Project Mayhem discussion
Motifs & Modern Myths
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What's in That Needle, Doc?
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I often hear stories about bad health care from other people. I have none though, I have always seemed to have an aura of No Shit around me. It seems to only work in person though, because people do try to mess with me. At which point I become a very mean bitch.
Mod
I've been reading a lot of Tucker Max lately. Ironically I think that is helping me to act mroe accordingly in situations where I'm not happy and would normally smile and nod, lol.
But man I should hope no one's had any sort of medical emergency that went wrong, I guess I'm just wondering if anyone else feels like doctors...even dentists (if I get a suggestion to get my perfectly fine wisdom teeth removed one more time.....) are turning into thousand dollar infomercials?
By all means borrow it. I like good manners, I certainly have them. But there's a point in which good manners is simply pointless. It's not rude or unmannerly to say firmly "I don't want any drugs now, for any reason, but thanks. Are we done now?" And then smile.
Anyway I also wonder why in the world people talk to people like bill collectors or salespeople when they don't want to. I don't pick up the fone, or if I do I just hang it right back up, or say NO THANKS really loud then hang up. :) What's wrong with that? people seem unable to do it. I have no idea why.
As for the health care thing, it's complicated and has a lot to do with our government underpaying doctors, and that sets the tone for insurance to underpay doctors, which sets the tone in the office of see more patients for a shorter time, and sell them crap, or I won't be able to pay my huge bills, which includes insurance, which I need to pay because people sue for everything under the sun.
Everything is connected and it all sucks.
Everything IS connected, you're absolutely right. I veer left and everyone I know has to counter my movement, and everyone they know has to counter theirs, and so on. It sucks for sure. And I agree with you, Molly, that we shouldn't have to talk to salespeople or whatever. But I still try my best to be nice to them. Not passive or meek, but nice. Afterall, they're probably just trying to pay the bills, too. Because everything is connected. Makes it harder to solve problems when we're all sooooo connected. Not impossible, just harder.
Mod
Wow, I can think of two new topics of conversation that you could derive from you guys' posts.
Ya'll are awesome!
Oh absolutely Amanda! I never scream FUCK YOU into the phone or anything. A simple, cordial, "No, thank you." is what I say then I hang up. That's nice enough, IMO.I will admit I had a run in with a bill collector last year though and I did say fuck you to her, loudly. It was after she illegally threatened to call all my neighbors and tell them I was in debt. 1. Bitch, you think they CARE? 2. Fuck yourself sideways for trying to SCARE me into doing what you want me to do.
That's another drug tactic, to bring this back on topic, the SCARE. That's how they are marketing Sophia's dangerous HPV vaccine.
I would like to learn a little more about that hpv vaccine. And ridiculous how they market as a vaccine against cervical cancer. On one hand, if it IS a good vaccine, marketing it as such is not a bad idea considering how freaking puritanistic we are when it comes to sex. Anyway, I digress. What the hell is in that damn vaccine, and why can you only take it if you are 26 or yougner? What happens if you take it at 27? Geez...
Well you can get it if you are older. It's just that the vast majority of people having sex already HAVE it. It's a huge percentage. the CDC says "At least 50% of sexually active men and women acquire genital HPV infection at some point in their lives." But frankly I think the numbers are higher.So by the time you have sex it's almost too late to get it. And... it doesn't prevent cancer. it may prevent you from getting HPV, but I have no idea how. I assume it's a virus denatured so it is totally inactive, so it cannot affect you. You couldn't have a live viral vaccine, HPV is a retrovirus, it enters the DNA and you have it for life.
Anyway it's a crapshoot like any other vaccine and deaths have been attributed to it.
Sparky, why am I not surprised you would yell "Fucking shit!" to strangers. ;)
Mod
Get it from your Dr. and check it out, lol. I can't find the exact sheet online.
But Amanda, the thing is...you don't even NEED vaccines, shots, pills, nothing if your immune system is working properly. I've never heard of a gazelle or elephant getting a cold, lol. If we could get your eating habits under control and only intake nutritious, organic, LIVING foods, our immune ssytems would heal themselves and there would be no more need for any pharm co., vitamin pusher, etc.
Read Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About...and that just scratches the surface!
Up until recently I never got sick. I mean, there were a few isolated cases in my childhood, but really, I just don't get ill.But recently I've not only gotten the chicken pox, but three separate throat infections in the last month, the most recent of which had my throat bleeding, and I had to go to the walk-in clinic. They gave me ten days worth of penicillin. If they had said anything other than penicillin, I'd have said no.
See, I don't go to hospitals, I haven't since I was really young. I don't get sick, I don't need to be checked for this or that, and so on. I know what is wrong with me, I'm just a little overweight, and I know how to fix it (and am taking affirmative action in doing so, but I'm comfortable with who I am with the exception of 40 pounds of gut that I can easily work away). I know I have mild OCD tendencies, and how to keep them under control, and I know there's a chance I might be bi-polar, and how to keep that under control. All without the use of prescribed medications.
I also know why I've been sick this last month or so, and its because I haven't been eating properly, and I haven't been taking proper care of myself, and I haven't sewn the buttons back on to my coat, so it wasn't properly covering me, and I lost my scarf... So its my own fault, really.
