How Much Water Should One Drink?

I already addressed this topic on my original blog, but unfortunately the URL has been taken down and is no longer accessible. I decided to post a new posting on water because most people do not understand how much water we need or do not need.

If you follow the mainstream they will always recommend that we drink at least 8 glasses (8 US ounces) of water a day. This amounts to about 2 liters of water a day. This recommendation of course is based on the typical American diet, which is a very highly concentrated diet of processed foods with tons of added salt, spices, additives and condiments.

In fact this recommended amount of water is probably way too low for the average American dieter. In order to clean out all of the toxins that they consume a lot more water than that is necessary. Almost all cooked food (except for boiled or steamed vegetables and possibly rice) is extremely dehydrated. For each ounce of cooked food at least 2 to 3 ounces of water are needed just to rehydrate the food.

More water than that is needed to help the body eliminate the toxins and the resultant toxins from our metabolism of these foods. In fact the recommendation is off by about 100%, at least 16 glasses (8 US ounces) should be consumed a day when eating a cooked diet.

If you are not on a cooked food diet or a dehydrated food diet (as the gourmet raw diet) and you consume only fresh, ripe, raw whole foods like fruits and vegetables then your need for water drops. Most fruits are full of water as are most vegetables.

If you live in a cooler or moderate climate and you do not do a lot of extremely difficult work or exercise then your recommended consumption of water would not be very high. This also depends on what kinds of fruits you are eating that day.

If your diet consists of a lot of low water fruits like dates and bananas then you will need to drink water to make sure you are hydrated well. If on the other hand you consume only very high water content fruits like citrus, mangoes, papaya, etc. then your need for water goes way down.

In fact if we still consumed the 8 or 16 glasses of water a day with a diet of high water content fruits you would actually be hurting yourself and not helping by over taxing your kidneys.

If your urine is clear and you go urinate at least 8 to 14 times a day then there would be no need to drink more water. That would only cause your elimination organs to unecessarily work harder than they should. Every organ of the body except the heart and lungs needs to have a rest, forcing the kidneys to work all day long is preventing them from getting sufficient rest.

Judge for yourself. If you are seeing clear urine and you urinate between 8 and 14 times a day then you do not need to drink more water. Waking up once or twice a night to urinate is also normal and not a sign of something wrong.

Do not just go out and drink more water just because somebody is telling you to, make sure that you are hydrated well by checking the color of your urine and how often you urinate. Depending on your level of activity and the climate where you live the amount can range from less than half of a liter to as much as 3 or 4 liters a day.

Why Are So Many People Sick, Overweight and Obese?

When I speak of the typical diet in this post I am speaking of the typical diet of most Americans or even most North Americans, which includes Canada and Mexico. Although Mexicans consume a very different diet from Americans and Canadians, they do not consume a diet that is compatible with a human digestive system.

I live in the southwestern part of the United States now. This area is close to the state of Texas. Most people know Texas as the state which includes lots of cowboys. There are ranches and cattle farms everywhere in Texas.

One of the typical restaurants in Texas is known as Rudy's. Their web site is www.rudys.com There are branches of this restaurant in other states such as Colorado, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.

They have their menu available on the web site. Most of the items available are heavy on the animal flesh. In fact most of the dishes are predominantly meat from a cow. They have a couple of chicken, turkey and pork dishes listed on the menu but most of their specialty is the good old cowboy favorite, beef.

Most of the items on the menu are listed as 1/2 pound of meat.

I decided to check their nutritional information to see what the average customer of this restaurant is getting when they eat one of the meals there. I am really only interested in the percentage of fat. Fat is probably the most important nutrient for human health. Once a human's diet includes more than 10% of it's calories from fat the person will start seeing predictable declines in health.

Here is a breakdown of the items on the menu:

Brisket, moist (1/2 pound) 641.4 calories 454.95 from fat: 70.93% calories from fat

Brisket, lean (1/2 pound) 614.16 calories 431.01 from fat: 70.18% calories from fat (really lean!)

Turkey breast (1/2 pound) 212.83 calories 22.59 from fat: 10.61% calories from fat (almost 80/10/10)

Pork loin (1/2 pound) 465.9 calories 289.17 from fat: 62.07% calories from fat

Chopped beef (1/2 pound) 617.13 calories 416.43 from fat: 67.48% calories from fat

Pork spare ribs (1/2 pound) 458.03 calories 329.49 from fat: 71.94% calories from fat

Baby back ribs (1/2 pound) 383.37 calories 329.49 from fat: 85.95% calories from fat

Half chicken (1/2 chicken) 730.31 calories 454.95 from fat: 62.29% calories from fat

Regular sausage (whole link) 640.00 calories 468.09 from fat: 73.14% calories from fat

Only the turkey breast is anywhere near the 10% or less of calories from fat which is necessary to stay healthy. Of course the overall diet should have less than 10% of it's calories from fat and not just one meal so if one eats a meal like this only once in a long while and all of the rest of their meals are extremely low in fat then they would still be living a healthy lifestyle. Unfortunately this is rarely the case and most people eat a diet that averages way higher than 10% of it's calories from fat.

Even the lean brisket is only .75% less fat than the regular brisket. Not much of a savings in fat there at all.

Besides all of the other negative health consequences of eating foods like these such as hormones in the meat, antibiotics, diseases, possibility of food borne contaminations like e-coli and salmonella, low vitamin and mineral and other micronutrient values, the percentages of fat by calories are as much as 9 times the recommended values.

If you or someone you know still desires to eat foods like these, please educate yourself and understand the consequences. Being healthy and consuming foods like these are mutually exclusive.

What is too Extreme?

I thought it was about time to say something about this as it has been on my mind for more than 3 years now. Just to give a history of where this is all coming from, I read the book "The 80/10/10 Diet" by Douglas Graham in 2006.

I found the information so astounding and realistic that I almost immediately stopped what I was doing at the time and converted to a whole foods raw and low fat diet.

Actually my diet at the time was quite different from the mainstream. I was eating a nearly 100% raw diet with big salads covered in olive oil and lots of almond and other nut butters smothered on raw seed crisps for lunch.

The diet I was on was giving me about 35% of my calories from fat. This was far from the ridiculous 65% plus derived from most raw gourmet diets but still way above the target of under 10%.

