Who Needs Daily Meals Anyways???

Let's take a poll. I was thinking to spend all my energy on giving you jam packed information. Documenting my daily meals takes away from this. How many of you would like me to continue to document my daily diet? and how many people want me to throw all my energy into extra JAM PACKED information? Click Here to take the poll and I will post the outcome on the next blog.

Guy Commented about "peeing on the blooming flowers" post:

Warn me if you invite for dinner when you get settled in the US. I know Angela wanted a garden and now I know how its going to be watered.

I just do not know if you can drink that much water :)

Oh I laughed at that! I thought that I would share.

Pauline wrote:

A Raw Food author says he doesn’t recommend kombucha. He mentioned that he would like to have a bacteria sample of the product - the fact that it's fermented is a key issue for him. He even said that agave was just like corn syrup. :l

There may be some legitimacy to what he is saying. Many people fight over these "raw – not so raw" products, however, they will eat processed starches and refined sugar like it is going out of business. It is MORE important what we are NOT eating, then what we are eating. If someone takes the MONUMENTAL jump of eliminating refined sugar and processed starches from their diet completely, and they partake in Agave and Kombucha Tea on a daily basis, this is a GREAT thing. When you eliminate those processed foods from your diet, you will become cleaner and cleaner. It could take years to catch up with your new diet. At some point your body will become so clean to where it will say, "ok, stop taking the agave and kombucha now." Your body may be telling you this with a runny nose, headache, or something else. You can either obey your body at that time or accept these discomforts until you are ready to move on. Me personally, my body doesn't get along with the Kombucha or agave for extended periods of time. I love taking agave every once in awhile. I am pretty sensitive and I get stimulate from it.

This is GREAT! Juni Wrote:

Matt - wow, what new info on the pollution effect on the body! Can you clarify here or in a later post exactly why a totally clean body would be more vulnerable to the poisons? You'd think that it would be stronger and able to fight off negative effects. Does this mean that it's better to be a bit cooked if you live in LA or Portland, OR? NYC? also it's a bit demoralizing to hear that "if you don't eliminate processed starches and sugars you aren't going to progress much" -- doesn't eating even 50% raw do some healing to offset the bad that we may eat? sounds like it's all or nothing...thanks for all this cutting edge info! Hang in there – Juni

Let's start with the second question first.
Don't get me wrong, you can do better by eating less processed starches/refined sugars and more raw foods, but you are not going to do nearly as good as you can be doing if you eliminated them completely from your diet. When you eliminate these processed foods completely, you give your body the freedom to take it to the next level and you will EVOLVE on a cellular level. The following explanation applies to detoxing anything from drugs, caffeine and nicotine, to processed sugars, wheat and dairy. Our cells are filled with waste from all the years of poor eating and they have expanded and grown to accommodate this waste. A certain amount of detoxification always takes place immediately as soon as the quantity of drug or food is reduced. However, the body holds onto the toxins stored at a deep cellular level until the source of that particular toxin is stopped completely. To experience the next level of health, these buried poisons must be released. When you actually eliminate the drugs or foods completely, the toxins will leave your cells and now your body will have the freedom and the strength to take its healing to the next level.

There are so many diets out their that claim to get results. These diet do actually help people heal from degenerative diseases and lose weight. It isn’t "rocket science" why they get these results. All these diet succeed because they all eliminate the refined sugars and processed starches from the food plan. You name it those diets do it; South Beach Diet, Zone Diet, Macrobiotics Diet, Makers Diet, etc. This is one reason why I am not a fan of Weight Watchers or the Jenny Craig diet. They use a counting calorie system. No one food is eliminated.

It's NOT all or nothing. You don't need to be 100% Raw to be healthy. I know many people that do better on a healthy cooked food diet then a 100% Raw Food Diet. A healthy intermediate diet can consist of a moderate amount of animal protein (not combined with starches), whole grains, baked potato (by itself), brown rice, beans, and even a wheat and gluten free pasta (Tinkyada Pasta). My book Raw Spirit has Dr. Fred Bisci's intermediate diet mapped out if you want complete details on it. You can live on an intermediate diet like this for the rest of your life and be extremely healthy. I'd rather see you eating quinoa, millet, steamed veggies consistently, then a piece of pizza every once in awhile.

How many people besides me started salivating when they saw the picture of the pizza???

