“AND GOD SAID: BEHOLD, I HAVE GIVEN YOU EVERY
HERB BEARING SEED WHICH IS UPON THE FACE
OF THE EARTH, AND EVERY TREE, IN WHICH IS THE FRUIT OF
A TREE YIELDING SEED, TO BE YOUR FOOD.” — Genesis 1:29
“KILL NEITHER MEN, NOR BEASTS, NOR YET THE FOOD
WHICH GOES INTO YOUR MOUTH. FOR IF YOU EAT
LIVING FOOD, THE SAME WILL QUICKEN YOU, BUT IF YOU KILL
YOUR FOOD, THE DEAD FOOD WILL KILL YOU ALSO. FOR LIFE
COMES ONLY FROM LIFE, AND FROM DEATH COMES ALWAYS
DEATH. FOR EVERYTHING WHICH KILLS YOUR FOODS, KILLS YOUR
BODIES ALSO. AND EVERYTHING WHICH KILLS YOUR BODIES
KILLS YOUR SOULS ALSO. AND YOUR BODIES BECOME WHAT
YOUR FOODS ARE, EVEN AS YOUR SPIRITS, LIKEWISE, BECOME
WHAT YOUR THOUGHTS ARE. THEREFORE, EAT NOT ANYTHING
WHICH FIRE, OR FROST, OR WATER HAS DESTROYED. FOR
BURNED, FROZEN, OR ROTTED FOODS WILL BURN, FREEZE AND
ROT YOUR BODY ALSO.” — The Essene Gospel Of Peace, Book I
translated by Edmond Bordeaux Szekely
“WHEN MANKIND WAS CREATED,
THEY KNEW NOT THE EATING OF BREAD,
KNEW NOT THE DRESSING IN GARMENTS;
ATE PLANTS WITH THEIR MOUTH LIKE SHEEP;
DRANK WATER FROM A DITCH.” — Sumerian Tale
“HANUMAN WAS A MONKEY OF THE WOODS, HE DID
NOT DESIRE FAIR WOMEN AND HE ATE NO COOKED FOOD.”
— Hanuman is the monkey god of India featured in the tale of the Ramayana from which this passage was quoted.
“PIOUS MEN EAT WHAT THE GODS LEAVE OVER
AFTER THE OFFERING. BUT THOSE UNGODLY,
COOKING FOOD FOR THE GREED OF THEIR STOMACHS,
SIN AS THEY EAT IT.” — Bhagavad Gita
“THERE IS AMONG THE INDIANS A HERESY
OF THOSE WHO PHILOSOPHIZE AMONG
THE BRAHMINS, WHO LIVE A SELF-SUFFICIENT LIFE,
ABSTAINING FROM EATING LIVING CREATURES
AND ALL COOKED FOOD.” — Hippolytus, Rome, 225 AD
“I AM MUCH MORE INTERESTED IN A QUESTION ON
WHICH THE ‘SALVATION OF HUMANITY’ DEPENDS FAR MORE
THAN ON ANY THEOLOGIANS’ CURIO: THE QUESTION OF
NUTRITION.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo
“IT CAN BE SAID THAT THE GREATEST SINGLE CAUSE OF
DEGENERATION IN MAN IS THE USE OF FIRE IN THE
PREPARATION OF FOODS.” — Arnold De Vries, The Fountain Of Youth
“WHY ALL THIS COOKING WHEN THERE IS REALLY NO COOK LIKE
OLD SOL? COOKED FOOD IS DEAD FOOD — AND REMEMBER,
THE WHITER THE BREAD THE SOONER WE ARE DEAD! EVERY ATTEMPT
TO IMPROVE ON NATURAL FOOD MUST PROVE A FAILURE, AND
NATURE WILL REACT AT FIRST ACUTELY TO ANY INTERFERENCE WITH HER
BENEFICENT LAWS OF HEALTH. AND IF WE CONTINUE TO DISOBEY
HER LAWS BY DRUGS OR EVEN SURGERY, THE SYMPTOMS MAY DISAPPEAR FOR
A WHILE ONLY TO REAPPEAR IN CHRONIC OR FATAL DISEASES …
MAN IS THE ONLY CREATURE THAT COOKS HIS FOOD, AND HE IS MORE
SUBJECT TO DISEASE THAN ANY WILD CREATURE THAT DINES ON
UNFIRED FOOD. TRADITION, GLUTTONY, AND INCREASING DESIRE FOR
STRONG STIMULANTS HAVE CAUSED MAN TO PREFER COOKED FOOD, WHICH
HAS SERIOUSLY WEAKENED HIS DIGESTIVE ORGANS.
THIS IS BECAUSE COOKED FOOD CAN BE SWALLOWED
SO EASILY WITHOUT CHEWING, WHEREAS THOROUGH
MASTICATION IS ESSENTIAL TO GOOD HEALTH.”
— Dugald Semple, The Sunfood Way To Health
“YOUR FOOD DETERMINES IN A LARGE MEASURE HOW LONG
YOU SHALL LIVE — HOW MUCH YOU SHALL ENJOY LIFE,
AND HOW SUCCESSFUL YOUR LIFE SHALL BE.”
— Dr. Kirschner, Live Food Juices
What we eat deeply and radically affects the way we think, feel and behave. We are what we eat, and we eat what we are. Food affects every aspect of our being. Food is the foundation of our physical body. If the foundation is stable, all that is built upon it will be stable. Everything you physically are was once the air you breathed, the water you drank and the food you ate. The colloidal mineral structure of your body is built out of the foods you have eaten. If there is an alteration in the food, then it is reflected in the look and function of the body. Improve your food choices and you dramatically improve the foundation upon which your body is built.
Success is an accumulation of practicing fundamentals each and every day. And eating is a daily activity of vital importance that cannot be overlooked. A consistent habit of making excellent food choices is an absolute necessity for a successful life.
From average to exceptional is just a slight edge. The proper diet gives you a slight edge and a hundred times more. When you give your body incredible food, it will function incredibly.
To achieve your mission on Earth, you need excellent health and a supreme physical support system to get you there. Excellent dietary habits support your body and mind on the path to reaching amazing goals.
