All Questions about Food!

So What the hell can I eat? and all of the unanswered questions you have.


Cooked food can't that bad; humans have been doing it for 100's yrs.

A. Right and there are 1000's of ailments that are unique to their species. There is no degenerative disease found in nature untouched by humans. Only other cooked food eating animals (like our domestic cat (feline leukemia)) share degenerative disease.



While I accept the argument that resorts to a comparison of man's diet to animals, it seems to overlook the presence of the human brain, which is a gift from nature and which enables man with the intellect to control fire and prepare food in a unique way. The power of the human brain is as unique as the diet which it creates. In the end, isn't man's own divergence from nature is in some part due to nature?




In the same argument, plastics are a product of nature. But no reasonable person would go around and throw plastic all over the wildlife preserve because it is natural. Despite our assertions, real or not, of special status in the kingdom of life, we are shackled to biology. The critical thinking in our mind does change the biological demands of the liver and heart and living organism.




Why does cooked food taste so good then?

A Sugar, Sugar, Sugar, Sugar Condiments, sauces, and salt and You are used to them. Do you feel that good?


I feel fine right now and I eat cooked food.

You feel as good as you know that you can. But there may be much better, much stronger, much happier, to be.




Yoga teachers only talk about being vegetarian. Isn't it good enough to be vegetarian or vegan?

It is certainly indicative of a higher state of consciousness to choose to be a vegetarian or vegan. But there are so many examples of sick vegans that it seems to give a bad rap to being vegetarian. Look, you can be vegan and eat lots of white sugar, vegan can be beer, vegan is bread and pasta and if you eat lots of this stuff, even if you don't eat meat, you will not be healthy. So it may be a transition to go vegetarian first and this is likely a good idea if you are so inclined, however recognize that cooked vegetarian fare is not healthy. Yoga teachers who are interested in the development of their students asana and spiritual practice in a real way will want to begin to elucidate the difference between healthy and not so healthy vegetarian eating. 75% raw is a great place to start.




What about milk and dairy products? Many Yogis suggest milk to be good and they eat cheese too?


It is not biologically sound for adult mammals to continue suckling mothers milk. It is even stranger for adult mammals of one species to suckle the mother of another species.

In India, many of the dairy products are raw and so hold some benefit. In the west most dairy is pasteurized. Either way, adult primates are not biologically designed to suckle lactating bovines.



In fact there is no need whatsoever for animal products in a healthy diet.

The unfitness of certain substances for assimilative purposes is manifested by the anaphylactic symptoms that so frequently follow their use. Alimentary anaphylactic phenomena are confined almost exclusively to substances of animal origin. The more closely these animal substances resemble the human body in composition, the more frequently do they give rise to these phenomena. Thus flesh is the worst offender, eggs come second, and milk is last. Herbert M Shelton, The Hygienic system, Volume 2, p.168.



Gelatin is in many mints. Gelatin is made from the skin, tendons, ligaments and bones of animals and that many vegetarians unknowingly eat this stuff in their mints. Read everything carefully.


Isn't the mind really the cause of all problems in the body?

The mind has a profound effect on the health of the human organism. But perhaps too much energy is expended in the world on the way to affect the mind as a means to overcome disease. Although there is appreciation that positive attitude is key, there is a waste of time by not addressing the cause of the disease imbedded in the diet and lifestyle of the person. No matter how many seminars you take on positive attitude, if a chicken salad, fish, or pasta accompanies it, you will have a hard time reversing the course of a disease process.



So what is natural eating? Everything these days says that it is Natural?

This question is crucial. We are bombarded with product labeling calling things natural or filled with natural flavors or so many other uses of the word natural to create a sense of safety and inherent goodness in products of dubious value at best. The question that is relevant is not whether the product itself is natural, as many naturally occurring chemicals are poisonous and deadly. The question is whether the food product or cosmetic product is a natural aspect of human dietary and hygiene. It is very easy to designate on packaging that something is natural but it is more difficult to find anything that was ever packaged that is a part of human natural dietary, human spiritual dietary, human's only dietary.



Fresh fruits, Salads, Nuts and seeds are the diet of human beings. This is natural, and it is natural for a person to eat 100% Raw Food. When you eat 100% raw food, you relate to nature in a different way, almost as if the animals can sense that you are a brother living being and not a threat. This may be romantic appeal to that sense of wishing for connection on my behalf but I sense for sure in my interactions with nature a much deeper connected quiet space inside. And so eating is the means of relating to nature.