But I don't trust doctors unless I have no choice... You see, when my cousin Brian was getting registered for school years and years ago, the Catholic school board refused to let him into the school unless he was medicated. And my Aunt, instead of taking him to a public school, said sure, dope him up!
They told her that the medication would have a side effect like Tourettes Syndrome, then, a year later, they said he HAD Tourettes Syndrome, and stuck him on ritalin, which made things worse. After that, they just kept giving him this drug and that, and he and I never got along on the level me and my brother do. When we were five, he bit my toe. That was right after they stuck him on the first stuff. After that, we'd have patches were things were good, and then he would say or do something that hurt my feelings, and I wouldn't want anything to do with him for the rest of the time he was there. He was on Valium when he was 8.
By the time we were fifteen he had to go to a real hospital for something, and the doctor there said he was amazed my cousin wasn't dead, because he was severely over-medicated. After they weened him off everything, he was a completely different person. We get along so well now, its insane. He's so calm and collected now.
So my mind has always associated his erratic and terrible behavior with the medications he was on... And because of that, anything that comes in pill form, including aspirin, antibiotics, penicillin, etc. makes me angry, and the thought of having to swallow any kind of pill for anything makes me want to hurt someone. Except birth control... For some reason I can take those pills without problem. But those are like... Tiny little nothing pills. So, I dunno, that's always been strange even to me.
Mod
And Can...what you have to start thinking differently about is food, not drugs. There is more drugs in your food than in any one pill. Be sure to eat as much organic and free range meat as possible if you're going to eat meat because they give animals hormones and antibiotics like nobody's business! Not to mention steroids, pseudo-vitamins, and HGH and stuff. I'd even shy away from fish because most fish we eat are bottom feeders, and they all usually have mercury. There is NO safe mercury level, period. Don't be fooled.
The key to it all really is that you MUST begin to look at your food as medicine, because it is. You can intake some helpful beneficial meds or continue down the road your poor cousin had to travel.
Ignorance is not bliss.
Well...it is for the people who keep you that way, lol.
Start doing some research man, or tell us what you've discovered thus far. It honestly sounds like you already have a vast knowledge of a lot of the things I'm talking about. What books do you like on the subject of food and health?
Sophia, you shouldn't be a fanatic about ANYTHING. Drugs OR food.I want to discuss this with you but I don't want to assume what you know or don't, so can you tell me what you see as why people get sick and how the immune system works?
The only book I've actually read on food and health (with the exception of my herbology books) is French Women Don't Get Fat. And even there, a lot of the stuff she talked about, I already knew, though I did get some good recipe's out of it. My mother told me years ago about the stuff they put in our food. Its why girls are having their periods as young as 9 years old now, when it used to be normal to not have it until about 15 or 16. That was only 40 years ago, look at it now. There are 12 and 13 year old girls getting pregnant, and I swear every year the kids going into high school look like they're way too young to be there.
The truth is, I want to find some abandoned house with a fairly big back yard, find a way to buy it dirt cheap, and live in it, using the back yard as a sort of farm. I'm talking my own two or three chickens (and a rooster, for when I need to make more), maybe a couple goats, and my own vegetables. That way, I know the food I'm eating is healthy... I mean, it shouldn't take that much time to reach partial sustainability from that alone, with the exception of certain things. Goats produce milk, chickens lay eggs, and vegetables speak for themselves. Anything else I'd need I could get at a local farmers market. I could do wind-generated electricity, set up a water system so I can reuse water from the shower or sink to flush the toilet, so as to use as little water as possible... I can think of a million ways to reach my own sustainability with as little taken from the government as possible. And with my herbology books, I can make my own remedies already, so I still wouldn't need to ever go to the doctor, for the most part.
The problem is finding a place like that around here.
Oh, and I stopped taking birth control pills in 2003. I didn't have any sort of feeling of fog leaving my mind or anything like that... But my period was always irregular before I took them, like sometimes I would bleed for like 2 months, and sometimes I wouldn't bleed at all for like 11. When I took those pills, my period was regular. I stopped taking them, it went right back to its usual insanity... But I can't afford them anymore, so I just deal with it. That was the only reason I took them to begin with, to keep my period normal so that I wouldn't be scared to engage in intercourse. I mean, its sort of normalized, its got a basic pattern now, so that's alright.
Mod
You know...Molly you're right. I need to really check my tone, huh? I don't mean to be so fervent about things. Can, Molly, everyone...if you feel like me or any other person on this site is being pushy or something, please don't hesitate to put it in check. This is not a place where we shove ideas on each other, rather, we put out and discuss information so that we can formulate decisions about our own lives better, and in contexts that work for our personal situations. So wow....forgive me for being so adamant about the raw food thing :-p I guess it's just that every single piece of information I get or read points towards that being the best diet for the human body. Diet meaning, way of eating, not binge attempt to lose weight, lol.
I've met people who've cured their cancers and diabetes and I've said all this....
I'm not all Raw yet, so I can't really talk. And this might sound weird, but if I did come down with some disease, I know I'd go cold turkey and on top of that, go on a retreat or something...do things to de-stress and increase my vibrational levels. But right now I am like Can: healthy as a horse but overweight, so I'll continue to transition to raw because the cold turkey way hasn't worked for me in the past. I could only go 4-6 weeks lol.
