Monday, July 21, 2003
Dear Rhio,
The Boutenko family was in Sarasota, FL on April 16, 2002. E {my husband} and I (40 & 36 at the time) attended a seminar and very much appreciated the information they shared with us. The food was delicious and filling — as was the education! From that day forward, we went raw.
We have seen many positive changes in our lives! E lost 35 pounds, and I dropped 45. We are back to “dating” weight 🙂 We both have lots more energy and have seen many positive improvements: lower, healthy blood pressures; improved skin tone; freedom from the common cold; less aches & pains for me around the menstrual cycle; increased endurance to Florida’s heat and humidity…to name a few. We had not been diagnosed with any medical problems; however, these improvements we know cleared up some things that might have been in development. I did have a recurring yearly problem of asthmatic bronchitis. If I caught a cold or flu, it would migrate to my respiratory system and fester into a deep, mucousy cough for 4-8 weeks at a time. It was so hard to shake every year! I have made it through the winter of 2002/2003 without this problem for the first time in 15 years.
All these health improvements, and all we did was change our diets to eating 100% raw. We celebrated 1 year on April 16, 2003, and made the decision to commit to this lifestyle for the duration. Our hope is to give ourselves, each other, and our children the blessing of maintaining healthy, active and long lives.
I don’t know how long you’ve been 100% raw, but since you are in the raw food movement, you must have firsthand knowledge & experience with the longevity of the diet. I would like to know from you, do the health benefits persist? I have always assumed they would, but then I was lead to read this Article below. I have some serious questions about making sure this is healthful for the long term. Would you please read this and give me your feedback?
We have not experienced the problems they list below, but we are only on the diet for a year and 3 months so far. I have, however, developed halitosis…I don’t know why. I floss every other day and brush twice daily. I take in no cooked food…no animal products at all. I don’t know what the halitosis is from — never had it before — Could it be a symptom of a healing crisis? Not enough water intake? Or a symptom of impending gum disease? (I read that halitosis is one of the symptoms of gum disease in the dentist’s office…my teeth and gums have always been very healthy..had my first 2 cavities filled when I was 30 years old (before the diet) but have had 2 cavities filled since being on it, too. Hmmm.)
My hairdresser says my hair has thinned some since I’m on the diet…and he believes it’s from the lower fat intake. (But as far as fat intake, I eat an avocado a day, plus a variety of nuts that have been sprouted for recipes.) I sprout nuts and seeds for granola bars in my dehydrator, or “meatloaf patties” in my dehydrator, or into “whipping cream” to be teamed up with fruit for a nice dessert. My husband eats virtually the same foods I take in, and he has not developed halitosis…so why is my breath unpleasant? Any suggestions on how to cure it? (Sometimes I chew on a mint leaf from my herb garden…only a temporary solution.)
My muscle mass has decreased some, according to my massage therapist. She says it was bound to happen with the fat loss (45 pounds). I know I need to incorporate some weight-bearing exercise into the daily routine. I should confess, we haven’t really increased our exercise since being on the diet. (We each have a full-time job and a property management business on the side…plus a 4 1/2-year-old girl, AR.) The diet is literally the only thing we changed….I do some deep breathing, stretching and isometric exercises 15 min a day, 4-5 days a week, which is my usual regimen. Other than that, housework, playing with our 4-year-old, swimming, climbing stairs, yard work, some roller blading, car washing and the like make up the rest of our exercise…exercises that we get in the course of living our life. (I would like to achieve more muscle tone than I have now, and so I plan on doing the FIRM videos — a combo of aerobics exercise and some light weights.)
In summary, we are healthier now than before the diet; however, I want to make sure that these few things (some hair loss, some muscle loss and halitosis) are not signs of new problems in development. I realize only a doctor can diagnose. I am only asking for your experience and opinion on the long-term health of staying 100% raw.
Also, we are “rawterian,” not necessarily on the Hallelujah Diet, as they refer in the article below this message…but they’re essentially the same diet. It’s just that they take people through transitions to becoming raw — we went raw “cold turkey.”
I am anxious to hear from you. My e-mail address is ____, and if you would rather have me call you, please let me know when and at what number. Thank you for helping us understand the effects of a long-term commitment to raw foodism.
