in addition,

i read vegsource, I find useful information there.

I also find its common for people to repeat 'concepts' as if they are facts. sometimes you can scroll down or go through the archive and the same people were asking the same questions (that they just answered) months before.

I also find that there isn't all that much critical thinking in general, and that the most inteligent (or at least knowledgeable) posters are particularlly stuffy about defending their positions. perhaps because they have to put up with so much flack from out-ther non-vegan nuts that frequent the place, or perhaps its because they are really iritable people, that their health is not working so much for them, that they will stand by concepts without embracing other views till the end.

you also see the people as in example 1, sometimes start questioning things, i dunno like garlic or something, and they immediately get SHUT DOWN, those people don't tend to stick around, whther they stick it out with the diet is doubtful. now for me I'm currently of the belief that garlic doesn't work for me but I realize that this is both based on how I am feeling without the garlic and also on information someone gave me about it. BOTH do not contradict that garlic might serve a function in someones diet or that it might serve me to use garlic in some way in the future.

of cource there are certain rules and truths to be followed, but
personally I'll stick with being open minded rather than rules and regulations that have any stigma of whats natural



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2007 04:49AM by anaken.

Harmony Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
What other animals juice their
> foods, throwing out the fiber?


Chimpanzee's. These animals place food between their teeth and large, rubbery bottom lip and squeeze the juices from the plant foods they eat, then discard the fibers. They don't do this with everything they eat, but they do "juice" some foods.

khale

anaken Wrote:

> I also find its common for people to repeat
> 'concepts' as if they are facts.

this is what you seem to be doing regarding juicing..
you talk about the alkalinity concept without any facts to support it.
without any facts about how much alkalinity we need
how much alkalinity certain foods have
studies on alkalinity.
or any other supporting evidence other than you don't feel good without juicing.

i could just as easily say that you are parroting david wolfe, just as you accuse others of parroting graham.

i don't agree with everything dr graham says either.

for example, i think his use of swiss balls in exercise instruction is very misguided.

but read this website on fiber. he's apparently not the only one that thinks the way he does.

and by the way, maybe a detailed explanation of what exactly he means by nutrient is a fiber is in order.

also, consider what would happen if you ingested ZERO fiber.
does that make fiber a nutrient - the fact that it is essential?

is air a nutrient?

we might be getting a bit picky about the word nutrient.

[www.fitnessandfreebies.com]

well, you are right, i'm sure i'm 'parroting' someone, but more likely, a bunch of people that I have had first hand contact with. the difference is I am shareing information, i'm not regurgitating simple phrases with no premise (as some, not you, do). I'm shareing information I have thought about and recycled into mostly my own words, based on a practice I have experience with and without and have talked to various people first hand about issues that come up around this practice. In the past when I have asked pointed questions about these issues (since I, like most would like to do the most minmal steps to achieve health) I have recieved answers that are based around what I consider to be facts, they arn't based on theories someone dishes out about what is natural or cite all failures on a program ( that is universal in achieving health mind you) as failures in the individual

and people do go for periods of zero fiber, its called juice fasting, there are plenty of examples of people going 3x or more (92 days is not uncommen) longer then an extended water fast. I'm not defending such a practice and certainly don't care to extended this argument about whther these people are lacking nutrients, but regardless it does help prove (on top of the reasons I have already discussed) that fiber is not an 'essential nutrient' in the way one uses it against juicing.

and sorry fresh, your desire to prove me wrong really doesn't sit well with me and this will have to do for now as far as 'facts'. and actually i'm not so sorry, because the last response I made was purely a response to Uma about why I think there is an overt mentality of close mindedness around many crucial issues.

I thought we were on the same page that jucing has pros and cons. I for one enjoy my fiber and eating my foods whole (mono) and don't wish to do without the essential nutrient of fiber.

Hmmm...

In my original post, I was comparing milk (which is whole) and juice (which is not), since the starter of the thread compared the two as similar and stated that juicing is totally natural. In contrast with animals "wadging their greens", I'm thinking of the juicing done with a machine, often mixing more than 1 veggie or fruit. I don't find that natural myself, and find that it doesn't digest very well. I was also thinking of the idea of consuming mostly or all juice instead of the foods in their given state, as that was implied in the starter post. Fiber is still necessary. I'm not anti-juice, though. I do love my OJ! I don't see how juicing could be considered essential for health either. I personally feel drawn to fast with water when my body needs a break...not go for my juicer. I do support those who like it, though. Great - whatever works! I have an open mind. It simply doesn't work for my body at this time.

