menstruation [Now very LONG!]

[Guest guest]

here's a long one from :

http://www.waldorfhomeschoolers.com/menstruation.htm

that includes some Shelton stuff, Kulvinskas, and others...

[Kytka's Pick

Menstruation - - Is it Really Necessary?

August 1, 2002

[special Thanks to Habib at misc.health.alternative.]

Women call it " the Curse " with feeling and good reason - the monthly

bleeding of menstruation, with its days of inconvenience, discomfort

and pain, is the bane of women's existence from menarche to menopause.

So universal in our modern culture is this miserable experience that

it is assumed to be inevitable. Doctors and the women's media attempt

to cast it in a favourable light with trite comments about " welcoming "

it as the sign and sacrifice one makes in " becoming a woman " . Yet

there is probably not a woman anywhere who wouldn't gladly do away

with it if she safely could!

In fact, menstruation as most of us experience it is neither natural

nor healthy. Ovulation does not depend on it. And it can be changed

very much for the better - even to the extent of not experiencing it

at all yet remaining healthy and fertile. How this can be done has

been known and written about by health practitioners for centuries,

and practiced just as long by women willing to make the simple but

significant lifestyle changes involved.

So why haven't most of us heard about this before?

It is because the lifestyle improvements involved, although simple,

are quite a change from most modern women's habits of living and

eating. No drugs or even nutritional supplements are required, but

what is essential is the adoption of what health writer Kenton

calls a " high raw way of eating " .

In practice this means that each meal contains more fresh, raw foods

than cooked or processed foods; that animal product foods are

eliminated altogether, along with salt, sugar, alcohol, refined fats

and oils, most condiments, artificial additives and stimulating

beverages. Many people say that they " would rather die than give up

all that tasty stuff! " And indeed they will -- after living years in

increasingly poorer health, through menstruation and menopausal

" symptoms " , and often ending with heart disease and cancer.

If you are a young woman and not yet experiencing the uncomfortable

and worrying signs of hormone imbalance that increasingly plague women

from the mid-thirties on, then you may baulk at making such as change.

But think back to when you were a teenager, just after experiencing

your first period - did you say, as so many do, " I'd do anything if I

could get rid of these periods! " Certainly older women who have found

out about the connection between diet and menstruation often say, " If

I'd known this as a girl, I'd surely have changed - but I don't have

the determination and drive now. " They are literally worn out by

decades of " the Curse " , drained of health, vitality and enthusiasm.

Some of these women are probably thinking, " It's not long until

menopause - I'll put up with it all a bit longer, then it'll be over. "

Unfortunately, only the bleeding will be over, often after years of

miserably irregular menstruation. And the related signs of ill health

soon become so dramatic they can't be ignored: osteoporosis, cysts and

tumors, and rapid ageing among them. At this point, older women may

once again feel motivated to improve their lot, even if it does

involve big lifestyle changes.

" Hemorrhage in the uterus is no more normal than is hemorrhage in the

brain or lungs. "

Why do women menstruate - and what's " normal " about it? During the

days before a woman ovulates, the lining of the womb - the endometrium

- thickens in preparation for a possible conception. If the egg

released at ovulation passes through the womb unfertilized, the

thickened endometrial tissues are not needed - and in a truly healthy

woman, as in animals in their wild state, those tissues are mostly

reabsorbed. What remains is expelled over a short period of time as a

slight mucus discharge (2:28-29; 15:227).

The majority of women in modern cultures however, experience instead a

copious disabling monthly bleeding - that neither their wild primate

cousins nor humans living close to nature do (2:30; 15:232).

Insightful doctors have long been aware that nature did not intend the

ovulation cycle to be accompanied by cramping, nervous tension, or any

of the long list of symptoms we've come to associate with " having a

period " - let alone by the days of bloody flow we now accept as

" normal " , but which they rightly call a hemorrhage:

" ...menstruation...is a harmful hemorrhage involving the loss of vital

fluid.... [The] conclusions of those [gynecologists] who have studied

the subject are that, primarily and fundamentally, menstruation is a

hemorrhage. NO authority on earth can successfully maintain that a

hemorrhage is natural and normal, no matter in what part of the body

it occurs. " (2:24)

" Hemorrhage is NOT a condition of health.... It is a pathological

state and is always harmful and sometimes dangerous. Hemorrhage in the

uterus is no more normal than is hemorrhage in the brain or lungs. It

is less dangerous only because the uterus is less vital to the

immediate welfare of the body. " (2:24)

It has also been long observed that not only do some apparently

healthy women, even in our culture, never menstruate, but that

non-menstruating women can be fertile and have healthy children. That

is, ovulation does not require menstruation (2:28; 15:225). Natural

Hygiene teacher Herbert Shelton noted this in his patients:

" I personally know one woman who is the mother of five children and

she has never menstruated in her life. I know another who menstruated

during her adolescent period, married a man who had changed his way of

living to a truly natural life style, she joined him in his health

regime and became a fine specimen of health and ceased menstruating.

