Re: amino acids?

[Guest guest]

On Sun, 17 Feb 2002 13:07:59 -0000 " beckymauldin2001 "

<beckymauldin@...> writes:

I find this post very interesting and would like to understand more

of what you mean by the fact that most folks aren't pushing this diet

to the limit to get results. Can you get more specific? Of give

some examples?

Bianca: In all fairness, NT is a cookbook as you note, and a very

informative and well written cookbook at that. I love all the folks

committed to the work of Weston Price and disseminating it to the masses.

I have bought several cases of the book directly from the publisher and

they made great gifts at Christmas time.

But while I love the book, it is not written as a primer on radically

recovering health from degenerative disease although many folks do regain

health as a result of applying its principles. And while anything can

happen in any given instance you generally are not going to look to it to

eradicate some very serious problems just because of the format it is

written. If someone you love has cancer you are not generally going to

give NT as a start to dealing with the problem. You will most likely send

them to someone who can specifically deal with the problem and may even

use NT principles (hopefully). You may later pass the book along for

nutritional support but not as the first word in curing disease.

I think a great benefit to the public at large would be to have the first

70 pages or so of NT published as a separate pamphlet. There are so many

great and fantastic ideas within those pages that could use, imo, a

platform of its own. Outside of Ron Schmid, I am not aware of a truly

readable modern rendition of Price's work (I could be wrong). Many people

I know still haven't read those first pages in their entirety even though

they use the recipes and read the very informative side bars. When I ask

why not the usual retort, " its a cookbook for Gods sake! " We all know it

is so much more.

But the overall corpus of material that Weston Price (and to a lesser

extent Francis Pottenger) left certainly can be applied to fight

degenerative disease not in just a preventive manner but also

proactively. To that extent you would have to look to groups like the

Masai and the Eskimos, whose diets were nearly all raw to deal with

things like cancer for example.

In my work with cancer cooked animal proteins of any kind were

immediately discontinued. They never helped and often hurt no matter what

the source. Raw fats (butter, cream, milk, coconut cream, eggs) and raw

meats (beef and seafood) were specific for dissolving and removing dead

tissue and neutralizing toxicity. Fresh veggie juices were a must as

well. There were other things we did as which often dramatically helped.

With the exception of the veggie juices this all fits within a NT

framework.

As NT is set up as a cookbook, I can see how people would just pick

and choose certain recipes and still eat the way they used to. I

didn't realize the importance of certain aspects of this diet until I

read Weston Price's book and others, like Henry Bieler. Now, I pick

and choose from the various recipes in NT according to what I know my

body will handle well. But I know I'm not even applying all of the

principles yet. In your opinion and from experience, what are the

more important aspects of NT that most of your patients get results

from applying?? Raw foods/meats?

Bianca: No question that raw animal foods is the most important aspect of

this tradition from a therapeutic/healing aspect in my experience.

Vegetation just did not help in general unless it was in the form of

green juices or green foods like various unheated algae(with rare

exceptions we did not use fruit juices as the sugar content was just way

to high and often exacerbated problems). My experience is that while

vegetables (fermented or otherwise) and whole fruits (along with grains)

can be great for a health maintenance diet, in the recovery from disease

they are not. And that is a distinction that needs to be made.

Over the long haul a combination of raw and cooked is where most of us

will land and rightly so. An all raw regimen for life just isn't

something that most people would or need to do. Recovering from health

(raw or mostly raw) is different from maintaining health (more cooked

food). However I have a number of clients who have chosen to remain 85 to

100% raw. For those who are desirous of doing it the benefits are

outstanding. I myself fall into this category. With a little flair and

panache it is something that can be very tasty and socially not that hard

to do (but ask for cold on a cold plate and you are just looking for

social problems :-)

I think of several of my junk food eating friends who wouldn't dare think

of wasting a steak (in their words) by having it cooked beyond bloody

rare. These people are easy to work with when they get sick as they were

already eating nearly raw animal proteins. The same goes for so called

lacto-ovo vegetarians. They already have a good foundation for getting

them on raw dairy. And really in our culture raw meat is the only raw

food that people seem to have a real problem with, socially speaking, and

with the growing consumption of rare meats and raw seafood, it is not

that big of a hill to climb. So it can be done.

But all raw will ONLY work if you partake liberally of animal foods. Raw

vegans are deluding themselves and setting themselves up for some serious

health problems down the line.

just my thoughts

[Guest guest]

Bianca: No question that raw animal foods is the most important aspect of

this tradition from a therapeutic/healing aspect in my experience.