What bugs me is that, there are so many people out there who just don't know that what they eat and how they think are the knives that keep cutting them. I literally heard a Nexxium commercial say that the pill HEALS esophageal trauma or something. Bullshit! Your BODY is what heals itself. When you stop cutting the wounds in your body it will do just that.
So it's just really frustrating for me to see so much FEAR instilled in people about things that are symptoms and not diseases, and are in most cases preventable. And it's all to make a buck and keep the population culled or something, I dunno.
All in all....Can, you do what makes you happy! As much as you've mentioned food and getting to a minimalistic lifestyle (like Rob :-) I see where your heart lies and it's wrong of me to say that you HAVE to do anything because you don't. So I'll definitely tone it down and be more of an ear. But about your throat problems and stuff...just don't overlook the correlation between that and what you eat and your overall wellbeing and happiness.
Check out this oldie but goodie:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?doc...
(watch what you can, but skip to exactly one hour and three minutes in. You will hear her talk about, and show you, her own cancer experience)
I may have actually posted it before, but that's because it really shows the science behind not just raw food, but how medicine and missing out on simple things like movement, sunlight, fresh air, etc. can do damage to your body.
Can, I really admire your dedication to cooking everyday. I am trying so hard to be like you! I think you should even start a post with some cool recipes if you want to. No matter what, don't think I'm trying to be mean or totalitarian or anything...I just really hate to hear you having any problems at all, small or not, when you don't have to. But shoot, sometimes it's worth small side effects to continue doing things you love :-)
Anywho. You guys, post topics, too! Especially under the Myth caegory. I know there's a bunch of stuff out there that I'm still disillusioned about, and I want my eyes as open as possible, damn it!
Love you ladies!
Sophia, I know what made me have a sore throat was a combination of being poorly dressed in Canadian winter, chain smoking due to stress of having to find a new job, and not eating more than dinner for over a week. And not much of a dinner at that, I was just in a funk, and I was eating whatever didn't take too much effort, because I was putting all my energy into looking for a job... Honestly, I probably didn't even need to go to the clinic, but my throat was bleeding, so I kind of felt it was at least justified.But I've fixed my eating habits again, and I've fixed my coat so it does up, and I found my scarf last night, plus my gloves, so I should stay healthy from now on. I just let myself get to a point that wasn't at all healthy. The penicillin is helping, though. And don't worry, I didn't feel like you were forcing anything on me, you were just sharing your opinion. I sometimes get the same way, where it seems like I'm really pushing something, when I'm just trying to be as in depth about my opinion as I can. Not saying that's exactly what you were doing (though I'm not exactly wrong, am I?), but I can see how in both cases someone would think the opinion were being pushed, as it were.
As for a recipe thread, that sounds like a wonderful idea! I've always loved to share! And I love hearing other people's recipes, too. I'll do that!
Mod
Sophia, have any tone you like! I don't think you're being pushy at all.What I am trying to say is not you need to tone down, but you need to remember that NOTHING is ever 100% true. And remember 75% of what you read is bullshit. Including my percentages, which I made up. XD
Be skeptical. Of everything. Even things you think are true.
Mod
I have looked into raw foods. They are no better than cooked foods.I'm very holistic, but I also have a lot of scientific education. The processing your body uses on foods breaks down what you eat entirely into molecules. The things denatured in cooking, like proteins, are destroyed utterly within your cells anyway.
And many, many things in plant matter are simply undigestible unless cooked, and we do not have the microorganisms to degrade them resident in our gut.
I don't want to lecture you, which is why I asked for your understandings of things first. ;) Sorry if you feel harangued!
Mod
But wow, "They are no better than cooked foods?" Are you serious? That's like saying a cow is no different from a hamburger. Cooking denatures food and sucks the water right out of it. Your body breaks things down in order to refashion those bare ingredients into usable parts. It doesn't utterly destroy anything...it only transforms it into things the body can utilize.
If I eat some cooked collard greens, my body has to leech water, enzymes, and resources from other areas to help break down the food. HCL breaks down fats and proteins (enzymes are a type of protein with catalytic functions) but the enzymes in cooked food are denatured, so it's more of an effort, less is actually broken down correctly, and you end up with denatured amino acids that are useless.
Whereas if I were to eat raw greens, it's ready to digest, it has it's own enzymes intact to help break itself down and doesn't tax your body's resources, the water content of the greens allows for better digestion and nutrient distribution, and the fibrous matter which isn't even supposed to be broken down, which yes cooking does do, aids in pushing the food through my digestive system so that I can expel the waste properly.
You can see this for yourself. Place an apple next to some McDonald's French Fries for a few weeks and see what begins to 'digest' all by itself first.
Think about this....in order to find the chemical, sugar, fat, etc. content of food, it's put into a machine which burns it to ash and the ash is analyzed for these values. So if I'm eating ash...ok. But I'm not. There are so many biological elements in living food that we just haven't accounted for.
But look, let's talk about it. It really seems as though you've been mis-informed. Honestly, excuse me because it is I who doesn't want to lecture or make you feel harangued, which is why I could spout out info all day, but I'd much rather you look for yourself. Take it a step further. If you can, try eating fruits and veggies for 30 days or for a week and tell me you don't notice a difference.