Thereafter she had three children, all delivered naturally and

painlessly and never menstruated again in her life. " (2:28)

Menstruation as we know it IS common, so common it is " the norm " , and

in that sense alone " normal " . But it certainly is not healthy - or

necessary.

So why do most women in our society experience such bleeding episodes?

A clue comes from animals. Wild relatives of the domestic animals do

not menstruate. They have mating seasons - called heat, rut or estrus

- which usually happen only once or twice a year. At this time the

females ovulate and their genital organs become slightly congested and

moistened with mucus in preparation for mating and likely conception

(2:36-37). In the wild, nature has tied ovulation closely to the

availability of food, and in times of scarcity estrus may not occur.

But in domesticated animals and animals kept in zoos who have constant

access to unnatural and often concentrated food supplies, the picture

is very different - these animals experience a periodic bloody

discharge the equivalent of human menstruation. This is especially

noticeable in normally plant-eating animals made to eat dry

high-protein feed. When these captive animals are instead fed on the

fresh natural plant foods they'd normally eat, the menstruation ceases.

" Experiments on animals have conclusively shown that the frequency of

ovulation, and consequently estrus (corresponding to menstruation in

humans), is a DIRECT function of diet. Over-feeding, especially on

protein foods (and of the wrong kind of protein), has the tendency to

accelerate (stimulate) the growth and bursting of the Graafian

follicles [which produce the eggs] by creating an excess of follicular

fluid. In women this results in menstrual discharge.... Undomesticated

animals do NOT menstruate.... But under conditions of domestication or

captivity, these sexual periods become more frequent, and the genital

congestion attending them becomes more intense, until it finally

manifests as a menstrual hemorrhage. It is now agreed by most

observers that the cause of menstruation among domesticated animals is

the food they receive at the hands of man. In other words, after the

non-menstruating animal is captured, the pro-estrum becomes

transformed into a bloody flow as a result of unnatural foods and

artificial conditions of living. " (2:37)

Is the cause likely to be any different in humans? No. The effects of

congestion on womb tissues and the fine capillaries, or arterioles,

which nourish them are the same with all creatures who have those

structures (15:230). And the key is live food.

What is this connection between diet and menstruation? What is

actually happening in the womb to make it hemorrhage? A poor diet,

with significant excesses of some nutrients and deficiencies of

others, causes a breakdown in the transport of nutrients to and wastes

from the cells throughout the body. Blood vessels become more porous,

allowing fluids to seep out between the cells of the tissues creating

congestion. Residues from improper digestion contribute to a state of

body-wide poisoning, or toxemia. Dietary deficiencies and related

hormone imbalance combine to increase the fragility of capillary walls

so that under the increased pressure of unnatural congestion they

rupture when the womb contracts to slough off the unneeded endometrial

tissues after the unfertilized egg has passed through.

" It is now agreed by most observers that the cause of menstruation

among domestic animals is the food they receive at the hands of man. "

Structurally the human body is designed for the same kind of diet that

other primates eat. Our teeth, intestinal tract, digestive organs and

their secretions are not those of a carnivore like the wolf, nor a

herbivore like the cow - but of a frugivore, or fruit-eater, like the

apes and most monkeys - whose natural foods are mostly fruits and

vegetable matter.

Modern man's diet however includes large amounts of protein foods from

animal products and dried legumes and grains - none of which he can

easily digest, and all of which leave his normally alkaline body in an

acid condition. The body's attempt to neutralize this condition by

keeping the blood-calcium high results in badly disrupted mineral

levels, with both calcium depletion from the bones and deposition of

excess calcium in joints, blood vessels and organs (11:80-87; 5:178,

270-271; 7:196). On top of this, our high fat consumption clogs the

blood vessels and leaves the blood thick with sludge, diminishing its

ability to carry oxygen and nutrients (5).

The body is over-burdened by the task of dealing with excess protein

and fats, with the large amounts of sugar and salt consumed daily, and

with the often unavoidable external pollutants taken in day after day

in modern living. Overwhelmed with this difficult-to-dispose-of

debris, the body stores what it can't eliminate in the fat cells and

inside blood vessels, organs and joints, often walling off or

" encysting " the rubbish. Debris from incomplete digestion builds up in

the intestine and over-worked organs of elimination, blocking normal

organ function. A condition of bodily poisoning exists.