When your diet is pure, the planet freely bestows its wealth upon you. Diet is the mysterious key to life-long massive abundance. Diet is the key to the natural way of life. A wonderful life requires a natural diet rich in Sun-grown foods eaten in their pristine raw state.
If we think about it logically, when we arrived on the planet, we had no tools, clothing, or fire. How did we live? What did we eat? There must be some original diet, a diet we were biologically designed for, a diet that is the optimal diet for humankind.
Simplicity
“SUCCESS IS NOTHING MORE THAN A REFINED STUDY OF THE OBVIOUS.”
— Jim Rohn, Success Philosopher
Simplicity is now, has always been and will forever be, the key guideline of success.
The fact that there is more confusion, conflicting opinions, and false information concerning the field of diet now available than ever before is proof that there must be some simple truth beneath it all. There are always many opinions, but only one truth.
In science there is a principle called Ockham’s Razor. This principle tells us that, amongst competing theories, the simplest is most likely to be true.
Natural Law is simplicity itself. A great axiom states: “Once you are complicated, you are ineffective.” A great reason for my success and the success of others on The Sunfood Diet program is its incredible simplicity. Whatever simple reasoning cannot ascertain is nonsense and should be dispensed with. Nothing vital is complicated.
There is a poetry, a powerful truth, in simple facts. The simpler things are, the easier it is to live. Foragers/gatherers were the original affluent society on Earth. The best things in life are free, for life depends on simplicity. The worst things in life are paid for with wasted life-force energy, for death depends on confusion.
People confuse things in direct proportion to their simplicity.
Anytime, if you feel you are being overwhelmed with information, simplify. Just get back to basics. All the greatest sports coaches the world has ever seen taught basics. Simple basics practiced over and over make enormous improvements in the long term. Here are the basics of nutrition: RAW PLANT FOODS.
Cooked food was not here when we first appeared on Earth.
Raw plant food is truly the most perfect food for human consumption.
Citrus fruits display the radiant sun energy they have alchemically transformed into edible magic.
The structure and function of humanity’s teeth, jaw, digestive canal, sense organs, instincts of the young, psychological aversion towards killing, emotional feelings towards animals, as well as the cause and cure of disease and unhappiness, all demonstrate that humans are biologically and primarily raw-plant eaters — primarily consumers of sweet, non-sweet, and fatty fruits, as well as green-leafed vegetables. (See Lesson 9: Origins and Appendix A.)
Do you know the power of getting energy solely from plants? Every whole plant food is a symphony. The absorption and organization of Sunlight, the essence of life, takes place primarily in plants. The organs of the plant are therefore a kind of biological accumulation of Sun energy. Eating plant foods transfers the vital Sun energy directly to you, undiminished.
Raw plant foods are massively abundant. 99.99% of all food on Earth is raw plant food. In the grand scheme of things, cooked food is nonexistent, and animal food for omnivores and carnivores is minimal as the plant-eaters (mostly insects) are by far the dominant creatures on Earth.
Eating raw plant food provides you with an unlimited variety of food choices. There are so many raw plant foods on this planet that you could taste something new every single day for the rest of your life and still not even come remotely close to trying 1% of what is here on Earth! For instance, there are over 500 varieties of avocados. And there are at least 80 varieties of persimmons! There are even over 300 varieties of durian!
Raw plant foods fall into fourteen major categories:
1. Fruits: Fruits are raw plant foods that contain the seed within themselves for the reproduction of their kind. Fruits may be sweet, non-sweet or fat-dominant.
2. Leaves: Leaves contain life-giving chlorophyll pigments, and are the best source of alkaline minerals. Many herbs are green leaves.
3. Nuts: Nuts are the reproductive agents of certain trees. They are fat-dominant foods.
4. Seeds: Seeds are the reproductive agents of plants. Depending on the type, they may be protein-dominant or fat-dominant. Grains are seeds.
5. Legumes: Legumes include all peas, beans and peanuts, and are often sprouted before consumption. They are protein-dominant with the exception of peanuts which are fat-dominant.
6. Flowers: Flowers are the sexual organs of plants.
7. Green sprouts: Green sprouts appear when sprouted seeds, or legumes, reach a certain point of growth and shoot forth green leaves.
8. Roots: Roots are the below-ground portion of plants.
9. Shoots: Shoots are young plants spread by underground runners from their parent plants.
10. Bark: The outer, protective layer of trees. Inner barks are occasionally used as foods or for teas.
11. Sap: The life-fluid of a tree. Maple syrup comes from maple water, the sap of the maple tree. Bee propolis is made from tree sap.
12. Stems: Stems are the fibrous, structural pieces of plants.
13. Water vegetation: Sea vegetables are sea plant leaves containing bountiful minerals drawn in from the ocean, and up from the ocean floor. Spirulina and algae of all types are included in this category.
14. Mushrooms: A non-chlorophyll fungus that grows primarily in darkness, and is not directly nourished by the vibrant Sun energy, yet plays a critical role in recycling biological materials in old trees and the soil. Mushroom extracts can be an outstanding source of medicine (e.g. reishi, cordyceps, maitake, etc.)
What Is The Sunfood Diet?
The Sunfood Diet Success System is really The Raw-Food Diet Success System. I use the term “Sunfood” because it implies raw-plant food grown under the vivifying influence of direct Sunlight in a wild, natural state. “Sunfood” has a refreshing, majestic quality to it. “Raw food” is ambiguous — “raw food” could mean anything raw.
The Sunfood Diet is a diet of abundance. The Sunfood Diet Success System demystifies The Raw-Food Diet, and presents a program that allows anyone to achieve the goal of succeeding with a raw plant-food diet.
Of all the raw plant foods on Earth, The Sunfood Diet requires that 80%+ of your food choices contain a balance of green-leafed vegetables, sweet fruits and fatty plant foods. The other 20% can contain any of the fourteen kinds of raw plant foods mentioned above, or other foods that you feel are appropriate for you. This diet is not about denial, it is about success and achievement. The idea behind The Sunfood Diet is to eat at least 80% raw plant foods, and then move forward in your life from there.
Benefits Of The Sunfood Diet
Every so often in history an idea comes along that revolutionizes everything that follows it. The discovery of raw-food nutrition is one of those ideas. The implications of raw nutrition on humankind are immense.