Vegetation just did not help in general unless it was in the form of

green juices or green foods like various unheated algae(with rare

exceptions we did not use fruit juices as the sugar content was just way

to high and often exacerbated problems). My experience is that while

vegetables (fermented or otherwise) and whole fruits (along with grains)

can be great for a health maintenance diet, in the recovery from disease

they are not. And that is a distinction that needs to be made.

Becky,

My comments about fruit juices are incomplete. It is not just that the

sugar content was too high but that it existed in a less than whole form.

For some reason that was not a problem with vegetable juices, and I

always attributed it to a lower sugar content. But sugar per se is not

the issue as witnessed by my extensive use of unheated and unfiltered

honey to facilitate healing.

[Guest guest]

Excellent book!

>

> > By the way, it should say Mendellsohn, not Mendel.

> >

> > ---

> > Also, what sort of practitioner are you? I'm interested to know

your

> > background and how you learned to apply NT principles to healing

and

> > what sort of results you are getting with it....

> >

> > Thanks for sharing,

> > Becky

> >

> > Hi Becky,

> >

> > I guess I should start by telling you that I have degrees in

philosophy

> > (Ph.D.), medicine (MD) and plan on earning a doctorate in

economics as

> > soon as my family situation will allow. I hesitate to tell you

this

> > because there is a very real sense that none of this background

has any

> > real bearing on what I have developed over the years in terms of

> healing

> > diseases and treating patients. But it is important to some folks

so

> > there you have it.

> >

> > I am clearly a medical heretic and make no bones about it. My

hero over

> > the years has been Dr. Mendel, and if you haven't read his

books

> I

> > suggest you run, not walk to the store, and buy them.

> >

> >

[Guest guest]

On Mon, 18 Feb 2002 08:59:22 -0500 " "

<R@...> writes:

To Bianca3 and Marasco,

First, the raw foods issue. Having had some study inTraditional Chinese

Medicine, my understanding is that the consideration of the energetics of

foods take precedence over the chemical composition, and the individual

subtle energy requirements would determine whether raw foods

(yin/cooling) would be more appropriate for a certain condition than

cooked foods (yang/warming).

,

I am not much of an expert in TCM so you will have to take my comments

with a grain of salt.

Folks have been giving me and sending me stuff for years defending and

explaining the power of raw foods not based on chemical composition but

based on energy! In fact I just read something the other day talking

about the life energy of raw milk fades within two hours of leaving the

animal to where it is not even measurable. Now I know clinically that raw

milk straight from a GRASS FED animal was extremely powerful

therapeutically, much more so than after it had sat for 24 hours.

Bernard Jensen wrote that you have about 4 hours before the energy has

dissipated (referring to raw goats milk). What I found was that the older

(energy depleted?) milk was adequate for maintaining health but was

highly unreliable when it came to healing the body. So I don't know if

the energy you are talking about is the same as what these other folks

are talking about but my guess would be that they would argue that those

foods which provide the most bioactive nutrients would also be those

foods with the highest energy levels. That certainly has been my

experience.

Most of us with a less-than-optimal nutritional history would be termed

" deficient " in TCM, and would require more warming, building foods as

opposed to cooling/detoxifying. This is of course an oversimplification,

but the point being that most people with chronic problems are in

" deficiency " rather than " excess " , and these are treated very differently

with foods and herbs, according also to many other differential

diagnostic criteria. This paradigm also is somewhat parallel to Ayurvedic

medicine and other traditional healing systems that are fundamentally

vitalistic in approach.

Me: As you are probably aware there is a great debate in nutritional

circles as to the validity of the " deficiency " concept as a valid tool

for treating disease. Not that there isn't truth in the statement as far

as it goes but that it doesn't get to the heart of the matter.

Nevertheless I think the vitalistic approach is far more satisfying than

the mechanistic approach in treating disease and as you will see in a

moment I'm not sure " raw foods only " as a therapeutic tool is at odds

with this perspective.

So this is where these vitalistic approaches seem to contradict the

wisdom of eating raw foods, at least for those who are constitutionally

cold/deficient and need the warming properties of cooked foods.

Cousens who is a proponent of raw, " living " foods and also of

Ayurvedic medicine, seeks a compromise by using warming herbs to warm up

the raw foods, or slightly heating them, and other preparation methods to

change their energetic quality to meet the needs of a cold/deficient

person without compromising the integrity of the raw food.

