Facts / Recipes / Techniques
Table of Contents
Proven Facts in my Life
Digestion
Detoxing / Fasting
Enzymes
Greens
On Dairy
Food Combining
An Acid vs Alkaline Body
Micro vs Macro Nutrients
Side Effects
Recipes
Green Smoothies
Energy Soup
Rejuvelac and B-12
Techniques
Growing Wheatgrass
Growing Sprouts
The tools of the Trade
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
Mammal Digestive System Comparisons
http://detox.net.au/articles/happy-living/the-journey-to-good-health-part-2.html
Of all the things your body could possibly do for physical exhertion in a lifetime, including, an Ironman Marathon, lifting huge weights, etc., there is one thing that your body uses MOST of its energy for... Digestion.
That's right. Both extracting the nutrients and moving what isn't nutritious through the body for elimination is the most energy your body will ever exhert.
How many of you feel energetic after eating a big Thanksgiving meal? (or almost any meal, in that case) You probably wanted to open up your belt and take a nap (or at least lie on the couch and watch the parade/game...) Your body is telling you that it needs to shut down so that it can concentrate on extracting what little nutrition you gave it and eliminate the waste it can't use.
Without enough nutrients, our bodies get too tired to push all that un-nutritious stuff all the way through the system so it leaves waste in our bodies. This waste that could be neither used for fuel nor eliminated, is stored away along the route into fat cells that become ever growing storage containers that leach toxins out to other parts of the body where it builds up to create inflammation and diseases. This so-called "food" that stays in our bodies also putrefies in our system which can ferment and has the same effects of alcohol like constant drowsiness, cloudy thinking and slow reactions. Hmmmmm...
So... how do we stop feeling this way? It's actually possible to eat a hardy meal and feel more energized than before you ate!
It's actually simple. Eat Nutrient-rich foods all the time and stop eating foods that do not deliver nutrients to our body. Here is where Micro vs Macro nutrients come in. Not only will you become healthier, you'll be less hungry all the time!
The nutrient to waste balance. Dr. Joel Fuhrman is an M.D. in Flemington, New Jersey. Although, not 100% raw, he is 100% vegan and has a great website. This year, in 2011, Dr. Fuhrman has a great PBS special on this subject and has some excellent books out there. His book, Eat to Live, even explains how a plant-based diet can heal at the gene level even though you may have a history of family genetic maladies! I advise you to do research on his work!
Along with Dr. Gabriel Cousens (my most beloved guru and the reason I beat diabetes), Dr. Fuhrman has had great success with diabetes reversal in his patients.
VERY IMPORTANT WARNING: As I mentioned before, when the body cannot eliminate the wastes from the unhealthy foods we eat, it stores it everywhere, and mostly in fat cells. When we take our first steps on the road to health, our bodies will go through TWO phases that we have to be ready for. Withdrawal and Detox.
Just as substance abusers need to cleans their bodies, so do those on the S.A.D. lifestyle (Standard American Diet). First, those toxins that have been stored away are going to start to be pushed out through the body when the body is becoming healthy enough to rid itself of them. Because of these old toxins running through the body, you may experience colds and viruses and other discomforting feelings until those poisons are out of you. These toxins MAY get very dangerous during fasting and therefore, one should never fast without much research and the supervision of an expert. When I went to a retreat on a 9 day water fast the first 3 days were very difficult, but then I became calm and clear headed and felt the best I had in many years and each day got better. It's just amazing to find out that I had FORGOTTEN how it was to feel HEALTHY! I'm glad I was able to remember.
Know that the processed foods in our S.A.D. is addictive. I used to cringe at those cheese commercials that spouted "The Power of Cheese" because I knew that most people thought that these words were just an advertising slogan and not the truth. Well... sorry folks. It's true. You CAN'T beat yourself up about how you've been sucked into the processed/cooked world. We've been herded into it for years. It's not easy getting out. But now that you're motivated by the suffering that doesn't stop together with having access to the right knowledge and tools, you can move on to such an incredible phase in your life. You can turn back the clock and remember how it feels to be healthy once more.
