Bryan, Rawgosia, Fruitarian One, Arugula, Coconutcreme and the rest,

Shouldn't there be a link to www.beyondveg.com (maybe there is and I don't know it)?

It has answered ALL the really nagging questions an eager 'new to raw/vegan/fruitarian should have answers to. Topics such as "sucess/failure rates of vegan diets in Natural Hygiene and conclusions by Natural Hygiene Doctors Bass and Gian-Cursio who in the final analysis after many years of treating NH adherants conclude it is best to get a little animal product in your diet because not all of us can tolerate fruitarianism (like Rawgosia or F1?) and also the interesting topic of parallells with religious behaviour and how striving for absolute dietary purity can become problematic for some of us.

While I cannot bear the suffering of so many millions of animals raised for food on this way too crowded planet I think I plan hedge my bets on NH with some cooked brown rice when I'm really starving and an occasional egg from an ethical chicken farmer and even some of his raw cheese.

Dulset

You are asking a vegan board to post a link to a website that basically contradicts its value system.

I'm not offended, and I'm not even necessarily saying that the principles found on this board are right (although they seem reasonable to me), but I don't think you are going to find a link any time soon.

Dulset, my impression of beyondveg.com is that it's an Anti-Vegan website with a slight craving for scientific-ish papers (although it drags a fair amount of BS in with even the slightist scientific idea/word/etc). Given this website (rawfoodsupport.com) is about getting and providing support for people following the raw vegan life style I see no reason at all to provide a link to questionable and negative presented information about our diet.

On another note, don't believe Natural Hygienests, they have there only special way of putting either a negative or positive spin on things depending on if they want to demote or promote something. Maybe one day they will cure the NH thing. ;-)

Also, you are now promoting the eating of animals on a raw vegan website, because some people who don't have your best interests at heart told you to... that's kind of worrying.

As others keep saying, find your own path rather than letting people manipulate you. Be honnest with yourself, if something isn't working change it, if you're going to "edge your bets" every time somebody says "that's bad", you are probably not going to be successful in the raw vegan life style (which is what beyondveg people want). If your are looking for an excuse to eat rice, chicken and cheese, STOP, they are no rules, you can eat that stuff if you want without needing excuses or people telling you best to edge you bets.

Good luck,
Ian.

>Dulset, my impression of beyondveg.com is that it's an Anti-Vegan website with a slight craving for scientific-ish papers (although it drags a fair amount of BS in with even the slightist scientific idea/word/etc). Given this website (rawfoodsupport.com) is about getting and providing support for people following the raw vegan life style I see no reason at all to provide a link to questionable and negative presented information about our diet.


My personal impression is that Beyond Veg is the best raw website around. Look at the major science-based articles there - the long list of references, the careful attention to detail and documenting things. I have looked up some of the references there and can confirm that they are accurately reporting the science.

For contrast, examine the writings of the major pro-raw self-appointed "science experts" - people like Lawrence (Laurie) Forti, John Coleman. Forti and Coleman are both lousy writers, and they often get the science wrong. They are often criticized on Internet for being science fakes and frauds. Their logic is laughably bad. Look up their references and you often find that they are misrepresenting or blatantly(!) misreporting the scientific literature. I have no respect for them.

Most raw food people lack a science background and hence fall prey to bogus pseudoscience promoted by people by Forti and Coleman. It's a sad situation. The situation is so bad that many conventional vegan and vegetarian advocates regard rawists as irrational.


>On another note, don't believe Natural Hygienests, they have there only special way of putting either a negative or positive spin on things depending on if they want to demote or promote something. Maybe one day they will cure the NH thing. ;-)


Natural hygiene is pretty much a false(!) pseudo-religion, but one that pretends to be scientific. In reality, NH is promoted with pseudoscience, bad logic, and an idealistic yet warped view of nature. The best name for NH is to rename it: UNnatural hygiene.

I don't have a problem with beyondveg. Billings is a sound researcher, although his professional training is not in nutrition.

I think it's am important site because it points out the potential dangers (that can be avoided with appropriately planned diets) and it also points out the false claims. That is one reason why I am constantly stressing the importance of meeting RDAs and supplementing for areas where one's diet falls short. This increases the likelihood for health and adherence in the long run.

No diet is "All That." Diets are a just a way of eating. The thing about veganism is that it avoids cruelty and has lower environmental impact in general. These are powerful motivators.

Raw is very interesting to me and I do think it is better to a point but it doesn't negate the body's needs for certain minimum levels of energy, essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals, and many people just totally ignore all these things and follow dogma blindly, which isn't good. I don't think any of us want to see other raw foodists get sick and have health problems. I'd rather see thriving health.