Sincerely,
MC
MC became concerned about long term results when a fellow raw-fooder’s son sent her the article below from this website: http://www.chetday.com/genesis129dietcrash.htm
Crashing on the Hallelujah Diet: Another Think A-Comin’
by Greg Westbrook
Adapted from “The Rudder” Newsletter, Oct. 2002
In the summer of 2002, my wife Judie and I went to Colorado to visit my parents. My dad couldn’t keep from marveling at our appearance. Several times during our visit he said: “I can’t get over how much younger you and Judie look now. I was so sad to see you looking so much older every year, but now, you look at least ten years younger!”
Greg Westbrook off the Gen 1:29 Diet
It is so good to be strong again, to have muscles again, to feel young again, to hit a golf ball 300 yards again, to mountain bike and actually have fun pedaling over the mountain passes. It’s fun to go to the gym and have energy to burn. To crank up the treadmill for a half hour until the T-shirt is wet, and enjoy every minute of it.
It’s exciting to have our active lifestyle given back to us after almost two years of Judie facing excruciating headaches nearly every day. It’s fun to have people tell us we look young again, rather than old and tired. Yes, it is fun — youth is back!
Am I giving a testimony for the Genesis 1:29 Diet?
Not exactly.
I’m giving a testimony of getting off the Genesis 1:29 Diet.
Those of you familiar with our Weigh of Wisdom Workshop already know that about a year ago, we began to migrate towards animal products because of severe health problems we developed on the Genesis 1:29 Diet.
Now you are about to hear the rest of the story.
Click here to order Greg’s book When Hallelujah Becomes “What Happened?” so you can overcome the health and deficiency problems you may well be generating or experiencing on a Genesis 1:29 Diet.
Early Warnings
Three years ago when we contacted the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation to get permission to use the Pottenger Cat study in our Weigh of Wisdom Workshop, we were quite surprised that they did not give us permission. They did not want the Price-Pottenger name associated with our program because they felt the Genesis 1:29 Diet (a vegan diet) was a deficient diet.
With great alarm, they explained to us that people do not do well in the long term without some animal products in the diet, and that there has been no society on earth that exists without some animal products in their diet (milk, cheese, eggs or meat).
At that time, we felt like the Price-Pottenger Foundation wasn’t aware of the benefits of the Genesis 1:29 Diet, but in fact, they were well aware of the diet.
It was we who had a lesson to learn.
Another warning we heard was at a seminar in Mesa, Arizona, by Udo Erasmus (of Udo’s Oil). He said in his speech that he had never seen anyone on the Hallelujah Diet long-term that looked good.
Now that we have been in the Biblical health movement for several years and have observed several people lose their youthfulness on the Genesis 1:29 Diet, I would have to say that I agree with Udo.
I don’t know a single person who looks good who has also done the Genesis 1:29 Diet faithfully for several years (with little or no cheating).
So what is all this fuss about the long-term effects of the Genesis 1:29 Diet? You have heard the old adage that the bus driver is the first one to the scene of the accident. Well, as bus drivers, we were soon to find out first hand what the long-term effects of the Genesis 1:29 Diet held in store.
Gathering Storm Clouds
In the summer of 2000, we were in the midst of producing the Weigh of Wisdom Workshop that teaches the Genesis 1:29 Diet. At that time, we believed in the Genesis 1:29 Diet with every fiber in our beings. We were so convinced of the virtue of the Genesis 1:29 Diet that we didn’t make the connection between our ever increasing health problems and the Genesis 1:29 Diet. Judie was beginning to have chronic headaches. In fact, during the filming of the Weigh of Wisdom Workshops, she was having horrible headaches nearly every day. There were several days when we couldn’t film simply because Judie wasn’t well.
My weight had dropped to 120 pounds, and I was only a ghost of my normal weight of 155 pounds. We heard from the grapevine that people were talking about how old and tired Judie and I were looking.
I had also lost almost all my digestive power as well as five teeth to decay on the Genesis 1:29 Diet. And I was always cold, the result of slowing metabolism. Things were not looking good for us, but we still did not make the diet connection at that time.
Since we thought we were on “God’s Ideal Diet,” we decided to try even harder at the diet. More raw food, more juicing, more dehydrating, and soaking nuts and sprouting seeds, more Barleygreen, more exercise. And this is what we did for another year.
We worked harder at the diet than ever, but to no avail.
We were rewarded with even more severe health problems.
Judie’s head and neck-aches became unbearable, almost making her an invalid. I was extremely cold, and eating food always seemed to drag me down, rather than pick me up. Our daughter Sarah had no stamina or energy, and her food cravings had become almost unbearable. Our sons had problems too: Tim had no desire to do physical work any more, and Terry was beginning to suffer constantly from anxiety and depression.