We do not just need information to achieve success, we need transformation. The Sunfood Diet rebuilds you at the most fundamental levels and transforms you in a most profound way. The Sunfood Diet is peerless. Once an individual enters its field, every other power opens up.
A diet of raw plant food puts you in touch with a new vital power. In the source of every vital power lies an endless abundance. A diet of raw plant food presents a whole new paradigm of health, wealth, success and possibility. Since The Sunfood Diet is in alignment with a natural way of life, it brings with it beauty, happiness, long-life and prosperity.
We know that the more perfectly clean your body, the more perfectly it will radiate your super-natural powers. The first things to evaporate in a toxic environment are the super-natural abilities provided to us at birth. These powers are possessed by wild animals, and formerly by humanity. As soon as the body begins to be poisoned, the powers slip away. In any biological degeneration, the higher powers fade first. However, your natural superior abilities have not been totally destroyed by improper food, they are only dormant and are capable of rebirth, regeneration and resurrection.
One of the greatest values of The Sunfood Diet is that it opens you up to the idea that many of your other deep-seated beliefs may be totally false. The effects of adopting The Sunfood Diet disassemble your view of the world. Once you experience that eating cooked and artificially-grown food immediately detracts from the normal functioning of your body, you will begin to question many other aspects of your belief system. So, The Sunfood Diet acts like a battering ram crumbling away the stagnated belief systems of your mind. It allows you to grow in new directions you never would have predicted. You will be ready to try new things and to test new approaches to life’s daily challenges.
As we learned in Lesson 4: Beliefs, we do not know what life really is; we only know how we represent life to ourselves. When you naturalize your diet, you automatically tune into a different energy band of life. You allow more information from your higher self to penetrate your conscious mind. And what you consider reality will change. Naturalizing your diet aligns and strips away chemical debris and toxins from the endocrine glands allowing insights from infinite intelligence to flow more clearly into your thoughts.
Different foods fuel different perceptions of the world. Eating raw plant foods automatically tunes you in to a positive, prosperous energy band of life. In Nature, there are potions, mixtures and solutions with which anyone may safely stimulate their minds to tune in to inspirational thoughts. Nature’s stimulants cannot be improved upon. Nothing can compare to the aristocratic taste of a ripe cherimoya, nothing can touch the rush from fresh watermelons in the summer, nothing even resembles the energy derived from a meal of jackfruit, there is no substitute for the prosperity found in cacao beans (raw chocolate).
Raw nutrition attunes you to the forces that surround us, permeate through our bodies and that make up the essence of our existence. When you eat raw plant foods, your instincts become stronger. Your intuition becomes more reliable — clearer — and decision-making becomes effortless. In my own experience, I go with my intuition every time; I have learned the only thing we have which is not an illusion is our intuition.
During the process of undertaking The Sunfood Diet, you will experience moments of instantaneous change. I recall one afternoon, several years ago, when my cousin and I were juicing citrus fruits and feijoa (pineapple guava) at a former home in San Diego. We were in the middle of drinking a pitcher, when we both simultaneously exclaimed, “I can see better!” And we could see better. My vision permanently improved that day.
During the process you will also experience subtle change. Over time the subtlety builds, and one day you will wake up profoundly transformed. In general, food choices have a cumulative effect on the body.
The digestion of cooked food takes more energy from the body than any other activity. You could run a marathon and still be walking and talking. However, an hour after a Thanksgiving dinner, guess what?… you are asleep! We know that all success is about transmuting energy. This message is about transmuting the energy used in digestion into achieving our goals.
On The Sunfood Diet you need less sleep. I used to sleep 8 hours a night. I was the type of person who had to sleep 8 hours. Since adopting The Sunfood Diet, my sleep needs decreased to 3 hours at a minimum to 6 hours at a maximum. On the average, judging from the information I have gathered, the people following this diet will, after a couple of years, experience a decrease of 2 hours of required sleep each night. In one year, that is an additional 30 days worth of extra time to accomplish goals and make a contribution to the planet.
The amazing thing about The Sunfood Diet is that it is something you can physically do. You do not have to think too hard about it, you can just do it.
After you have made the commitment to radically improve your diet, you subconsciously reinforce in your mind that your life has meaning and that striving for extraordinary health is worth the effort. You have made a commitment to really living life.
The strongest factor about The Sunfood Diet is that it compels you to live naturally and in harmony with the Earth.
If we pollute the planet after we eat with food packaging, then we truly are not living in harmony with the Earth. Eating raw fruits, vegetables and other plant foods is the solution to world pollution. Landfills are filled with products directly or indirectly related to cooked and processed foods, such as: packaging, wrappers, bags, old stoves, microwaves, etc. One of the most startling revelations I experienced on this diet-path was that I stopped producing trash! My life has become more harmonious with the Earth.
By following this diet, you may one day find yourself in your garden or home planting seeds and growing plants. The home of the Sunfoodist is often surrounded with radiant plant life. Eating raw foods truly reconnects you to the fabric of life.
True progress in the field of nutrition has been made in this world. Solutions have been found. The confusion of nutrition is the most perplexing challenge humankind has yet faced. The Sunfood Diet brings us closer to solving the confusion of nutrition by simplifying our dietary essentials and presenting a balanced nutrition program consisting of raw plant foods, allowing any single person to achieve an extraordinary level of health.
Ayurveda, Traditional Oriental Medicine & Macrobiotics
When people believed in the “Earth is flat” paradigm, every university taught its students that the Earth was flat. Every scientist and professor could “prove” to you that it was flat. Those scientists and professors were not lying to you — they just did not know. It took a few distinctions put forth by a few noble minds to dissolve away the basic assumptions of all those schools of thought. This is how knowledge moves forward — indeed, it is the only way that knowledge has ever moved forward.
The “Earth is flat” paradigm only allowed human understanding to proceed to a certain level, and no further. In the same way, diet systems such as ayurveda (from India), traditional Chinese medicine (and its macrobiotic offshoot) only allow human health to proceed to a certain level, and no further. The ancient systems have been dulled down over many thousands of years and no longer contain real vitality; the purpose of these systems was to help the average person reach good health. The purpose of The Sunfood Diet Success System is to help an average person become an extraordinary human being who experiences superior health, who encounters the highest forms of life and who unlocks dormant powers. New distinctions have now surpassed the old system paradigms.