I have never classified myself as NH or fruitarian. If I observe that the bulk of my diet is sweet fruit, then this is the result of a spontaneous transition and not a decision to become someone I am not. In my view, the majority of all the problems with transitioning that raw foodists face is the result of a struggle that is born when one forces oneself to become someone they are not, while ignoring their body signals. On the other hand, spontaneous transition is effortless. In my case, I discovered that I feel best on fruit. Of course, I am still going and expect more changes as I go.

It's got absolutely nothing to do with "religious behaviour" or "striving for absolute dietary purity" except for those who think that becoming a fruitarian is an intelectual and decision-based process.

The law of gravity is something we observe, rather than decide, when we let the apple go. In a similar way, when we follow our own body, the natural instincts will emerge.

Gosia


RawGosia channel
RawGosia streams

Beyondveg is not science, and it's "papers" have been refuted successfully by many people. It is a site full of losers who got to be who they are because they didn't make the correct dietary choices; it has nothing to do with science and everything to do with their religion of meat eating. I've never even heard of the people you mention in your posts; where are the critiques of people who actually run research centers, or do scientific testing, such as Gabriel Cousens, Brian Clement, Victoria Boutenko? "Most raw food people" don't even know who you're talking about; that website is based around a bunch of people who went raw in the 1960's and did it the wrong way. What exactly do you know about the raw food community; have you actually visited many resturaunts, potlucks, lectures, and met the people living this lifestyle and writing about it? Or did you just read a retro website written by someone in denial about his eating disorder and wanting to lash out at others for the fact that moving to alaska and living off oranges, or eating a whole pound of dates every day didn't work for him?

(does someone want to post that point by point critique of billings - I don't have the site anymore)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/04/2006 12:50AM by wild-aloe.

Deciding on which diet one is going to live with from the mind, without the support of the body, is a recipe for disaster. Billings was into the fruitarian diet and raw foods in general because he thought the diet would serve his health, while in the mean time not paying attention to what was happening with his body. This is not the fault of the the fruit or of the raw vegan diet, but because he wasn't paying attention to what was happening with his health.

I've read through some of the troubles he was experiencing. He talked of being "too" sensitive, and having difficulty living in an industrial world while on such a clean diet. By eating some animal products, he was able to lower the vibration of his body enough so that he could handle the stresses of this modern world.

For myself, I chosen to listen to my body and to remove myself from the stresses of my old life. At some point I just got tired of commuting 2 hours a day and working a 60 hour week. I could have changed my diet to accommodate that lifestyle, but instead what I choose to do was to leave the stressful jobs, and move away from my urban life to a more rural setting in a small town.

The sensitivity which Billings called a weakness I consider a gift. When I am around toxic fumes of car exhaust, cigarette smoke, gasoline fumes, I no longer just sit around and breath those poisonous substances, I move away. Why? Because my body will no longer tolerate those nasty substances like it could when I was eat a cooked meat diet.

Billings talked about his raw vegan diet as being Natural Hygiene like. What this means, I do not know, as he never gave examples of what his daily menu looked like. There is no agreed upon Natural Hygiene diet, the hygienists are all over the map when it comes to diet. There is the Shelton/Vetrano diet, the TC Fry diet, the Bass/Giancurso diet, the Diamond diet, the Graham diet.

Also, it looks like Billings views the diet at the main factor in one's health. From the hygiene perspective, it is only one factor of many. Also important, perhaps even more the diet, is getting adequate rest and sleep, and practicing mental, emotional, and spiritual balance. A reader of beyondveg has no way of knowing if Billings incorporated these things into his lifestyle. All one knows is that after incorporating some animal products into his diet, he was able to live his old lifestyle again.

>Beyondveg is not science, and it's "papers" have been refuted successfully by many people.

Not really - to date there has not been a refutation by anyone with scientific credibility. Only one raw expert has scientific credibility - Jeff Novick. (He used to post here, long ago, until he got tired of dealing with the extremists.) But Jeff is a contributor to Beyond Veg and a critic of the nonsense promoted in the name of raw.

(does someone want to post that point by point critique of billings - I don't have the site anymore)

The critique site you mention was written by Lawrence (Laurie) Forti, a self-appointed raw "science expert" who is widely regarded as a crank and a pseudoscience fake. Forti has ZERO credibility in science. He even brags on his website that he is smarter than anyone in nutrition, because he does not understand a simple concept like nutrient density. I guess Forti is truly "dense" in multiple meanings of the term.)

>where are the critiques of people who actually run research centers, or do scientific testing, such as Gabriel Cousens, Brian Clement, Victoria Boutenko?