Worse yet, we were beginning to see the same problems in others outside our family who were on the Genesis 1:29 Diet.
By the spring of 2001, it began to dawn on us that we had better take another look at our diet. We each had a brand new set of health problems that we didn’t have before the Genesis 1:29 Diet.
My dentist told me that if I didn’t change my diet, I would probably lose all my teeth. In fact, my dentist was doing a land-office business with vegetarians, and told me that the vegan diet (Genesis 1:29 Diet) did not provide the nutrients necessary for strong teeth. I had ignored his advice and lost five teeth. Could it be that we were actually missing something in our diets?
Click here to order Greg’s book When Hallelujah Becomes “What Happened?” so you can overcome the health and deficiency problems you may well be generating or experiencing on a Genesis 1:29 Diet.
Scratching For Truth
Sure enough, we had to admit to ourselves that in our zeal to believe in the “ideal diet,” we had focused on just one verse of the Bible, Genesis 1:29. We had esteemed Genesis 1:29 as the last word on diet, when, in reality, it is only the first word on diet in the Bible!
Just like all man’s attempts to carve one verse out of the Bible and build a pet theory on it, our theory eventually began to wear thin. We began to seek the Lord about our failing health. Where had we gone wrong?
We revisited Genesis 9:3 where God tells Noah: “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you: even as the green herb have I given you all things.” We had to rethink this verse. We had to come to realize that this verse was not a curse pronounced on mankind, but rather a blessing to enable mankind to “be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.” (Genesis 9:1).
We had to admit that nowhere in the Bible is there a warning about the evils of meat and animal products. Nor is there any warning in the Bible about cooking meat. The loving father served the fatted calf to the returning prodigal son. Jesus fed the multitudes bread and fish. The more we dug, the more we realized that the Genesis 1:29 Diet was simply not supported by the full spectrum of Biblical teaching on food. With this new perspective, we worked up our courage to try a few animal products.
Genesis 9:3 to the Rescue
We began by adding raw goat’s milk into our diets. After a few months, we tried turkey, chicken and eggs. Mind you, none of these animal products were standard grocery store fare. Fortunately, we have a health food store in our area that sells veggie-fed and organically fed animal products. Gradually our health began to improve. However, we still seemed to be missing something, as Judie’s headaches continued to persist. It wasn’t until we took the quantum leap and added beef back into our diet that we finally saw the breakthrough we were looking for.
With the addition of animal products, our entire family has now backed out of all the health problems we developed on the Genesis 1:29 Diet.
In my own case, I’ve been restored to my correct weight of 155 pounds, and my metabolism has come back in full force. I’m not freezing cold any more, and I can tolerate getting chilled, such as when I forget to take a jacket along at night. Even more exciting, I have my strength back. I can actually hit a golf ball 300 yards now, while 200 yards was more normal on the vegan diet. I think coordination has also come back to me as well.
For all my vegan and Hallelujah Diet years, I just didn’t feel like doing physical work, but now, I’m doing all kinds of projects around our little farm. Being in our mid-fifties, Judie and I are delighted to have our youth back. Judie’s recovery has been dramatic, and I’ve documented her story as well — you can click here to read “From Invalid to Athlete in Five Months.”
Click here to order Greg’s book When Hallelujah Becomes “What Happened?” so you can overcome the health and deficiency problems you may well be generating or experiencing on a Genesis 1:29 Diet.
The Survey (Click here for a copy)
Since the early days of our health ministry, we’ve had our share of emails and phone calls reporting hair loss, muscle loss, slowing metabolism, dry skin and a host of other problems. In those days we just recommended Udo’s Oil or vitamin B-12 and sent them on their way with admonitions to be more faithful to the diet, eat more raw food, bigger salads, etc.
But, as our own health problems became overwhelming, we began to sit up and take notice. Being a scientist at heart (an electrical engineer for 30+ years), I wanted to get a handle on the scope of the problem. So, we created a survey.
So far, we have identified the most common fifty-four health problems people have developed on the Genesis 1:29 Diet, and have incorporated these symptoms into the survey. The survey is an invaluable tool because it lays out all these long-term symptoms on two pages and enables people to really understand how much health they have lost. We’ve been keeping track of data from the surveys, and continue to update the database as new surveys come in.