As for me having blind faith or lack of free thinking, that's false. I like to spend most of my freetime reading, taking what works for me, leaving what doesn't, and observing how those things applied to my life work, making my own conclusions. I believe that's what most people do. I like to repeat information that I've found helpful for myself when I think there's a possibility it might be useful to someone else, too. No force-feeding involved here, just an offering. There's no reason to attack others when you just don't agree. It seems that anyone who doesn't hold the same beliefs as you is being called stupid. I find that behavior "unfounded". It doesn't make for a very friendly, positive, or supportive environment. I appreciate the open-minded, friendly members here most of all.

anaken Wrote:

> I thought we were on the same page that jucing has
> pros and cons.

yes we are indeed.
i'm not really trying to prove you wrong.
I'm engaging in a friendly debate - which often serves to educate us both.


by the way, someone just gave us an Acme Juicerator.
i've never had a juicer.
I tried it and the cleaning was ridiculous !
I'm guessing that champion style juicers are easier to clean.
otherwise i wouldn't even think about juicing ever again.

Sometimes I juice fruit in my mouth, most especially oranges, tangerines, and watermelon.

It is not something I decide to do with my mind or intellect. It's just something my body seems to do on its' own. When it happens it seems to be the perfect thing and no problems and no big deal either way.



Love,
Julie

Harmony,

heck i'm plenty friendly, i offered some information and then found myself in mechanical mode of outlining the situation as I see it. usually I don't do this and try to simply give information that would be helpful/supportive for the particular circumstance regardless of what my personal beliefs are about 'ultimate health' or whatever, which I believe is contrary to the statement that you made, whether you are a friendly caring person or not.

Since no one it seems was looking for support in this thread, i may have come across as detached.
I wasn't implying that you were stupid, or some kind of zombie. I WAS saying that I think these ideas about what is natural ect. make for poor arguments. and that those that employ them believe they are acting intuitively when it fact its an idea comming from a particular ideology (as is mine). Another part to what I was saying is that the fiber issue (which comes up ALL the time recently since 811) is totally inaccurate (i hope I proved this). I did USE you as an example because it was within this thread. i've seen far more ignorant statements made for sure, in inappropriate contexts. yet if you make a statement like "If you enjoy juicing, though, in place of consuming less optimal things, and feel good doing it...by all means, go for it. " as if to imply that your lifestyle of not consuming juice is somehow superior. it doesn't matter if you say it with a smile. see my point?

I agree 'wadging greens' doesn't exactly correspond with a juicer/extractor. I've already shared my opinion on how juicing isn't very natural at all, but for this very reason good for our un-natural bodies. the only reason it was included is because you asked specifically if animals remove fiber, which they do.

I gave information on why I think juicing could be considered essential for health. the main reason not depending on ideas of getting more nutrients or 'liking it' but in regulating toxins at a cellular level, If this information doesn't vibe with you, or if you require more proof thats understandable.

my question is how could you claim you tried juice and it did not digest well when juicing itself bypasses digestion? To me thats the basic principle of juice. Really i'm not being nasty, but it appears to me that you have found no reason to implement juicing, have no knowledge of benefits or even basic concepts of juicing, but based on your current comfortability and acceptance of your program choose to claim the superiority of eating only whole foods. Wheras I am trying to make a point that even though my 'diet' is that natural whole diet that you follow, i still am open to other concepts and know of various repercussions to blindly following a diet (even along with healthful practices) alone.

Fresh,

Yes there is no doubt about it, cleanup, or cost. there is no way in hell I would do it if I wasn't sure their were reprucission for not - not just benefits for - juicing.

Anaken, thanks for your response. So what I hear you saying in a nutshell is that hygienic practices/concepts tend to resonate for you or work for you in your own experience, and that some followers of hygiene are closed-minded, dogmatic, and/or parrots. I have experienced both of these things as well.

I like what Doug Graham has to say because what he is saying (about other approaches, about his approach, etc.) matches my own personal experience with what has and hasn't worked for me.

I appreciate your response to my post. I also appreciate that your sharing often comes from your own experience of where you are playing, not just parroting what is supposed to be the right way to do it!

Love,
Uma

I love juicing & the clean up is worth it considering how good I feel. I don't look at what is most convienent, but what helps me the most. I juice low fruit & high veggie/greens & non-sweet fruit. A little fruit goes a long way for sweetening green juices.