If you want to claim Cousens, Clement, Boutenko are scientists, I demand that you list their published scientific papers. Here's a hint: there aren't any because the people you name are not research scientists! (Viktoras comes closest to being a scientist, but then he fearlessly mixes new age nonsense with science in his lectures.) There is indeed some scientific raw research, not all of it positive. But the amount is quite small - maybe 15 papers last time I checked.

>What exactly do you know about the raw food community; have you actually visited many resturaunts, potlucks, lectures, and met the people living this lifestyle and writing about it?

Hint: my userid here is "longtimeraw". It means something.

>Or did you just read a retro website written by someone in denial about his eating disorder and wanting to lash out at others for the fact that moving to alaska and living off oranges, or eating a whole pound of dates every day didn't work for him?

There is amazing hostility and defensiveness in your post. I see this a lot in the raw community. But I am more interested in whether a person is good (follows a moral code) than is the precise details of their lunch. I also appreciate good science, and there isn't much on the pro-raw websites.

longtimeraw,

What exactly does it mean "longtimeraw"?

The dictionary says nothing about joining someones private club of corporate scientists and academics who congratulate each other on their papers so long as they are deemed conventional enough. Science is as much about politics and philosophy as every other academic dicipline is. To be a scientist is to use the scientific method when conducting experiments; the people I've mentioned have done that. Yes, your username means it is what you entered when registering; it doesn't mean I'm impressed or that I care how long people have been exploiting animals and putting down the raw vegan movement. I'm sure you adhere to the highest principles of traditional morality, and are all for animal killing and a slew of human rights violations so long as petty old, badly written books are adhered to.

Thanks for reminding me who wrote the credible, scientific critique of tom billings. Here it is: [www.ecologos.org] . I'm so glad that you helped me find the link that I will never look at one of your posts again.

I appreciate the open discussion. I regret the way I asked that question. the question I wish I had asked is-

What can an enthusiastic raw vegan do if they find themselves tired/not feeling right, after a few months on raw vegan food? They don't have the freedom at the time to move away from the city (as I indeed long to do) and want to remain true to the diet without resorting to animal sources of food?
This because I've read about the pitfall of mistaking detox syptoms for a nutritional deficiency.

Dulset

Dulset,

When I shifted my diet from a high fat raw vegan diet to the 80-10-10, I had a period of profound fatigue (chronic fatigue) from the diet shift, so profound that I realized I needed to take time off from work to allow my body to heal. I took a 4 month leave of absence from work and allowed myself to sleep as much as I wanted. When I first started my time off from work, I was sleeping 16 to 18 hours a day.

After this period of sleep debt repayment (it was sleep debt, as I was undersleeping for over a decade) my health soared to a new level I had never seen in my adult life. All the symptoms normally attributed to a transitional raw diet disappeared.

For most folks they won't need to go through such a healing crisis, I'm not sure many folk will have a decade of undersleeping as part of their health history.

As for leaving the city, it was time for me to go. The combination of my enhanced sensitivity, as well as my growth on my spiritual path, made this evident to me. As my body complained about being in the city, so did my spirit. So when an opportunity to leave arrived, I left. I didn't leave the city until being 100% raw for 3 years.

There is a time of reckoning that does occur with any healing path. A time to decide which comes first, the healing or other things. I chose my healing. Others may or may not make their healing the first priority.

>What exactly does it mean "longtimeraw"?

More than 20 years experimenting with a variety of predominantly raw diets, both vegan and non-vegan. As a result of this, I have a very low opinion of natural hygiene and 80/10/10.

>Science is as much about politics and philosophy as every other academic dicipline is.

In the short run, for a very few, narrow, specific topics -- maybe. In the long run, your statement is incorrect.

>I'm sure you adhere to the highest principles of traditional morality, and are all for animal killing and a slew of human rights violations so long as petty old, badly written books are adhered to.

Wrong again. I'm a veggie. Human rights are not on-topic here.

>To be a scientist is to use the scientific method when conducting experiments; the people I've mentioned have done that.

Incorrect again. None of the people you listed have any scientific credibility; they have no scientific writings whatsoever..

>Thanks for reminding me who wrote the credible, scientific critique of tom billings. Here it is: [www.ecologos.org] . I'm so glad that you helped me find the link that I will never look at one of your posts again.

To which I edit my earlier comment as a reply:

The website ecologos.org was written by Lawrence (Laurie) Forti, a self-appointed raw "science expert" who is widely regarded as a crank and a pseudoscience fake. Forti has ZERO credibility in science. He even brags on his website that he is smarter than anyone in nutrition, because he does not understand a simple concept like nutrient density. I guess Forti is truly "dense" in multiple meanings of the term.)