As important as it is to put nutrition in our bodies, we must compliment this by taking the stored waste out just as quickly so that we can avoid most of the poisons our bodies will release. This can be helped by colonics and coffee enemas. Again... don't believe me. Do your research! (IMPORTANT NOTE! Coffee enemas are NOT the same as DRINKING coffee. Coffee is NOT good for you. Dr. Fuhrman on drinking coffee)
From Livestrong.com
"Enzymes are present in raw foods and assist with the first steps of the digestive process in the mouth and upper stomach. The enzymes in raw food lessen the need for your body to produce digestive enzymes. The late Dr. Edward Howell, a biochemist who studied enzymes, pointed out that humans and animals on a primarily cooked-food diet have a larger pancreas, while other glands and organs, including the brain, actually decrease in size. Dr. Howell formulated an Enzyme Nutrition Axiom: "The length of life is inversely proportional to the rate of exhaustion of the enzyme potential of an organism.
The increased use of food enzymes promotes a decreased rate of exhaustion of the enzyme potential." If the pancreas is overworked and can no longer meet the demand to create enough enzymes, under-digested proteins can enter the bloodstream and begin an immune response of pro-inflammatory cytokines. This can lead to inflammation, a common thread in chronic illness. Additionally, an allergic reaction may occur when histamines are released because undigested proteins in the blood may be seen as foreign substances.
Dr. Arnold Renshaw, from Manchester in England, reported in Annals of Rheumatic Disease that he saw positive outcomes from enzyme treatment of over 700 patients with rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis or fibrositis Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/201744-what-are-the-benefits-of-a-raw-vegan-diet/#ixzz1eBULcIqA"
Enzymes are sooo important. THIS is why raw, living food actually heals.
In order to keep enzymes alive for them to help with digestion, it is critical to keep them from being heated above 112 degrees. (118 is the limit, but 112 is a good number to keep as a guide.)
THIS is why cooking is so detrimental to our food. There are many discussions about this. I stay with living foods because I can always feel the effects on me. The more cooked food I eat, even healthy vegan food, I can feel how it slows me down and makes me tired. The very same food in raw form doesn't do that to me. It actually energizes!
A note about greens in general. You'll see many images on my site that have a green hue about them. This is not by chance. Green is important. This is what happens to the plant that is full of chlorophyll. With the sun's help, the plants take the soil and mineral laden water that nature provides, breaks down the soil, soaks up the water and processes the "rocks" that are not easily digested by humans and creates vitamins and minerals that are in a perfect form for us.
If I were to give you a block of iron, calcium, zinc, etc, and asked you to eat them, you'd think I was out of my mind. Even crushing these things to a powder form and ingesting them would not help you and would even be harmful as well as resulting in problems like gall/kidney stones. The minerals in this form cannot deliver its nutrients to our system until it has gone through the "plant" process. This plant "delivery" system can never be replaced by pills because it is the WHOLE plant system that creates the perfect blend/dosage. Extracting the nutrients and breaking them down to be put into pills or some other unnatural state cannot meet the body's true requirement. There's a reason why there's no list of negative side effects listed on a box of organic greens...
It's just plain amazing when you realize, we were made for exactly what this planet naturally offers...!
Greens are also FULL of calcium and protein! Have you seen an elephant or a giraffe or a gorilla?? They really DO have big strong bones and muscles. Whatta ya know?!! The human digestive system is closer to an herbivore than a carnivore. Our digestive tract is long while a carnivore's is short. For carnivores, the meat comes in, nutrients are taken, and the waste moves out, quickly. The herbivore has a much longer system. That's where nutrient-low matter gets lost and starts to putrefy/ferment. There's a reason for that. We are not supposed to eat meat. Very simple.
Another note on meat and dairy. They actually LEACH calcium from your bones. No species on earth was EVER meant to drink milk after their weaning years and NO species but man drinks another species milk!! I'm going to pause here for another "hmmmmmm" moment.........