When we eat in abomination of Nature's Laws, we are flouting Spiritual Truths, and it is inevitable that disease will come. It can't be any other way. The laws of Nature and God are not mutable, and yet Change is the fundamental truth. Change that life passes to death which again becomes life. Change is the only constant, but remember that within this and all analogies of wild natural ecosystems and the dynamics of food chain, it is instructive to remember that all cells are eaten in their living state. Animals can be dead, but they are eaten raw and immediately so the cell that are being eaten are alive, and they are being eaten by living beings divinely designed to eat raw meat- carnivores. We are frugivores, divinely designed, like all primates, to thrive on fruit, salads, nuts and seeds, 100% Raw Food.



Where do you get your protein on this diet?

Proteins are in all living organisms, plant or animal. Every living cell of every living thing is endowed with proteins that have been synthesized to meet its special needs.

The human body is wise and provident and can obtain 70% of it's protein needs through recycling. Also consider that the protein that meat eaters and milk drinkers ingest is not available to their body because the chemical structure has been deranged in the fire.



This is like trying to build a house, not with new bricks with which is required, but with the charred and crumbling sections of previously burned down houses. In China there are people who take houses apart one brick at a time and one wood plank at a time and they get re-used in the building of other houses. I just prior to the dismantling of the house, they were to set the entire house on fire, it would certainly effect the integrity of the components and probably render it impossible to build anything new at all.

Amino acids are like the bricks of our building. In fact the process just pictured quite similar to the bodies process. The body takes a whole food that has not been burned and breaks them down to their amino acid components, the smallest possible protein molecules the building blocks as they are already known. The body then builds it's own structure from the bricks. The body builds its own structure and can only do so with raw materials that are capable of carrying a living charge. Any protein molecules that are exposed to heat will be unable to break down to the amino acid usable by the body because of a process called coagulation where the chemical bonds become deranged and denatured.





So I often find it ironic how those who wonder whether they can get enough protein on the raw food diet realize that they are receiving almost none unless they are eating some raw foods.




Question: I have heard about acid and alkaline forming foods but I don't understand what they are or what it means?

The PH of the body is slightly alkaline, just above 7. All activities in the body require this precise PH in order to function. The foods we eat go into our bloodstream, so they affect the PH of the blood. Acid forming foods are those which when metabolized, form acids in the body. The causes of Acid-Alkaline imbalance are eating foods that are predominantly acid forming, like cereal foods, meats, dairy and poultry and seafood products. Acids must be neutralized because the body must maintain its slightly alkaline disposition. Phosphorus, chlorine, sulfur and silicon are the most prevalent acid forming elements. Alkaline forming foods are those which when metabolized for bases or alkali's in the body. Alkalis are base elements that predominate in the body. Calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium and iron are the most significant alkaline elements.




Are you really calling bread a poison? Isn't that a bit much?

It sounds kind of harsh to use the word poison but it is the most accurate and so that is why I use it., There is no judgment associated with the eating of these foods, we are simply discussing the reaction the body has to it's ingestion.





Isn't all sugar the same? Is there a difference between raw sugar and the sugar we all consume in our soft-drinks and granola bars?




The word sugar is not always equal.

Sugars found in fruits versus sugars found in candy are vastly different. Sugars found in fruits that are raw are delivered with a full complement of vitamins and minerals in the perfect ratio and balance for assimilation by the body. The fruit also has enzymes and co-enzymes of high biological value that accompany the sugars in the fruit.


The term empty calorie describes refined sugars. It is an empty calorie because it comes without the other aspects of nutrient. It is empty of vitamins, empty of minerals, empty of enzymes, empty of value. Not empty of fuel, refined fuel that the spikes the bodies blood sugar level and may be quickly stored in fat cells.



And don't be tricked by the raw sugar packets at the local diner, it isn't really RAW.


If a person drinks a can of coke, they introduced a tremendous amount of refined sugar, of cooked sugar, and such an amount would alter the blood sugar and actually kill him instantly if not for the Herculean effort of the body to attempt to restore homeostasis of the blood sugar.. The bodies effort to keep the blood sugar level within a certain very narrow range reacts to get the sugar out of the blood stream and into the cell (insulin), but usually is so pressed to perform that it over compensates and this too much insulin actually causes a depression or a down or a crash. This is often seen with children fed sugar but all adults have these effects as well because the same vital emergency is happening in their bodies as well. The sugar was dangerous, it was a mortal threat, it changed the chemistry of the blood and it needed to be neutralized quickly or death would ensue. The body overdoes it because it works in an emergency setting.