Re: Forti the fake. Don't take my word for it, check out the many posts on Google Groups denouncing the Forti as a pseudoscience fraud:

[groups.google.com]

Other raw pseudoscience fakes include: John Coleman, Zsuzsa (dropped out of sight some time ago), and "rawimmortal" - the guy from Portland who vanished after it was revealed that he was heavily into raw psilocybin mushrooms. I forget his real name.

This topic is getting old, so I might end participation here.

I don't know personally know most of the folk that longtimeraw mentioned. However, Zsuzsa was instrumental my understanding of how health works, and as I tried things she wrote about and others write about like Doug Graham, I had tremendous improvements in my health. Of course, I did have to make some hard choices around the priority of my health over my work and income (for example, taking 4 months off of work to sleep for 16-18 hours a day).

As FruitarianOne mentioned in an earlier post, eating a fruitarian or a 80-10-10 diet is not for everyone. If you are not is a position to change your old lifestyle, it may be that neither fruitarianism nor 80-10-10 is going to work for you. I had 40 years of SAD lifestyle to undo, and when I went to 80-10-10, there was a lot of detoxification and healing and cleansing and rebuilding that needed to happen, and it didn't always feel good. There were times I was so fatigued I couldn't stay awake while driving to work, or while at work, couldn't stay awake, especially after eating my lunch.

There are lot of people who want to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.

There is benefit of eating a mostly raw diet, or an all raw transitional raw diet, or even a raw diet with animal products. I did all of these, and they gave me what they gave me, but it wasn't all there was to get. But they did get me here, and for that I am grateful.

As for Billings, does anyone have a recent picture of him? I'd like to see what his partially cooked partial animal products has done for his health.

Bryan,
I am curious, what city did you move away from, and where did you move? I used to live in San Francisco, and as much as I love the city, I had to leave. It was too crowded, loud and not to mention expensive. I moved to a small town in the Pacific northwest. Its much cooler weatherwise, and I like the fact that there are fewer people, its also much quieter. When I first moved here, I used to be alarmed at hearing a pine cone fall from the trees! It just sounded so incredibly loud! It just goes to show how I probably have been overstimulated all around, and what happens when the over stimulation is gone.

The downside alas is that there isn't as many options foodwise here, meat & potatoes, fried food, white crusty buns, deep fried stuff is what most people seem to eat around here. They don't think anything of it at all. I was really, really suprised when someone at work went on a 'diet' he was eating the same stuff, but in smaller portions and leaving off the mayo. I have to give him some credit for trying something! Three months later I don't see any real change, I think he temporarily took off a few pounds, but that didn't seem to last.

Unfortunately, this environment has had somewhat of a negative influence on me. I have choices to make, but it seems an uphill battle when everywhere you turn everything that people are eating is just crap. Even stuff in the health food store here doesn't seem that good. The other day I saw 'organic corn syrup'.

I have been collecting materials all this summer and fall to get the compost going and get the garden going. I know it will eventually pay off, but I often feel impatient because I am really getting tired of eating cracked fruit, wilted greens with no flavor. I have been sprouting mung beans so I get some really alive stuff. So far its been the best tasting stuff, but usually I don't care for them when good produce is available.

Then there is some sense of self doubt. I can see myself turning into one of those people whom others have criticized. I read an article about 'orthorexia' and about how a woman only ate what she grew in her garden. She also ate certain things if she could eat them within 15 minutes of of picking. I don't blame her, I used to have some fresh greens which I ate within minutes of picking, and it was so good. But to the average person, this is serious limitations on life.

Mislu

Bryan,

I had to hold some mirrors up to my face when I read the Billings research and was satisfied but I came back here because I'm not convinced from the stand point of an optimum diet that I shouldn't eat a raw egg occasionally (as a supplement?) from ethically raised chickens, wish I could keep a couple myself, but not right now.
Dying is another mirror but that is not a discussion for this forum.

Grateful for this forum,

Dulset

Dulset, what exactly do you feel you can get from an egg that you cannot obtain from other sources? Do you feel that b12 will be better assimilated if it comes from an egg (from a chicken who got it from bacterial contaimination of the soil or a fortified feed)? People's GI tracts become less efficient at cleaving B12 from animal food matrices as they age, and when they develop deficiencies, doctors don't present them with steak or eggs to eat. They give them injections or suppplements to correct for the deficiencis.

Why or do you think it is a worse thing to get it directly from bacterial synthesis and elminate the (inefficient, probably maltreated) chicken from the chain? I am really curious as to why people feel they need to involve chickens. Or cows.

I use to despise beyondveg's website and any involvement
that corresponded with it, but now after many years later
I truly understand his/their viewpoints.


Why Vegan?
Because I have the most love and admiration for all animals of the earth!!!
a rawvegan hopeful, rawdev4life!!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/2006 11:21PM by rawdev.