This debris attracts trouble for the body - environmental poisons are

stored in fat deposits or escape breakdown by the overworked liver and

migrate to far-flung organs (including the brain) where the weakened

body can't deal with them. These poison-laden tissues and deposits

themselves become feeding and breeding grounds for microbes and

parasites, natural co-inhabitants in our bodies whose numbers get

dangerously out of hand because the weakened immune system hasn't the

reserves to deal with them. Eventually, in desperation to survive, the

cells revert to primitive forms which can function in virtual

starvation conditions. Unfortunately for the body, the more primitive

the cells become, the less they heed the " working rules " of the organ

they belong to - they begin behaving independently, reproducing

rapidly, amenable to no controls: the toxic-laden area becomes

cancerous (3; 4; 5).

Most of us living the Western lifestyle and eating a modern diet with

its excesses, deficiencies and adulterants, exist in a state of

chronic toxemia. Our bodies try repeatedly to clean up the situation,

with " colds " , " fevers " , and frequent discharges of waste-laden mucus.

In the womb this commonly takes the form of a whitish discharge

referred to as leucorrhea (literally " white flow " ). Leucorrhea, like

menstruation, is a " catarrhal " condition, a " down-flowing " of mucus

due to chronic congestion and inflammation. It has been noticed that

women who have profuse mucus discharges of this sort are also likely

to have severe menstrual symptoms - and problems with constipation.

Like other catarrhal conditions, leucorrhea occurs in an acid body

clogged with the by-products of high protein consumption (2:23, 36).

The congestion and inflammation of toxemia cause tenderness and

enlargement of the womb, with a raised blood pressure that puts a

strain on the tiny capillaries of the endometrium. These - and all the

body's blood vessels - periodically become more or less fragile in

response to ups and downs in the levels of the hormone estrogen and

the nutrients vitamin C, bioflavonoids and beta-carotene (15:227-230;

13:109-110), all of which play roles in strengthening capillary walls.

An important function of vitamin C is to form and keep strong the

jelly-like material called collagen, or " connective tissue " , that

holds together all the cells in the body - including those in the

walls of your blood vessels. Bioflavonoids, plant substances which

always occur in natural foods with vitamin C, protect that vitamin and

reduce the amount of it you need. A deficiency in the diet of the

nutrients needed for collagen formation will result in weak, porous

collagen and congestion of the tissues with foreign substances that

seep through the weak capillary walls - including viruses, toxins,

drugs, allergens, and wastes from improper digestion (8:123). This is

what happens in the " water-logging " , or oedema, that swells ankles and

fingers during pregnancy and as you age.

Almost no one in our modern culture gets enough of these essential

nutrients from their diet. The amounts in processed foods and drinks

are negligible - even their content in fruit, normally the richest

natural source, is dramatically reduced after the fruit is picked and

left to sit or in storage before eating. Except for those who make a

point of daily eating plenty of fresh fruits, most of us exist in a

condition of " subclinical scurvy " - with bleeding and diseased gums,

easy bruising, poor wound and bone healing, eye problems, and poor

immunity (8:122-125). And in women, this state intensifies menstrual

bleeding.

Researchers have noticed that a good supply of bioflavonoids in

particular seems to be essential for maintaining strong capillary

walls. Commercial juices and most vitamin C supplements, which many

rely on to keep their vitamin level up, don't include bioflavonoids.

In fact, even when people eat citrus fruits, one of the best natural

sources of vitamin C, they often throw out the white part of the rind,

the very part rich in bioflavonoids! So it's not surprising that so

many of us are deficient in these nutrients - nor that our blood

vessel walls are weak (13:107-108).

Some research has also indicated that beta-carotene, the nutrient

which becomes vitamin A during digestion, may play a similar role. A

deficiency causes abnormal growth and early death of the cells in

mucous membranes, such as those lining the womb, and the " accumulation

of profuse debris " sloughs off and contributes to leucorrhea (8:56).

It is suspected that beta-carotene may contribute in still

unidentified ways to resistance to bleeding (15:228; 13:109-110). Not

surprisingly, this nutrient is also often low in modern diets.