Me: One of the great myths of raw fooding is that it is inherently " cold "

in its approach and needs to be altered. This may be true of raw

vegetarians but is not true of those who incorporate animal foods

therapeutically. Again I'm talking about that which is necessary in

treating disease, not in maintaining health, which is what most people

are thinking of in terms of " cold " raw foods.

For example, raw milk should be taken and drunk warm from the animal

within a few hours. It is powerful this way. Butter, cream, cheese and

oils should always be processed and eaten at body temperature or less but

never cold. Specifically a food should never be consumed or processed at

an ambient temp. higher than it would occur in nature. No frozen foods

when using animal products for a variety of reasons. I think this would

definitely fit into the " cold/deficient " paradigm. Nevertheless, we

treated everyone this way, whether they would qualify as " cold " or

" warm " . Why? because it worked.

For me personally, those methods have not been enough, and my

cold/deficient constitution seems to require much more warmth and

building both of yin and yang. Raw foods for the most part are just too

difficult for me to digest in any form, except for certain foods like

avocado which are less fibrous. In TCM terms, the fiber has a cooling

energy, and cools down the digestive fire, weakening it in someone whose

digestive fire is already low. For someone whose digestion is robust,

that effect is well tolerated.

Me: As I said in an earlier post, my approach to raw foods included very

little fiber. It just seemed to put a strain on the body when it was

trying to get well, and this was true of nearly everyone we worked with

" warm " or " cold " . I'm guessing that you are thinking more along the lines

of fruit and vegetables when you refer to raw, since you mentioned

avocado as an example of what you could tolerate. But butter, cream,

milk, eggs and animal flesh are nearly devoid of fiber and we included

unheated honey to stoke the digestive fires.

So my first question is, how do you reconcile the superiority of raw food

over cooked, with the wisdom of the traditional healing systems? TCM was

developed for a constitutionally cold population which in many respects

is much like ours. Although, other healing systems like Nature Cure were

developed on robust peasant populations whose vital force was strong

enough to respond to very simple interventions like a few sessions of

hydrotherapy. Now with all the stress, allopathic drugging, and

environmental pollution weakening our vital force, our constituions are

energetically different from theirs, so we can't apply the methods of

these traditions to modern populations by rote.

Me: hopefully what I said earlier addresses your question here.

Getting back to raw foods.. how would you work with raw foods with

someone whose digestion isn't strong enough yet to handle them? I've used

fermented vegetables but even so, the fiber is still not broken down

enough for me to digest it, although I use the juice and try to get

enzymes any which way I can.

Me: We are back to vegetables again and my short response is to give them

up. They will not help in your condition. What I would suggest is to

juice green vegetables (about three glasses) each day using various

combos. You will find this an enormous benefit without having to deal

with the fiber and you will get much more nutrition from your vegetables

this way. I don't recommend this with fruits but veggies do work. I also

used some concentrated whole green foods that were tolerated quite well

and provided more nutrition than land vegetables anyway.

Second, raw animal foods are loaded with enzymes and one of the first

things people notice is the improvement in digestion when they adopt such

a regimen. Not to mention the hydrophilic nature of raw foods which

improves their digestion and makes more nutrients available to the body

for health and healing.

Third, unheated raw honey will do wonders for your digestion as well as

help replace missing enzymes.

I also know many people with inflammatory bowel problems (mine is much

less severe) who have made remarkable recoveries with very radical diets

but still can't tolerate raw foods.

Would appreciate your thoughts on this.

Me: Hey at the end of the day if it works for you lets all glory in it.

You will never hear me diss someone if they recovered from something

using a protocol I don't espouse. Ultimately the goal is to reach and

enjoy optimal health. If someone gets there other than with a route I

would suggest, more power to them.

I did have a regimen that worked quite well using certain oils and

certain fruits. The only animal protein I would use initially was raw

kefir. Also used raw aloe vera gel. Used a couple of other herbal items

as well that would soothe the bowel and help in recovery. If you want

more specifics I would be happy to provide them.