The information was not extreme at all. It was not radical. It made total sense. If anything was extreme or radical it was everyone else's diet. It's no wonder the world is so sick, everyone is overweight, obese, complaining of so many illnesses.

Even people who I thought were doing fine, I later found out were really quite sick. For example one of my coworkers who I recently met as I started the new job seemed like he was quite healthy. I don't see too many people eating the standard North American diet who are slim, fit and healthy.

I thought I found one example of this. This person is about 50 years old and works in the information technology area. They seem to adhere to the usual diet of most Americans. Burgers, fries, soda, some home made cooking, a few salads covered in oils and vinegars, etc. are what I usually see this person eat.

After a few weeks there was a discussion in our office and the truth came out. This person is suffering from gout. They limit their intake of red meat and other foods that cause a relapse. Even the one person I felt was an example of how someone can eat poorly and still be healthy turned out not to be so healthy afterall.

It really seems to me that if the usual diet of most Americans was the right diet for people then they can eat all of the things they like in any quantity and still not have any problems or consequences. Obviously this is not the case as even one of the only healthy looking people I know is suffering from gout and must limit certain foods in their diet.

Now back to the book I read in 2006. The book was so meaningful to me that I wanted to reach out to others and make sure they read it. I lent the book to my mom. I then lent it to a friend.

I believe that my mom read most of the book and my friend read a little of the book. He said that he skimmed through it. Both had the same comment, they felt that the diet described in the book was too extreme.

If it is too extreme then nobody can do it, or at least only certain chosen people would be able to do it. It's kind of like someone who is an amateur runner but never ran a marathon saying that running is great but running a marathon is too extreme.

Certainly a marathon is not too extreme for the thousands of marathoners who participate in them regularly. In effect it is not really too extreme but it is too extreme for them personally.

The same goes for the diet, it is far far from an extreme diet. In fact it is the only diet that is not extreme. Anyone who says that it is extreme is just saying that they themselves find it too extreme and that they rather stick with their poor addictive diet and use the "too extreme" excuse to not even bother to try it.

Is anyone in agreement?

What is the Risk Anyways?

Am I crazy or does this make any sense? I work for a large federal government agency. They manage all of the national parks and national forests in the country. In fact they employ over 40,000 people to do all this work. A large task to say the least.

As a government agency we could be targeted in a terrorist attack. Besides that, many other accidents or unexpected disasters might occur. Due to this we recently had a safety meeting to inform all of the employees of what would be the best way to face an emergency.

It seems like safety is an important concern to the government. They do not take it lightly. We listened to an ex-policeman speak about fire extinguishers and how to use them. He explained what to look for to make sure they are in good condition to even use.

He talked about what to do if someone would enter our building with a gun. He described several scenarios about how to react to a fire, a bomb, some other emergency.

Obviously this information is very important. Many of the topics he spoke about were very interesting and I would have never thought about them if he did not mention them.

The only thing I have to say about this is that the probability of something like one of the scenarios he spoke about happening is probably in the range of 1 out of 10,000 or maybe even less than that. Even the chance of being in an airplane crash is only 1 in 400,000, so this kind of event is about 40 times more likely than that.

I think my reasoning is quite sound. Sure the events of 9/11 did happen but that was once and only in relatively few areas of the country. The explosion in Oklahoma City also did happen but that too was a one of a kind event and confined to one building in one city. Fires and crazy people returning to the work place with a gun happen often enough, but still out of over 150 million people who work in this country only about 15,000 have been in a situation like one I described above.

That's 0.01% of the working population. Of course it's a lot better to be prepared for an event like this but in reality it's unlikely to happen to any one person in their lifetime.

The probability of someone actually dying from avoidable causes like heart attacks, stokes, cancer, and many many other preventable diseases is about 1 in 3. This is a fact, about 33% of the population dies from a preventable illness. These people seem to be so concerned about a possible event that might happen to 1 out of about 10,000 people when they totally ignore the reality of one third of the population dying of a completely avoidable and reversible disease.

The obvious ones who are most likely to be striken are the obese and the ones who have a tobacco habit. Still many people who look fit and trim and do not smoke are just as likely to be candidates of one of these preventable illnesses.

I think that having safety meetings is important but there should also be some education for the people who are on a path to causing themselves worse harm just by their choice in lifestyle.

Anybody agree?

Who is a Success?

The idea went through my mind about who is really a success. In the world where everything is a competition I suppose that living until your genetic potential is a competition.

We can get a rough estimate of what our genetic potential is by how long our parents and grandparents lived. If we live the same way that they lived then we should be able to live the same length of time. On the other hand, if we live a much healthier lifestyle we should be able to outlive our ancestors by several years, if not decades.

People who use addictive chemicals and continue to consume them fully knowing that they are killing themselves are either so addicted to these chemicals or they are suicidal and are seeking a way to get out of their horrible life.

Which chemicals are included in this list? The obvious ones are tobacco, alcohol, recreational drugs, and of course prescription and over the counter drugs or medicine. The less obvious ones are foods like meats, dairy products, nuts and seeds in excess, condiments like garlic, onions, salt, pepper, spices, vinegar, etc.

Even cooked and processed foods that are low in fat are dangerous and life threatening.

When someone who is clealy continuing to consume dangerous chemicals and knows that they are slowly killing themselves dies at an early age are they a success or a failure?

An analysis of their behavior would point to a success. They behaved in such a manner that is consistent with someone suicidal. They succeeded in killing themselves and therefore died a success.

On the other hand if they lived to an age that was way beyond their life expectancy they were a failure. They failed at their goal of suicide.

Would you like to be a success or a failure? Why does it seem like the vast majority of people are successful at a slow suicide?

Is it that they just enjoy the thrill of getting as close to death as possible without actually dying? Was their goal to just get some attention and pity or was it to actually die?

Who on this planet doesn't know that smoking tobacco products, or just using any kind of tobacco porduct is dangerous, probably more dangerous than crossing a busy freeway. I think most know that but still they continue to do it.

I suppose the short addictive pleasure the tobacco gives is just so much better than the pain of reality, knowing that a nearly certain premature death is waiting down the road.