We can consider these spikes in the blood sugar as spikes and the crash that follows every time would be an assault enough, an offense enough, and it would require a great deal of energy to settle out of that, but often and tragically we engage in a cycle of spikes and crashes where the next spike is coming before the end of the last crash and the body literally goes into a tailspin trying to stay alive. It is at this point that the tormented and long tortured body begins to express the potential for distorted and deranged reactions (allergies) or emotions (negativity).



I can't wake up in the morning without the energy I get from my cup of coffee. Is coffee raw?

Coffee beans are all roasted.

Coffee and the other stimulants do not give you energy, rather they whip you like a broken horse to extract the reserve vital energies that are better used elsewhere if at all. It is false to think that stimulants or energy drinks give you energy. These things don't give you anything except early death. The energy drinks would be better named energy stealing drinks. Because the body cannot metabolize the stimulant of choice, it is sent into a frenzy of elimination to minimize the time that the chemical spends in contact with the cells of the body. Because it can not break it down, can not metabolize it, it is toxic, it is a foreign and dangerous agent. The heart beating faster allows for the blood to pass thru the kidneys faster and thus be eliminated faster.


Is there any one food that you consider more valuable than the rest?

There is little question that the avocado is the most important food for human beings. It is a gift from God that crucial to success on the Raw Food diet and is actually the single most important factor, whether you have an ample supply of avocados or not. The emotionally satisfying aspect of eating heavy and cooked foods lies in its satiation, it feeling of fullness. The avocado provides this in a way that is perfect in every way. By satisfying the need for the sensation of fullness that comes from eating cooked meat, avocados allows a person to have a grounded and strong sense of determination supported by his full belly that is not in craving of anything. The avocado is a miracle. To live in a place where avocados grow like I do in Miami is another miracle. I recommend securing the best supply of avocados that you can find even if it costs, the benefits will ultimately outweigh the costs. This is opposed to the foods that are cheap on the surface and the benefit of a full belly at the time of the meal is now not at all outweighing the cost of cancer treatment.



Question: What is the difference between a simple carbohydrate and a complex carbohydrate?

Some carbohydrate sources are so complex that they can not be used by the human body. The human body is unable to unlock the fuel from the chemical bond. Theses complex carbohydrates include grains, starches, rice etc. The carbohydrate fuel can only be accessed if heat has been applied thereby changing the starch to dextrin.



Some carbohydrate sources are simple enough to be broken down by the human body. These simple carbohydrates form our natural diet. As babies we take mother's milk which has lactose the milk sugar, a simple sugar and the perfect fuel. When we are adults we derive our simple carbohydrates from fructose, fruit sugar. The human body requires a diet of about 80% carbohydrates. Remember of course that we are always talking about carbohydrates in the form of fresh or dried fruits, carbohydrates that have not been refined.



Question: What do you recommend for breakfast.

In nature there seems to be a law that says, move before you eat! Nowhere in nature does the meal come to the animal. Likewise I prefer to exercise vigorously first, after only drinking a glass of water. After my Yoga practice I take a large amount of fruit like papaya or mango. I recommend to wait as long as you can before eating and suggest that you observe for yourself how vigorous morning exercise delays the onset of hunger.


Question: I'm hypoglycemic and was told not to eat fruits because they have too much sugar.


Eating fruit did not cause the problem so, abstaining from fruit cannot be the answer. All sugar metabolism disorders like hyper and hypoglycemia and diabetes are due to the fact that in the presence of fat, sugar requires more insulin to exit the bloodstream. This causes a strain on the pancreas and its insulin production, which gets exhausted eventually leading to diabetes. So watch the excess fats and don't blame the fruits. Source: Dr. Douglas Graham


Question: Will I have enough energy on a raw food lifestyle. It seems like you don't eat enough to get sufficient energy?


A. If you thought that food gives you energy than you might thing that the more you eat the more energy you would have. Then consider your last thanksgiving meal where everybody ate as much as they could and see if you remember that being an energetic crowd or a coma like group.


The greatest energy drain in the body is from ingesting toxic food. Digesting real food is also an energetic drain on the system. Food gives you fuel not energy. But you have to pay with the energy to buy the fuel. Fruits and raw foods are fuels that don't cost energy to derive. Most cooked foods are actually a net drain energetically. A body receives only 30% of the caloric potential of concentrated proteins because of the energy required to digest. Fruit however provides 90% of its calories because it is easily handled in the body.