If you look at the animal kingdom....mammals nurse on milk for a certain time. Then neither the baby nor the mother wants to engage in this process. They are both ultimately repelled from it. And a new cycle of eating - something entirely different - begins in their lives. Mother's milk is indeed a cycle for babies which ends. then there is a different dietary requirement. And we DO have teeth for that. Nature gave us teeth.

Exactly Uma,

My observations are when people receive advice about what is ideal, especially when that ideal is based entirely on what is natural, what happens is people tend to ignore certain symptoms, they tend to stick with something even though it is not really working for them (even if they feel ok) or until they freak and bail entirely when things go sour, only to feel in their mind they are simply not living up to an ideal, when perhaps they cannot possibly accomidate all the factors needed for success because of the state of their bodies (and this applies to all humans IMO, not just 'sick' ones) whether they follow the steps or not, and therefore feel utter failure. Sometimes this failure isn't just a psychological thing, but their bodies actually might be in a place that is far worse, even dangerous because of this approach.

perhaps it is unfair of me to judge hygiene, Graham etc...as this could be applied to any practice of taking health into ones own hands (or placing it of course under the guidance of others). Certainly you could speak from experience on this one.

perhaps it is because I have this perspective on how the body actually has quite a bit of work to do to that i'm harder on the hygiene folks more so than the ones who prescribe 'medicines' (even though i recognize that in some cases these are poisons or useless expenses, they are at least clued into this 'fact'.

However its my opinion that Graham can easily use phrases like "fractured", "less than optimal food", etc... because basically he's talking about is a diet almost purely in terms of what constitutes nutrition, as if his diet is merely Ornish or Macdougal, only it supplies the optimal foods instead and gets rid of the bad. This type of thinking I find to be naive and dangerous. And of cource in this case something whole would constitute better nutrition.

and yes there are other aspects of 'healthful living' he promotes along with just applying a diet regimen. but to me this doesn't cut it.

all the crap about how people 'fail' on a raw diet because they eat too much fat, each too much toxic foodstuffs or whatever...totally wrong in my option. while adding too much fat will I can only assume lead to problems as would adding stimulants lead to insufficient rest... what about all the animal and trans fats people have been eating their entire lives and all the processed toxins?, what about for thousands of years at least our bodies have essentialy been restructered to assimilate 'inapropriate food for humans'? its more likely people 'fail' because they take into account the cleansing and repair work.

personally I find when one is talking about the artificial availability of fat in a natural setting, or the absurd necessity it would be to constantly be in search of and consuming water, these things resonate with me. When people talk about how one just needs to eat, exercise, and rest like our gorilla cousin (who hasn't been tempted or capable to alter his genes or fill her tissues with toxins in the last couple millennia) i'm a bit awstruck.


Personally, I choose to make an attempt to take in a multitude of other peoples' wisdom into account, whether I feel smashing or not. This isn't an attitude i think is possible for someone who is sold on purely natural concepts, because for them, why would they run into problems if they were following what is natural?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/17/2007 11:17PM by anaken.

I like being precise when using the words. In this case the word being used in natural. I interpret is as "with the nature". Why is no natural juicer attached to my natural body? Or, maybe the world natural is being used in another context than I think of here?

Gosia


RawGosia channel
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I just can't beleive how blind people are and insist on staying that way.

Our natural juicer is called teeth.

Does any remember Bobs M2M letter, I wrote a very funny post in there about my new juicer descripbing all of the miracle qualities and at the very end revealed it was teeth.

elnatural

Teeth is not a juicer in my view, it is something closer to a blender, but not quite that either. Are you calling me blind?

Gosia


RawGosia channel
RawGosia streams

hello anaken,

anaken Wrote:
> However its my opinion that Graham can easily use
> phrases like "fractured", "less than optimal
> food", etc... because basically he's talking about
> is a diet almost purely in terms of what
> constitutes nutrition, as if his diet is merely
> Ornish or Macdougal, only it supplies the optimal
> foods instead and gets rid of the bad.

i think something is wrong here with constantly talking about someone else.

i think it would be better to take your protests and present them to the person that you are talking about, and allow that person to respond in their own words, not in your words. it's very easy to misrepresent someone's position with the way this is being handled here.



respectfully,

fresh



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/18/2007 01:49AM by fresh.