Are you one of those people? Are you just enjoying your dangerous lifestyle so much that you are ignoring the consequences? If so, it might be time to make some changes and instead of being a success at suicide, be a success at avoiding it.

Remove the cause: Works for more than just diseases!

What most of the world seems to misunderstand about natural hygiene is that almost all illnesses are self-inflicted. Rarely does someone actually get ill when they do everything right. In fact before we humans destroyed the beautiful planet we live on, it was difficult to become ill because we had only the best quality food, we had nearly no pollutants, we had clean air, sunshine available to us every day, we had to get exercise in order to have food and stay away from danger, everything was just right to stay healthy.

Now illness is so common that nearly every human on the planet is infected with something every few weeks or months. It's assumed that this is normal or natural. It is not normal nor natural but totally unnatural to be ill. It's just our body removing toxins that should have never been there in the first place.

Modern man believes that the way to health is by adding more toxins to an already toxic body. The people go to a doctor or to the pharmacy and take medicine (which is always toxic) in order to get relief from their illness. They sometimes actually do feel better but not because they removed the cause of the illness but because their body has stopped creating the symptoms and instead it is trying to deal with a new emergency, the toxin that was just ingested, the medicine.

Sometimes it's actually a placebo affect that helps as the consumer takes a pill that was marketed to do something, quite often it does what the consumer expects. This is a mental change and not a physical one.

Natural hygiene on the other hand proposes to eliminate the cause of the illness and eventually it will go away. That seems to make perfect sense to most people but in practice they almost all go directly to the pharmacy to buy more toxins to cure their illness. Logically it doesn't make a lot of sense to take a pill to heal something when you continue to cause the problem. It will just come right back.

This philosophy works not only in health but in many other fields as well. For example if you have children and they act poorly, or misbehave, punishing them is not what will remove the cause of their poor behavior. This might make them behave for the short term to avoid another punishment but it certainly will not permanently change their poor behavior.

If parents of a misbehaving child find out the cause of the bad behavior then they could easily remove the cause and the poor behavior will stop. This could be a simple change in diet, exercise, sleep, sunshine, or one of the other essentials. It could also be something else. Whatever it is, children can be made to behave once the cause is removed.

The same goes for animals, or pets. If they behave poorly they also need to be analyzed and the cause found so that it too can be removed. Once the cause of the bad behavior is found and removed the bad behavior will change.

The same goes for most everything in life. If your relationship is not going as you truly wanted, find the cause of the problem and remove it. If your automobile is not performing as expected then find the root cause and remove the problem. If we approach most of our problems in this way, we'll receive much better results and less difficulties with these problems coming back.

Accomodation

Sorry about the long hiatus in posting to this blog. Lots of stuff has been going on since the last post, which is not a good excuse but that's all I can say.

The title of this post is accomodation. What do I mean by that? It's the way we behave when we want to have certain circumstances that we need but can not get easily. An example is the usage of clothes, blankets, houses, heaters, air conditioners, fires, and all other appliances that make our living environment habitable. Naturally we humans thrive when we live in the tropical parts of the world. We feel comfortable in a very narrow range of temperatures. Most people are too hot when the ambient temperature is above about 85 degrees (F) and too cold when it is below about 65 degrees (F). In fact even this narrow range is expanded as we usually wear clothes when it is 65 degrees, if we did not we would feel cold at about 70 degrees or lower.

This is what I mean by accomodation. We accomodate ourselves by using something to change our environment. In the example above it is to make us feel like we are in the tropics all the time no matter where on the planet we actually are.

When people do not eat enough sweet fruit, like most of the people on the planet, they crave sweets. In fact they crave sweets so much that they accomodate the cravings by using artificial fruits such as sugar, sweeteners (natural and artificial), honey, dried fruit, etc. Go into any grocery store, health foods store, farmer's market, co-op or even corner store and what do you see? Stacks and stacks of shelves full of sugar and sweeteners. Sugar sweetened cereals, artificially sweetened cereals, fruit juice sweetened cereals, sweetened breads, muffins, cakes, cookies, candies of every variety possible, candy bars, sweet chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate, sweetened dairy products like chocolate milk, strawberry flavored milk, bags of sugar, pots of honey, dried fruit, stevia, the list is nearly endless. Soda is another completely huge monster on it's own, I think about 40% of Americans' calories comes directly from soda.

If not for sweets I think the grocery stores would be out of business. I would guess that more than 75% of the net sales of all foods are from sweets and sweetened foods. The total sales of fresh fruits and sweet vegetables like beets, carrots, yams, etc. probably do not make up even 10% of the sales of sweetened foods.

This is what I call a big accomodation, we are totally frugavores and most everyone admits to having a sweet tooth but instead of having a bunch of ripe bananas they opt for the 64 ounces of soda. Then when someone mentions that humans' natural diet is ripe, raw fresh and juicy fruit all they get in return is an argument that we humans are meant to eat meat or some kind of protein argument. If Dr. Pepper was growing on trees then maybe they'd have a good case but I still have not seen a Dr. Pepper tree.

Raw Food Restaurants Serve Healthy Food?

For those of you who have followed my old blog, you probably already know my feelings on the raw food or raw gourmet food restaurants. I decided to post another entry on this because I have been on a business trip and wanted to sample a meal at one of these places.

I did a quick search online and there happened to be a raw food restaurant right in the very neighborhood where I am staying. I looked over the menu, which is posted online and saw a couple of things that might work for me with a bit of manipulation.

I entered the restaurant and there were 2 hippie like people working there. One man and one woman. Both were decked out in psychedelic clothes, the man was wearing a tie dye shirt.

The woman greeted me and asked me to take a seat at any table. I sat down and she brought me a carafe of water. I looked over the menu and then asked if there was something that did not contain garlic.

For some reason I think this ticked them off because the woman immediately replied to me that most everything on the menu was made with garlic. Then she said that if I didn't want garlic I shouldn't eat there. I found that quite rude but still persisted.

I finally asked if there was garlic in the salad and she replied that there was none but there were onions in it. I never asked about onions but I think she understood why I was asking. I ordered the salad.

I ate the salad but avoided eating as much of the onions as possible. They were cut in small pieces so avoiding them was not easy but I managed. She also told me that her garlic was organic and raw and was okay to eat.