My goal has been to draw forth the best elements from ayurveda, traditional Chinese medicine, macrobiotics and other systems and apply them to the Sunfood approach. Special information involving individualizing diets based on ayurvedic and yin/yang balancing insights is beyond the scope of this book. These are explored in my seminars, retreats, DVD programs, websites, other books and are well described in Dr. Gabriel Cousens’ books: Conscious Eating, Spiritual Nutrition and The Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine.
The power of living chlorophyll — it keeps the entire planet alive and well.
The insights on body-typing and nutritional balance coming from the ancient dietary systems and my own experiences with internal cleansing, tuning into food instincts and eating a total raw-food diet have convinced me that the original creators of these systems were raw-food eaters. The original systems were certainly much more pure than they appear today.
Throughout its long history up to this day, the presence of raw-food diets has appeared in India. Many yogis currently living in the Himalayas eat only raw plant food or raw plants and raw milk, following in the spiritual traditions of their ancestors. During the Zhou Dynasty in China, it was recorded that: “The tribes in the east were called Yi. They had their hair unbound, and tattooed their bodies. Some of them ate their food without it being cooked by fire.” This account continues on by describing tribes to the north, south and west who did not eat cereals and who ate their food raw. From these accounts we know that raw-food diets were present in ancient China. This evidence again corroborates the concept that the original creators of the ancient systems could have been raw-foodists.
After many years of careful study and investigation on the subject, I am convinced that the “the great change” which came over humankind occurred when humans took the power of fire into their own hands and began experimenting with eating cooked food.
Exactly when and where humans acquired fire is truly a mystery. Fire allowed early humans to begin to control their environment and spread out into more inhospitable places. Those with fire eventually overcame or passed it along to those without it. Whether it was the open flame or the tribal oven formed of redhot stones paved into an oval hollow in the ground, fire became part of every tribe on Earth. But fire is a double-edged sword; unless one is careful with its power, it can turn on its master.
The world was given for us to turn into a paradise. To make this happen, cooked food needs to be understood for what it is, its consumption minimized, and its use eventually removed or specialized in the human diet (for purposes of dietary balance, herbal medicine, etc.).
The assumption behind cooking is that the original form of Nature, as it exists, must be altered in order that it may be reformed to a new artificial form. The truth is that the original state is always superior. The beauty and taste sensation of a wild blueberry cannot be improved upon!
The raw-versus-cooked distinction is the most important insight in the field of nutrition and one day will be the leading topic of nutritional conversation and science.
Cooking alters organic molecules. When those molecules are ingested, they become part of the tissues. Thus cooking alters the tissues at a fundamental level.
When food is cooked it always becomes less than it was before, never more. Fire is a destroyer; it never creates anything. If you took a flame-thrower to this book, would it become more or less than it was before? Cooking only takes away. Eating cooked food is like spending millions of dollars on a brand new mansion, then burning it to the ground before you move in!
Understand: you are water — magnetic water. Everything you swallow must be broken down into a liquid to nourish you. The first thing to go with cooking is the water.
Cooked food is dense. It leaves a toxic ash, or residue, in the body after it has been processed as fuel. Over years and decades, this debris accumulates in the form of mucus and is deposited throughout the tissues. Eventually, the toxins reach a crisis level and clog and poison the system leading to heart attacks, strokes and cancer. Many illnesses arise out of the toxic residues left by cooked foods.
One of the primary ways your body experiences the world around you is by the food you eat. What does the body sense when one puts a charred piece of animal flesh inside it? The body feels death, pain, fire, destruction.
A cooked seed will not grow. Cooked food has no life-force energy. Cooked food has a lower spiritual energy.
People on a standard cooked-food diet go through life in a weakened condition with their vitality much below par, but they are not aware of this because they have never known anything different. They have no reason to believe their vitality and health are not what they should be. They cannot miss what they never had. People are falling day by day to weaker levels, while believing they are attaining a high standard of living.
Eating cooked and processed foods makes one groggy, affects moods, lowers one’s level of awareness and interferes with the body’s optimal vitality. A poor diet results in toxic residues that have a long-range effect on longevity.
The nutritional properties of foods are degraded by the process of cooking. Heating converts foods into foreign substances, some of which harmful. Just like chemical-tobacco smoke, or boil-brewed alcohol, these substances have no connection with the body’s natural needs.
Cooked food is addictive (there really is no softer way to phrase it). An addiction is a desire for a substance that has no connection with the true needs of the body. Certain cooked food behaviors have all the marks of a physiochemical addiction. This is a strong statement, but I think, as you experiment with eating more and more raw plant foods, you will find an interesting truth in it.
People are not truly attached to many of the cooked foods they eat. They eat them for flavor or fun. I have found with most people that there are usually 5 or 6 cooked foods that they are actually addicted to and have trouble releasing. These usually include: bread, baked potatoes, coffee, potato chips, corn chips, tofu, candy (cooked chocolate), cigarettes (not a true food) and/or fish. Typically these foods are attached to emotional anchors. When these foods are removed, emotional feelings come up to be detoxified out of the body. One may feel uncomfortable for the moment (as these feelings are released), but feel much better in the long-term. (More on this in Lesson 10: Detoxification.)
Cooked Food And The Environment
Cooking led to the animal and seed diet. The most frequent way people interact with animals is by eating them. The most frequent way people interact with seeds is by eating them.
The animal and cooked-seed diet led to grain farming which is stripping the fertile Earth of its minerals. Grain crops are collected, processed, cooked, fed to animals or eaten, and eliminated into the sewers and waterways of civilization. Erosion wears down unstable grain fields, washing minerals away. Farms are turned into deserts; jungles are turned into rice paddies. One way or the other, the soil minerals wash down and end up at the bottom of the ocean.