Question: I tried what you said and ate only fruit in the morning and I was starving by 10am. My former breakfast would fill me up till noon!



What did you eat for breakfast that day?



Questioner: I had a banana and an apple.




Well then you did not eat enough and that is why you were hungry. You see although from experience we all learned how many pieces of pizza we would need to fill us up, or how many burgers we could eat, none of us have taken the time to figure out exactly how many bananas we need to have a satisfying meal. I usually don't eat less than 3 bananas at a time or several pints of berries or some good quantity of fruit so that I am totally filled up when the meal has finished. Experiment with yourself to see how much of your favorite fruit you can eat if you eat it alone and your intention is to make a meal from it.

10 pounds of peeled oranges, about 20 oranges, is what would be required to satisfy caloric needs for a day. This yields 2,250 calories, 45 grams of protein, 1800 milligrams of calcium, 2,250 milligrams of vitamin C, nine grams of fats, 18 milligrams of iron-in other words, all our needed nutrients. This supplies about twice our real protein needs , 10 times our iron needs, and about 100 times our real vitamin C needs.




Question: Which foods are best then?

In every category: vitamins, minerals, co-enzymes, enzymes, anti-oxidants, water, fiber, fruits come closest to meeting our nutrient needs.



Ripe foods are better than bottled, boxed and canned foods. Ask your grocer for organic whole, fresh, ripe, raw plants and create the demand by voting with your dollar.

The doctors tell me that my son has ADD and I have been giving him psychological medication and it doesn't feel right to drug my child, I mean after all he is only 6and a half. . Is there any relationship between diet and thinking and behavior skills?

While it is a very well protected organ the brain nevertheless is affected by a bloodstream which is toxic.




The brain is an organ. It functions as it is designed in very complex and minimally understood ways. One thing is fairly clear is that as humans we don't really understand the powerful and immensely complex activities which the brain is responsible for and does. The brain is a power center and chemical production center and a analysis center and a perceptual center and is involved in myriad aspects of keeping the body in balance and in good health. And yet the most important way to look at the brain in the context of health is as an organ. Just another organ that has a divine blueprint from which it does the jobs that it is assigned as best it can with the resources it has. And so as any other organ has the right to do, the brain can also either be functioning well or not functioning well. It can either be in health and balance or not. And just like any other organ, it is not a matter of coincidence that the brain is not functioning optimally. The quality of the blood determines the quality of the organism and thus the health of the brain and thus the quality of thought.




It is virually impossible to keep a organ as highly refined and specific as the human brain in high octane proper working condition in a poisoned and drugged circulation system. All depressions, stemming from a lack of appreciation, a lack of gratitude, lack of understanding about the nature of Life and God, is a first symptom of a debilitated system. The well honed and primed human brain is a sensitive and radiantly powerful organ/aspect of our bodies and is a perceiver of spiritual truth inherently. We are spiritual beings living a human experience, but so long as we eat as humans were intended to eat, we continue in our spiritual beingness and if we digress we come to experience the uniquely human experiences of degenerative disease in its various expressions.

Child ADD is a classic example of the symptoms expressed for a sub-optimal performing brain. Fear, anger, depression, sadness, wild mood swings, lack of concentration, headaches, fatigue, and the list can go on. It is not a coincidence that the person feels these symptoms of a brain, (or other organ) that is not in health. The brain is just an organ, it either works right or it doesn't. The determinant to whether the brain functions correctly is the resources with which it is provided. A brain that is provided little else but refined flours and sugars and meat can't be expected to function well.

I find myself depressed a lot and have been considering taking one of the popular depression drugs on the market these days. The doctor says that this is the best way to treat my disease. Do you consider this approach correct?




The brain communicates with the cells via the nervous system. The nervous system is like a telephone network allowing the brain to communicate with the body. It is a system of passageways for the governing of physiology. The nervous system runs on electricity called nerve energy. If the nerves are impeded by a toxic environment, it requires more nerve energy to carry the message to it's destination. Nerve energy can only regenerated through sleep.

The overlooked connection between brain functioning and food intake should be exposed once and for all so that those who consider depression just to be a born with disease or coincidence and prescribe powerful toxic chemicals to alleviate nutritional deficiency symptoms can now look at a more logical and root of the problem. Almost all mental illness symptoms or violent tendencies can be improved with understanding the nature of the tremendous influence that food has on thinking. The brain is so complex and so sensitive that it is often the first of the organs to be compromised in functionality.




