Adaptation Abilities of the Body, and Logo Contest

As expected, I didn't sleep much the night after the Cracao Experiment. I have never in my entire life grated a cucumber or brushed my teeth so fast. I felt like I was on speed.

I don't want you to get the wrong idea abt what I am going to tell you now. Cacao wasn't necessarily 'the' culprit of this following experience; it was primarily the big jump away from my consistent diet. I generally eat the same kinds and quantities of food each day, which includes a certain amount of fat. I have been eating these amounts for MANY months now. When I had the cacao, it was in addition to the quantities of fat I have been eating each day.

The cacao products that I ate were composed of heavy concentrated fats, such as coconut butter and cacao butter... and... I did a good amount of it (2 truffles, 1 teapsoon of Amazon Bliss Coconut Butter, and 2 tablespoons of this goddess and god butters which were very concentrated in cacao butter.) This was in addition to my daily fat intake. Depending on your perspective, this may not seem like a lot. My body definitely wasn't used to these amounts. The next day, my nose POURED MUCUS. It was as if I were sick with a cold. I used an entire box of tissues. It went away within 24 hours, but my nose was POURING mucus. I have adapted into needing very little food, over the last 8 years of being raw. I am still feeling the effects of the cracao stimulation on some level, which has its ups and downs.

Ok... Let's keep it real. I woke up yesterday morning with a !!!!GRRRRRRRRrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!! Attitude. You wouldn't have wanted to be within three feet of me. I did a lot of cleansing in the evening and it was all coming out in the morning.

Jennifer wrote a question that really impressed me:

You were talking about how your body asks you to eat cleaner and cleaner. Does that mean that if I eat all raw and cure depression that way, that eventually, after say, several years, or more, the depression will come back because my body will be used to my diet and will want me to eat even cleaner?
Does my question make sense? just wondering.
Thanks,
Jennifer

I love it! I think you're understanding me.

Although depression is certainly multifaceted, we do reach new plateaus as we stabilize out into our new diets. The overall goal is to consistently eat less and less, as the years go by. When we reach these new levels of eating less, issues can arise if you then eat more than your consistent amount. An example would be my recent cacao experiment I just discussed here. If someone decides to go backwards by eating more foods, it has to be done slowly, with much care, as you adapt your body into accepting more and more foods. Here is an excerpt from Raw Success that will be very helpful in this instance:

It is crucial to understand the adaptation ability of our bodies. As many of us know from personal experience, the cleaner our diet, the more sensitive we become. For example, if someone completely eliminates processed starches and greasy foods from their diet, but three years later eats a slice of pizza, they will inevitably feel ill. The body adapts to what we do or do not do. When we improve our diet, we can no longer tolerate certain lower quality foods.

If you were to ingest an entire tablespoon of arsenic, chances are high that you would die. However, if you were to take a drop of arsenic once every three days and very gradually over many months increase the dosage, after three years you could likely survive that same tablespoon of arsenic. Building up your arsenic tolerance is not the healthiest thing to do for long-term health, but the example illustrates the amazing adaptive response of our bodies.

Not far removed from the arsenic example, is what most of us have been doing all our lives. Imagine feeding a newborn baby a Quarter Pounder with cheese. Your insides may shout in protest to the idea - "No, don't you dare!" The results could be devastating, similar perhaps to us suddenly consuming an entire tablespoon of arsenic.

We clearly see the mistake it would be to feed greasy fast food to an infant. What we may not be so quick to realize is that many children are given a version of fast food, being fed processed baby food three times a day. The constant runny nose warning is eventually silenced by repetition. Years pass, a variety of cooked/processed foods are added little by little, until eventually they can tackle that juicy hamburger. Building up your tolerance to "plastic food" is not the healthiest thing to do for long-term health, but you can do it - you did it.