But there's another angle to this story as well. Investigations have

discovered that bioflavonoids and the hormone estrogen are

surprisingly similar, even interchangeable in some of their functions

- including in their use to strengthen blood vessel walls (13:108;

15:228-229). When the womb lining, the endometrium, is thickening each

month, many tiny new blood vessels are created. Normally, these would

be strengthened by bioflavonoids and related nutrients. But if blood

levels of estrogen happen to be high, and/or the supply of

bioflavonoids low, the estrogen may be used to strengthen the blood

vessel walls instead.

At first glance this seems like a handy little substitution - but

there's a problem with using estrogen in the capillary walls. The body

always tries to keep the level of estrogen in the blood stable. It can

be at a constant low level or at an even high level, but whichever,

the body's aim is to keep it steady. When production of estrogen by

the ovaries naturally drops around twelve days after ovulation, the

blood level of estrogen drops. If it happens to fall too dramatically,

the body will try to raise the level by withdrawing estrogen from

blood vessel walls throughout the body, leaving them weak and porous.

You may have noticed that at this time of month even a scratch bleeds

more readily.

When this happens in the womb, the tiny arterioles of the endometrium

are left in a very fragile state and are unable to stand up to the

minute contractions involved in endometrial regression, let alone to

any increased pressure due to toxic congestion and constipation

(15:227, 230). They rupture on a large scale, and the endometrial

tissues they were nourishing begin to die on an equally large scale.

The means by which those tissues could have been reabsorbed is gone,

and the lining, blood and mucus are shed in what we've come to call

the " menstrual period " . As the ovaries again begin to produce more

estrogen several days later, the bleeding slows and stops.

Two things are obvious from this: 1) that estrogen in the blood vessel

walls would not be withdrawn if blood levels didn't drop; and 2) that

a plentiful supply of bioflavonoids and related nutrients would ensure

they were used in capillary construction in the first place, instead

of estrogen, thereby avoiding the risk of bleeding from estrogen

withdrawal (15:229).

After menopause, this drop is naturally avoided with the steady low

levels of estrogen produced. It can be unnaturally avoided before

menopause by taking certain synthetic hormone drugs which keep it at a

steady high level. But before menopause years, it is in facta natural

part of the fertility cycle for ups and downs in hormone production to

occur and no health benefit is gained from artificially controlling

the hormone level. What is not natural however is to experience

menstrual bleeding - and this can be eliminated by changing the diet

to end the congestion of toxemia and ensure an abundant supply of the

nutrients necessary for maintaining strong blood vessels.

What has to change in the diet in order to eliminate menstruation?

Foods which contribute to toxemia are no longer eaten. Foods which

build health, and especially strong connective tissue, without taxing

the digestion are the only foods eaten. The body is helped to

eliminate toxic wastes built up over past years of poor lifestyle and

diet. Without doubt, the hardest part of this change for most people

is the first one. It means no more eating foods which sludge up or

acidify the body. This means eliminating animal products - meat, fish,

dairy, eggs -- refined sugars and salt, and dramatically reducing

grain foods and even processed plant fats (oils). The diet essentially

must become " true vegetarian " , or vegan, with a predominance of fresh

raw fruits and vegetables rather than cooked. In particular, the

greater the proportion of raw fruit in the diet, the less likely you

are to have periods.

" Women who eat a vegetarian diet containing mostly raw food experience

only brief periods, scarcely noticeable, with hardly any loss of

blood. Dr. H. G. Beiler in his book, The Natural Way to Sexual Health,

explains that women experience troublesome periods only because of the

toxic condition of their blood brought about by the high fat and

protein Western diet. " (5:298)

At least 50% and ideally more of every meal should be raw, and that

eaten first. This is so that the enzymes present in the raw portion

can help the body digest the whole meal, including the cooked portion.

Enzymes are protein molecules made by every cell and tissue in the

body and used in every metabolic process. They break down food and

transport nutrients; move cell wastes and prepare them for

elimination; attach iron to red blood cells and phosphorous to bone

and nerve tissue; dissolve blood clots and permit conception; and as

part of the immune system, they attack and break down poisons and

foreign substances in the blood and tissues (16).

All foods in their raw state - even meat -- contain the enzymes needed

for their own decomposition. If food is eaten uncooked, its own

enzymes can digest up to 75% without drawing on the body's reserves.

Cooking food at 129°F (53°C) destroys all enzymes in it. If you eat a

meal of such enzyme-dead food, your body has to bring enzymes from

elsewhere to digest it. Among other things, this weakens the immune

system. It's been observed that after a meal of cooked food the

blood's white cell count rises because these cells are used to

transport extra body enzymes to the digestive tract to help digestion.