Eating raw fruits and vegetables radically improves the mineralization of the Earth as it encourages the planting of trees. Trees reach down 20 or 30 feet (6 to 9 meters) — sometime much farther (I have been told that wild grape vines reach down as far as 500 feet [150 meters])! Trees elevate the groundwater table and draw minerals up into their stems, leaves, flowers and fruits. This plant matter then eventually falls to the topsoil increasing the mineralization of the soil for more vegetation to grow. Deciduous trees, which drop their leaves each year, strongly mineralize the topsoil.
The cooking of food is by far the biggest waste of resources on planet Earth. Viktoras Kulvinskas, in his classic book Survival Into The 21st Century, reports that cooking destroys 85% of the value of food. When I first realized this, I was staggered. But I did not understand the full implication of this fact. You see, if 85% of the food value is destroyed in cooking, then, also destroyed, is 85% of the time, labor, resources and energy that went into creating the foods. So this idea of eating raw plant food impacts all agriculture, all business, all the economies of the world, all politics.
Massive abundance is the true law of life. There is no shortage of food on Earth! I know a date-farmer friend who informed me that, “The most vigorous date palms yield over 600 pounds per tree per year. One date palm planted at birth could supply a person with practically their entire lifetime supply of food.” Probably everyone would agree that eating only dates would not be ideal, but it does give us an idea of how much food can come from just one tree! There is an infinite amount of food on this planet!
When I was a student at the University of San Diego, I had a job in customer service at the campus bookstore. One day a nun came up to my counter and we began talking. She described her recent trip to Haiti. Apparently, each year she had been spending at least 3 months in Haiti helping the impoverished children. She told me that Haiti had been deforested decades before. I asked her how that happened, expecting the answer to be overgrazing, or too much wood demand for building homes and shelters. Actually, neither was the case. She told me that Haiti had been deforested because the wood was being used for cooking!
Most people who live in first-world countries with gas stoves and electrical ovens have no idea that the other 90% of the planet is cooking with wood. Cooking is a major reason for deforestation. In Africa, the tropical forests of the mountain gorilla are being cut and cleared for cooking wood. Similar tragedies are happening on nearly every continent.
In third world countries, the cooking of food exposes people to the hazards of inhaling wood smoke or emissions from biomass fuels, such as cattle chips (dung). Emissions from wood and biomass fuels are major sources of air pollution in the home and are the number one source of air pollution outside the home (even eclipsing fossil fuels). Studies have shown that cooks inhale more smoke and pollutants than the inhabitants of the dirtiest cities.
“TREAT DISEASE THROUGH DIET, BY PREFERENCE,
REFRAINING FROM THE USE OF DRUGS; AND IF YOU FIND
WHAT IS REQUIRED IN A SINGLE HERB, DO NOT RESORT TO
A COMPOUND MEDICAMENT.” — Baha’u’llah
“NO MATTER FROM WHICH ANGLE WE VIEW HEALTH AND
DISEASE, WE CANNOT ESCAPE FROM BEING ENTANGLED IN THE
CONCLUSION THAT INTRACTABLE DISEASE IS AS OLD AS COOKERY.
DISEASE AND COOKERY ORIGINATED SIMULTANEOUSLY.”
— Dr. Edward Howell, Enzyme Nutrition
Every living organism is vibrating at a certain metabolic level. If the internal energy of the organism drops below a certain level, then the immune system is compromised. Illness is an energy crisis in the body — the body no longer has enough energy to hold together its integrity. Purifying the body through balanced, mineral-rich, raw-food nutrition raises the energy vibration, thus increasing the immune system.
Chronic disease has two true causes: toxemia and demineralization. Toxemia is an accumulation of spiritual, emotional, mental and physical-waste-mucus residues in the organism. Demineralization is a lack of major minerals (i.e. calcium, magnesium, sulfur, potassium, iron, iodine, etc.) and trace minerals (zinc, selenium, manganese, copper, etc.)
To combat disease by attempting to destroy germs is an incorrect approach. Germs are found everywhere; they enter and exit the body all the time; every day. They co-exist symbiotically with the human body. Only when the human body is toxic and demineralized do germs become threatening. As the saying goes: “The microbe is nothing, the terrain is everything.”
Chemical drugs and medicines do not heal, they only cause harm. All chemical drugs and medicines, with the exception of aspirin, have been (and still are) tested on innocent animals. Remember the foundational law? Things produce after their own kind. The torture and suffering of animals in useless attempts to find cures for diseases does no good, actually it can only do bad — it only produces more of its own kind: more torture and suffering … more disease.
If you find yourself suddenly aware of new food choices grabbing hold of you, then please throw a fruit and raw-food party and experience the best day ever!
True therapeutics involves releasing the power within each person to heal. It is not the disease that must be stopped, but the poisoning of the body by an unhealthy lifestyle. For a complete healing to take place, the body must experience: laughter, love, joy, fresh spring water, fresh air, mineral-rich nutrients, yogic movement and a new-found desire to learn and keep the mind active.
Relaxation is also a factor in overcoming disease. More people die on Monday morning than on any other day of the week or at any other time. Stress accelerates illness as it causes the eliminative organs and the muscular system to constrict and hold onto toxicity and metabolic waste. Stress also causes us to use up certain minerals such calcium, magnesium and zinc more rapidly. A proper diet will help immensely as certain foods (such as green-leafy vegetables) help to remineralize and open up constricted muscles, and certain other foods (such as juicy fruits) help to flush out the toxicity.
The emphasis here with diet is on removing the physical residue, on cleansing through proper diet. Once the physical body (the anchor) is put in tune — all the other bodies (mental, emotional, spiritual) line up and begin to cleanse as well. It is simple. It is real. It works.
A pure raw-plant diet assists the body’s cleansing efforts in the most natural way by eliminating any toxicity from entering the system and by simultaneously moving toxicity through the lymph and blood and out of the body through the eliminative organs (the bowels, kidneys, liver, skin, sinuses and lungs). A purification of the diet enforces a self-healing and a radical, whole-body rejuvenation.
As you apply the health and diet system in this book, you may find that the common cold, flus, fever, grogginess, etc., are all actually efforts by the body to eliminate physical waste; they are symptoms of a body in the process of healing itself. When you have mastered this health and diet system, you will have overcome the major illnesses. You will no longer experience colds, flus, fevers, etc. They will all be looked at as part of a past and unusual way of life.