You do not have a disease, you simply have a brain that is unable to produce feelings of joy whilst it is directing a campaign to save itself from death by internal toxicity. When you stop the assaults your brain will be free again to direct it's resources in joy.




Question: Is it better to start trying to be a vegetarian first and then to vegan and then raw?




For most people the evolution from SAD diet to vegetarian to vegan to raw was not pre-meditated. Most people simply evolved as they learned more and experienced dietary truth and how it feels to live in alignment with nature. This was necessary because the information about the magic of raw food was not as easily found and that circuitious root to raw food was the process. Today this is not necessary. Those who are starting the path of health transformation do not have to idle in the realm of cooked vegetarian or vegan foods which do not promote health either, although they represent a choice of a higher consciousness. It is not necessary to waist time in the wrong direction.

Any body can take the straight route right to the target. If you are in Miami and you need to get to Ft. Lauderdale (40km north), you would not need to go to Seattle, Washington first. You can drive to Seattle and then to Fort Lauderdale, and it would take infinitely longer to arrive there than if you had even walked slowly from Miami directly. The speed in which you are traveling in the right direction is not important, only that you are traveling in the right direction, because then you can arrive. We are in no hurry, we just need to be set on the right target, in this case that is to nourish our biological and divine engineering. This can only be done with raw foods.




Is there any way of understanding and implementing this raw food system a little better?

Consider 3 important classes of food…sugars, fats, and chlorophyll. In order to stay balanced and centered and to thrive, these three components must be balanced in the diet.

In his book, David Wolfe makes a Sunfood Triangle and puts these three components on the points. . Eat plenty of ripe fruit, have a big dark green salad with avocado, spirulina when you want, and you will be in balance and allow your body to undertake extraordinary repairs and healing. This, along with plenty of sleep, is the foundation for which you can build back your health. The Sunfood Triangle is a great tool for staying in harmony.




The bodies demand for sugars is important and should be satisfied with sugar. The brain runs exclusively on glucose for which fruit sugar is the source in human dietary. Thus it is explained how the main source of sugar be fruits with seeds. Fruits that maintain their seed are not as domesticated and thus contain a greater degree of wild life force with which to sustain us. As can be easily demonstrated the difference between wild and domesticated strength and energy level is great.




Raw plant fat is the only type of fat accepted as food in the human bodies. The fat aspect of the diet is to be enjoyed tremendously. Almost all cravings for satiation or

satisfying meals, that are not outright dehydration, are cravings for plant fats. Anyone with experience will testify that after eating one's fill of avocado, one is entirely satisfied.




Chlorophyll comes in the form of green leafy vegetables and sprirulina. It is associated with protein because the foods which contain chlorophyll also contain excellent quality protein. Chlorophyll is a cleaning and grounding agent in the bloodstream. I utilize sprirulina, both dried and living, as my major chlorophyll source and have found great results.




The key to appreciating and utilizing the Sunfood Triangle comes upon recognizing the different ways to satisfy each aspect of the triangle with raw plant food. Not necessarily at one meal, but over the course of 24-48 hours, it is advised to eat abundantly of each group.

Question: My nutritionist says that I should eat some lean meats and recommends milk so that I don't get osteoporosis. Who am I supposed to listen to anyway, after all these people have a degree in nutrition don't they?

First of all, consuming milk (acid-forming food) creates an acidic environment which the body must counter by leaching (autolyze) calcium (alkaline mineral) from the bones, thus causing not preventing osteoporosis.




Deriving their education from the western medical paradigm, modern nutritionists offer a program which may have good looking chemistry on paper, but is a disaster in practice. With their subservience to the basic four or food Pyramid concepts, these nutritionists imply that we are some sort of omnivorous creature above all the laws of nature. Instead of getting the ‘balanced' meal that they promote, we get an indigestible mess. These nutritionists main limitation is their unwillingness to distinguish between qualities of food nutrients. A nutritionist is likely to believe that the vitamin A in enriched pasta is the same Vitamin A as in a blueberry. There is no recognition that cooking destroys all nutritional components and so there is a vast difference between raw foods and the vitamins and balance of whole food nourishing components and their magical interaction with the body, and the isolated chemically pure, synthetic and out of context vitamins in a vitamin supplement which is more poisonous to the body than anything.




Question: What happens to food when it is subjected to heat.