Sophia said: But wow, "They are no better than cooked foods?" Are you serious? That's like saying a cow is no different from a hamburger. ========================================
Actually it isn't, it's like saying a food processed for digestion is different from foods NOT prepared for digestion. ;)
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Sophia said:
Cooking denatures food and sucks the water right out of it. Your body breaks things down in order to refashion those bare ingredients into usable parts. It doesn't utterly destroy anything...it only transforms it into things the body can utilize.
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Yes, cooking denatures proteins, which we denature on our own when we have to, because little that enters the cell that stays intact, except of course, atoms. The resemblance your food has to what you ate when it enters the cell is even farther than your hamburger cow analogy. It's like the difference between a car and a pinprick of metal dinged off of it. And transformation is destruction. When you break something down to make something new you destroyed it.
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Sophia said:
If I eat some cooked collard greens, my body has to leech water, enzymes, and resources from other areas to help break down the food.
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They are made in the area, some of them, and for the specific purpose. You make it sound like the body doesn't for raw food. It does, it's natural and normal for your body to do so, it's part of digestion. And our microbiota do most of the work in the intestines, anyway. You make digestion sound abnormal.
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Sophia said:
HCL breaks down fats and proteins (enzymes are a type of protein with catalytic functions) but the enzymes in cooked food are denatured, so it's more of an effort, less is actually broken down correctly, and you end up with denatured amino acids that are useless.
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We only need 8 amino acids from food. We manufacture the rest. If you could not get them from cooked foods, well, people who only eat cooked foods would be dead. So let's use simple logic that they are not as hard to get as you think, and do come in enough supply from cooked food, or many people would be dead, including Morgan Spurlock. You can get every amino acid you need to live from cooked chicken.
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Sophia said:
Whereas if I were to eat raw greens, it's ready to digest, it has it's own enzymes intact to help break itself down and doesn't tax your body's resources, the water content of the greens allows for better digestion and nutrient distribution, and the fibrous matter which isn't even supposed to be broken down, which yes cooking does do, aids in pushing the food through my digestive system so that I can expel the waste properly.
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There's no proof of enzymes in raw food helping us digest, and frankly it goes against every tenet of life. No organism would evolve to make itself more likely and easier to be eaten, it makes absolutely no sense. Also the enzymes you talk about are denatured in the stomach. If you have a good scientific background, you know as well as I do that enzymes have a very strict set of environmental needs, such as pH, etc.
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Sophia said:
You can see this for yourself. Place an apple next to some McDonald's French Fries for a few weeks and see what begins to 'digest' all by itself first.
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Hmm dunno what you are getting at here. Oil is a great preservative, if you mean the fries would rot last, well, there's oil in them. Also do you mean a cut apple or a whole one? Obviously a whole apple has a protective skin and will take far longer to rot.
A cut apple will start to decay almost immediately but it has to do with oxidation, not digestion aids. If you put the apple juice in acid - lemon juice, they won't oxidize. Lemon juice has a pH of 2-3. Our stomach has a pH of between 1 and 3. So there goes any idea of apples digesting themselves for you in your stomach.
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Sophia said:
Think about this....in order to find the chemical, sugar, fat, etc. content of food, it's put into a machine which burns it to ash and the ash is analyzed for these values. So if I'm eating ash...ok. But I'm not. There are so many biological elements in living food that we just haven't accounted for.
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And this has nothing to do with human digestion at all. It's just a statement of how caloric value is determined for nutritionists. It's of no use in the argument for raw food.
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Sophia said:
But look, let's talk about it. It really seems as though you've been mis-informed. Honestly, excuse me because it is I who doesn't want to lecture or make you feel harangued, which is why I could spout out info all day, but I'd much rather you look for yourself. Take it a step further. If you can, try eating fruits and veggies for 30 days or for a week and tell me you don't notice a difference.
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Well I have shown a few ways you are misinformed also. :D
Eating vegetables and fruits for 30 days and see a difference in what? I assume you mean raw Fruit and veg, and that the difference you mean is I would feel better. What if I did feel better? this would not prove anything, because I might feel better for weight loss reasons. I might feel better for placebo effect reasons. I might feel better because I was sick all winter and just got over what I was sick of naturally, in no way because of foods, and that's why I feel better. I might also feel worse. And that would prove little either.
I don't mind you "haranguing" me Sophia! I am virtually unharanguable, and I prefer passion in discussions. :D
Mod
(i don't know why that's my fav word lately)
I understand what you're saying for the most part, but I don't think you can really justify saying that cooked and uncooked foods are on the same playing field. They're just not. No other animal cooks their own food. They eat it in the state that suits their physiology. In that same regard, sure it's better to cook foods that don't suit what our physiology would suggest is appropriate, i.e. - meat. But we are perfectly capable of eating, and find it preferable biologically to eat, fruits and veggies without altering their state first.
But cooked food and uncooked food are absolutely different. It's not a matter of one being better than the other, but that as human beings, eating uncooked fruits and veggies is better for us than eating cooked fruits and veggies. On the same token, eating cooked meat is better than eating uncooked meat. But overall, cows are made to eat grass, tigers made to eat antelopes, and human beings are made to eat uncooked vegan food.
