I was perusing the internet archives the other day, looking at some old posts from this forum. It seems the same topics keep on coming up, year after year. Here is an example of one of them:

A common question is what is Natural Hygiene (NH)? Some folk, when they hear this, think it is a way to clean the body (showering/shampooing) using natural products. In fact, its a whole lot more. These questions always brought out the NH versus David Wolfe verus Gabriel Cousens endless dialogue. Here is an example called "What is Natural Hygiene?". In this thread from 2 years ago, we have Matthew Kenney, Steve, Mark Gailmor, Frederick Patenaude, doghouse reilly, Mike, Bryan, drflora, John Rose, Nora Lenz, and others participating.

Every so often, we get a newbie that comes in, and asks a lot of pointed questions. These questions are often non-vegan in nature, and are designed to scare people away from the raw vegan diet. In this thread from three years ago, a newbie named Jacob (who sounds a lot like longtimeraw), came to the forum asking about Tom Billings and Stanley Bass, people who advocate raw animal products in the diet. As you will note, not many people realize that they are being set up by a troll in this thread called "Some Serious Questions About This Diet". When you come across a newbie asking questions like this, its is best to ignore these threads and not give too much energy in your responses. In this thread, we have mare_idol, Mike, Lois, Ruah, swimmer, jinjee, Bryan, dream earth, nemo, gosia, steve, and others.

Another recurring theme is the Cousens versus Graham debate. In this thread started by the troublemaker Bryan, we have some classic bickering here in this thread from two and a half years ago called "Excellent post on the trouble with the Cousen's Rainbow Diet". In this thread we have Bryan, Mike, Gosia, bremmie, Dr Gonzo, doghouse reilly, Jose, Gosia, Tony, Narz and others. I met Tony, who took the Cousens' Master's degree in raw nutrition. He didn't fare so well on the Cousens diet, and at some point quit being raw.

One thing that used to come up a lot was the discussion of raw eggs. The biggest promoter was a guy named Pete, whose handle was Pete/Capt Detox/Sunny Delight/Realityishere2003/SunnyDelight4U. In this 3 and a half year old thread called "do we make meat eaters feel guilty?", the thread just goes on and on. What was funny about it was that Pete kept on getting banned in this thread, and would create a new account and just continue on the discussion.

The really long threads sometimes had to do with menstruation, specifically women losing their periods on the raw diet. In this three and a half year old thread called "missing period", the debate continued on whether missing a period was a healthy or unhealthy event. This was on thread in which I chose not to participate.

This doesn't come up much, but someone asked to make the forum be non-vegan two and a half years ago in this thread called "To the moderator". When it became clear to the original poster that people wanted the forum to remain vegan, he then gave is farewell in this thread called "I think I'll leave this forum". Some folk asked him to stay, but other could care less.

If there are some common questions that keep coming up, then maybe we should have some fixed threads to serve as introductions to curious newbies. It might save storage space and be a faster reference for the vegan beginners.

thanks bryan-i have only been on a while and i see where new people(such as me) are new and are simply asking the same questions i ask.so these situations u addressed above are very good and helpful and interesting.taylor

WOW!!!! Bryan - you have access to all those old threads - before the big crash!!

I'm thrilled to see them! Thanks for posting them and I hope that you do so more often!

I really miss John Rose. There was once a post by John about religion. I was going to copy it and never got around to it. Then the system crashed and it was lost. If you can find it and post it on the OT forum I would be so grateful. It was a long post and had to do with the history of religions.

Thanks and Thanks!

Life Is Good!

alive!

Bryan,

I'm feeling insecure after reading your posts about the Internet Troll.

When I first discovered raw foodism and this forum I also came upon some of the Billings etc info and I admit at the time it was compelling but I did not know then what I know now through reading and my own experience.

I barged in asking about that same research in a thread I started but it was a genuine attempt at getting information (and a lot of ignorance on my part at the time). I still cringe at the memory.

And after reading the thread "some serious questions about this diet" I don't think newbies would have doubts about raw veganism, quite the contrary.
That Internet Troll does you a favour.

Bryan-

Do you have access to the old thread on greens?
It was a lengthy, long-lived thread concerning green juices and peoples' daily green intakes.

Thanks.

Some boards I've been on in the past, in fact one health related one I'm thinking of, have archives which are organized by topic. So people can choose a topic ('raw and menstruation' or 'high fat vs. high fruit' or 'natural hygiene' or 'detox' or whatever. This could be a nice feature. Would this be a huge amount of work?

Bryan, thanks for posting these links to the old threads!

Love,
Uma





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2007 04:12AM by uma.

mallow Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Do you have access to the old thread on greens?
> It was a lengthy, long-lived thread concerning
> green juices and peoples' daily green intakes.

Anyone can search the archives at [web.archive.org]

Rob

--
Rob Hull - Funky Raw
My blog: [www.rawrob.com]

-i was feeling bad too cause i asked things and i truly did not know-ignorant but not stupid.i felt bad when i asked about omegas-i never read the whole postings...just read what i needed to know.then one day in my uncookbooks-was superfoods. i went and tried to look thru this site to find out what they were-there is so much on site-it takes a while to learn all this stuff.i find out that my omega question and somebody posting some supposed link-but i had already asked on this site to others"what is superfoods?".then i browsed thru and oh lord! i saw all the replies and retorts on spiralina.i hurried back to where i had asked the question and said "nevermind"...horrified to get anything going .I think if a newbie knows alot-i mean alot like some of the links u gave us Bryan-the above links to postings -if they know too much...that maybe is a clue that they already have idea's in there minds of what they really think.some newbies...like me-truly do not know what they are asking is gonna cause grief.i did not know there was the cousens/graham controversy.I did not know who cousens was or graham.i had no clue about any of this stuff.i have been vegtarian and vegan.those are a snap compared to all of this.i see now why people say they were raw foodist and came back and are trying to be a higher %.when i first started and read this stuff.MY thoughts were-why are they not now?it is just eating raw food.Whats the big deal.NOw-as with everything-there is layers of deepness and so now i am seeing and learning and i am so happy people have hung in there with me.so thanks eveyrone.taylor

Yeah, pin some threads.