Question: You mentioned the word unnatural many times. I was thinking, there have been many studies done about the natural tendencies of babies to eat sweets. They prefer to eat sweets than other things. I was thinking, maybe what you are proposing is something unnatural because we all like chocolate, we all like ice-cream, we all like Mcdonald's hamburgers, isn't it unnatural what you are proposing quitting eating all of that and instead eating potatoes or lettuce or tomatoes. Personally I don't like eating lettuce and tomatoes. I prefer sweets like ice-cream and cookies.




Actually our natural foods which we are biologically adapted to eating are fruits. The reason why babies love sweet things is because instinctively and naturally we are led by our tastebuds and our natural desires to eat those foods which are best for us which are fruits, all of which are sweet. If you were to take a baby and put if before all kinds of junk foods and put next to that bananas and grapes, which do you think the baby would go for.

Question: I have tried the raw food thing for a couple of days and I am always empty and hungry. How can I not feel empty all the time?

True hunger is felt, just like thirst, at the base of the throat and it is not a common experience. At the beginning you may be unhappy with the raw diet because the body digests processes raw foods so quickly that you are quickly empty and you have that strange feeling that you are not accustomed to interpreting as anything other than hunger. It is proper that we empty our stomachs quickly because in nature all animals empty them very quickly and are back in action again. Eating a daily salad with nuts and avocados because they digest slower with their higher fat content, will alleviate any feelings of emptiness.




Question: I do landscaping and do a lot of work outside and I eat three big meals a day and if start to eat just fruits and nuts, am I going to have enough energy because I usually put in a good 12 to 14 hours outdoors?




If you were already detoxified I could assure that you have not only enough energy but more than you have on your present diet. However during your transition period, while your body is detoxifying it is fully possible that you may feel weak for a certain amount of time. If this is the case and you must do hard work you need to take a gradual transition approach so that the weakness is not so great as to interfere with your ability to do the work.

Question: Talking about detoxification, How long does it take more or less, say if I start right now or tomorrow to only eat raw food. How long does it take on average for a person to detoxify.




It varies with a persons age, levels of vitality, and the amount of toxins which must be ejected by the body. When the body starts breaking down the stored poison from the fat cells and cellulite, these return to the circulating fluids, to the bloodstream and this can cause depression and negativity while they are in circulating.

Question: What if we eat a well balanced diet, meaning across the four food groups.

Humans, just like horses and squirrels have a biologically correct diet and that this diet does not make us carnivorous or omnivorous. The ‘four food groups' is a disaster in practice. It is impossible that a primate have the ‘four food groups' of such disparate items be the natural dietary. We only eat food of our biological adaptation which means we are restricted naturally only to those foods that are aesthetically acceptable to us as we would find them in nature. Our natural foods attract the eye, tantalize the sense of smell, and be a gustatory delight to eat in their natural state. We were not born with stoves so our natural food is not to be cooked.




Is there any example of a community who eats mostly raw food?

The Hunzas live in an isolated community of about 30,000 people in a valley in the Himalayas of northwest Pakistan. They eat a primarily raw food and they are renowned for being the longest lived.




Question: Is it better to transition slowly or just go cold-turkey?.

One of the advantages to going cold-turkey is that you can start being healthier and more energetic and stronger and think clearer or better than ever before right away, the sooner the better, before procrastination or loss of enthusiasm. Not only that, the results can be absolutely astounding. Many people who have switched from all mostly cooked to all raw diet have the same kind of results, we feel tired and lose weight at first as the body detoxifies. Soon people stop getting flues and mucus.

When the body is done detoxifying, it will naturally and normally start putting on weight, and it may in some cases where people are very toxic to begin with, this could take as much as a few years and if a person in willing and able to give this time, the rewards will be very great. Every case has to be treated differently, young people who haven't been eating the wrong diet and indulging in other unhealthy practices for as long as older people may be able to go right on to a raw food diet without the necessity of a fast or a very extensive transition program, yet many need to go slowly because they have been on so many drugs, and drugs de-vitalize and toxify the body so much that it is really a crying shame that drugs are usedat all, especially to the extent that they are.

Question: What happens when you change to a raw food diet?




As a rule, everybody goes into what could be termed a catabolic stage, which is a detoxification stage.




When you improve your bodies conditions, it begins improving itself, and the first thing it does is to get the garbage out, to do a massive house cleaning. This detoxification process is mitigated by vigorous daily exercise so that it may be entirely unnoticeable.