[Guest guest]

I think you are making this too complicated. I have dealth

with so many absolutely debilitated people on this issue. If you

have someone who " can barely tolerate cooked vegetables " they are NOT

being digestively supported properly plain and simple. There are

lots of gray areas with IBD and its cousins however this is not one

of them. I can show you people who refuse to change their diet

however have their digestive system supported properly and their

improvement is dramatic. Now this is not what I recommend just to

provide support so you can poison yourself to death is absurd, but

even those absurdities improve. This illness is not about what can

and cannot be tolerated it is about fixing the digestive system they

broke. Would I recommend going all raw on day one, of course not but

there is no reason on god's green earth that with the proper

digestive support that that person cannot eat 1 raw carrot or 1 raw

celery stick. Absolutely no reason at all other than their digestive

system is not being supported properly. I am rarely this black an

white on issues however I see people coming in all the time where the

pros they've consulted with have convinced them that they

are " intolerant " " sensitive " and " allergic " to everything except for

oxygen and the only thing they really are once they've gotten to this

point is starving to death, malnourished and convinced they can eat

nothing. This is a support issue first short term and if they want

to really lick it obviously they must stop poisoning themselves.

Sincerely,

DMM

> ,

>

> Great comments, thanks.

>

> >> Firstly is I conveniently use

> the fundamental premise of TCM which is balance. I find that the

> extremes are where most folks especially americans and finding some

> balance is usually where the real solutions are. <<

>

> Yes; this is where the various healing systems seem to converge.

>

> >> As you know there

> are so many divergent views in the world of diet and nutrition and

> the reason being is that these views were usually inspired by

> circumstance. Geography, famine, disease, etc... so obviously they

> would necessitate differing views. <<

>

> Yes; the various systems were developed for specific populations.

This is why TCM is so good at tonic therapy, because the climate was

cold and food shortages were common, so the same kind of

cold/deficient conditions were seen then as we have now in many

instances of chronic illness. By contrast, some of the European

healing traditions were seeing people with more excess constitutions

who tended to get more " heat " symptoms like acute fevers, and they

could take a single cooling herb like goldenseal, take juices or fast

(also a cooling therapy) and get better quickly. Now with our complex

chronic illnesses we can take the wisdom of those traditions but we

have to know how to use it in a new context and make important

distinctions.

>

> >>So to say that raw food may not be good for someone because they

don't

> tolerate it well, in my experience is putting the cart before the

> horse. The faulty function here is not in the raw food it is in the

> person not enveloping that food properly.<<

>

> Yes, I fully agree! But I think that at the same time, someone in

that condition can't just plunge into an ideal diet, no matter how

well chewed, but has to start from where they are. I know people who

can barely tolerate cooked veggies let alone raw ones. Maybe

introducing small amounts of active enzymes, like sauerkraut juice,

is the way to go in that case.

>

> >>The fiberousness of a raw food should be a non issue. <<

>

> For people with inflamed intestines, it can be way too irritating

even in small amounts. I think this has to be approached from a

different angle for them (and for me to a certain extent).

>

> >>Secondly if the gut is sufficiently acidic this again should be a

non issue,

> essentially (excuse my exaggeration) with a sufficiently acidic gut

> one should be able to swallow a car part without any problem at

all.

> So this is another place to look. <<

>

> Good point, and years of eating a high starch diet has compromised

my gastric acidity, and I'm sure that's very common.

>

> >>However on the other side of the

> coin as far as the energy imparted from applying fire to your food,

> the alchemy is essential. That does not mean scortch the food it

> just means bringing fire to the food most definetly makes a huge

> difference. <<

>

> Yes, this has a profound energetic implication in TCM.

>

> >> In reference to this topic, Bianca is primarily speaking

> of people who are practically on their death beds and that is a

> pretty extreme place to be. They really don't have the luxury of

> debating as to whether they " tolerate " something well or not. <<

>

> Okay, that helps me sort things out here. Yet I'm wondering if the

foods that are not tolerated are also the foods that may not be

energetically indicated. My herbalism teacher Tierra says

that rather than think in terms of side effects, either a food or

herb is indicated for the person or it isn't. I'm no expert in TCM

either, but my understanding is that cancer is an excess condition

that needs eliminative therapy (forgive the oversimplification

again), while someone equally as ill but with a deficiency condition

would be made worse by that kind of eliminative treatment. So even in

an extreme situation, the treatment would need to be indicated

energetically, even if it was a little rough on the person. That's

different from taking remedies (foods or herbs) that are rough on you

because they're not suited to your condition or constitution.

>

> So the question is what is the individual's differential diagnosis

and what is needed to bring about balance in each particular

situation.