We have been absolutely shocked at the survey results. Here are just a few examples:
a.. 55% reported loss of muscle and muscle tone on the diet
b.. 55% also report difficulty staying warm, a thyroid problem
c.. 59% are plagued with food cravings
d.. A whopping 67% report scattered thinking.
e.. 46% feel they are looking older than they should.
f.. 54% feel run down, chronically tired.
g.. 59% don’t feel like exercising or working on the diet.
As you can see, these numbers are too significant to be ignored.
I’d invite each of you to click here to take our survey. Doing so will help you gain a clear understanding of your own state of health on the Genesis 1:29 Diet.
If you would like your survey results included in the database, please feel free to copy it, fill it out and return it to us. Please take the time to be thorough and include your name. We will hold your survey results in confidence, except that your scores will be included in database results.
About Face
We are no longer teaching the Genesis 1:29 Diet as a long-term diet. For a cleansing diet, it is appropriate only for short periods of time only; no longer than three months as a general rule. Our new materials are based on what we call the “Plan B Diet,” which includes animal products, but none of the junk in the Standard American Diet.
We have a new video series called “Beyond Gen 1:29” that is designed to help people move beyond Genesis 1:29 in their quest for ultimate health. Our goal in these videos is to leave no stone unturned and no question unanswered. (Note from Chet: To learn more about this video series, call the Westbrooks at 1-480-833-0182.)
Reflections
The worst mistake we can make as leaders is to reverence a theory (Genesis 1:29) so highly that the theory becomes more important than the health of our students. When we saw failing long-term health on the Genesis 1:29 Diet, it was time to rethink the theory.
If we had closed our eyes to the failing health of our students and ourselves, then we would have ceased to be true shepherds for our Lord.
When we produced the Weigh of Wisdom Workshop, we thought we had reached the pinnacle of knowledge regarding diet and health. But, as my mother is fond of saying: “You’ve got another think a-comin’.” She’s right, we had another think a-comin’!
Our calling as health leaders is to bring people out of the jungle of junk food and fad diets, and into a wholesome diet of healing, powerful, God-designed foods. This we will do, armed with the power of the Plan B Diet, and with His guidance and help. Indeed, we have a big job to do.
Most workshop leaders have been extremely receptive to the diet changes. I hope that as you read through this article, take the survey, begin to re-think some of these dietary foundations, and experience renewed health by changing your diet, you too will be convicted that this is a message that we must take to the people.
Rhio responds to first letter above
Dear MC,
I am happy to hear that you and your husband have had so many healthy benefits from following the raw diet for only little over a year. Getting through the season without the usual asthmatic bronchitis is a great step forward for your health!
I am not a practitioner of any kind (as you noted in your letter) so please accept the following only as an exchange of information and ideas.
I have been thriving on raw food for more than 15 years. Does this mean I have had no health problems? No. I have had some problems and the reason is sometimes other circumstances can impact health besides diet. For me it was the unbelievable pollution unleashed by the 9/11 tragedy. We live in the WTC neighborhood. But since that day, my family and I have taken extraordinary measures to counter the damage done, but that is another story. Suffice it to say that we witnessed many people with much more serious reactions and effects than ours and feel ourselves fortunate for having lived and continuing to live the raw lifestyle.
One of the ways I judge the diet’s long term effects is to look at the health of all the creatures in nature that eat raw food (that would be all of them) and without exception their health status is better than those same animals held in captivity. Zoos have had a very hard time breeding wild animals, yet those same animals when left to their own means in their natural environments have no trouble breeding.
Studies have been done which assess the remains of wild animals and have found no disease conditions or markers, such as cavities, malformed jaws, crowded teeth, bone loss (osteoporosis), etc.
Sadly, in our modern world, wild animals, as well as humans, have been impacted by the unprecedented pollution that humans have created. Thousands of kinds of pesticides and chemicals are dumped by the ton on our Earthmother annually. Toxic sludge, which is a result of trying to deal with the huge amount of waste produced by our civilization is spread on our croplands and wilderness habitats. Sludge, thankfully, is not allowed on land used for growing organic crops.
A cavity in the teeth usually does not come on in a year, it is a condition years in the making. However, there are some precautions when first crossing over to raw. A tremendous amount of acidity, accumulated from your previous diet, will be released with the raw food, especially fruit. The acidity coming out through the tissues in the mouth can damage the teeth. It is wise to temper the intake of fruit to slow the acid release somewhat, (acidity will still release with vegetables, but not as fast). Also, rinse the mouth after fruit meals with water that has some Celtic sea salt dissolved in it. (The minerals in this salt alkalize the mouth tissues.) Too much dried fruit is also not advised, as it can impact the teeth negatively.