I was laughing inside at this. Oh sure, organic and raw garlic is okay to eat but the regular stuff cooked is bad.

The truth is in fact the opposite as the toxins in garlic are very volatile and quickly evaporate with even a small amount of heat. Slightly heated garlic is less toxic than raw garlic but of course heated garlic has other issues such as newly created substances that even science doesn't know about which are probably just as toxic as the mustard oil that evaporated.

I won't be returning to that restaurant, I'd rather just get a ripe bunch of bananas.

Food Courts or Fool Courts?

I was driving around the area where I live the other day and I needed to use a toilet quite badly, which is a pretty common occurance for me. I noticed there was a food court nearby so I decided to stop and use the toilet of one of the restaurants.

Most of the restaurants had outdoor as well as indoor seating. I saw a few of the patrons sitting outside and eating. Obviously the majority of them were obese and overweight, which makes sense since there are 75 to 80% overweight people in the USA.

I also noticed that the food most were eating was traditional foods such as pasta, burgers, pizza, submarine sandwiches and the like. There were a couple of people eating salads which were obviously drenched in oils and fats.

I made my way to the Starbucks because usually there is nobody in the Starbucks toilet. I think people who drink Starbucks are having a hard time with their bowel movements. Of course they must need to urinate out the toxic junk they drank, but that is quick especially for the men.

Also I find that Starbucks toilets are usually clean and easy to get in and out of quickly. In fact this Starbucks' toilet was near the entrance and I could easily pop in and out without being seen by the employees. Most restaurants don't like when non-paying customers use their toilets.

Once in a while I will actually purchase a bottled water from a Starbucks or other coffee shop just to use their toilet. Since my consumption of water is so little I usually have a large stash of these bottles for when I need them, like when the weather gets too hot or I do some extraneous exercise.

Of the many restaurants I saw at this food court, I have to say that none were serving anything close to a human compatible food. Except for a few apples, oranges and a banana which was unripe that I saw at Starbucks.

Skip the food courts and get your nutrition from whole, ripe, fresh, raw and preferably organic fruit and vegetables. Go ahead and use the toilets at the food courts when in need, but save your money for some real food.

Saving Money with Natural Hygiene

An added benefit of living a natural hygienic lifestyle is saving money. In these poor economic times that could make the difference between surviving and not being able to pay the bills.

How can one save money by obeying the laws of nature? Many people who attempt to eat a natural diet complain that fruits and vegetables are expensive. They point to the small bag of groceries filled with organic fruits and vegetables that costs so much. Of course if you simply shop at the chain grocery stores which do not sell much volume of the organic fruits and vegetables the costs can be quite high.

The trick is to become a little creative in finding quality fruit and vegetables. Always keep and eye open for specials from the major food chains. When they put organic fruit or vegetables on sale, often the prices are below some of the other sources. When there is a sale then buy as much as you know you will use of the fruit or vegetable before it spoils. Don't just buy several cases of it and watch half of your investment go to waste.

There are also web sites such as neighborhoodfruit.com which allows people who have backyard fruit available to find someone who wants the fruit. As of the writing of this post there are only members offering fruit in California but this will certainly be expanded soon.

Foraging for fruit can also help with costs as many trees are in public places and even some backyard trees hang over public land. There are also many wilderness areas that have some truly wild fruits and berries that can be harvested.

Some of the less known stores in many cities stock lots of fruits and often when they do not sell as fast as planned they are marked down in price. I was able to find pints of organic yellow cherry tomatoes from Mexico for just 99 cents each. Some of the tomatoes had a few brown spots on them but were otherwise just perfect.

Go into some of the ethnic stores that are run by people from Asia, Africa, Europe, etc. They often carry tropical fruit and vegetables that are not found in the major grocery chains. Sometimes they will bargain with you if you desire a large amount of them. I saw some longans at a local store yesterday.

Besides all of this expenses for things like perfume, cologne, hairspray, makeup, aftershave, soap, shampoo, toothpaste, and many other grooming products are no longer necessary when living a natural hygienic lifestyle. Those of you who already live like this understand, those that don't will understand as soon as they start living in a natural way.

Don't forget that your medical expenses will vanish. You will no longer need to buy any over the counter or prescription medications. Your trips to the doctor should become a thing of the past. There is practically no need to get any diagnostic tests or any other preventative procedures.

Most natural hygienists do not waste their money on medical insurance, some choose to keep this but eventually most people realize that insurance is just redundant. Some choose to only have major catastrophic insurance instead of the usual full coverage.

Restaurants are often used as a form of entertainment, but often are overpriced and do not deliver much in return. Most hygienists prefer to avoid restaurants completely as they do not conform the the laws of nature.

Some natural hygienists move to tropical locations where there is an abundance of fresh ripe fruit available all year around. The prices of these fruits are often a small percentage of the prices in the northern climates where they must be imported.

Some people think that the only way to get exercise is by paying for a gym membership or paying for Tai Chi or some form of Yoga. This is absolutely unnecessary as there are many ways to get exercise without any equipment at all and all that is needed is a little space. Running or walking is a great way to enjoy the area you are in and get sunshine and exercise. There are many body weight exercises that can get the body in perfect shape. Check out the many available videos on Youtube.com to get an idea of the possibilities.

Sunshine is easy to get for free. Many cities don't get much sunshine in the year, but when there is sunshine make sure to bathe in it as much as possible. If you can afford to get away for a week or two in the off season then try to go to a very warm and sunny location and get as much sunshine as you can while there.

You'll find that your cost of living will drop as your health increases. Money should never be an impediment to health.

Is it Comfort Food or Discomfort Food?

Many people have heard of the term "Comfort Food". Usually the foods that come to mind are the traditional standard foods that many people consume often. These foods include things like casseroles, which are generally made with animal meats and potatoes or some kind of pasta, roast beef sandwiches, cornbread, all the way to simple peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Most of the foods that are considered Comfort Foods are poorly combined and full of processed and extremely toxic substances. In general they contain the foods that are addictive like dairy, meat and grains. These are the foods that contain opioids which are opium-like substances that act on the brain and nervous system in the same way that opium does.

This is probably why these foods are considered comfort foods. They will leave most people who eat them in a very comfortable state. A very comfortably numb state is a better description of the situation.