The humans in our culture drink the milk that was created to make something that weighs about 80 lbs at birth grow to anywhere between 1000 and 2000 lbs IN ONE YEAR. It's no wonder more and more humans are starting to look like this every day... ;-) Former Bush term U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona got in trouble with his administration when he examined and spoke of America's ongoing obesity epidemic, and how it is worst than any terrorist threat we've ever faced. He was very clear: Watch video of speech here.
This is ANOTHER reason rich countries have more cancer and heart disease than 3rd world countries. They don't have the access to meat and dairy that we do. Dairy messes with our hormones and immune systems even WITHOUT the added chemicals. It is also why, healthy humans who breast feed their children up to the 2 to 3 year range, raise VERY healthy children who are not as susceptible to disease. What a thought! Feed our children human milk! This is actually one reason that many people can fight off the effects of the S.A.D. longer than others. This is another reason we can say our parents and grand parents ate bacon and ham every day, all their lives. Well, we, the next generation got sicker, more easily, and, if we continue that trend, all the following generations will get proportionaly sicker. It's happening now. Stick with Mother's milk. It is truly miraculous.
WE can afford meat because of the Government subsides. Yeah! We get to pay less for food that makes us sick so we can pay for drugs that hide our pain but doesn't cure and makes us more toxic and sick and which makes us pay more health insurance which ...... I think you get the picture...
Let me be clear. You cannot eat a handful of greens to get what you need for health. You need A LOT! MY diet, while curing my diabetes, included 2 lbs of greens every day! That does not include the other veggies, fruits, nuts and legumes I consumed. I was NEVER hungry. This is why my Vitamix is my best friend. It allowed me to blend the greens into smoothies and soups for easy consumption and still keep the fiber. There are MANY wonderful recipes out there on the net!
I see so many people have a 9 to 16 oz steak and then a small little bowl of a couple of leaves of some not-so-green wilting substance. (I haven't even covered the potatoes...) Instead, IF you're going to eat meat, have a pound's worth of dark leafy greens and a 2 ounce steak. (By the way... why would ANYONE eat meat that has hormones, fake, genetically engineered corn and all kinds of other junk in it?? At least eat organic, grass-fed beef if you HAVE to.)
Don't get me going about man-made chemicals... (at least not until later....) I'll have great links to videos in the resource page for this info. There are even many on Netflix or you might try your library to save money!
EVEN if you're going to continue eating the S.A.D. (Standard American Diet), you should at least learn how to stick with food combining. This will eliminate your acid reflux issues and help improve your digestion. Together with a Living, Vegan food lifestyle, this is important though not as important as with the S.A.D. diet. This will not keep you healthy without doing all the other things I mentioned, but it WILL help to improve your digestion.
Here is a non-vegan chart Page 1. Page 2. Just eliminate the animal products for vegans. (Please remember, Vegans do NOT consume eggs or dairy products and some, like me, do not eat honey.) Also, for live, raw foodists, all seeds, nuts and legumes should be sprouted/soaked appropriately!!!
An Acid vs. Alkaline Body
Cancer cannot happen nor survive in an Alkaline body. Period.
Our bodies NEED both acids and alkalines to survive, however, the balance should be slightly more alkaline. If we are even slightly more acidic, disease can happen and our bodies need to work harder at everything. Learn the acidic/alkaline value of foods. This is very important. Foods with an acidic value of 5 can be eaten with a food with a food with a -10 value and you will net a good number of -5. (Be sure to take food combining into consideration when mixing foods!)
It's no coincidence that when you look up the acidic value of foods, you'll find that the meats, dairy, eggs and processed foods, have the highest acidic rates and the plant-based foods have the highest alkaline levels. Again, things that make you go, hmmmmmm...
A great article by Dr. Joel Furhman in the Huffington Post that explains this well. Try to catch him on PBS in his "3 Steps to Incredible Health" lecture if you can.