>

> >> An addendum to that is

> this also becomes a climate issue. Try living in Alberta or

> Wisconsin or Montana year after year in winter after winter on raw

> fruits and vegetables. I bet you can't. So also as the TCM would

> take into account the climate also plays a role. Obviously because

> it requires different demands.<<

>

> Absolutely. I think it's interesting that Tibetan Buddhists are

known for eating meat, while many Buddhists in southeast area can

adopt a more vegetarian diet, vegetarian diet being very cooling and

unbalanced, but in the tropics it can be done more easily than most

of us could.

>

> Best,

>

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

, I completely agree that it's not a matter of sensitivities to be

catered to, but that the digestion needs support. I only meant to say, in the

case of IBDers not tolerating raw veggies, that there's an interim period when

the diet is being improved and the necessary support being given, but it takes

time for a trashed system to heal. I guess I might not have explained what I

meant about " intolerance " well enough.

-

[Guest guest]

hi !

I would highly recommend the cultured cabbage juice! Do you make your own

sauerkraut?

Jenna

Portland, OR

---------------------------------

[Guest guest]

On Mon, 18 Feb 2002 15:19:54 -0000 " drmichaelmarasco "

<mmarasco@...> writes:

....Firstly is I conveniently use

the fundamental premise of TCM which is balance. I find that the

extremes are where most folks especially americans and finding some

balance is usually where the real solutions are.

Me: Ah, the return of Aristotle. He was a big believer that the truth

normally was found somewhere in the middle. And he is one of the greatest

influences on Western thought.

As you know there

are so many divergent views in the world of diet and nutrition and

the reason being is that these views were usually inspired by

circumstance. Geography, famine, disease, etc... so obviously they

would necessitate differing views. I really don't find ALL raw or

ALL cooked to be a functional way for humans to eat.

ME: You can get away with an all cooked diet and no one will say a word

in our society socially speaking (except maybe our Moms :-). However, in

terms of physical functioning most folks will eventually begin to break

down, often as little children. You can get away with a raw diet that

includes animal foods functionally, i.e. without any real breakdown, but

socially you will have some challenges to overcome, make no mistake about

it.

Nevertheless both of these " extremes " have been used to heal people. One

of the greatest distinctions that needs to made in health today is the

difference between a therapeutic diet, used for the recovery from

disease, and a health maintaining diet, which obviously allows for more

leeway. One of the main differences though is that we have no evidence

that an all cooked diet can maintain health generationally, we do have

ample evidence that a mostly raw diet that contains animal foods

certainly can. This is where raw vegans tend to run into trouble, trying

to maintain their children on the same diet which apparently sustains

them - until the later stages when they themselves start having problems.

<snip> In reference to this topic, Bianca is primarily speaking

of people who are practically on their death beds and that is a

pretty extreme place to be. They really don't have the luxury of

debating as to whether they " tolerate " something well or not. They

have the edict of " live or die " . These situations can require an

extreme response.

Me: These situations require a STRONG response as I would always try to

counsel my cohorts. Say what one will about certain aspects of medicine,

but they do understand that when the body is in the grip of disease it

will take a strong/extreme response to set things right. So they will

stick a poker up a man's genitalia to see if he has cancer, they cut

holes in the side of someone's stomach and give them a pouch to poop in

for life, they will chop off a breast, saw a chest bone in half, or

otherwise burn and mutilate to try to make things right. This is RADICAL

and EXTREME but at least the medical profession understands the gravity

of the problem, and does try to treat things with some wimpy herbs, or

crystals, or some other limp wristed approach. But heck, using foods and

herbs as I do, in light of that, is not extreme at all.

However my experience says if you show me someone

on an all raw eating regimen, give them my card because they will be

needing some help in a few months or years.

Me: I'll be happy to send all raw vegans your way. You might, but I doubt

you will see a raw animal fooder in the bunch.

An addendum to that is

this also becomes a climate issue. Try living in Alberta or

Wisconsin or Montana year after year in winter after winter on raw

fruits and vegetables. I bet you can't.

Me: Amen! That is why I say bring on the milk, cream, eggs, butter,

coconut cream, coconut oil, olive oil, beef, lamb, fish, etc. Mostly raw

of course. Throw in some plant foods if you like if we can find them

during the winter. Again I hope no one here thinks that I am sugessting a

diet of raw fruits and vegetables. I haven't even HINTED at such a thing.

One of my missions in life is to stamp out the naive vegetarian wherever

he/she may be found (only joking).