COMMON SENSE ON DIET AND HEALTH - PERSONAL OPINIONS

ByTom Billings

1) No diet can guarantee excellent health because diet is only one factor; health involves many other factors such as exercise, stress reduction, the mind, and so on.

2) There is no such thing as a perfect diet. There is no single diet that is "best" for all. Diet and health are not "one size fits all" approaches. Diet should serve the individual; you should not be a slave to dietary dogma. Your health is more important than dogma!

3) There are no guarantees in life. Wild animals often die of disease, despite eating a completely natural, raw diet in the wild. So too, even the most conscientious raw fooder can get sick. A raw foods diet does not guarantee good health (whether physical or mental)!

4) If one takes the word holistic to refer to the whole person: body, mind, and spirit, then with a few exceptions (e.g., the Essenes), no raw food diet/ system is a true holistic health system. Most raw food diets deal with the body, but not the spirit. A few systems (e.g., natural hygiene) mention mental health, but provide little practical advice on the subject.

5) Healing is where you find it. Due to idealism, raw fooders often are blind to the reality that other diets can assist healing. These other healing diets contradict raw foods vegan dogma. Examples include instincto, which is raw but non-veg, macrobiotic, which is usually vegetarian but almost 100% cooked, and ketogenic diet, which is cooked and non-veg.

6) The obsession with mucus and toxemia that afflicts many raw fooders can be harmful. That obsession, coupled with the idealism of raw foods dogma, may lead a sick person to ignore symptoms and/or refuse medical care, as the illness is assumed to be due to detoxification. If you are sick, you should consult qualified health professional(s) for advice and treatment as appropriate.

7) Many of the world's medical systems say, in effect, "there is no such thing as an incurable disease, but there are incurable patients". The point is that your attitude is very important in determining healing/health. You should have positive reasons for your diet; avoid negative reasons. Examples of negative motivations for a raw foods diet, include the fear of mucus, fear of raw protein foods, and fear/hatred of cooked foods and those who consume them. A diet high in processed/over-cooked food, but with positive motivation, might eventually harm your body. However, a diet that is motivated by negativity (even a raw foods diet) will surely poison your heart and mind.

8) Raw foodism is usually concerned only with the body, with the result that our mental attitude towards food can be very unhealthy. Eating may become an exercise in perfectionism, with low self-esteem because we backslide and eat "improper" foods. This type of behavior and attitude are factors in eating disorders (anorexia, bulimia), and we should avoid such attitudes/behavior.