If those white blood cells had been needed in their normal role as

part of the immune system defenses, ability to fight disease would

temporarily suffer. After a meal of raw foods on the other hand, or

after a meal of raw and cooked food in which the raw food is eaten

first, this white cell rise is insignificant.

After years of eating mostly enzyme-empty food, the body's enzyme

reserves are seriously depleted. The organs involved - especially the

pancreas, producer of many digestive enzymes - become enlarged from

overwork, then exhausted, and finally fail altogether. Foods can't be

properly digested and end up fermenting in the digestive tract,

producing toxins that are absorbed into the bloodstream and deposited

in the joints and soft tissues. Conditions like constipation, blood

diseases, bleeding ulcers, gout and arthritis appear.

" ...binging on fresh, in-season fruits alone is somtimes enough to

dramatically reduce the following menstrual flow. "

When we eat the plant foods our bodies were designed to handle,

digestion is easy and efficient and creates very little waste. Of all

the foods, fruits are the most palatable and most easily digested.

They provide complete nourishment, including adequate protein,

essential fats, minerals and vitamins. So fully usable is ripe fruit

by the human body that the only waste products apart from fibre are

carbon dioxide and water, completely non-toxic. On a high fruit diet,

no constipation occurs; beneficial intestinal bacteria populate the

bowel; the body remains in a desirable alkaline rather than acid

state; the blood is pure and free of sludge and circulation and blood

pressure are good; toxic deposits no longer occur - and the toxins and

waste already stored in the body are gradually eliminated (3:137-138).

Fruits especially are rich in bioflavonoids. In fact, if a plentiful

supply is available in the diet, so ready is the body to use these

nutrients in building strong blood vessel walls that bingeing on fresh

in-season fruits alone is sometimes enough to dramatically reduce the

following menstrual period:

" British gynaecologist C. Alan B. Clemetson first became interested in

the possibility of regulating menstrual flow with substances that

occur in foods when a young Italian patient told him that she could

easily cure her excessive menstrual bleeding by sucking lemons. It was

a standard remedy for the problem in her home village, she said. " (13:107)

Clemetson thereafter suggested that his patients eat three fresh

oranges daily, complete with the bioflavonoid-rich white pith - and

many found that, while this alone did not end their periods, it kept

them light (13:108).

Health practitioner Dr. Starr White, author of The Emancipation

of Women, or Regulating the Duration of Menses, believed that

menstruation was unnatural and pathological. In his many decades of

practice earlier this century he helped thousands of women to overcome

this malady so that their cycles no longer involved bleeding, and he

did this by getting them to change from eating heavy cooked food to

living on raw foods (2:39).

Health researchers and writers and nah Kenton found the

same thing happening to them after switching to a diet high in fresh

fruits and vegetables:

" Women on an all-raw or high-raw diet often report that menstrual

problems such as bloating, pre-menstrual tension and fatigue improve

greatly after two or three months. For some of them the improvement is

so dramatic that they are not aware of their periods until they

arrive. This is something we discovered ourselves and at first we

thought we were unique. Then we spoke to numerous other women who said

they had had a similar experience. Heavy periods become lighter - a

period that lasts six or seven days can be reduced to as few as one or

two. In some women, particularly those who do not eat meat, dairy

products or large quantities of nuts, periods even cease altogether. "

(13:107)

Here are some examples of what women of all ages have experienced on

making the change to a healthier diet.

An American teenager in the 1980s:

" I was a complete vegetarian [vegan] by the time I was 15 (I'm now

18). My periods began to come less frequently (about once every three

months) and then stopped altogether by about two years ago [that is,

after about a year on a vegan diet]. My parents were really worried

about this but I felt better than ever so I wasn't too concerned. Mom

took me to a gynecologist who did blood tests etc., and said I was

'amazingly healthy'. But he said he could put me on the pill and get

me started again! No thanks! I was getting around to thinking that,

since I was feeling so great and not menstruating, perhaps

menstruation was a symptom of a 'disease', rather than the old

'normal, natural process'. I got to thinking that on my natural diet,

I'd 'de-domesticated' myself and my body was behaving accordingly. So

I tried an experiment about nine months ago. I ate dairy foods for a

few days to see the effect. Sure enough, I got two periods after that.