Question: What about the pleasure of eating? I eat food for enjoyment not just for nourishment! And eating out is a way of getting together people.




There are two kinds of pleasure. There is natural pleasure and perverted pleasure. Many people obtain pleasure through perverted practices. There is no good or bad here, simply natural or un-natural (perverted). However the long run effect of this is shortening of life, suffering disease and the exact opposite of pleasure. In other words, many people experience short term pleasure at the expense of their long term health and pleasure and well being and happiness is greatly jeopardized. On the other hand if pleasures are obtained in the natural normal wholesome ways then long term pleasures will be enhanced.

Question:People have been eating this way, cooking their food, for hundreds of years, it can't be that bad!




If there were not numerous unexplained diseases and ailments unique to humans, that argument would be more effective. Humans are plagued by many health problems unique to their species. Something is not right.




Question: What about food supplements like vitamin pills?




Your body is poisoned, not nurtured, by non-metabolizable synthetic vitamins and toxic minerals and supplements. Dr. Herbert Shelton




What about getting big muscle mass? I like yoga, but I like to body build also and lift weights.

It is possible to Body Build with the Raw Food diet if you wish. Steven Arlin, the authority on RAW body building says in his book, Raw Power, On the Raw-Food Diet, it is easy to gain muscle and unleash a hidden strength and potential if you will persist past the negativity and peer pressure.




Q: How did we start eating a diet so out of line with our biology?




Our forebears of hundreds of thousands of years ago did not have the means of preparing our foods so as to de-nature it. It has only been recent times that we started to de-nature our food.




A: The educational system and public schools are under the control of the government and the government appears to be under the sway of those interests who would have us eat junk food and foods not recognized as junk food but which is just as junky like meat and milk and pasta. The television is medium of the junk food and medical industry and many people are influenced through commercials.

Question: Raw food is so expensive. How am I supposed to eat this way and still pay rent?




In terms of dollars spent for food value received junk food is the most expensive. Raw plant food is the cheapest. If you spend even 99 cents on a hamburger, that is a waste of 99 cents because you received no nutrition from the burger. All money spent on cooked food is throwing money out the window in terms of biological food value. Even if you spend a bit more getting good quality raw foods, the equation works in your favor because you are receiving a great deal of nutriment for your dollar.

It may the correct physiologically, but I do not want to just eat fruit and celery for the rest of my life. Am I going to have to just eat fruit and celery?

Raw food is not just about fruit and vegetables. There is an entire world of raw food which can only be classified as gourmet, and there are many pleasing emotional foods as well that are still 100% Raw. My philosophy is that for the first several years of transition it is important to make use of these rich gourmet raw food selections.




If you have never tried Raw Food recipes including Almond Pates and Raw Bread and Raw Brownies, then it is necessary for you to clear your mind and just go out and try them. They are beyond what you would have perceived possible for Raw Food terms of taste and texture and satisfaction. My first year eating 100% raw, I leaned heavily on Almond Pate from Glaser Farms and their Raw Essene Bread. Because I used to have a very powerful addiction to bread and potato chips, the Raw Bread serves the purpose of that texture which I am so attached to. I dip the Raw Bread into the Almond Pate and it is like chips and dip used to be. I would eat that all the time because it made me feel real full and thus helped me with the transition.




Raw Brownies made out of Carob are another way of indulging in decadence while staying 100% raw.




What is important to observe, is that texture plays a more important role in many foods. We are emotionally attached to the textures of the foods that we grew up eating. Just like me with Potato chips, any Raw Dish, Eggplant Chips that are dehydrated until crispy, just make me happy. I love catering to my emotional needs and still staying 100% Raw.




Sunshine and AJ, my partners in the Raw Food Restaurant and Institute, are masters at creating 100% Raw food meals that are exactly like some of the most popular American junk foods that we all grew up on. They can make Burger and Fries or Parmesan Sub, or Pepperoni Pizza, not to mention AJ's famous deserts like, Strawberry Cheesecake or Devils Food Cake. These foods are so much like the real thingthat it is just striking. With food and recipes from Sunshine and Aj around, there is little need to stress about going 100% raw because it will never be an emotional struggle.




There is a doctor at Harvard University who says that there is no such thing as junk foods. He calls them joy foods and says they are harmless. What do you say to him?




Junk foods contain lots of sugar, lots of salt and lots of fat. Junk foods are generally considered those foods which should be eaten if at all only in very restricted amounts. If people are obese, diabetic or have medically recognized diseases, junk foods should never be eaten. We would all be better off not eating junk foods.




