you say that brain functioning has way more to do with spiritual balance and poise than with what exactly someone eats; you are saying that whether people are or aren't 811 is less a factor in brain functioning than balance and poise are, but would you hazard a guess, based on the people you know (I don't know any rawers personally, much less longtime rawers), as to whether there is a way of eating raw that tends to create balance and poise in the people who follow it? Maybe the balance and poise is something about them external (as it were) to what they eat, part of their natures or part of something else they do (yoga or something).

Anyway, when you say you know many non-811ers who are "incredibly intelligent", and don't say you know many 811ers who are (you may not know any 811ers so it is a false analogy), it definitely makes me not want to be 811. Do you know what they eat - "varied non-dogmatic raw"?

Okay, enough of being simplistic and DELIBERATELY stupid. About spiritual balance and poise as a key to brain functioning - this might just correlate with having a flexible, varied raw intake and a relationship with the body that is intimate and trusting enough so that the mind and emotions have long since been freed of orthorexic angst. I tend to think it must be biochemical, a plethora of this or abstinence from that, but maybe it is having grooved enough into the process of living, growing, and being raw, that you are in a place that is good and pretty much in tune with goodness - a place that a mind still logged and befogged by de-naturing cooked can't imagine and can't be told about till it knows it for itself.

People talk about the release of mental energy that comes when they have hit on THE dietary - I've seen people say it of high-fruit and I've seen people say it of no-fruit and I've seen people say it at first of both and then it doesn't last when it turns out they HAVEN'T hit on THE thing after all. When they think they have it, they go, "Finally! All that thinking about food all the time and what to eat - I can just forget about it and get on with my interests, activities, art, explorations, being, loving..." But I don't know of anyone who remains like that. But I am so sure that what I was talking about in that post, about how I used to be a genius and now I am a dustball? Partly brain fog and killed brain cells and toxic toxicity and malnutrition and malabsorption, but PARTLY the fact that all I think about these days is what to eat and what not to eat, and it's all I ever search for and ponder; and that must make a lot of difference. I don't know how it happened, and I wish it hadn't, but I have lost my ability to feel excited and interested in another things, because I decided food comes first. I decided this because when I had other things I was unhappy - I didn't know how well off I was! That is always my line...

I'd like to feel that thing that people talk about when they say that all that constant thinking and worrying about what to eat vanished and they feel so free and skip around and do cartwheels, even if it's only till the next time you get a signal from your body that you need to make a change. I think that you can get that sort of feeling from whatever way of being raw is right for your body AT THAT MOMENT, so you don't know what way it's going to be until you hit on it, and you can't ask (like me!) another person to tell you what it is.

About your 2 months, I would expect you could tell a difference by then! I am not very sensible, but I would be looking for one myself and I think you should be getting good signs by now, if there's going to be something awesome happening, especially if you didn't go into it from cooked.

The living and the mausoleum: this too is a very real and true observation about the switch from cooked to raw culture and identity. There was a "you know if you are raw when..." thread here a few years ago - it was really cool - and one of the things was that people just can't respond to cooked art and media and either pop or higher-brow culture the way they used to. It's that one's world-view changes. Where you used to be able to get all excited about translating that play from the Greek, now you just can't, you just try and then go outside and lie on the grass and watch the clouds scuttle across the sky. This may be part of the change of raw, that you can never go back to caring about the same intellectual and creative and mental things you used to, you are content (HOPEFULLY) being a being and not a human doing. Maybe the way that you can't hold on to certain relationships with other people when you really go raw...

It's a different dimension and planet and language (I hope it is), and, rather than worrying about being the cool competitive raw version of the other culture, maybe at best what is lost transforms into something of value in its own right, maybe better. Perhaps this is like feminism - there's horrid feminism where the people try to compete with patriarchal society (big business, wars, smoking, being obnoxious) and even beat them at their own game (showing they can be just as stupid, cruel, destructive, greedy, capitalist, as the male society can be); and then there's the sort of feminism that looks at the values in question of the society and goes, "We don't want to show we can be miserable and violent and scheduled, too, we have our own values that have nothing to do with this and don't even partake of it", and these are the people who value nature, earth, compassion, non-violence, and stuff like food reform and animal welfare! They aren't playing the same game; they've opted out.