Actually it isn't, it's like saying a food processed for digestion is different from foods NOT prepared for digestion. ;)
- OK, I'm a lil simple....What's like saying a food processed for digestion is different from foods NOT prepared for digestion? Cuz that's what I'm saying...
Don't you think it's better to eat more foods that don't need processin' for digestion? That's my whole point, really. Cooking isn't necessarily a good or bad thing, but it does alter the state of our food to a degree that in most ways makes it less ideal for our body's consumption.
Yes, cooking denatures proteins, which we denature on our own when we have to, because little that enters the cell that stays intact, except of course, atoms.
-We denature proteins on our own? Explain that one further? Cooking denatures (alters the structure of) while digestion breaks down...totally different thing.
When you break something down to make something new you destroyed it.
-Transforming and destroying are also two different things. And breaking something down to smaller usable parts is maybe deconstruction, but not destruction. Destruction turns something into useless parts.
You make it sound like the body doesn't [use excess water and enzymes] for raw food. It does, it's natural and normal for your body to do so, it's part of digestion. And our microbiota do most of the work in the intestines, anyway. You make digestion sound abnormal.
-How do I make digestion sound abnormal? You say that we should cook food in order to digest it, that's like saying our digestion is abnormal and doesn't do what it's supposed to without a little outside help. I think it's unnecessary to cook foods that don't need our help digesting them.
We only need 8 amino acids from food. We manufacture the rest.
-The nine amino acids that we get from foods are the ones that are most readily available for use. The others are manufactured slowly and aren't what contribute to the majority of our cells' usage.
If you could not get them from cooked foods, well, people who only eat cooked foods would be dead.
-You're right, you can eat whatever you want to and not die, for the most part. There's a guy who ate a whole airplane! (Seriously. Look it up.) There are people who only eat McDonald's every day and they're fine, while there are people who rarely eat anything at all (breatharians) and they too are fine. Cows are fed other cows and they live, but we all know that isn't the best diet for a cow. You CAN eat anything, but that doesn't mean it's the best diet for your body.
You can get every amino acid you need to live from cooked chicken.
-That's not all you get from cooked chicken.
No organism would evolve to make itself more likely and easier to be eaten, it makes absolutely no sense.
-They do when being eaten helps distribute their seeds, help their pollination, or stimulate their seeds to grow. That's what fruits are in the first place! There are even plants that don't begin to grow until they come through some animal's butt, lol. The animal's digestive process releases their enzyme inhibitors.
A cut apple will start to decay almost immediately but it has to do with oxidation, not digestion aids.
-Precisely...decay. It doesn't mold or get fungus like bread and cooked food (which is what happens internally, as well)... it decays. Our saliva, stomach acids, and intestinal bacteria (as you mentioned) help this process along but it does not tax the enzymes that our body produces because it uses those that are already in the fruit. I'm sure it uses some of our enzyme stores, but not at the same level as when there are little to no enzymes present in the food at all.
I'll see what I can find on this, but I've read many places that your body uses the enzymes available in the food source, but pulls from it's own stores when necessary. (Sunfood Diet Success System references this and where he found his information. A friend of mine is borrowing my book, I'll report once I get the sources that expound on this.)
Lemon juice has a pH of 2-3. Our stomach has a pH of between 1 and 3. So there goes any idea of apples digesting themselves for you in your stomach.
No it doesn't because oxidation and digestion are too different things. The lemon juice prevents oxidation, but the fruit doesn't suddenly exist forever because there is lemon juice on it. It is broken down during digestion or else we'd be pooping out apple chunks. We do not.
-On the matter of pH, that's really the only place that cooking has a positive place or aids in digestion. Meat, beans, legumes and other foods are acidic in their raw state. Cooking actually neutralizes them so that they aren't so harmful to the body.
And this has nothing to do with human digestion at all. It's just a statement of how caloric value is determined for nutritionists. It's of no use in the argument for raw food.
-Digestion is simply the process of breaking down food for easier absorption so that we can get energy and nutrition for our cells. When our basis for analyzing which nutrients and energy we get from food involves cooking it to death, literally, we are not getting an accurate idea of just what all we are or are not getting from our food. We go around reading labels and checking ingredients lists for stuff, but there are thousands of things not on that label because we just don't have the capabilities of seeing everything that's in a living article of food. So, it certainly is an argument for raw food. It makes more sense to me...eat whole foods that are not denatured and not only will you assimilate things that we can test in a lab, but many electromagnetic and biological agents that we are just beginning to be able to test for.
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Food for thought: Certain epidemics are caused when a disease's initial effects are not visible, or are minor, and when the disease kills slowly enough that people's deaths are attributed to something else initially and they can live long enough to pass on this disease to others. That seems to be the case here. I'll be the first to admit that I am a Cooked Food Addict. My addiction is a disease, lol. I am currently on a 12 step program, but anyone who stops cold turkey will feel the difference. Meaning...you will go through a withdrawal and then you will have a moment of clarity. I know from experience. I wouldn't bullshit you because I have nothing to gain from doing so. So don't knock it 'til you try it. We can go back and forth all day, but to paraphrase Michael Bluejay, "It's difficult to consider fairly the things that you don't want to do."
