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The human body is
very delicate, physically, mentally and spiritually. Many
substances we ingest, can cause this delicate organism to
malfunction. It is
our opinion that the human organism was never configured to
cope with the foodless nutrition that we subject it to. The
original design was living fruits and vegetables, sprouts, and
grasses which are ideal for the human body to thrive and be
strong and healthy.
We
found this interview from www.rawguru.com
(they have given us permission to reprint) and feel
that it can be extremely helpful to someone who is trying to
help their body to heal.
A living food vegan diet and adding wheatgrass juice to
this diet was Ann Wigmore’s method also. People from all
over the world went to her institute to learn her diet---some
of them extremely ill and on their death beds.
They learned her diet for the two weeks they were at
her institute and went home and stayed on the diet for 18
months. For her recipes, go to http://www.wheatgrasskits.com/issue14.htm
1.
What are some Raw Food Staples in your current diet? Are you
100% Raw? How did you start?
I
have been on a 100% Raw Food Diet for 5 years now. I only eat
Raw vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds. I jumped into a 100%
Raw Food Diet overnight after reading Become Younger, by Dr.
Norman Walker. He talks about the scientific reasons why
processed starches, refined sugar, dairy, and animal protein
have harmful effect on the human body. He lived to be well
over 100 years old. At that time I didn’t even know that
eating a Raw Food Diet was an option. But the inspiration and
practicality of Dr. Walker’s book left me thinking to
myself, how can I not do this, how can anyone not do this? I
became a 100% Raw Food Eater the very next day.
2.
What is your book "Raw Spirit" about? How is it
different than other raw food books?
After
that first book by Norman Walker I devoured every written word
I could find about being Raw. I was eager to experience all
the miracles these books talked about. And as promised,
AMAZING, INCREDIB L E, things started happening, the most
earth shaking being those changes I had not read about and was
not expecting. The Raw Diet propelled me into a spiritual
lifestyle, which for me was fairly uncharted waters. I
couldn’t believe the astonishing range of experiences I was
having; a lot of them are explained in my book. There were
also challenges that came up when I became Raw. They were hard
for me and I can see them being hard for others. I share those
“not to pleasant” jabs, as well. I also make clear the
basic scientific reasons why all these positive and negative
experiences happen. Additionally, there is an interview with
Dr. Fred Bisci, PhD in the book. Dr. Bisci has been on a Raw
Food Diet for over 40 years. He is a renowned nutritionist who
has seen well over 25,000 people during his career. He has
helped heal numerous conditions and degenerative diseases
using an improved diet protocol. When I have a burning
question, Fred is definitely my most frequently used resource.
I
believe that the Raw Diet, if done correctly, is the ultimate
diet for the human body. However, I understand that it is not
an easy task and may simply not be practical for everyone’s
lifestyle, climate, etc. My goal is not to convert everyone to
Raw Foodists. In Raw Spirit, I explain how someone can
experience high levels of health without adhering to a 100%
Raw Food Diet. I also include Dr. Bisci's Intermediate Healing
Diet, a protocol similar to what he gives clients who want to
heal from disease. This intermediate diet, containing some
cooked foods, can be adopted as your daily guideline for
health and healing; or it can be used to transition safely and
easily to your new Raw L ifestyle.
3.
What’s it like working with Paul Nison and Dr. Fred Bisci?
Fred
is like my father and Paul is like my brother. I am very lucky
to be associated with these two extraordinary men. For the
last four years, I have consulted with them both on an almost
daily basis. Paul has been doing the Raw lifestyle for almost
a decade now. He shows me the ropes and guides me in the right
direction. Paul’s outreach has motivated me to take my
talents to the limit. He encouraged the writing of this book
from the get go. One of my future plans is to travel from
state to state speaking about the Raw Diet. Paul has been
doing that for many years and is excited for me to do the
same. His kindness and willingness to help catapulted me into
this reality.
As
for Dr. Bisci, I have come to him with hundreds of questions
from people around the globe. There has never been a
question he could not answer, in detail. Regardless of whether
people’s concerns are about arthritis and Crohn’s disease
or indigestion and migraines, he always has an answer, a
solution. In every case he knows what foods should be
added or eliminated and what supplements are needed to speed
recovery. I have seen it happen time and time again that
Fred’s nutritional advice has empowered people to heal from
degenerative diseases of all kinds. I have never met anyone
that is as knowledgeable about the human body and the Raw Food
Diet. His guidance allows people to take their health to the
highest possible limit.
4.
What are some quick tips or hints for someone trying to start
a Raw Diet?