As a 100% Raw Food Eater, you become pure and clean again, like a newborn. The longer you are Raw, the more sensitive you become. Processed foods you ate before are no longer tolerated. I have been on a Raw Diet for almost seven years. I am convinced that half a hamburger would put me in the hospital. If you were to give Dr. Fred Bisci, 40-year Raw Foodist, the same half hamburger, it could end in disaster. Yet most people on the planet can eat two hamburgers, slap their knee and say “Mmmmm”.

{The "Blood Gas Theory" article, explains exactly what happens on a cellular level as the body "adapts" and why we become more sensitive.}

Let's say you were eating the Standard American (Fast Food) Diet and you had a chronic degenerative disease. Then let's say you healed it by adhering to a 100% Raw Food diet and you stayed on this diet for 5 years. There is no doubt that you would reach a new plateau, become much cleaner, and need less food to maintain high energy levels. If you decided to go back to eating cooked foods, there is a great chance that this degenerative disease will come back, even if you aren't eating as poorly as you used to on the Standard American Diet. For five years you have been detoxing and your cells have been contracting (shrinking), removing waste from within their structures. There isn't as much space anymore inside the cells to accommodate the waste (fermentative gas) produced from poorer food choices. Disease commences on a cellular level and too much gas pressure can cause inflammation and cellular damage. Since your cells are smaller and you have reached this new plateau, less gas pressure can cause inflammation and cellular damage and disease can easily come back. To move backwards you would need to introduce poorer food choices slowly enough that your cells could slowly enlarge, to accommodate this extra waste.

As long as you continue to move forwards, by eating fewer kinds and quantities of foods AND if you are keeping up with the endogenous waste that is being excreted on a cellular level (i.e. COLON CLEANSING), then physically you should be ok. However, if you are 100% Raw and eating three avocadoes a day, at some point you'll become 'clean' enough that your body begs you to eat less and depression may indeed occur if you do not adhere.

You may also want to read Depression Free For Life, By Gabriel Cousens, which I am sure has other scientific information on how cooked foods chemically can relate to depression. In my opinion, depression has much more to do with other things than foods. I sometimes feel down and I am 100% Raw. This spiritual journey of ours' is a life-long process and we do the best we can. It is true that the more toxins that are present in our systems, the easier they could bring us down into depression. Cleansing the colon can help immensely with cleaning these toxins out.
Have you ever seen a movie where a religious body or similar organisation has the power and has 'tricked' Mankind into enslavement, in the name of 'the word of God' or something of that kind? Those kind of days have happened throughout Mankind's history.

Today we are experiencing the same thing. We are blinded to the truth of what is really going on in our societies, in terms of control and manipulation. As long as this is happening, there will be some sort of misery embedded deep down in the collective consciousness. I personally have been introduced to the light very slowly since becoming 100% Raw and honestly I still don't see it all. I am beginning to understand more and more each day. I feel that if any one of us were shown the way that it could be right now (i.e. true freedom and bliss for all), that we would literally go into absolute shock and overwhelming depression, when we compare that existence to the state most humans live in right now. I don't want to get into details about this because I will be preaching here for hours. Let's keep it to Raw Foods.

Lastly! We are re-designing and revving up www.TheRawFoodWorld.com. We would LOVE to have a beautiful new logo for the website and we are having a contest, to find our striking new emblem. Whoever sends in the logo that most resonates for us as the essence of 'The Raw Food World', will be our winner; they can choose one of three wonderful raw food-related prizes (see below) and the new logo will be used throughout our site, for all to enjoy :) You are free to send in as many designs as you like, with whichever themes excite you. I will say though that currently I see an image of our planet in this logo. We're definitely open to all concepts though ;)
To enter this contest, send your logo to me at Matt@RawSpirit.org. The winner of this contest will get to choose from one of the following 3 exciting prizes:

Needak Rebounder
Excalibur 5 Tray Dehydrator
$175 Superfoods Voucher

You have until midnight (Pacific Time), March 26th to send entries in and the winner will be chosen and announced shortly after that. We look forward to seeing your entries :)