But don't stop...It's incredibly interesting to hear your thoughts on this. All in all, are these arguments that you have against trying it or are you just rebutting me?
To each their own I say! While I also am a practitioner and strong advocate of raw food diets (because there are many different forms of it, and it should be thought of as something which can be tailored to almost anyone), a person has to want to achieve a higher state of health. Sophie, I agree completely with your point that raw foods cannot really be treated with the same value as cooked foods. Their nutrient levels are completely different as is the bodies recognition of these foods. However, everyone has to find what works for them. Radiant, beautiful health isn't everybody's top priority in this world. Plus, cooked foods and moreso many processed "foods" which aren't really foods at all are addictive by design. So people who are addicted to these things are going to have hostile and defensive responses, similar to a drug addict when one tries to take away his or her "food"/drug. It's a very personal thing for people, their choice to become healthier or not, to embrace raw foods or not. As for me, I feel it's changed my life and I prefer to use my energies for continued healing and those who are open to positive dietary improvement based on ancient knowledge.
I have to break my reply up, GoodReads is being anal. :eyeroll:Sophia said:
I understand what you're saying for the most part, but I don't think you can really justify saying that cooked and uncooked foods are on the same playing field. They're just not. No other animal cooks their own food. They eat it in the state that suits their physiology. In that same regard, sure it's better to cook foods that don't suit what our physiology would suggest is appropriate, i.e. - meat. But we are perfectly capable of eating, and find it preferable biologically to eat, fruits and veggies without altering their state first.
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We are quite capable, as are most animals, of eating certain things raw. Fruit was evolutionarily designed to be eaten raw, and to be tempting, so as to spread seed. Fruit cannot be looked at the same way as an entire plant, such as say manioc. One wants you to eat it the other doesn't.
The fact no other animals cooks its own food is meaningless. Other animals don't also grow their own food, live in houses, and eat almost anything they can find, plant, animal, lollipop, and TAB totally artifical beverage. the fact other animals don't do it does not mean they would not if they could not, or experience a benefit from the rawness of their food.
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Sophia said:
But cooked food and uncooked food are absolutely different. It's not a matter of one being better than the other, but that as human beings, eating uncooked fruits and veggies is better for us than eating cooked fruits and veggies. On the same token, eating cooked meat is better than eating uncooked meat. But overall, cows are made to eat grass, tigers made to eat antelopes, and human beings are made to eat uncooked vegan food.
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Your last statement is untrue. Humans are omnivores and have been eating meat for millenia. If you do any sort of study into human health and disease you find we got terribly sick when we started eating primarily vegetables and grains. We are not designed to do one thing at all. We are designed to eat everything and anything we can with safety.
A simply dental analysis shows your ideas to be untrue. Our teeth are not made for a vegetarian lifestyle.
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Sophia said:
Don't you think it's better to eat more foods that don't need processin' for digestion? That's my whole point, really. Cooking isn't necessarily a good or bad thing, but it does alter the state of our food to a degree that in most ways makes it less ideal for our body's consumption.
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This is not proven. In fact cooking makes many nutrients available that weren't before, and removes many toxins.
Even potatoes are bad for us to eat raw. And so are kidney beans, and many other plants and seeds.
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Sophia said:
-We denature proteins on our own? Explain that one further? Cooking denatures (alters the structure of) while digestion breaks down...totally different thing.
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Digestion denatures proteins, then they are further broken down.
Sophia said:-Transforming and destroying are also two different things. And breaking something down to smaller usable parts is maybe deconstruction, but not destruction. Destruction turns something into useless parts.
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We don't agree on our definition of destruction. if something is dismantled, it is destroyed. We do not use things from our food like they do in the Pick-a-Part car junkyard, our cells don't see a nice enzyme and say "Hey I can use that!" and bring it in to our bodies. We are more like people using the rocks from an old house to build a new one. "Parts" in chemistry and life are NEVER useless. Even an atom is useful. Even an atom used 50 times is useful.
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Sophia said:
-How do I make digestion sound abnormal? You say that we should cook food in order to digest it, that's like saying our digestion is abnormal and doesn't do what it's supposed to without a little outside help. I think it's unnecessary to cook foods that don't need our help digesting them.
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You spoke of "drawing water away from other parts of the body", energy expenditure... this happens normally, raw or cooked. That is how you made it sound abnormal. I never said we should cook food to digest it, I said cooking can help break down foods we will be breaking down in our body anyway. :) And no food digests itself. We have to digest ALL foods. There is simply no food that we eat that kindly digests itself and falls apart into nice little packs of nutrient for us. We digest everything we eat, raw, cooked, both.
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Sophia said:
You CAN eat anything, but that doesn't mean it's the best diet for your body.
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That's absolutely completely true.
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Sophia said:
You can get every amino acid you need to live from cooked chicken.
-That's not all you get from cooked chicken.
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So what? You were making it seem like we are in desperate need of amino acids, destroying them at every turn with cooking, and starved for them, when we can easily get everything we need from cooked chicken. You may or may not get other things from cooked chicken, but that does not mean that to avoid them you need to exist on raw vegetables and fruit.
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No organism would evolve to make itself more likely and easier to be eaten, it makes absolutely no sense.