Halitosis – Hard to say whether this is a cleansing in progress or it could have to do with the teeth. Make sure that you have your teeth checked by a competent dentist to find out if the source might be there with some kind of condition. This is probably most distressing for you – have you considered doing a juice fast for 10 days or so?
Here’s a funny story, but it wasn’t funny when we were going through it. My companion, Leigh, after he went 80-90% raw developed halitosis that smelled exactly like a skunk. That wasn’t too pleasant and we were able to trace it to the one cup of coffee that he was still drinking in the morning. For the sake of our love life, he had to give up the coffee – so he switched to one cup of water processed decaf each morning and after a month or so, the smell went away.
About a year later, he had to give up the decaf when the same smell came back. I surmise that what happened to him was that with the high percentage of raw food he was eating, it started to eliminate the toxicity from his body and somehow it sensitized him to the toxins in the coffee and for him the side effect was halitosis. When he gave up the coffee in favor of the decaf, the body was relieved somewhat and could continue for a while without the side effect, but then a year later, it sensitized him even to the amount of caffeine in the decaf. In my opinion, this is one of the all time great results of the raw food diet – in that it makes your body incompatible with toxins and sensitive to them. In other words – when you ingest something toxic the body will usually give you a feedback reaction right away. That’s also why when you’ve been on 100% raw for a while and then you eat something cooked, your body’s reaction to the food is not good. You can feel the negative energy right away.
However, the body has incredible powers of adaptation, so if you were to continue to eat that cooked food, it would eventually re-adapt to it and then you would no longer get those reactions.
I believe that the hair and muscle effects you are experiencing are temporary. The muscle can be built up by exercising with weights (as you’ve also concluded) and also by moderate sunbathing exposing as much of the body as possible 2-3 times a week. Sunbathing has been shown to have muscle building effects. With the hair, it may be a case of the body getting rid of the old to make way for the new. But also check your thyroid. There is a good website for this: www.wilsonsthyroidsyndrome.com
In my experience the effects of the raw food diet and lifestyle only get better over time. But I do believe that in today’s world we have to do other things too besides eating organic raw food. On the top of my list is eliminating all the toxic products commonly used in our home and business environments. Another item on the top of my list is growing some of my own food, especially wild food, like edible weeds. The most common characteristic of weeds is that they ENDURE, they persist, they survive, they are hardy – they will grow out of a rock if necessary! I believe they can impart some of these characteristics to us (not growing out of a rock, but endurance & hardiness), so I eat some small amount of weeds each day. It’s best to go on wild food foraging expeditions with experienced plant people until you learn to 100% accurately identify the plants for yourself.
Addressing the issue of youthfulness. The example in the letter by the Westbrooks is absolutely not typical at all. I don’t doubt their experience, but it’s hard to comment on it. So many things would have to be evaluated, such as: what was their health status before going raw? What kind of raw diet were they on? Was it well rounded or mostly fruit? Did they consume too many nuts and seeds? (Too many nuts and seeds can overload the body with protein creating some of the same problems as meat consumption.) Did they ever do any juice fasting cleanses or colonics, saunas, sunbathing? Did they do exercise? Did they use the mini trampoline? Did they overwork and overstress? Did they ever do a concentrated cleanse at one of the raw food Institutes? The Hallelujah diet as i recall is 80% raw; did they really follow that 80%. I find it very hard to figure. Brian Clement of the Hippocrates Health Institute says the only way to figure percentages is by weight. You’d have to weigh your raw food as against your cooked food to make sure you had that 80/20 ratio. This is probably too much trouble for most people to do, so they estimate instead.
Demi Moore, a 40-something Hollywood star making a comeback, is extremely youthful looking and she is said to be on the raw food diet. Other celebrities said to be on raw foods are Carol Alt (a former model), Angela Bassett and Alicia Silverstone.
To sum up my opinion. The raw food diet is what the creator meant for us to eat. Unfortunately, before most of us get to this diet, we have given our bodies many years of abuse. Then if the raw food diet does not heal all of our ills in record time, it becomes the culprit in our mind, instead of the real culprit which was the abuse we previously gave to our bodies. We must continually work to fine tune the diet and mold it to our particular lifestyle. For example, Ann Wigmore, a tiny woman, towards the end of her life was satisfied with Rejuvelac and Energy Soup, but a 30-year old, 6-foot construction worker in NYC might not be able to make it on that. He would probably require some hefty salads and moderate intake of nut and seed pates to meet his needs.