It
is what you leave out of your diet completely that produces
extreme health. There are so many diets out there today –
The Maker’s Diet, Macrobiotics, Zone Diet, etc. – have
helped people lose weight and improve their health conditions.
There is one common denominator for all their successes. That
common denominator is they all leave something COMP L ETE L Y
out of the diet such as refined sugar, starch, and so on. Raw
Foods is the best way to go because you leave out all the bad
and only keep the good. It is not solely Raw Food that heals
people; it is what they are not doing that heals them.
I
have a friend with some health issues that tries to eat a lot
of raw veggies when I’m around. I’m fully aware that he
still eats “other foods” like orange chicken from Panda
Express. I don’t care if he eats raw foods until he is blue
in the face. If you don’t eliminate the cause of your
trouble, then you are not going to get better. Fred jokingly
uses this extreme example. If you were to subsist on a diet of
dead rats and a little lettuce, nothing else, you are going to
get better. Why is a fast so healing? Because you are leaving
EVERYTHING OUT. It is critically important to understand that
it is what you leave out of your diet completely, without
cheating, is what heals you.
I
like to break the foods down into the following categories:
Processed
Starches (Bread, pastries, cereal, pasta)
Refined Sugar (cake, soda, candy, ice cream)
Dairy
Animal Protein
Raw Foods
Stimulants (Coffee, Cigarettes, drugs, alcohol)
Which
of these food groups should be eliminated completely from your
diet first? If you were talking from a moral standpoint,
animal protein would be the first choice, because all life is
sacred. From a scientific standpoint, however, animal protein
would be the last group I would eliminate.
Take
for example the diet of a vegetarian. A vegetarian who eats
freely of “meatless junk food,” processed sugars and
starches, yet eliminates meat, is nowhere near the caliber of
a Raw Food Eater or a mindful moderate meat eater. The order
of total elimination from the diet is first: stimulants,
second: processed starches, and third: refined sugar. I
believe the first things to go would be the stimulants,
processed starches, and refined sugar. That is a huge secret.
If you can leave out these three groups you are on your way.
You can get a book by Dr. Norman Walker, called Become
Younger, which discusses in detail the harmful effects that
these foods cause to the body. Since reading that book, I
haven’t ingested anything but live raw foods. He also
discusses the harmful effects of cow’s milk, pasteurized
dairy products, red meat, etc.
5.
What are some quick tips or hints for Raw newbies?
L
et’s say that you are one of the rare cases that actually
eliminates everything except for Raw Foods from your diet.
Inevitably, the famous “detox” starts to happen. Your body
on a cellular level begins to dump endogenous material and
toxins into your blood stream. What your diet was like in the
past, your age, etc., will determine the outcome of how harsh
the detox will be. Not only do we have to deal with all the
age-old waste matter being released from our system, we also
have to deal with our day-to-day burden of environmental
toxicity, cell metabolism, digestion, and maybe even what our
parents did. Those that don’t realize what is happening
usually blame the diet and either quit or cheat with some
cooked foods. Feeling the effects of detox can sometimes last
years. I have found the best way to keep up with all this
waste matter is colonics. I jumped from the Standard American
Diet into a Raw Diet overnight. If it wasn’t for colonics, I
don’t think I would have been able to stay Raw. Colonics are
especially beneficial for someone committed to improving his
or her diet indefinitely. Imagine that you are on the Standard
American Diet and you decide to improve your diet for a week.
No more greasy foods and junk foods. After that junk free
week, you eat a couple slices of pizza. Because you have been
eating so well, you’ll probably feel ill and get a
stomachache. A colonic would most likely clear that right up.
If you were to eat the pizza again after doing that colonic,
you may even get more sick then before, because you are even
cleaner now then the first time you ate the pizza. This
yo-yoing between really good and poor diet can prove to be
harmful. Raw Spirit gives more explanation about why it is
better to move gradually and consistently, or not at all.
Colonics
are powerful healing aids and can catapult your body to the
next level. Your body will be free of waste buildup, allowing
it to work on deeper levels of healing like your internal
chemistry. If you returned to the Standard American Diet, you
would eventually end up right back where you started.
Waste
removal is crucial for ultimate health. Most people look at me
and estimate my age as early 20s, when in fact I am almost 31
years old. I owe my youth and glow to colonics, leaving things
out of my diet completely, and drinking green vegetable
juices. Drinking vegetable juice is very important. Not only
does it provide us the best nourishment by giving us vitamins
and minerals in the most soluble, easily absorbed form, it
also acts as a powerful alkalizer. It helps alkalize the
acidic endogenous material being released into our blood. If
you combine a Raw Food Diet, colonics, and vegetable juices,
your body will immediately respond with astonishing results.