Enzymes
“ENZYMES ARE SUBSTANCES THAT MAKE LIFE POSSIBLE. THEY ARE NEEDED FOR EVERY CHEMICAL REACTION THAT TAKES PLACE IN THE HUMAN BODY. NO MINERAL, VITAMIN, OR HORMONE CAN DO ANY WORK WITHOUT ENZYMES. OUR BODIES, ALL OUR ORGANS, TISSUES, AND CELLS ARE RUN BY METABOLIC ENZYMES.” — Dr. Howell, Enzyme Nutrition
Enzymes are vital to all life processes. They are catalysts for all reactions in the body. They are a counterpoint to the vital Sun energy in the body — they are transformers directed by hormones amongst a terrain of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats and tissue proteins.
There are three classes of enzymes:
• metabolic
• digestive
• food
Metabolic enzymes operate in all the cells, tissues, and organs and are an essential part of every biological activity.
Digestive enzymes are produced by, and appear in, the alimentary organs. They help digest carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Amylases are enzymes that digest carbohydrates. Lipases are enzymes that digest fats. Proteases are enzymes that digest proteins.
Food enzymes come enclosed with all whole raw foods in their proper proportions. These enzymes are there to help digest the food (or to help ripen or decompose the food if it is not eaten). Many food enzymes are destroyed at 118 degrees Fahrenheit (47.8 degrees Celsius). The dehydration of food below 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40.0 degrees Celsius) does keep most enzymes intact. Freezing and refrigeration hinders enzymatic activity. Freezing food destroys at least 30% of its enzymes and can destroy up to 66% or more of its enzymes. Fermented raw foods, including seed cheeses and raw sauerkraut, have a very high enzymatic activity and thus they have been used by natural health pioneers, such as Doctor Ann Wigmore, to accelerate healing and disease recovery.
Food enzyme shortages, sooner or later, result in physical degeneration and disease. When the digestive enzymes present in the body are insufficient, the body draws upon its reserves of metabolic enzymes from the major and minor organs and glands, weakening one’s overall vitality. It takes ten metabolic enzymes to form one digestive enzyme.
Just because the dangerous effects of cooked and processed foods are not felt immediately does not mean they are not damaging. Humans have not adapted to cooked food in the way people assume. How can an animal, such as a field mouse, that has never eaten cooked food in its genetic history, be captured, fed cooked food and still live? Did it instantaneously adapt to cooked food? Just because one can chew up something, swallow it and live long enough to tell others about it, does not mean one has adapted to it. White bread, for example, has only been around for the last 100 years. People eat white bread en masse and they are still alive. Does that mean humans have adapted to white bread? Cooked and processed foods have a cumulative effect on the body. The enzyme potential decreases over time. Once the enzyme potential is diminished beyond a certain threshold, the body wears out and inner vitality is lost.
After presenting a host of evidence demonstrating that all living creatures have a fixed enzyme potential which can be (and usually is) prematurely exhausted, Dr. Howell in Enzyme Nutrition writes: “Humans eating an enzyme-less diet use up a tremendous amount of their enzyme potential in lavish secretions of the pancreas and other digestive organs. The result is a shortened lifespan (65 years or less as compared with 100 or more), illness and lowered resistance to stresses of all types, psychological and environmental.”
The generational introduction of substances foreign to the organism causes enzymatic adaptations to appear in the digestive fluids even though no structural physiological adaptation occurs. Different races of people throughout the world have developed enzymatic capabilities foreign to other groups in order to help digest their traditional cultural foods. These “enzyme mutations” are the body’s way of accommodating itself to foreign food substances.
The enzyme mutation in a northern European person might give her/him an enzymatic capability to metabolize raw cow’s milk, whereas a Mediterranean person may lack such an enzyme mutation, but possess an enzymatic ability to metabolize raw goat’s milk. This capability would last until the person began to exhaust their enzyme potential. If the person drank the milk pasteurized, or if they over-intoxicated themselves with those substances (even if raw) then, over time, they would greatly weaken their enzyme potential, and no longer be able to tolerate such foods.
Even with enzyme mutations, the excessive intake of animal foods is undesirable to the physiology of the human digestive apparatus. The shape of the teeth, jaw, width of the lips, shape of the cheeks, esophagus, stomach, duodenum, and colon, are not suited for an excessive intake of animal foods (see Lesson 9: Origins and Appendix A). Enzyme mutations come about as part of the Law of Vital Adjustment outlined by Professor Hilton Hotema in his book Man’s Higher Consciousness. The body’s Vital Adjustment to foreign substances taxes the system and is always accompanied by a Vital Reduction in the body’s overall health and energy level. After a degeneration has occurred, the Law of Vital Adjustment can also work in reverse, as foreign substances are eliminated from the body, a Vital Increase occurs; the body is always capable, over time, of re-adjusting to its natural state because the underlying original biological design is still the same.
Genetic enzyme mutations in accordance with the Law of Vital Adjustment caused by generations of unnatural feeding have turned the human digestive fluids into an anomaly in Nature. The enzymatic activity in the human mouth and digestive system is far out of sync with anything in Nature.
Consider again the writings of Dr. Howell, in his landmark work Enzyme Nutrition: “The digestive enzymes of civilized humans are infinitely stronger and more concentrated in enzyme activity than any of the metabolic enzymes — more concentrated than any other enzyme combination found in nature. Human saliva and pancreatic juice are loaded with enzyme activity. There is no evidence that wild animals, living on natural raw diets, have digestive enzyme juices even remotely approaching the strength of those found in civilized human beings.”
Dr. Howell has demonstrated, through what he calls The Law of Adaptive Secretion of Digestive Enzymes (a manifestation of the Law of Vital Adjustment), that animals eating raw diets have no enzymes in their saliva, but they begin to when fed a heat-treated diet. Dogs taken away from their natural raw diet and put on a cooked-food diet had enzymes show up in the saliva in about a week. The opposite is true as well. When one returns to a natural raw diet, the frenzied enzymatic activity in the saliva eventually disappears.