Since then, I've become increasingly confident that not menstruating

is natural and that diet is the key. eat fresh fruit, raw

vegetables and sprouts, some nuts and seeds, and very little cooked

foods except for some grains in winter occasionally. " (15:234)

A West Australian man referring to the Pritikin diet - the Pritikin

" Regression Diet " is very high in raw foods:

" A lady friend of my wife has, since the age of puberty, experienced a

heavy loss of blood during her period as well as premenstrual tension,

but since going about 80% on the [Pritikin] diet, she experiences no

premenstrual tension and hardly any blood loss. " (5:298)

Dr. G.S.White wrote of one of the many patients he " naturized " to a

vegan diet:

" [she] flowed bright blood five or six days of each month [and] had

such severe cramps that she could not hold her position as

stenographer. [He treated her for six months, after which her] periods

changed to half a day mucous flow with no blood at all. She was able

to resume her work and did so for two or three years. She married and

has had three daughters. Each of them had a mucous flow for about half

a day each month and are in perfect health. One is married and had a

healthy baby girl. " (15:233)

A young Californian woman in the early 1900s:

" Miss Olga Howe suffered severely with her menstrual periods, which

lasted from seven to eight days, every 28 days. One of the first

things she noticed upon changing from conventional living to a more

healthful mode of life was that her suffering ceased and her periods

were reduced to three days. During a year on raw foods her flow

gradually lessened and this encouraged her to continue. In two years

her flow ceased altogether. She says, 'During this entire period I

enjoyed better health than ever, and was much stronger.' As a test she

included cooked foods, butter and milk in her daily fare, and in one

month her menses re-appeared. A return to raw food ended its

appearance. " (2:39-40)

A 42-year-old American woman in the 1980s who was making the

transition to a raw foods diet:

" When I launched into the all raw diet, my next period was eleven days

late and the flow was half what it used to be. The following period

was sixteen days overdue and a fourth of the usual flow. A few days of

bingeing on cooked food would bring back a 28-day cycle, but with

shorter and shorter binges, the flow decreased to a tenth and then

only a spot. Once I realized that the cravings [for cooked foods] were

occurring just before a period, I was determined to make it through

this critical time. In April 1983, an emotional upset had me eating

cooked food for several days; the period that followed in May lasted 6

days and was half the quantity of former years, convincing me that it

is cooked food that causes women to bleed. I stayed fruitarian after

that and haven't had so much as a spot of bleeding in six months. " (9)

Are there any problems to be expected when switching to a high-raw

diet? If coming from a traditional Western diet based on processed and

cooked food heavy in protein and fats, plan to spend quite some time

eating a TRANSITION DIET before settling down to a raw foods

lifestyle. This can involve weeks to years, depending on how toxic you

are to start with and how difficult you find dropping old habits. The

reason is simple: toxin offloading can be unpleasant, especially if

done all at once. Unless serious illness makes change urgent, you want

to go through the process as gently as possible -- and that means

taking it slowly.

Eating only energy-laden easy-to-assimilate food like fresh fruit

rests and heals the body to the point where it eventually feels up to

the job of offloading some of the stored rubbish. This often quite

toxic waste gets kicked back into the bloodstream from wherever it's

been deposited and circulates through the body on its way to the liver

and organs of elimination for final breakdown and removal. During the

time the toxins are in circulation you can feel awful, with aches,

sweats, fevers and discharges as the body works to eliminate them.

If you decide to " go cold turkey " onto a high-raw lifestyle, you'll

get rid of the wastes fairly quickly, but the " cleansing crises "

(there are likely to be several) can be uncomfortable. If you want or

need to change your diet this quickly, do so with the guidance and

support of a health practitioner who knows what to expect. This is

especially true if your health is poor or you have a serious illness.

Retreats where this kind of support is offered during several day to

several week stays are ideal. Otherwise, plan on taking transition

gradually and meeting the cleansing crises in smaller, gentler

episodes rather than all at once. Some people barely notice them.

Begin by dropping out all some or all of the animal product foods, and

adopt a vegan diet that at first uses familiar cooked vegetables,

grain and legume foods as well as raw fruits and vegetables. You may

find this stage more appealing if you incorporate Asian foods and

flavours. Be careful not to overdo eating grains - a mistake many make

on adopting the otherwise helpful Pritikin diet. Too many grain foods

create an acid body and contribute to both arthritis and cancer. Don't

overdo use of oils either - they have their own serious health

drawbacks (4;5) - and in Asian cooking vegetables sautéed in broth are

just as tasty. Avoid the artificial substitutes for eggs or the

concentrated vegetable protein " meat replacers " - stick to real,

chemical-free whole food as much as possible.

Excellent sources of information and recipes for this stage are the

books of Harvey and Marilyn Diamond, including Fit for Life, Living

Health, and Fit for Life Cookbook. Have a look in the newsagents' for

magazines like New Vegetarian for further vegetarian and vegan food

information.