My mom actually went on Fred's diet over a year ago. She has always been on a 50% Raw Food diet eating many salads and berries. When she eliminated certain foods from her diet COMPLETELY (processed starches and refined sguar), amazing things started to happen. She used to religously watch her carbs. She was terrified to eat a banana or two due to the carb content. You would think she couldn't lose any more weight as to how keen she was on her intake. After she eliminated refined sugar and processed starches COMPLETELY, she started losing weight. She was dumbfounded that her weight loss continued while eating natural carbs, such as bananas and other fruits. She has been capped at a certain weight for years and then, she lost well over 10 more pounds on Fred’s Intermediate Diet!

And now your first question...
Juni, I recommend reading Raw Success, as it goes into great detail on this "cutting edge" information. It is a fascinating great portion of the book. I wouldn't call it cutting edge information. I am sure many of you that have improved your diet considerably, notice that cigarette smoke is actually damaging you more now then before? It is the same with the environmental toxins. In Raw Success I say we don't want to become too clean and I recommend not to eat less then a certain amount of raw foods as it may effect our longevity. I feel it is unwise to go raw with the decision to live the REST OF YOUR LIFE in a city. Living in a city is not conducive on this type of lifestyle. It will most likely take it's toll on you in the long-run. You can definitely get away with it short-term. If you look around the Raw Food community of people that are TRULY 100% Raw, they seem to all be living in relatively clean environments. When I went 100% Raw in NY, after a certain amount of time, I had to get out. It was too much. I think the best way to explain all this is to give you another excerpt from Raw Success:

Bottom line: Toxins have a more damaging effect on a cleaner body.
Exposure to these toxins will not shorten our life in the long-run. As healthy eaters, we rapidly heal from the damage done and will live a healthier, longer life if doing the 100% Raw Diet correctly.

However, if I were forced to live day and night in a smoky room with a 55-year-old man who had been Raw five years, and a man on a Standard American Diet, my seven-year Raw, early 30s body would suffer the most damage. The 55-year-old five year Raw Foodist would sustain minor cellular injury, and the SAD dieter may never feel a thing. Without new, good quality air and an opportunity to regenerate, my higher level of health would actually work against me in this situation.

Which brings us to this ironic fact: A body that is not full of vitality, and is in a weakened state, can endure and live longer under adverse conditions than a cleaner body. {Please note: This statement does not say that a less-vital body will “thrive and experience amazing vitality”, it merely implies survival.}

To illustrate this hypothesis, Hilton Hotema offers the perfect example in his book, Man’s Higher Consciousness.

In a clinical experiment, a group of scientists put Bird-A in a glass cage with no air outlets. Breath by breath, the bird exhaled CO2, and the air in the cage became increasingly more toxic. Because the process happened gradually, the bird was able to adapt to the CO2 rich environment. Bird-A was then removed from the glass cage. Bird-B was placed in the same CO2 rich environment. Bird-B died in moments from shock. Bird-B had no time to adapt like Bird-A, and the sudden extreme toxicity made it impossible to sustain life.

In addition to foods, we are very sensitive to air quality, to the toxic load we breathe with each inhale. Based on the bird example above, it stands to reason that if you took a man who walked this pristine Earth 5000 years ago and dropped him into the current polluted state of our planet, most likely he would not survive long.

Raw Food Makes Us More Sensitive
It is undeniable: I am dramatically more sensitive to cigarette smoke now as a Raw Foodist than when my diet was cooked. The damage to my cleaner, vulnerable cells is evident. In my first book, Raw Spirit, I wrote about a Raw woman who smokes cigarettes. She was unaware how injurious smoking was for her compared to someone on a typical diet. I encouraged her to either quit smoking or start eating cooked food, because the cleaner our diet, the more harmful foreign substances are to our body.

I strongly recommend reading Raw Success if this interests you. With all my might, I can’t explain it all here.

Lyn commented on our ongoing lemon/water discussion:

Hi Matt,
Just a note about brushing your teeth after drinking acidic juices - I have read for years that you should wait an hour or so after having an acidic juice before brushing your teeth as the acids soften the enamel and brushing teeth in this state is more harmful as the enamel can be damaged by the brushing action. Our saliva brings our teeth back to their usual hardened state after an hour or so. I always brush my teeth before having juice to avoid any acid-caused enamel erosion. Keep up the blogs - Angela's and yours are truly inspirational!
Love,
Lyn in Manchester, England

Wow!... Ummmm... So much advice from so many lovely individuals. I really want to drink hot water and lemon in the morning at some point to get the "Liver Flushing" benefits. Looks like I will need to brush my teeth first, use just a little bit of water, while using a glass straw, and doing three cart wheels & playing hop scotch, and then waiting an hour afterwards to brush my teeth again. ;)