Actually when these opioids act on the nervous system they cause a feeling of well bring and drown out the emotions, both positive and negative emotions. We are left in a complete state of unemotional numbness.

Most people do not consider themselves drug addicts but those who continue to allow their addiction to comfort foods to continue are just that, drug addicts. They use food as their drug.

For some people this addiction is so powerful that they need to go through therapy to be able to get off the addiction. Don't be too upset if you are attempting to stop eating these kinds of foods and always find yourself returning to them. It is a difficult habit to break.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that for every time that someone numbs them self with their food, there is a time when their body needs to recover from the numbing and they will suffer a higher than normal emotional experience. This can often lead to unexpected consequences such as being very happy or sad unexpectedly.

People who experience these periods have an erratic personality with emotional highs and lows instead of a more constant even personality having a better understanding of their emotions.

Try to refrain from the usual comfort foods and see how much better life is when you experience it real time. Handling life is just much easier when you do not need to get high or low on opioids. Have a bunch of bananas instead.

Natural Hygiene and Pets

I learned about natural hygiene about 5 years ago. At the time I realised that it was the way of nature and that following the laws of nature was the best thing a human can do. It is very powerful and freeing to understand that everything in nature is self-healing, that includes the ever fragile environment, biodiversity on the planet and of course our own health.

All of the benefits that come to nature in general will be enjoyed by everyone who gets as close to nature as they can. As long as we follow the laws of nature we will reap a benefit.

It wasn't until I heard about a dog that belonged to my brother who was put to death because it was suffering from cancer that I associated the treatment of pets with natural hygiene. I did not see the correlation between humans and pets until that day.

Most people who own a pet will usually follow the standard protocol and simply treat it the same way the majority of the people treat their pets. This usually includes the feeding of off the shelf pet foods available in supermarkets and pet food stores, or even at veterinarian's offices.

Even many people who follow the natural hygienic lifestyle continue to feed their pets these very toxic and health destroying foods. Most of the food sold for the consumption of pets are made with profit in mind. They use very low quality ingredients and are extremely processed. In fact most of these foods are made with waste products from other industries. It is a rather easy way to get rid of the waste products and earn money off of it at the same time.

These companies use marketing to get their products sold to people who purchase them without understanding the serious consequences that feeding such low quality food to their pets is doing to them.

A bowl of unknown brown color pellets doesn't resemble anything ever seen in nature, yet the package they are sold in highlights how healthy and nutritious the food is for our pets. People see their pet consume these foods and assume that their pet is enjoying the taste and they believe all of the market hype and assume their pet is getting the nutrients it needs.

Of course this is all incorrect. Nowhere in nature is there a pellet with all the necessary nutrients for an animal of any kind. In nature every single species of animals has it's most appropriate food and that food is never found in a bag or box of any other sort of container. Never are there vitamins or minerals added to any of these foods.

For example a cat would track down and eat rodents in nature. This is one of the natural foods for a cat. It would eat the entire rodent from head to toe. Nothing would go to waste. Even the contents of the rodent's digestive system would be consumed by the cat.

A dog on the other hand has a little more complex diet and would eat plant based foods as well as some small animals. Again they would eat the entire animal from head to toe with everything in between.

Every species in nature has it's specific diet and in order to thrive they need to consume their natural diet. If you have a pet, know someone who has one or are planning to get one please make sure that at the very least it is getting the foods that it would be consuming in nature.

Try doing some research on the BARF diet for dogs or the equivalent for whatever other pet you have.

Eating the Diet that Our Body was Specifically Designed for is Weird

There is an insurmountable amount of evidence that the diet a human body was designed for is just as some of the other blog entries here have discussed in detail. That is one that is nearly totally comprised of raw, ripe, organic, fresh, fruits and vegetables that are eaten one type at a time to satiate hunger and only when hungry. This is a simple way to put it, but it is also a simple diet that was available for us when we first arrived on this planet.

I won’t go into all of the evidence but I would like to mention some of it. For example we are closest in our genetics to the primates. In fact the chimpanzee or to be more specific, the bonobo chimpanzee has nearly 99% of the same genetics as humans.

When these animals are observed in the wild, when they have sufficient varieties of food and there are no external influences such as human activity, they will eat a diet that is practically all composed of fruits and vegetables and some insects. They rarely, but occasionally will hunt for animals but this behavior is not common and the percentage of calories that is from animal fare is close to negligible in their overall diet. Over 95% of their daily amount of calories comes from fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds.

The human body can not handle a diet that is comprised of more than a single digit percentage of calories from fat. This is a scientific and anecdotal fact. In western cultures where the diet is high in fats the amount of heart disease is much higher than in populations with a diet that has a much lower percentage of fat calories. In fact heart disease wouldn’t exist if people had stuck to the original diet that they were designed for.

Many of the institutions of the study of health recommend a diet that is low in fat, most recommend a single digit percentage of calories from fat. The American Heart Association, The American Cancer Association, The American Diabetes Association all recommend a diet that derives little of it’s calories from fat. A diet such as one very low in fat is known to reverse these diseases, and prevent them if they did not already exist.

There are several well known doctors such as Dr. McDougall, Dr. Esselstyn, Dr. Fuhrman, and others that all recommend a low fat diet that gets less than or equal to ten percent of it’s calories from fat in order to reverse heart disease and stay healthy.

T. Colin Campbell, a highly renowned scientist in the field of nutrition recommends a low fat diet also. His studies have shown that a diet that is high in protein is carcinogenic. Generally when a food is high in protein, it is also high in fat, unless of course the food is highly processed. Natural foods which contain a lot of protein also contain a lot of fat.

These are just a small number of reasons why the human body is designed to thrive on a very low fat diet. There are many more reasons, but in a short blog post there is not enough space to go into a lot of detail.

Since the human body is designed to consume a low fat diet then it follows that the best foods for humans are those that have sufficient calories to maintain our weight and to accomplish our daily tasks but do not contain a lot of fat. The only foods that nature provided for us that fit these requirements are fresh fruits. Vegetables are very high quality foods and do not contain a lot of fat but they are lacking in calories.