Gosia wrote:

"I like being precise when using the words. In this case the word being used in natural. I interpret is as "with the nature". Why is no natural juicer attached to my natural body? Or, maybe the world natural is being used in another context than I think of here?"

Frankly, the use of the word "natural" in this context seems a bit silly to me, and no offense to you Gosia, as I do not consider you a silly person in the least, but you don't have wheels on your ass either, yet chances are you drive a car, take a bus, taxi or train to get you from point A. to point B...at least occasionally ~ or use a knife to cut a cucumber perhaps?

Would it be more natural to grate the carrot first and squeeze it through a clean dish towel like Norman Walker first did? Would it be more healthy then? Or is grating a carrot unnatural too? (please don't tell me that you have a grater growing from your arm)

I mean a person either thinks juicing is healthy or not. Why is it necessary to deem it an unnatural practice just because a tool is used to produce it? From an anthropological perspective, the use of tools is what distinguishes humans from animals. When primates were first observed using crude tools to accomplish tasks it was to the world of science equal to mans' first steps on the Moon, as it was the decisive factor in determining an ancestral relationship between man and primate. And as Montaigne put it, "Anything found in nature is OF nature." No one instructed the chimp on how to create and use tools. It just came, yep you guessed it, naturally.

khale

Khale, juicing may be healthy but it is not natural, per definition of the term. I object to calling juicing natural and to calling people silly. Clearly, man-made blenders are not natural. Teeth are. Well, in my view. Feel free to call anything that man created, natural.

I really don't care about the argument for or against juicing. I am happy to eat whatever I like and happy for others to eat whatever they like.

Gosia


RawGosia channel
RawGosia streams

Fresh,

I don't see what you mean by "it would be better".. all i'm doing Is just citing my views. people can contrast what i'm saying with what they believe or what they read on their own. It's quite possible i'm misrepresting someones position. If I had a goal, it would be for someone to question those positions at the points of criticism i've found in them..rather then prove my position is somehow correct or superior.

my main criticism being that the whole - 'what is natural' debate is often useless, and possibly dangerous to thinking about our current state as human beings.

Gosia, I agree.

although
I often find people do claim to have that perspective, yet when push comes to shove they will claim superiority of eating whole foods (not just for nutrion mind you, but as a path to health) and cite this idea that it is not natural as some kind of proof of their logic, which I would only hope after reading what I wrote, that they would at least share you position of indiference.

Hey guys,
If you want to juice, JUICE.

If you want to blend, BLEND.

If you don't want to juice, DON'T JUICE already!

I would say this, though: if you haven't tried a juice fast, you probably can't really weigh in on the subject in the same way as someone who's done it. I know what Graham teaches about juicing being unnatural, but we live in highly unnatural circumstances, don't we?, that may require something extra. For me, that something else is juicing. I don't care if Buddha himself comes and tells me, "Sharrhan, Thou shalt not juice." (He said to question anything he said anyway, right?) ;-p I know in my heart that juicing helps me, and I'm going to do it occasionally.

However, I respect anyone who doesn't want to juice. Let's give each other room to breathe. I just hate to see us arguing in a dogmatic way about this stuff when there are so many other things we need to be addressing in our country and world right now.

Sharrhan:


[www.facebook.com]

"Let's give each other room to breathe."

Nod nod nod.

Gosia


RawGosia channel
RawGosia streams

kwan sharhan

You're so right,these people could go back and forth forever but not one single thing said from personal life experiences. I dought if any or many here have done 15 to 40 days on nothing but juice - mostly green and veggie juice with an open and positive mind set. Seems like a lot of - my guru said this so that's what I believe but will never dare to test it for my self. I have done several 15 day juice fasts/feasts,cleanses. There's fantastic remarkable unspeakable territory out there to be discovered for those who dare.

elnatural

Some of my favourite quotes by a guru are:

"Everyone is when they need to be."

"If you want to change the world, change yourself."


RawGosia channel
RawGosia streams

hmm, actually I DID share my experience, when it became an issue of 'well it comes down to experience' I chose to not go that route and talk about some concepts/ critical thoughts that to my knowledge, come from me, not some guru

I don't think there is a guru that talks much on how screwed up we are, they wouldn't make much money or have much of a following

forever stops here for me man!