Many women like to move through a vegan transition stage that includes

lots of salads of vegetables and " vegetable fruits " . These are in fact

true fruits - tomatoes, capsicum, cucumbers, etc. It's easy to start

off with vegan meals of cooked vegetables and a salad - and over time

increase the salad portion while decreasing the cooked portion, all in

tune with your own changing appetite. Because many of us start

transition with some serious mineral deficiencies (how about

iron-deficiency anaemia, after all those years of bleeding!), we often

go through a stage of craving mineral-rich greens - which may well be

the body's instinct homing on what, at that stage, we need most.

After a while however, the taste buds " clear " and become newly

sensitive to even very subtle flavours. This helps turn us off the

strong-flavoured foods we used to eat and makes ripe fruit

increasingly more appealing. Learn when different fruits come in

season and choose just-picked local ones over those which may have

been sitting in cold storage or shipped from afar. And of course, if

possible choose organically or biodynamically grown produce. You'll

find yourself becoming more sensitive to all sorts of tastes and

smells and able to detect many chemical traces in your food.

As you move towards a predominantly raw foods diet, several of the

books by and nah Kenton offer excellent information and

food ideas, including especially Raw Energy and Raw Energy Recipes.

For information on the fruitarian lifestyle, read Essie Honiball's I

Live on Fruit; Ross Horne's discussion of fruitarianism in Cancerproof

Your Body; and back issues of the Fruitarian Network News (available

from P.O. Box 293, Trinity Beach, Queensland, 4879, Australia).

If you are interested in in-depth study of how to regain health by

supporting the body's own healing ability with right eating habits,

find out about the health system called " Natural Hygiene " . Best known

through the books and teachings of Dr. Herbert M. Shelton and T.C.

Fry, Natural Hygiene is also the foundation for the Diamonds' work,

and a good introduction can be found in Fit for Life. For more

information, write to: The American Natural Hygiene Society, 12816

Racetrack Rd., Tampa, Florida 33625, USA.

It is entirely possible to live long and healthily on just fruit -

radical as that seems. In the process of healing and ridding itself of

old pollutants, your body will lose the fat it put on while carrying

those toxins. You'll drop most weight in the first few months after

you start eating mostly raw fruits and vegetables. (Inclusion of grain

foods or oils will slow weight loss down considerably.) Once the body

has done a fair bit of healing and " housecleaning " , and is being

sustained only on live foods, it starts to gain weight. If by this

point you are eating a modest volume of fruit and leading a normally

active daily life, you may gain several kilos and then stay steady at

that " lean ideal " .

Yes, you will be leaner than people in our society are used to seeing

- but you will not be " skin and bones " or look " anorexic " ! You will

not be carrying any " spare tires " , your muscles will be well-defined,

your hair thick and healthy, your eyes and skin clear (and not prone

to sun damage). Your sweat, breath, urine and stool will have no

smell. You'll sleep well - but at the same time will find you need

less sleep than you used to - and you'll awake with abundant energy

which won't disappear even during a day of working outdoors.

You can overeat on fruit - something that's tempting to do during

transition when summer fruits are in season and we're still eating

from appetite (mind) rather than true hunger. Overeating on fruit will

put excess weight on, although it will be quickly shed once you stop.

If you work out, you'll increase muscle mass - and in fact a number of

record-holding athletes eat mostly raw diets (5). If you stop doing

muscle-building work, the added muscle will be quickly lost. You will

feel fit and energetic on a fruit diet regardless of any extra

exercise regime - but at the same time, you'll feel more like using

your body than ever before.

Ailments will disappear and you'll notice you don't " catch anything "

anymore. And of course, menstrual bleeding will end along with its

attendant problems, as will the " symptoms of menopause " . If you are a

young woman who has had irregular ovulation or difficulty conceiving,

your ovulation cycle will eventually regularise -- and if you are not

taking precautions, you may end up with an unexpected pregnancy!

This brings us back where we started our discussion; as Dr. Shelton wrote:

" The fact that the whole ovulation cycle can occur time after time

without the loss of blood, and can and does this in so many cases,

especially in women and whole tribes and races living 'less

civilized', more natural lives, should cause us to doubt that

menstruation is either necessary or normal. The fact that it is in the

healthiest and strongest women that there is no loss of blood and that

the loss of blood increases in proportion to the decline in physical

vigor, should cause us to conclude that this, like all other losses of

blood, is abnormal. " (2:30)

" Women can realize nothing but good from building such a high degree

of health that this 'normal' hemorrhage becomes so 'abnormal' that it

ceases. "

On the female cycle - especially hormone balance and menopause:

1) Kenton, * 1995 Passage to Power: Natural Menopause

Revolution Ebury Press, London.