Animal foods such as flesh, eggs, and dairy, all contain more than the recommended amount of fat and are overall a poor supply of vitamins compared to fruit. They also are void of fiber, which is a requirement for the human digestive system to function correctly.

There is one more type of food group which might be a good candidate for a human diet and that is starches. Starches are found in root vegetables such as potatoes, beets, sweet potatoes, yams, etc. They are also found in grains such as rice, wheat, rye, barley, and all the others. Beans and legumes also contain a lot of starches but they also contain a lot of protein which when combined with starches cause dificulty in digestion, this is why bean eaters are known to pass gas.

Why are starches not a suitable part of the human diet? First of all they are nearly impossible to consume without heat. In fact potatoes are considered poisonous until they are heated. Grains also are difficult if not impossible to digest without heating them. Since humans arrived on the planet without heating utensils or even the ability to produce a fire that was under control it is highly unlikely that the human body was designed to exist on these foods. Were humans supposed to fast for as long as it took to develop the skills to heat food? I don’t think so, no humans were consuming the easy to digest and easy to find fruits and vegetables for millions of years before the invention of and control of fire occurred.

Besides this, the human body has little of the enzymes that are needed to digest starches. This is because there are only traces of starches in ripe fruits and that is all that is needed to digest this little amount.

Now that the evidence has shown that humans’ natural diet and the foods that the human body was designed for is fruits and vegetables with an occasional nut and seed, why do most humans ingest most of their diet from other foods?

The answer is not simple, there are many reasons but the main reason is that the human population left the fertile tropical regions of the planet and found limited amounts of fruits that were available for consumption. They soon began to experiment with what types of food existed in that part of the world. Eventually they found ways to adapt to the new kinds of foods and ways to prepare them. This however does not mean that the human body and digestive system adapted but that it tolerated the change in diet.

Certainly around that same time there were many changes going on. Agriculture is one thing that was developed. Humans were no longer foraging for food but were now specializing in creating foods for an entire city of humans. There was little high speed transportation available so the shipping of tropical fruits from the tropics to the colder climates was not an option. Humans were not seeking to thrive at that time but to survive. The new foods and the new preparation of foods allowed just that, the survival of humans.

This explains how the human population started to eat foods that were not totally appropriate to them but still managed to survive. Certainly there were obvious changes in the human population such as new diseases that appeared and many other issues but these were overlooked at the time because survival was more important than worrying about a few cases of heart attacks or cancer.

Going back to the original topic, why do humans look at people who consume the diet that their body was designed for as weird while their totally deviant diet that is simply a survival diet seen as not weird? Just because there are huge numbers of humans eating the survival diet does not make it weird of someone doing what the human body was designed to do.

What do you think?

Circumcision : Healthy and Hygienic or Mutilation?

After nearly 3 years I finally got around to the whole circumcision debate. It’s quite a hot topic to many people because this procedure is very common for certain religious affiliations. To the best of my knowledge, both Jews and Muslims require that all males have this procedure at a certain time in their life.

Jews actually have a celebration when a child is circumcised, called a brith (pronounced like briss). This ‘celebration’ is usually performed on the 8th day after a male child is born. Often the entire family attends the event and gifts are brought for the victim, I mean child.

Muslims also have a ceremony associated with circumcisions that usually takes place in the first few years of a male child’s life. Some Muslims wait until the child reaches puberty or around the age of 10 to 12 years old to have the procedure.

Many people who are not associated with these religions will still have their child undergo circumcision. The procedure is seen as a way to avoid health problems and as a hygienic necessity. In fact as many as 80% of males in the USA are known to be circumcised.

Is this really a necessity? Does it really promote health in any way? Sadly the answer to both of these questions is no. Similar to many of the other pieces of misinformation that are floating around in society, circumcisions are in no way beneficial to anyone, under any circumstances.

The procedure certainly promotes a solid financial benefit to the doctors and other practitioners (such as the Jewish mohel). It doesn’t have any benefit to the child or receiver of the surgery. In fact it is just a form of mutilation that causes severe pain to the victim as well as long term psychological damage.

An 8 day old child is certainly not prepared to go through the pain and agony of having it’s most intimate part of it’s body mutilated. Especially not in front of many unfamiliar people, by a complete stranger. A young child is expecting to be held and nurtured as much as 24 hours a day.

In fact there is no part of the human body that doesn’t have a purpose. Scientists and doctors seem to believe that we have many extraneous parts on the body that have no purpose. Nature is not going to create anything on the body that has no purpose. Everything is there for a reason. The exact reason is not always obvious, but there is always a purpose for every part of our body.

Studies have shown that men who have their foreskin intact enjoy sex better than those who have been circumcised. Also their partner’s have more pleasure and less pain. The female vagina has been designed to accomodate a penis that still has the foreskin attached and not one that has been mutilated.

In fact some women experience severe pain and actually have their vaginas damaged by having sex with a man who has been circumcised. Nature is not flawed, nature is perfect, there are no extra body parts in any natural being.

If you are a believer in one of the religions that has the ritual of circumcision or if you are planning to have a child or already have a male child that has not been circumcised, please consider not performing this barbaric mutilation on your child. He will thank you in the future for your consideration.

Ways to Get Sunshine When There is None

Sunshine is an important nutrient for optimal health. A healthy person with healthy skin and who is on a healthy low fat and low toxin diet needs to get solar exposure. The problem lies in having little access to the sun during the long winter.

Most of the world population is currently in winter now and therefore are unable to get enough sunshine on their naked skin. The fortunate few who live in the tropics and the southern hemisphere are still bathing in sunshine every day and they don’t need to worry about this until about mid to late June when the seasons reverse. The ones who live in the tropics actually don’t ever need to worry as they have access to sunshine all year around.

There is no trick to getting sunshine. The body actually can store enough vitamin D in the liver to last the entire winter. If there was enough there at the start of winter there would be no problems. This means that you should get enough sunshine while you have it so you can stay healthy during the winter.

Whenever possible and when the sun is shining, even if the temperature is well below the freezing point, get outside and absorb as much as you can. The angle of the sun greatly reduces the intensity in the winter but at least get some exposure to the face and if possible hands, and arms. The reflection from the snow (if there is any) will actually help with this.