-They do when being eaten helps distribute their seeds, help their pollination, or stimulate their seeds to grow. That's what fruits are in the first place! There are even plants that don't begin to grow until they come through some animal's butt, lol. The animal's digestive process releases their enzyme inhibitors.
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A fruit is not a plant. An entire plant does not want to be eaten, because it dies. It may benefit from flowers or seeds or fruit being eaten, maybe even from apical foliage being eaten, but plants do not evolve strategems that involve total death in order to spread seed.
A seed is not a plant either. It may benefit from going through a butt but a plant doesn't. LOL!!
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Sophia said:
-Precisely...decay. It doesn't mold or get fungus like bread and cooked food (which is what happens internally, as well)... it decays. Our saliva, stomach acids, and intestinal bacteria (as you mentioned) help this process along but it does not tax the enzymes that our body produces because it uses those that are already in the fruit. I'm sure it uses some of our enzyme stores, but not at the same level as when there are little to no enzymes present in the food at all.
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I already proved that the enzymes in the plant, fruit, seed, whatever, can not function within the pH level of the stomach, this is untrue.
Where did you get told we grow mold on food in our stomach and intestine?
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Sophia said:
I'll see what I can find on this, but I've read many places that your body uses the enzymes available in the food source, but pulls from it's own stores when necessary. (Sunfood Diet Success System references this and where he found his information. A friend of mine is borrowing my book, I'll report once I get the sources that expound on this.)
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Unless there have been actual verifiable reviewed studies on this by people other than the raw food industry, don't bring them up. Stuff printed by people with no evidence in support of something that makes them money is not evidence.
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Sophia said:
No it doesn't because oxidation and digestion are too different things. The lemon juice prevents oxidation, but the fruit doesn't suddenly exist forever because there is lemon juice on it. It is broken down during digestion or else we'd be pooping out apple chunks. We do not.
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Here's what happened:
You stated raw foods have enzymes that aid in digestion. You told me to prove this put fries and an apple next to each other.
I pointed out this is proof of nothing, because enzymes are not active in the stomach. This does not mean that apples don't get digested in acid, it means they do not digest themselves, ever, because their enzymes cannot function in our stomach.
Sophia said: -Digestion is simply the process of breaking down food for easier absorption so that we can get energy and nutrition for our cells. When our basis for analyzing which nutrients and energy we get from food involves cooking it to death, literally, we are not getting an accurate idea of just what all we are or are not getting from our food. We go around reading labels and checking ingredients lists for stuff, but there are thousands of things not on that label because we just don't have the capabilities of seeing everything that's in a living article of food. So, it certainly is an argument for raw food.
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Why? if we can't tell what is in it, how do you know there is anything beneficial? It isn't really an argument for raw food, it's an argument for not cooking your food until it's ashes.
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Sophia said:
It makes more sense to me...eat whole foods that are not denatured and not only will you assimilate things that we can test in a lab, but many electromagnetic and biological agents that we are just beginning to be able to test for.
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Making sense does not mean it's true. Many things make sense to people that are not true, or testable in any way. It made sense to people that the universe revolved around the earth. it made sense that Communism should work. The Green Revolution made sense.
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Sophia said:
We can go back and forth all day, but to paraphrase Michael Bluejay, "It's difficult to consider fairly the things that you don't want to do."
But don't stop...It's incredibly interesting to hear your thoughts on this. All in all, are these arguments that you have against trying it or are you just rebutting me?
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Well to be fair, Sophia you don't know what I won't do. ;) What I DO want to do is consider things fairly, and there is nothing I have ever learned that tells me that one way and only one is the right way to do things. I've seen a lot of holistic charlatanism in my day, and it usually begins with half-truths and things that "seem" natural. I want truth, nothing more.
It's easy, in today's world of overly processed food to think that "going back to natural" is the way to go. It's more likely to be true that if we stop food additives, hormones and antibiotics, fertilizers and insecticides, we will be far more healthy. There's no need to swing to extreme diets because one feels the current foodways to be unhealthy.
The truth is, and it's provable by evidence, that man was never a vegetarian, and has eaten cooked food for millenia, and became much sicker when he started eating a diet provided by agriculture. So it does not stand to reason a vegetarian raw diet is the best one for mankind. Though certainly a diet high in non-processed in factories, fresh and tasty steamed veggies and nice raw fruit would be of great benefit, because a varied diet filled with many different foods is what provably kept our nomadic and hunter & gatherer ancestors quite healthy, along with a certain amount of exercise which is far less than people think.
Mod
You win, I guess.
Thanks Zahira. :-) You totally put that into perspective for me. I know what I said and what I mean.
Molly, I am really repeating myself, but just to clarify:
-Of course your body digests everything (except for fiber). But raw foods assist in this proecss and don't tax the body like cooked foods. Also, yes cooked foods attract more decomposers like excessive bacteria which wreaks havoc on our bacterial/fungal balance. You don't get yeast infections or bladder infections or anything like that on a raw diet. Ask me how I know.
-None of this is black and white, so stop trying to make it that way. I don't even really have a point to argue because I agree with you. Cooking is not bad...IF it helps you intake things that are hard to process without doing so.
-At the same time, again, we probably shouldn't eat foods that we have to cook.