When I just said "what is lost transforms into something", it reminded me of this animated short I once saw called "Rarg". It was about a happy town of happy people who discovered that they were actually living in a dream dreamed by a chap called Edward (?) asleep in his bed. So they launch a mighty, incredibly serious expedition to leave his brain and get into his room through his ear and get to the alarm clock and keep it from ringing. I think they succeed, but at the last minute of their all getting safely back inside the mind, their dreamer wakes up.....and it's a terrible moment....and they turn into happy Pink Flamingoes! Pink Flamingoes, every one of them spreads wings and flies and it is so beautiful and made me cry. I guess it is the most beautiful story I have ever seen because I always felt it was about death and how we fight it (I do) and struggle and spend our lives trying not to die (I mean that I do, the death thing is maybe as big a part of raw for me as the life thing), and then maybe what you're fighting is turning into a happy pink flamingo. I don't believe in this really. I don't believe that anything I can think of as nice happens when I die, although I'd like to feed flowers and trees and earthworms. But I bring it up because it would be nice if I am clinging to mausoleum needs and values that have no meaning in the "living world", and that someday from being raw I will see that I lost that form of me but became a pink flamingo and it's ALL RIGHT.

Meg xo - cheers again for the repost, help, and thoughts, Anaken.

Raw omni – no

I’m starting to feel ‘brain fog’ less. Is this from doing less fat with high fruit? Possibly. But more the point of what I was saying is that it probably has to do as much with external things, or changes happening to your body or values and not just of the strength or soundness of your diet.

My comment about non-811ers was just a response to your first post on T.C. and the importance of fructose. I don't know the science, but you can tell when someone is 'smart'. if you are smart and presented with something foreign, you will be confused. but whats the use of your confusion overwhelming you? that isn't smart.

I don’t know any of those people personally, I wouldn’t comment on their intellect. I just hear the expression “higher creativity” thrown around quite often by all camps. Wheres the beef?

“the fact that all I think about these days is what to eat and what not to eat, and it's all I ever search for and ponder; and that must make a lot of difference. I don't know how it happened, and I wish it hadn't, but I have lost my ability to feel excited and interested in another things, because I decided food comes first.”

A lot of people are in this boat. Its unhealthy.

I’m looking forward to growing out of it more myself, although I suspect since you are always going to be some what at odds with your environment, its going to be part of your life. People on the gourmet raw thing I’m sure have an easier time with this particular issue which is one reason I don’t agree with knocking it.


“This may be part of the change of raw, that you can never go back to caring about the same intellectual and creative and mental things you used to, you are content (HOPEFULLY) being a being and not a human doing.”

This is a major personal dilemma for me. Its also why I fear moving someplace warm. Today was a beautiful northeast day (the 2nd since fall) and I got very little done of what I wanted to do. Its like in highschool where this time of year you just stop caring about classes. Is this a showing of our true nature and how ‘wrong’ are societal structure is? Sure, but if you work at mcdonalds you probably eat there also.

Stockholm Syndrome,

Thanks for that AWESOME and incredibly insightful post! I've been feeling this way lately, I thought it was just me- I'm so glad to hear I'm not alone... regarding the strange waning of interest in certain things I used to love. But with each lost interest I've gained something in return... I also think that with the world being the way it is, there's perhaps some driving inner knowing force in us forcing to concentrate a great deal of our time on the diet, which is something that could truly make the world a better place, the more people that go raw. So deep-down I think we realize that right now, our former cultural interests have to take a backseat. At least that's how I've interpreted the changes I've experienced in myself. It's weird though, finding that I'm no longer interested in this or that- it catches me off guard. Though I also don't think it's just a general disinterest in mainstream society- I think it's more that our brains may be sorting the dead-end interests from the interests that will be beneficial in helping move the world towards a better place.

Stockholm Syndrome

that was a gorgeous post on the RARG film and how it made you view death differently

hmmm.. maybe that is just what death is
like at the moment of transitioning to the next level
we just spread wings like pink flamingoes

wowwww

i gotta check that out
very creative plot

wheredya get that film?
is it just on DVD or something?

i wanna know!