Junk foods are usually cooked foods. Junk foods are full of empty calorie. An empty calorie is a calorie of energy which is not attached to any nutriment the body utilizes. In nature all calories come as part of a package which contains vital vitamins and minerals and many beneficial properties. In junk food the calories come with dead fats and little else. They are extremely dangerous to make a part of your bloodstream.

It is one thing to think about it making you fat, but another thing to consider that it is polluting your blood.




Junk foods are to be avoided.




Q: Maybe it is better to eat Raw food when it can be done, but I was thinking of those cases of food which they have to be cooked otherwise they taste very bad and can't be eaten like rice, beans. What can we do about rice and beans?




Rice and beans are not a necessary part of our diet and they could be easily dropped from the diet with good results.




White rice is a rather inferior food because it is processed to the extent that it's nutrition value is lacking and its so out of balance that it does more harm then good. In times where there is a serious lack of fresh food to obtain carbohydrate, brown rice could be eaten. Rice is a starch and the enzyme ptyalin is required for its digestion.

Ptyalin is destroyed in an acid environment, and because the body secretes Hydrochloric acid when we eat protein, it is a good idea not to mix the two.

However, wild rice can be soaked and sprouted and that makes it a fairly acceptable food. Beans also would be best eaten sprouted where they begin to become vegetable. Beans are protein-starch-fat and are indigestible raw and when you cook it you de-nature and derange and you still can't get anything out of it worthy of mention. It is possible to survive on the dextrinized starches during times of need, and the proteins are broken down in it, and you can't get any amino acids out of it. And all heated fats are carcinogenic. The amount of gases people get when they do eat beans hints to its pathogenic and not nourishing property because the bacteria have a big meal to consume but we don't get very much from it ourselves.









Question: Don't you still get tempted by cooked foods and want to eat them again?

At least once or twice or week I would go to McDonalds or Burger King, and I would get a big hamburger and but onions, tomato, mustard, sometimes cheese. Of course I paid for that, by the time I was getting home I was already in need of the toilet and had pains in my abdomen. But I really enjoyed the taste and felt a strange satisfaction after meals like that. Now if you were to offer me a hamburger it would be about like offering a sixth month old baby a shot of vodka. You are not about to get that down a baby unless you absolutely force it and you could never get a hamburger down me unless it was absolutely forced! After a while you lose your taste for your addictions. Even former alcoholics report that after a short fast and alignment to divine natural diet, they spit out alcohol that they used to drink easily. This is the return to vitality.




What about kids? You don't really want us to feed our kids only raw food do you?




Question: Isn't it impossible to control what kids eat at lunch when they are at school?

I once heard a conversation at the farmers market between the Mother of an all-raw family another gentlemen. He said, Man it must be tough to get your kids to follow the raw food diet when they are at school and surrounded by all that junk food. And the woman replied back that it wasn't really difficult at all. When their palates are clean, they don't even want it, she told the guy. He continued in a negative pattern saying how difficult it must be with children exposed to all that cooked food in the lunch boxes of other kids. No, not a problem, she would politely respond, when their palates are clean, they are clean.

Section II- Astanga Yoga




Chapter 10- Why regular practice of the correct physical exercise is essential.

Although you may work hard at your job, that does not constitute systematic and comprehensive exercise.




Some people often urge that the normal activities of life should supply all the exercise needed after maturity is reached. The reply is that the activities of civilized life are not normal.

Dr. Herbert M. Shelton


When you exercise vigorously, you place a demand upon your body for coping. More energy must be created and more wastes must be removed, for increased metabolism calls for more nutrients, especially glucose and oxygen, and faster removal of waste products, especially lactic acid and carbon dioxide. The brain causes the heart to pump faster to cope. More oxygen is processed from air by the lungs, passed to the arteries and circulated to the capillaries along with other nutrients. These are in turn passed through the capillary walls to the lymph and thence to the cells. The cells, in turn, pass their increased load of wastes back to the lymph which is passed on to the venous system which carries them to the lungs for removal (in the case of gases such as carbon dioxide) and thence to the liver and kidneys where more wastes are removed. Finally the blood is pumped back through the lungs for new supplies of oxygen. And of course, liver and other organs have recharged the blood with more needed nutrients.

Dr. Robert Snaidach

The size of the bicep is not a reliable indicator of health in an individual, although many people who work out with weights extensively and have well developed muscles of the appendages claim health and even advise others on the subject.