-Yes cooking denatures food. Your body may alter your food to transform it or deconstruct it into usable parts. But this alteration doesn't denature or destroy because it doesn't render the food unusable in most cases.
http://dictionary.reference.com/brows...
-About killing plants....You don't have to kill plants to eat raw. I actually advocate NSEW gardening Where you pick fruits and veggies once they're ready and you only cull leafy greens, lettuces, etc. in a circular pattern as they grow. This way you don't have to kill the lettuce and you help it grow faster.
-Again, the bigger picture here is that it is documented and I've personally seen that eating a raw food diet cures and prevents diseases. To sum it up, eating raw brings you back to who you are supposed to be. We aren't supposed to get sick as much as we do or at all. We arent' supposed to be obese. We are supposed to be generally content without the use of Paxil. Eating a diet with a majority of raw vegan food does that for me and I can't wait to get to 100% again. It is by no means a placebo effect. And even if it is, it's damn good for it to work with as many people as it has.
http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/40...
Molly, you are dealing in black and white extremes and faulty semantics way too much for me. So ok, you win the 'debate' if that's what you want this to be. I'm just telling you what I think and I was just calling you on that erroneous "raw foods are no better than cooked foods" thing. Instead of making generalizations like that I wouldn't have minded a genuine inquiry or valid objection on my overall thought process, but ...and this may make you mad... you are totally making me feel like I just told a creationist that I believe in evolution, them saying that evolution is just a theory, and me trying to explain why it's not a theory in the way 'theory' is defined. The whole time I was reading your response....that's what's running through my head. I mean, the whole "we've always eaten meat" thing....most people have believed in Christianity for a long time, and yet they are all wrong. Just because a people do something and don't die doesn't mean it's right.
Now, if you're afraid I'm about to kill myself going down this path or something, by all means...stop me, show me some articles, give me some reading material to look up....especially on how we got sick just eating veggies and grains. Otherwise, if you're not generally concerned for my welfare, then don't worry about any of this anyway. I really don't have the time and right now it looks like this isn't going anywhere.
You're trying to prove me wrong when I'm not, and when I'm not pushing my lifestyle on anyone else. I've said, and I quote "I don't mean to be so fervent about things. Can, Molly, everyone...if you feel like me or any other person on this site is being pushy or something, please don't hesitate to put it in check. This is not a place where we shove ideas on each other, rather, we put out and discuss information so that we can formulate decisions about our own lives better, and in contexts that work for our personal situations."
I just feel this is the best way to eat and to stop me if anyone feels like I'm pressuring them to jump on my bandwagon. I know everyone's not on this wavelength, but those that are know exactly what I'm talking about. There is no need to attempt to rebut my every word if there is not even a purpose in it, lol. So why are you being so vituperative? I can gladly suggest some books or people to talk to if you want to know more about raw, but right now just stop knit picking, lol. Tell me this...what do you feel is the best way to eat and why? I'd much rather we switch directions...please put out something more positive that sheds light on what you do and stop bashing me for what I do because it's different.
Sorry if you feel I am being vituperative, Soph. I'm not meaning to be. I am being far, far, FAR nicer to you than many people in academia or in college is to each other when they debate, believe me. ;DLike I said I only want truth. If you don't like the way I ask, you certainly don't have to discuss it with me. The purpose in it is only that - to get at the truth.
I dunno about faulty semantics, either. I think I'm being pretty plain.
So we will shelve it, because you're right, there is no point in going forward if you are going to feel like I am attacking you. But I'll close with one thing, get angry if you like, that's fine, but if your sytem worked you wouldn't need to call this discussion off, because you could counter my rebuttals with fact, not misleading apples and french fries experiments.
Anyway I already said what I think is the best way to eat: stop food additives, hormones and antibiotics, fertilizers and insecticides, we will be far more healthy. Eat less processed food and more fresh food cooked at home. It's pretty easy, and though raw food may be the sacred true path to perfect glowing magnificence, moderation and intelligent action usually work pretty well, if not as gloriously.
I wasn't in my GYN's office for more than 2 seconds when she said. "We're going to go ahead and give you the Gardasil vaccine for HPV..."
I was like, oh no you aren't. We got to talking about it and turns out it's a 3 part shot that costs $200 per dose (that's $600 total ... She told me cuz I refuse to get insurance). She was a total salewoman in there!! She also tried to talk to me about calcium supplements, something to help pre-diabetes (which I show no signs for, but have a family history of) and when I said no to those, she went down this laundry list of sales openers, like:
"Are you depressed?" "Do you have trouble sleeping?" "Are you having trouble focusing?" etc.
I mean, I knew what she would have said if I'd said yes to any, cuz I've seen the commercials for Paxil, Ambien, and Focusin ZQ or whatever the hell.
Then she asked me if I'd considered breast reduction surgery. I told her that I noticed my breasts reduced in size since I stopped eating chicken. In all seriousness. She laughed at me! lol
My point here is...Doctors are glorified drug dealers....if they can't gloss it over with pills, burn it out, or cut it up (or refer another dr. to do so for a small fee...) Then they are at a loss.
Please, you guys....post your doctor and health stories here. I knooow I'm not the only one this stuff happens to, lol.