Here's what I would like to see hapen here now, blantant honesty! Will every single person who has talked against juicing in this post give all of your own personal life experience with juicing and why you think that experience should shed light on my original post.

waiting...........

elnatural_1

elnatural_1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here's what I would like to see hapen here now,
> blantant honesty! Will every single person who has
> talked against juicing in this post give all of
> your own personal life experience with juicing and
> why you think that experience should shed light on
> my original post.
>
> waiting...........
>
> elnatural_1

here i loved sharrhan's post, chillin everyone out, and here you go stirring up the pot again, eh al? ;-)

i don't know if i talked against juicing or not but....

your comparison with babies drinking mothers milk is faulty as has been clearly stated here by others.

you myopically refuse to see that, because of your strange religious fervor for juicing.

one of my experiences has been that i have gotten dizzy from juicing (greens and a very small amount of carrots)

getting dizzy is not a good signal in my mind (and it was not my body reacting badly to the juice).

with that said, many of those "against" juicing merely think that it is better to minimize it, not exclude it altogether, or demonize it.

and for those who claim amazing things happen while juicing. while that is wonderful, these sensations can happen on water "fasting" or mono meal eating, or spinning around in a circle, or doing drugs, or listening to music, or whatever.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....nighty night.

If I were a cave woman, and I wanted to give something nourishing to my child, myself, or an ill & weak person, this is what I'd do.

I would take some wild vegetables, fruits or whatever, place them in a bowl shaped rock, take another rock and smash the vegetables until they were like pudding, then I would add some water, then strain the fiber with my hands & drink the juice.


I give the cavewomen & men more credit for intelligence than some do.

I love my juicer.

At the moment I'm into juicing. Why? Because I was born out of a malnourished body, was breastfed on milk lacking in what I needed for too short a time, was raised and continued feeding myself on an inadequate diet until I came to my senses at age 45.

Since then I've been healing and remineralizing myself with green juices and prolonged juice fasts (the longest was 9 weeks). I don't know how long it will take to bring my body back to it's pristine state, if that's even possible, living under unnatural circumstances in a city with pollution, mobile phones, computers etc. etc. I feel that I need the concentrated/healing nutrition I get from green juices, I get my fiber from other foods and smoothies. I also feel it's important to me to give green juices to my children for all the above reasons.

Maybe at some stage in the future I won't feel the need to drink green juices anymore and then I'll stop. My eating habits are changing again as I'm writing this. I've been trying to eat high fruit/low fat for the last 2 weeks so maybe green juices won't feel right anymore in the future.

We can learn a lot from sharing our experiences on this forum. I have learnt far more from visiting here over the last 3 years then from any books I've read and still am. I think the most important thing I've learned though is that things change and evolve and what feels right today might not feel so next year as our bodies cleanse and heal. Doug Graham can only tell us what he has learnt so far and what feels right to him at the moment and maybe he will tell us something different next year as his body and his needs change. Listening to each other and our bodies and doing what feels good to each of us personally feels like the best way to learn to me at the moment.

Maybe sometimes we just have to agree to disagree. These heated exchanges which pop up every now and then seem to serve a purpose in that they make us re-examine our own motives for certain practices such as in this case juicing . So thanks everyone for putting your energy into this juicing debate.

Love, francis

>Since then I've been healing and remineralizing myself with green juices and prolonged juice fasts (the longest was 9 weeks). I don't know how long it will take to bring my body back to it's pristine state, if that's even possible, living under unnatural circumstances in a city with pollution, mobile phones, computers etc. etc. I feel that I need the concentrated/healing nutrition I get from green juices, I get my fiber from other foods and smoothies. I also feel it's important to me to give green juices to my children for all the above reasons.

yes, Frannie, thanks, this is the common belief that is stated.
the point, however, is that there is no evidence whatsoever that juicing is better than eating or blending. and there is no evidence that greens are better than fruits. of course people are free to do what they want and respond to what their body senses, but the typical claim of the superiority of juicing and the necessity in the modern world with our abused bodies, etc ,etc, is completely unfounded. these discussions acquire momentum because we want to be right, or we want people to think like us, or do like us. the reason those wary of the miracle claims of juicing weigh in on this is again, that there is no evidence whatsoever, and often a misunderstanding of alkalinity, what foods assist in alkalinity, what foods contain minerals, how much is enough minerals, what controls bodily processes (food or the body), and many other things.

I have NEVER seen any of these items properly addressed by juicing proponents in an objective manner. If real evidence exists, then people are free to submit it.

peace