Personal experience and review of some of the enzyme literature including Don’t Dine Without Enzymes by Viktoras Kulvinskas and Dr. Howell’s other enzyme book: Food Enzymes for Health and Longevity indicates that allergies to raw foods may be connected with enzymes. Some people are allergic to oranges or strawberries, or some other plant foods. These foods may actually contain enzymes that are like keys that unlock poisons the body has stored in locked “boxes.” The allergy is actually a release of a toxicity. If these foods are introduced slowly, and in small amounts, each “box” is opened and a little more toxicity is released. Once all the “boxes” are open, the allergy may simply disappear.
Dr. Howell also uncovered a connection between enzyme deficiencies in the diet (cooked food) and a decrease in brain size and weight. This connection should be clearly understood by those interested in maximum brain performance and in maximizing human potential.
Proper nutrition is the basis of mental power. The nutriment of the brain cells is derived from the blood corpuscles perpetually being pumped into them by the action of the lungs and heart. If the food stream is devoid of enzymes and impure, then the heart valves will be out of gear, the stomach will become disordered, the liver will be corrupted, the lungs will become congested, and the brain will be starved, drugged, and poisoned, while all the thoughts that germinate therein will be inappropriate and out of harmony with the Earth.
Thoughts of failure, world-weariness, morbidity, despair and sorrow are all associated with states of low energy and enzyme depletion in the body caused by eating the wrong food. Low energy deeply affects the state of mind. If every mental disorder is accompanied by a physical disorder (psychosomatic illness), then it must also be true that every physical disorder (enzyme deficiency) is accompanied by a mental disorder (which can be healed by an enzyme-rich diet).
Recommendations For Rapid Results
Before continuing on with more specifics on raw foods and health, I want to provide you with specific foods, juices and recipes to try now so that you may begin getting immediate results. Applying these suggestions demonstrates first-hand how raw plant foods work.
All these foods, juices and recipes help detoxify our bodies while providing us with excellent nutrition. All ingredients should be raw and organic!
For Increased Energy
Blend:
5 oranges
3 tablespoons of flax seed oil
Peel the oranges, but maintain the nutritious white pith. Flax seed oil may be found in any natural food store. Blend the oranges and flax seed oil together. Do not bother removing the orange seeds as they are nourishing and contain anti-fungal qualities. Drink slowly. The fat in the flax oil allows the sugar in the oranges to release slowly over time. This provides excellent energy over several hours. This is a particularly beneficial blend to drink before a business meeting or as a starter in the morning.
For The Flu Or A Cold
Blend:
4 oranges
6 figs
1 medium-sized papaya
Peel the oranges, but maintain the white pith. Remove any stems from the figs (figs should be soft and ripe). Skin the papaya and remove all seeds. Be sure all fruits are at room temperature — putting cold refrigerated food into the body can shock the immune system. Place all items in a blender. Add spring water if necessary to thoroughly blend all ingredients. Drink this blend three times throughout the day; abstain from other foods. Oranges and papayas are alkaline fruits which provide excellent calcium and are rich in vitamin A (beta-carotene) and vitamin C (which, among other things, is an antioxidant). Flus and colds are typically caused by too much toxicity in the body, leading to a weakened immune system. These fruits help cleanse the gastro-intestinal tract of toxicity and simultaneously nourish the body. Figs are especially excellent mucus dissolvers and are ranked with an acid-binding value of 27.81 (one of the highest ratings of any food) in Ragnar Berg’s Table in the book Mucusless Diet Healing System.
To Alleviate Stress or Anxiety
Juice:
5 leaves of kale
½ head of green cabbage
½ head of loose-leafed lettuce
Process all ingredients through a juicer. Drink 30 minutes before an event that has you nervous. If stress and anxiety is persistent, drink one juice in the morning, and one in the evening. Kale, green cabbage and loose-leafed lettuces together provide a sodium-potassium balance that keeps us centered. Also, these three contain an abundance of alkaline minerals, especially calcium — which has a calming effect on the body. Lettuces have a soporific quality and can even induce sleep when taken in large quantities.
Or …
Breathing:
Oxygen is a food. Stress and anxiety are associated with shallow breathing. Relieve stress by taking 10 deep breaths in the ratio of 1:4:2 as described in Lesson 22: Breathing (Pranayama), Action Steps.
For A Sore Throat
½ lemon
1 tablespoon of fresh ginger juice or raw ginger powder
6 ounces (0.2 liters) of spring water warmed up to 96° Fahrenheit (36° C).
Mix ginger into the water. Squeeze lemon into the mix. Lemon is an excellent cleanser. Ginger works as an antibiotic and an expectorant, helping to relieve the sinus cavities and lungs of mucus. Drink this mix 4-5 times a day until symptoms disappear. The old home remedy also included 2-4 tablespoons of raw honey.
Or, if you are more active, try …
Juice:
3 apples
1 lemon
1 slice of ginger root
Peel the lemon, but maintain the white pith. Put all contents in the juicer. If desired, warm this drink to 96° Fahrenheit (36 C). The apples are “soft” on the throat and provide you with sugar as fuel. Apples also contain pectin, which forms a gel in the intestines that helps remove toxins while simultaneously stimulating a bowel movement. A bowel movement drains the lymph system, allowing lymphatic tissues throughout the body, including the tonsils in the throat, to alleviate any swelling. Drink this juice 3-4 times a day until symptoms disappear.
For A Headache
Juice:
4 ribs of celery
4 ounces of fennel
1 apple
1 orange
Peel the orange, but keep the white pith intact. Process all ingredients through a juicer. Drink immediately. Fennel is a wonderful, cooling, licorice-tasting herb. The ancient Greeks and Romans used fennel to treat migraine headaches. Fennel thins the blood and in women builds healthy hormones (progesterone) which can help balance excessive estrogen. This allows obstructions — which place pressure on the blood vessels (headaches) — to flow on and be removed by the kidneys. Celery and apple are provided to maintain a sodium-potassium balance in the blood. The orange is added for its alkalinity and calcium.
For Back Pain
Juice:
1 head of dark-leaf lettuce
1 head of broccoli
2 apples
Process all contents through a juicer. Drink once in the morning, once in the evening. Back pain is associated with a high level of sodium (salt) and phosphorus (acid) in the tissues. The high calcium content of the lettuce and broccoli immediately loosens constricted tissues. The high potassium content of this drink provides a mineral balance against sodium. The apple is provided to sweeten.