Another suggestion is to take a fews days off and go somewhere that has the sunshine and warm weather that delivers the needed vitamins and cleansing activities that only the sun provides. Find a place that your budget can bear and spend as much time outside with as little covering as possible during the times of day when it is safe to be exposed.

These times are usually from sunrise to about 11AM and from 3PM until sunset. As long as the 11AM to 3PM danger zone is avoided, most people can get benefits from being in the sun the rest of the day. Try to stay out of the sun during the 11AM to 3PM period, if that is not possible then cover as much of your body as possible during that time. Wear a hat, a long sleeve shirt and pants until it is past 3PM.

Do not use artificial forms of sunshine such as tanning beds or any other artificial form of exposure. These forms will always do more harm than good. The only natural form of sunshine is actual sunshine.

Just to repeat the best ways to get enough sunshine:

1. When your part of the world is in summer, get as much sunshine as you can during the safe times of the day.

2. When it is winter try to expose as much of your body as possible to sunshine whenever possible at any time of day.

3. If possible, take a vacation to a location where there is a lot more sunshine and spend as much time in the sun as possible during the safe times of the day.

4. Do not, under any circumstances use any kind of artificial lighting or sunshine to replace the sun. It’s better to get no sunshine than to use an artificial source.

See you at the beach!

More People will Change Sex than Diet

Even people who are on death’s doorstep and have been advised by physicians, counselors, nutritionists, friends, relatives and even acquaintances that they need to change diets, will not change it. It seems that we generally adapt to a certain routine of nourishment and it is very difficult to modify it.

One of the reasons for this is that many of the foods that people consume are laced with drugs and these drugs are very addictive. For example as was mentioned in older posts here, animal flesh, dairy and grains are all filled with opioids. Processed foods usually also contain many unnatural and addictive ingredients to keep the customers who consume the products coming back for more. Obviously chocolate, coffee and tea are full of caffeine or caffeine-like substances, which is definitely considered a drug.

I was at a local Whole Foods Market the other day and I noticed that they put up a new raw food section in the store. I looked at the foods that they were offering and every single one, 100% of them had garlic in the list of ingredients. Many also contained salt and other toxins. This just reinforces my point that most every food people eat is full of drugs and toxins.

I also hear every few minutes on the radio an advertisement for a surgical method to lose weight. It’s called the lap band which is a surgery that installs a rubber band around the stomach thereby making it’s size smaller and forcing the person to consume less food. In fact nearly every billboard on the freeways of Los Angeles and Orange County, California have an ad for this same procedure.

It seems that people rather have this very dangerous and risky surgery than to make a simple lifestyle or even just dietary change. Eventhough the people who have had this surgery do not look healthy at all, I still see so many ads for the surgery that there must be a lot of demand for it.

I don’t know what the statistics are for sex or gender changes but I’m quite certain that more people have sex or gender changes than change their diet to a healthier one. Certainly there are people who change to a less healthy diet but there are few that change their diet to one that is acceptable to their body.

The hardest part of changing diet to a healthy one is the cravings, in many cases people crave their old diet and some in a big way. The only way to beat cravings is to get enough of the right foods and all of the other requirements such as sleep, exercise, sunshine, and the others. If all habits are good ones the transition will be easier. As one gets closer to their goals they will find it easier and easier to stay on track and the cravings will disappear.

Who Really Owns the Hollywood Studios?

Coming off a new year and all I had a lot of time on my hands when I was away on holidays. I was in Thailand for a couple of weeks with access to a DVD player. As most people know first run movies can be purchased on the streets of Bangkok for about $1 or so. I suppose the legitamite DVD distributers know this and correspondingly reduce the prices on their legal DVDs.

I was able to pick up many older but still quite good movies for about $2.50 each. I managed to see about 15 movies that were produced in the late 90s to the middle of the last decade. I also saw a couple of the currently showing films in the theaters.

The one thing I noticed about all of these movies was that there is an awful amount of tobacco smoking displayed on screen. In fact, out of about 16 or 17 movies that I saw, only 1 did not have any tobacco smoking scenes in it at all.

In most of the movies the cigarette smokers were the main stars of the movie. Regardless of them being male or female, the likelyhood of the main star of the movie smoking cigarettes was quite high.

In some of the movies the brand of cigarette was very prominent but most of the time the brand was not easy to see. It seemed like the star of the movie would glamorize smoking by lighting up when things started to look up for them. In a few cases the star would smoke when things went wrong to drown their sorrows.

Most of these movies were not rated adult or restricted, in fact none of them were so rated. A couple even were aimed at children and still depicted main characters who lit up cigarettes.

There are many studies that can be found online that link the glamorization of smoking in the movies with an increase in teenage and adolescent smoking. All this is known and still about 99% of the movies show some or even a lot of smoking.

This can only mean one thing, and that is big tobacco owns or has a significant investment in the Hollywood studios.

Many of the popular movie stars support a lot of the public awareness campaigns, yet they still smoke on screen. The only answer I can see is that big tobacco is pulling the strings and nobody else can veto them.

In fact only about 25 to 30% of the population smoke but close to 95% of the Hollywood movies that I saw over the last 2 weeks showed a major role smoking. No, not all of the actors were smoking but enough of the main characters and important characters were.

I already do not spend much money on seeing movies, but now I really feel like any money that goes to the Hollywood studios is going directly into the pockets of big tobacco. I will limit or even totally boycott movies unless I know beforehand that there will not be any glamorization of smoking tobacco in the film. Is anyone with me on this?

Where Would You Rather Be?

I was just thinking back of one of my coworkers and friends from a few years ago who was not all that healthy. In fact his health was so poor at the time I am thinking of, that he has now passed away, actually he passed away in 2008.

I did not know at the time that he had developed cancer and it was spreading throughout his body. I don’t even think he knew about the cancer yet as I later found some evidence of the timing of when he was diagnosed on his computer. I found this when I was tasked with executing some of the software that he used to execute when he was out on sickleave.

I was already on the natural hygiene lifestyle at that time and it is quite obvious to the people who sit near me that I live a very different lifestyle from most people. While others have a burger and fries or pizza for lunch, or at least bring in some leftovers in tupperware and heat them up in the micro-cancer machine, I always have farm fresh ripe organic fruits in quantities that most standard eaters wouldn’t consume in a month’s time.