Hey Taylor there are plenty of benefits to having a true beginner's mind!! a clean slate... your mind isn't already bogged down by tons of already ingrained belief systems about raw!

Love,
Uma

Uma you are so smart

Wow! This blast from the past is priceless. Tear in the eye he he!

Thanks Bryan.

Gosia


RawGosia channel
RawGosia streams

VeganLife,

Perhaps we can do this with the threads in the current database. These old thread I referred to are in [www.archive.org], and they are far from complete, in fact, I suspect there is less that 1% or less of the old thread that are really stored in there. The archiving software didn't work so well with bulletin boards and forums.

alive!

If I run into that thread, I will post it again. But like I told VeganLife, the archive are far from complete. However, here is a classic John Rose thread called Emerson and Raw Food.

Dulset,

For people who are earnest and really want to learn the raw lifestyle, I have no problems helping them understanding how to succeed on this diet. It sounds like you really wanted to understand, rather than tell all of us how we were making the biggest mistakes of our lives with this restrictive diet.

mallow,

If I find that thread, I will post it. Again, there is only about 1% or less of the old stuff that is really available.

uma,

Perhap we can do this with what is in our current database. Let me ask John about this.

taylor,

There is certainly no shame in wanting to learn new stuff!

Gosia,

You were in many of those old threads. It was a pretty harsh time it those good old days.

In this thread Everything About Nothing, I posted a link to a Dr Graham article talking about how we all get mired in the minutiae of stuff that doesn't matter in the raw world. Most of this stuff is designed to confuse you and make you buy certain products.

Sometimes, when a person gets banned or censored at another raw forum, they come over here to vent. Sometimes this leads to a lot of flaming. Back when this happened, Nature's First Law was the hottest thing happening in raw. Here are some of the flames from those days:
censorship at NFL
Honest opinions about N.F.L.??
Amazing facts learned from David Wolfe. must read!!
NFL Spies are among us
BE INFORMED ABOUT plagiarism and censorship at rawfood.com

Sometimes someone tries to do 80/10/10 and in a few hours they are having major problems. In this thread called 7 Hours into 80/10/10 Sharon is having difficulty. By the next day though, things are getting better. I'm glad there is a book now that explains how to do this.

Sometime people just posted here to share about some of the pain in their lives. When this would happen, there were folk here who were very supportive and helpful. Here is an classic example in "Zsuzsa and anyone else who wants to read. OT". There's a lot of love out there.

Before I wrote the much longer article on Gosia's website, I had a shorter version of it that I posted in this thread called "Success on a raw food diet". This post was my second attempt at this particular message, the first attempt made people feel so judged and angry with me. I had my hide nailed to the cross on the first attempt to state this idea. This second version was much less offensive to people.

People have always been touting the benefits of using flax oil as a supplement to balance out the omega-3 fatty acids. Here was my attempt to offer a different way to achieve fatty acid balance without supplementation in this thread called "Balancing Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids".

Wow! Thanks for pulling these old threads out of storage for us noobs. There certainly is no shortage of information available - now I just need more time so I can read more.

*sigh*

Judy

Bryan,

thank you for the links (old threads). I'm following this forum since many months although I post only once ( to say to Uti how much his story has touched me - it made me cry ... ). In the beginning, instead of posting questions, I was used to visit the former threads available (being from the french canadian countryside, maybe I was not so confident with my english ...). So, your initiative about the archives is great.
Yes, I did observe too that a lot of posts are repetitive. Sometimes, it is plainly the same Q and A, sometimes we gain new light through the enlightened vision of someone. We also come to witness all the compassion and love for those who begins...Very sweet indeed...
I first got attracted to raw food a little more then a year ago, mostly out of ''yoga'' reasons. I wanted to sleep less so to have more time for meditation ( from what I heard, 4-6 hours a night ? it would be fine for me...).
blessings and love to everyone here,

Cynthia

What a sad thing to say! ("When you come across a newbie asking questions like this, its is best to ignore these threads and not give too much energy in your responses." Most of these people are in dead earnest and really want answers to their questions, and they are asking us because they think we're experienced and have something to offer them. To ignore them is arrogant and paranoid. We need to have open minds and not be intimidated by questions about Stanley Bass and others. We're not a doctrine or a religion, after all. We're human beings, and humans, as well as their diets, are living, evolving, and imperfect. Yes, even the 'ideal' raw food diet is imperfect.

kwan,

This is a vegan forum. If people want to espouse the benefits of a non-vegan diet, this is not the place. The NFL forum is a great place is discuss the pros and cons of a raw vegetarian or a raw omnivore diet.

These are the forum rules, and I simply enforce them.

While I am a big fan of people evolving and growing and healing, I ask everyone here to keep the subject matter vegan, as these are the forum rules. For those of you who want a discussion of animal products, there are billions of people in this world who would be happy to discuss this with you.

Thanks for the compliment Suvine!
Love,
Uma