We cannot expect the raw food diet to solve all of our problems if we continue to pollute our personal and Earth environment with toxic substances. There comes a time when the toxic overload becomes just too much and then Nature can no longer handle it. Toxic rivers and toxic land have the ability to self-cleanse – but sometimes the toxicity is just too much and then Nature can no longer do its job.
Hoping this answers some of your questions.
Wishing you and your family much continued good health.
With Blessings and Peace,
Rhio
Sept. 16, 2003
Dear Rhio,
Thank you for taking the time to write me back. My husband and I truly appreciate it!
Thanks for sharing your experience and giving some recommendations. I had just started researching for dish soaps and hygiene products that are made naturally, without all the chemicals. I found a line called Mrs. Meyers that is made of herbs, essential oils and other plant-derived sources. On their website they talk about the harmfulness of using chemicals for cleaning, because we inhale them and absorb the chemicals through the skin, etc. So I just replaced my laundry detergent, dish soaps, etc with this lavender scented, plant-derived line.
And good news from my dentist on this last visit. I got a clean bill of health. Something they had marked to watch closely, is looking better than on the last visit. Struck them as odd. That’s got to be due to the raw food diet, in my opinion working on cleansing and healing. Also, I’ve come to the conclusion that the halitosis was from not drinking enough water between meals and from flossing only once a week….I changed it to once daily and it has cleared up, thankfully. (I think when you eat nuts, more frequent flossing is a must….at least for me…small mouth and close teeth.)
In addition, our experience is getting better and better everyday. My husband and I are in tandem.. We are noticing in graduated steps, decreases in our appetites. This is happening in stages. If I were to gather the amount of food I personally take in, in one raw day, and compare that to when I ate cooked food, I probably eat in one whole raw day now, what I used to eat in one whole cooked meal before the diet. Does that make sense? And when we “dine” with cooked fooders, we are starting to view the amounts on their plates as enormous!
I initially lost a bunch of weight (40-something pounds) which was a healthy fat loss that my body needed to shed. Now as I approach my ideal weight, I am noticing a gradual decrease over a couple of months of 1 to 2 pounds here and there. I have taken up water aerobics and I like to slide…remember when those were popular? It’s like skating in your living room. (It’s targeting the thigh fat that is still “hanging on.”)
Get this…I wrote a check for a purchase of some furniture and gave the lady my driver license (the picture is of me in April 2002 just 2 weeks before going all raw.) She asked for additional ID with a picture, so I pulled out my recent photo with my Bush Gardens pass and she said, oh! I wasn’t sure this driver license was really you. You lost a lot of weight and look so much younger. (She thought I was using a fake ID….I laughed and loved it!)
We have also been learning about colon hygiene and plan on beginning this process within a month or two. We’re shopping for the best home colonic unit.
Just ordered a book on Amazon about transitioning kids to raw food. We have a 4 and-a-half year old daughter (A.R.) who eats a lot of fresh food, but still some cooked foods. She doesn’t like the flavor of any nuts except raw pistachios at this point. And to my surprise, she doesn’t like nutbutters yet. Loves fruit and some veggies. So she occasionally eats some baked chicken, etc. I fix her veggie sandwiches and fruit kabobs, homemade fresh applesauce in my blender, etc. So I’m hoping this new book will help her to get off of meat altogether. We’ll see. After all, it’s a lot of work to cook only for one in the family…and besides, it’s not good for her and we know it.
Thank you soooo much for sharing your info and time with me. We are committed to staying raw as we continue to see benefits. We feel great, look healthy, and are enjoying the lifestyle. We are going for our annual physicals in early Oct. We’ll be getting a standard blood test done because we want to make sure we’re not becoming deficient in anything…so far we don’t take vitamins…we believe we’re getting those from our food due to the better absorption rate, etc. The doc is interested in our calcium, protein, fat and vitamin B levels. (So are our moms.) Last year for our first raw food physical, the doc was amazed and stated that if all his patients went on this, he wouldn’t have any work! How true, eh? We haven’t been in to see him since last year. No illnesses have penetrated us. What a hugggggeeee benefit!
Thanks again, and have a great day,
MC