Or …
Salad:
1 head of lettuce
1 large collard leaf
¼ head of green cabbage
1 ounce (30 ml) of organic stone-crushed, cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil
1-2 avocados
10 strawberries
Mix together and toss into a salad. Eat this salad twice each day: once for lunch, once for dinner. The high-calcium content of green-leafed vegetables loosens constricted tissues. Most back pain is associated with an acid condition of the body — calcium counteracts and neutralizes acidity. The strawberries are included because they contain organic salycilates, which are the basic ingredient of painkillers, such as aspirin.
For An Upset Stomach Or Ulcer
Juice:
½ head of green cabbage
2 ribs of celery
2 apples
Cabbage is rich in beta-carotene, vitamin C, sulfur, selenium and especially the amino acid glutamine. Studies done by Dr. Garnet Cheney, who at one time headed the Cancer Division of Stanford Medical School, revealed the value of glutamine in healing ulcers. Dr. Cheney administered 1 quart (1 liter) of cabbage/celery/carrot juice a day to 65 ulcer sufferers. Within 3 weeks 63 of the patients were healed and 2 retained only minimal symptoms. I learned this one from Jay Kordich “The Juiceman” and have recommended it with success to many people over the years.
Or …
Salad:
½ head of purple cabbage
2 small avocados
Dice up the cabbage. Mix in the avocados. The sweet fat of the avocado is very soothing on the delicate mucous linings of the stomach and intestines.
Constipation
Constipation is caused by fecal matter that collects in the colon, dries out and is difficult to move. Constipation indicates that a person has been eating too many cooked foods which are devoid of water and too few raw oils which lubricate the digestive tract. To prevent constipation in the future, drink plenty of high quality water with lemon and a mineral-rich salt when the stomach is empty, also eat chlorophyll-rich fibrous foods (green vegetables) with oil (flax seed, olive, etc.) as a dressing. This will softly broom and sweep the intestines alleviating this condition. Apples and pears may be added to help stimulate a bowel movement.
If suffering from constipation, try the following:
Lemon Water:
1 quart (liter) of spring water
1 lemon
2-3 pinches of unheated sea salt or rock salt
Constipation may be caused by dehydration. This may be brought on by stress, overexertion or overexposure. Eating too much sugar can cause excessive urination and lead to dehydration and constipation. Drinking ¾ to 1 quart (liter) of spring water containing the juice of 1 whole lemon with salt the first thing in the morning can stimulate a bowel movement and alleviate this condition.
Or …
Juice:
2 handfuls of parsley
4 ribs of celery
2 apples
1 pear
Process all contents through a juicer. If the constipation is more difficult, drink 12 ounces of this green-leafy vegetable juice first thing in the morning. Add more parsley to this mix if constipation persists.
For A Hangover
Juice:
1 head of romaine lettuce
1 stalk of broccoli
1 handful of spinach
Process all ingredients through a juicer. Drink immediately. Alcohol destroys the B vitamins. Romaine lettuce, broccoli and spinach contain excellent quantities of the B complex, including thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3), pantothenic acid (B5), pyridoxine (B6) and folic acid (B9). I used to be quite a “social drinker” before I became a raw-foodist. As I began eating significant quantities of raw foods, I no longer would feel hangovers after a night of drinking with friends.
Or …
Fruit:
1 cantaloupe
Eat one whole cantaloupe. Cantaloupe is, overall, the richest fruit in B vitamins. Remember to buy organic foods and eat all the way to edge of the rind to get the maximum nutrition available in the fruit. Melons contain most of their vitamins and minerals near the edge of the rind.
Boost The Immune System
Juice:
2 cloves of garlic
1 slice of ginger
1 handful of parsley
4 pears
1 ounce (30 ml) of organic stone-crushed, cold-pressed, extra virgin olive oil
Process all ingredients through a juicer, except for olive oil, which can be stirred in with a spoon, or blended into the juice. Garlic and ginger are natural antibiotics that assist the immune system. Parsley is rich in iron to build strong red-blood corpuscles. Pear contains pectin which will stimulate a bowel movement, helping to drain the lymphatic system of toxins. Olive oil provides excellent monounsaturated fats the body needs to build strong white blood corpuscles. In my own diet, I include a habanero pepper in my immune system juice, you may want to try adding some hot pepper.
For Depression
Fruit:
Berries
To break a bout of depression, eat one or more trays of berries in the morning for breakfast daily for 5-6 weeks. Eat them on an empty stomach and avoid other foods until 12 noon. Berries are an incredibly balanced food and their moderate sugar content does not jar the nerves. Spells of depression are often associated with moments of low blood sugar and poor food choices. Eat mildly-sweet fruits such as berries throughout the day to keep the blood sugar up. If one is too sensitive to sugar or fruit, one can eat combinations of seeds (pumpkin, hemp) and vegetables to maintain energy without stimulating the body with sugars. Avoid dried fruit binging, complex carbohydrates (baked potatoes, french fries, breads, cakes, cookies, rice) and alcohol as these can cause erratic blood sugar fluctuations.
Consuming 300-600 milligrams of algae oil (DHA) could also be helpful in nourishing neurological tissue. Vitamin B12 is helpful for depression as well.
1 Begin today by treating yourself to luscious fruits and beautiful salads. Eating raw foods has a cumulative effect. The more raw foods you eat over time, the better you feel. The less cooked foods you eat, the better you feel. Do your best to increase your raw food intake and specifically decrease your cooked food intake each day. Visit a raw-food restaurant!
2 Cut out five cooked foods from your diet today. List them in your journal. Notice the difference this decision makes in your life. Become more discerning in your food choices.
3 Seek out a source for organic (pesticide-free), mineral-rich foods. Support organic farmers by purchasing their higher-quality foods.
4 Invest in a juicer for you and your family.
5 Invest in one or more raw-food recipe books.
6 Check out our web-site at:
… and peruse the latest and greatest goodies in the field of raw food!
Special Note: Raw plant foods (from herbs to fruits and everything in between) are the single most effective antidote to anxiety, depression, disease, fear, immobility, insomnia, pain, stress and worry!