6.
Do you have any major influences?
I
would have to say Dr. Fred Bisci and Dr. Norman Walker are the
top two. I have some other favorite authors such as Arnold
Ehret and Hilton Hotema. Dr. Norman Walker lived to be well
over 100 years old. He was obviously doing something right.
7.
How do you come up with a recipe?
After
being Raw for five years now, my diet is pretty simple and I
don’t use many recipes. I do enjoy experimenting for
friends, though, and have fun creating dishes similar to some
of my old favorite cooked foods. Intuition and fearlessness
have produced my best recipes. My mom used to make me the best
banana nut bread and I would spread cream cheese on each
slice. That was amazing. Although, my banana nut bread
creation didn’t esthetically resemble her version, it sure
tasted like it. And the cream cheese! Yumm! I squeezed a lemon
or two in the blender along with a couple of large avocados, 9
dates, and a small handful of dulse and blended it up. Ta-dah!
It was cream cheese. For the banana nut bread, I took a bunch
of pulp from juicing carrots, romaine lettuce, spinach and
celery. I put it in a food processor with the S blade along
with 3-4 frozen bananas, some dates, and 10 tablespoons of
ground flax. I may have added carrot juice to make it mix
easier. After that was blended, I pulsed in soaked raisons and
chopped walnuts. Then you just add the cream cheese and heaven
prevails.
Paul
Nison comes up with the craziest recipes, too. He made raw
eggnog. Soak 1 cup of almonds overnight. The next day, blend
the almonds with two cups of water and 2 tablespoons of Fred
Bisci’s Probiotics and blend. L et sit overnight. Strain the
mixture with a nut milk bag (we carry nut milk bags and
Fred’s Probiotics at www.TheRawWorld.com).
Blend the strained liquid with 1-2 bananas and a little agave
nectar to taste. The substance in the strainer is an
amazing seed cheese for you to enjoy. To avoid having to use
more probiotics for future batches, take four tablespoons from
the mixture before you strain it, put it in a separate
container and use it in place of the probiotics the next time.
8.
Do you have any dental problems on the Raw Diet?
I
do not have any dental problems. If the Raw Diet is done
correctly, I would be surprised if you got a single cavity. A
lot of people run into problems because they think the Raw
Food Diet is a cure-all. You have to continue proper dental
hygiene even, even on an ideal diet. Make sure to brush and
floss your teeth on a daily basis, making sure to brush all
the way to the gum line. Many people have swollen gums. It’s
likely they don’t floss everyday and as a result have
developed gingivitis. When a person with gingivitis flosses,
their gums bleed. Flossing everyday for two weeks would be
enough to stop the bleeding and the swelling.
Frequently,
Raw Foodists eat too much fruit. If you overeat fruit you may
become mineral deficient and calcium could leach out of your
teeth. When you are doing a Raw Diet right – eating a good
variety of foods, leafy greens, and drinking green juices –
you will have no problem assimilating plenty of calcium and
magnesium. If you are doing the Raw Diet correctly, your
chances of running into teeth problems are much less then a
cooked food eater. Citrus is another thing you have to watch
out for, especially if the fruit is non-organic and
prematurely picked. Drinking or eating too many lemons,
oranges, or grapefruits can erode your tooth enamel. Make sure
to rinse and brush your teeth after having citrus. If the
citrus fruit is allowed to fully mature on the tree and is
organic, the effects won’t be as bad on your teeth. However,
I think rinsing your mouth out and/or brushing your teeth
post-citrus is still a good idea.
9.
Where do you see the Raw Food movement heading?
I
see the Raw Food movement growing exponentially. Every time I
turn my head I see a new Raw Food Restaurant open. I am
astonished when random people I meet start talking about their
plans to transition toward a Raw Food Diet. Also, there is a
great demand for Raw Food books, as I’m learning. Education
about the Raw movement is definitely being sought out.
10.
Can you please tell us about some of your current projects
you’re working on and/or developing?
Currently,
I have plans to start traveling the United States , getting
the word out about how to heal thru diet, especially the Raw
Food Diet. All three of us, Fred, Paul, and myself, may travel
together at some point and do a trio-speaking event. We’re
also chatting about the possibility of doing healing retreats
or establishing a center where people can come, heal, and be
educated on a healthier lifestyle.
Matt
has written a book called: Raw Spirit: What The Raw Food
Advocates Don't Preach.
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