Of course my diet came up in our conversation once in a while. He was kind of interested and once made the comment that if he would adopt my diet that he would be in the toilet all day long. I did tell him that I too had a similar issue at the very beginning and still do get a day here or there where something I ate caused me to spend a little more time in the toilet than usual, but these periods all passed very quickly and about 99% of the time I have no problems whatsoever with my toilet habits.

In fact when I think back of the days when I was still consuming the standard western style diet, I had a lot more problems than I do now. I used to have difficulty moving my bowels at times and in the late 1980’s I developed a case of ulcerative colitis.

All that I meant was that if he did switch to a natural hygienic style lifestyle and diet that the time where he had issues with toilet habits would quickly pass. In fact many people do not even have any issues with it at all and the ones who do find that they resolve quite quickly. In fact a couple of days to maybe a week is the average time that someone who switches to a natural hygienic style diet will have any such issues.

In his case the alternative to surviving a couple of days ‘in the toilet’ to where he is now, in his grave for eternity, I think I would prefer the former. What about you?

Evidence that Diseases are Not Genetic

As promised in a post a little while ago, here is the continuation of the theme. In the previous post I just touched on the fact that most if not all of the serious illnesses (both acute and chronic) that people eventually get inflicted with are not genetic but are actually due to the patient’s lifestyle. A partial list of the most common illnesses includes heart attacks, strokes, cancer, diabetes, gout, obesity, Alzheimer’s, digestive disorders, almost all of the newly named diseases such as ADHD, bi-polar disorder etc.

A recent discovery that links most of the known illnesses that people become afflicted with is inflammation. Inflammation is a condition where tissue or organs become swollen, filled with blood or other fluids, and the tissue becomes less capable of doing it’s designated function.

The known cause of inflammation is from irritation. The irritation is caused by substances that have been introduced to the body which are not compatible with the human body. These substances include the usual foods that most of the world population eat on a daily basis. The types of food which cause inflammation are all cooked foods, animal derived foods such as meats, dairy products and eggs, grain based foods such as breads, cereals, rice, beans, condiments such as vinegar, salt, pepper, spices, processed foods like white or brown sugars and trans fats, pasteurized foods, etc.

Slowly the medical community is finding that inflammation is the underlying cause of more and more known diseases. Eventually the facts will be known that nearly all of the diseases known to man will have some sort of inflammation associated with them. Once this is accepted by the medical community, then and finally then the stupidity of genetics being the cause of disease will be dropped and the real cause of inflammation (which in turn is caused by diet and lifestyle) will be accepted as the cause.

For those of you who are interested in this important topic, there are many articles available to be read online about this subject. I will not display the links here, I will leave it to you to do your own searches. If you need some guidance, please leave me a comment and I can help guide your searches.

Is Eating a Cooked Vegan Diet Really Vegan?

There hasn’t been much controversy for a while on this blog so I decided to stir the pot (no pun intended) a little. I occasionally follow some of the cooked vegan recipe and restaurant blogs. I used to consume cooked vegan food and still enjoy seeing what that segment of the world is up to.

I have seen many of the foods that are used in vegan cuisine and these include things like tofu, tempeh, many different gluten based products, soy beans, corn products, and several ‘chemicals’ such as the seaweed known as carageenan. These are regular parts of most vegan cooked meals. Certainly there are many cooked vegan food eaters out there who will never consume these and instead eat whole foods, but many continue to eat the above foods and still consider themselves to be vegan.

These foods are totally derived from plants. That is not the issue here at all. These foods are not at all natural or whole in any way and are extremely processed. They are not healthy at all as only whole foods which are eaten as they are found in nature are healthy for a human body. This also is not an issue as most of these cooked vegan food eaters do not concern themselves with their health but only with the moral and ethical stance they take on causing the suffering of animals for their diet.

Unfortunately in trying to eat a diet that is consistent with their ethics and morals they are often overlooking many things. These foods are all made with excess production from the very same industries which are causing the suffering of animals on this planet. What does this mean? I will give an example. Tofu, for example (as well as tempeh), has soybeans as a main ingredient. The reason why soybeans are grown by most farmers is as a feed for farm animals. Whatever amount is leftover from their production of animal feed is used for human consumption.

When people demand foods that are made with soybeans such as tofu and tempeh, they are adding money to the pockets of the animal farmer’s and the suppliers of the feeds to keep the animals fed. The same farmers who sell soybeans to the feedlots also supply the soybeans for tofu and tempeh production. In fact soybeans and soybean oils are used in many foods and products besides tofu and tempeh, but these two foods consist of mainly soybeans.

Anyone with a basic knowledge of economics will understand that creating alternative methods to sell your product is always a good thing to producers. There is also a term called ‘economies of scale’ which brings down the production costs to the producer when the demand for his products goes up. This will help the producer’s bottom line or profit. He will be able to produce more product for less money and therefore earn more money.

Hopefully you now see that eating tofu and other soybean products is not vegan at all but actually contributing the the suffering of animals, almost as much as actually eating the animals. The same is true for the other kinds of feed that are fed to farm animals. This includes the poor quality corn products that are used in things like cornbreads, and many baked and highly processed foods that contain cornstarch and corn oil. Fresh raw corn on the cob is not contributing to the suffering of animals because it is not what is used to feed the farm animals. It is mainly the GMO starchy corn that has no sweet taste to a human that is used. Some animals are also fed wheat, which again is another food that is often processed into vegan ‘meats’.

Carageenan is a chemical that is derived from a seaweed. It is used as a thickener and a filler in many of the fake meaty products that vegans like to eat. It is also known as a vegan product. Is it really vegan however? Carageenan is used to bring on the symptoms of ulcerative colitis in animals. This is the main reason why the product was invented. It was also discovered that it is a great thickener for vegan foods and therefore it’s excess is sold to vegan food factories. This is exactly the same situation as the soybeans. This is a chemical that is used to cause the suffering of laboratory animals. In fact the laboratory animals must endure more abuse than even the farm (factory farm) animals.

In effect vegans who eat the myriad of non-whole food vegan foods are indirectly contributing to the suffering of animals. Unfortunately they will argue that they eat 100% vegan so that they do not cause the suffering of animals but looking a little more closely one can see that they are totally mistaken.