"The Cure for the American Diet: Nutrient Density"
Read this Article
Green Smoothies anytime! 
Guru: (Victoria Boutenko)
This is a great and delicious way to get a large amount of greens and other nutrient rich foods into your system. Learn your veggie and fruit nutritional values. Even though the glass looks green or some other color, it can have such great tastes like berry or apple or banana! Yumm!!
Grow your own Wheatgrass!
Guru: (Steve Meyerowitz and Ann Wigmore)
- Buy wheatgrass juice daily at the juice bar - $3-5 a day.
- Buy wheatgrass online and shipped overnight - $18 and up per pound.
- Buy flats of wheatgrass at the farmer's market - $15-25 a tray.
- Or grow your own trays of wheatgrass at home - less than $3.00 a tray.
My grandmother suffered from pernicious anemia most of her life and had to go to the hospital for an injection on a regular basis to control it. That is, until my mom started giving her daily ounces of wheatgrass juice. Guess what happened in only 3 weeks. Bye-bye pernicious anemia! This is truly the very essence of nature's nutrition. Wheatgrass not only gives nutrients, but detoxifies, too. Be careful to start with only once ounce daily and then gradually make your way up to 2 or 3 per day. I used to love the taste, but was over zealous one time and drank too much. Now I drink this with fresh squeezed, organic grapefruit juice.
Grow your own Sprouts!
Guru: (Steve Meyerowitz)
Sprouts are PACKED with nutrition. Each small sprout, eaten at the right time, will give you the nutrition of the full plant! Broccoli sprouts are about 100 times more nutritious than the very same plant if it's fully grown!
Regarding LIVE raw instead of JUST raw: Seeds, Nuts and Legumes are storage containers for life. If you put any of these in a jar and put it on a shelf, it can stay in it's dormant state for a long time. Add water to it, and it magically grows into a living life-form. Cool! This is why it isn't enough to say, eat raw, you must eat LIVE food. Most seeds, nuts or legumes, eaten in their dormant forms are difficult to digest. (This is why we get gas from beans... they MUST be soaked first!
All these items have natural enzyme inhibitors to KEEP them from living. If it can't spoil, it ain't alive... (Another argument against processed, "preserved" food.)
It is important to know which seeds, nuts and beans need to be sprouted and/or soaked. Pine nuts, for instance, can be soaked for about an hour to be kicked into life, while an almond should take about 48 hours...
Remember: life... sprouting... germination... It totally changes the chemistry of the food so that it's ready for our bodies to use its energy in its best form.
Energy Soup
Guru: (Ann Wigmore) 
This was my quick supper every night, no matter how late I got home from working in New York City. (And trust, me. It could be close to tomorrow sometimes.) Because it was raw, blended into a liquid and stuffed with natural, good enzymes, it digested well before bedtime, although I ALWAYS tried to eat 2 or three hours before bed.
Rejuvelac and B12
Guru: (Ann Wigmore) 
This one item was missing from my diet in the beginning. When I found this, it made a great difference. First of all, I find it very delicious and refreshing.
Rejuvelac is a probiotic and helps with the digestive process.
It is also a great resource for B12 which many "claim" is what's most lacking in a vegan diet. In actuality, meat eaters are just a little less deficient in B12 as the vegans. All the vitamins and minerals in the world cannot help you if you continue to eat things that toxify your body. The problem with B12 deficiency is that our sick bodies can't absorb the B12 that we put into our bodies, so what's that point of eating animal products if they are going to get us too sick to extract what little nutrients they offer?
All I can say here is that you should do your own research and check out MANY different sources of information on this. My mom did almost 20 years research. It's OK to do your own and not take the word of ANYONE. This includes medical AND non-medical sources. I also take a B12 supplement found at the RawFoodWorld. B12 deficiency is a terrible problem. Read this very informative PDF ebook. You will be amazed how B12 issues are so prevalent yet so under diagnosed. This, by itself, can turn your life around!