On the effect of diet & lifestyle specifically on the female cycle:

2) , , and Nadine Forrest Mac * ---- Is Menstruation

Necessary? Life Science Publishers, Austin, Texas. (Reprinted in The

Fruitarian Network News, Nos. 16, 17, 18 (1992); back issues available

from The Fruitarian Network, P.O. Box 293, Trinity Beach QLD 4879)

On the relation between modern Western diet and ill-health:

3) Horne, Ross * 1996 Cancerproof Your Body Margaret Gee Publishing,

Sydney.

4) Horne, Ross * 1992 Health and Survival in the 21st Century Margaret

Gee Publishing, Sydney.

5) Horne, Ross * 1983 The New Health Revolution Ross Horne, Avalon

Beach, New South Wales.

6) Kushi, Michio, and Jack 1988 The Cancer Prevention Diet: The

Nutritional Blueprint for the Relief and Prevention of Disease

Thorsons (Harper ), London.

7) Robbins, 1987 Diet for a New America Stillpoint, New Hampshire.

8) , Adelle 1970 Let's Eat Right to Keep Fit Signet (Harcourt

Brace), New York.

On the relation between a " high raw diet " and good health:

9) , Joe ---- Blatant Raw Foodist Propaganda! Blue Dolphin

Publishers, USA.

10) Diamond, Harvey, and Marilyn Diamond * 1985 Fit for Life Angus and

on (Harper ), Australia.

11) Diamond, Harvey, and Marilyn Diamond * 1987 Living Health

Transworld, Australia.

12) Honiball, Essie, with T.C. Fry ---- I Live on Fruit Life Science

Publications, USA.

13) Kenton, , and nah Kenton ---- Raw Energy Century, London.

14) Kulvinskas, Viktoras * 1975 Survival into the 21st Century Omangod

Press, Wethersfield, Connecticut.

15) Kulvinskas, Viktoras * ---- Life in the 21st Century Omangod

Press, Wethersfield, Connecticut.

16) Santillo, Humbart 1987 Food Enzymes: The Missing Link to Radiant

Health Hohm Press, Arizona.]

* Once again - Special Thanks to Habib for the intensive research,

wonderful article and listing of sources.

best,

Bob

> Hi Nora,

> I don't think it is the one by Shelton because this one talks about

how the modern medical society has finally admitted that menstruation

is actually hemorraging. It could be Shelton's with some extra added

to it.

> Thanks for looking,

> Corinne

> ----- Original Message -----

> From: Nora Lenz

> Rawschool

> Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 9:19 AM

> Subject: Re: [Rawschool] menstruation

>

>

> Hi Corinne,

> Sorry for the delay in responding! Do you mean the one by

> Shelton? I've seen it posted so many places on line that I

> can usually find it when I need it but I've been looking too

> and can't seem to find it anywhere. Maybe Gosia has a copy.

> If so, Gosia, could you post it? Corinne, if it's a

> different one you're referring to, let me know. There's

> some good info in the Life Science course too, but it

> doesn't quite go into the detail that Shelton's essay does.

> Nora

>

>

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Thanks, Shari. I remember years ago reading something on how we

evolved into monthly (menses) ovulation/periods....something to do

with the pleasures of SEX. Now it looks like the 'pleasures' of FOOD

may have complicated it.

I thought it all had to do with estrogen....hormones and uterine lining.

I'll read ....maybe it will explain.

Kit

>

> here's a long one from :

>

> http://www.waldorfhomeschoolers.com/menstruation.htm

>

> that includes some Shelton stuff, Kulvinskas, and others...

>

>

> [Kytka's Pick

>

> Menstruation - - Is it Really Necessary?

> August 1, 2002

>

>

>

> [special Thanks to Habib at misc.health.alternative.]

>

> Women call it " the Curse " with feeling and good reason - the monthly

> bleeding of menstruation, with its days of inconvenience, discomfort

> and pain, is the bane of women's existence from menarche to menopause.

> So universal in our modern culture is this miserable experience that

> it is assumed to be inevitable. Doctors and the women's media attempt

> to cast it in a favourable light with trite comments about " welcoming "

> it as the sign and sacrifice one makes in " becoming a woman " . Yet

> there is probably not a woman anywhere who wouldn't gladly do away

> with it if she safely could!

>

> In fact, menstruation as most of us experience it is neither natural

> nor healthy. Ovulation does not depend on it.