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YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

"Mainstream" Natural Hygiene has long regarded vegetarian diets as the most perfect for humans. See our CHINA PROJECT page about research that favors this view.
But, recent biochemical/archeological research points towards a raw veggie & animal foods (omnivorous) diet as an even better choice. See our NATIVE TEXANS page.
So nowadays you can pick and choose - vegetarian or non-vegetarian - both have their supporters in todays Natural Hygiene.
So what do we agree upon? E.g. the raw foods, toxin-removal, food-combining, energy-smart eating, etc....
The Natural Hygiene diet program is easy to understand.
When you are hungry eat foods that are attractive, delicious and nutritious in their natural state, in quantities that meet your needs and in a manner that ensures proper digestion. We eat simple uncomplicated meals. Most of our meals are selected from the vast array of fruits and vegetables. We eat the greatest portion of our diet uncooked. We sit down and eat our meals without rushing or discussing problems. Being in a hurry or upset or tired interferes with digestion. (S. Smith-Jones Ph.D., Choose to live peacefully 1991)

jicama CRISPY JICAMA SALAD
1 jicama diced (2 cups), 1 carrot in 1-inch strips, 1 bell pepper in strips, 1 small sweet onion in slices, 2 tbsp cilantro chopped, 3 tbsp vegetable broth (homemade), 2 tbsp lime juice, 1 tbsp orange juice, 1 tsp mustard (optional), some sliced radishes
- toss vegetables, mix dressing and pour over   (NCN)
- The total elimination of toxicity from your body can take months or years, but within days you will be losing weight, and feeling enormously more energetic and vibrant. (H. Diamond, Fit for Life, 1985)

VEGAN DIET UNDER FIRE
The raw vegan diet is an excellent detoxification diet, and you can achieve great results within the first year on this diet.
But there is a risk involved. Over time many strict vegans have reported deficiencies - and it now seems evident that Dr. Gian-Cursio was correct to warn about this danger 30 years ago.
Those who avoid all animal foods for more than a year must supplement their diet with B12 and complete D-vitamins - and be on outlook for strong cravings, which usually signal deficiency of some kind. A big danger lies in the lack of long-chained fatty acids (from animal sources) - necessary for proper brain development and maintenance. Fat fish like salmon is a good source. (The topic is still controversial - the big diet fight in Natural Hygiene was won by the vegans.)
DON'T SACRIFICE your own health and your family's to prove that veganism works. The topic has become very politicised in NH, and how can you know when science weighs heavier than politics? You can still be an almost-vegan - just 1 % of the diet as raw dairy or eggs should be enough to keep you out of trouble.
AM I EATING WELL?
Optimal health and weightloss are only possible when the majority of foods you consume have a high nutrient-per-calorie ratio. The most nutrient-dense and healthful food you can eat is leafy greens, such as lettuce, kale, collards etc. The more of these you eat, the more weight you will lose. If you consume a diet that contains 90-100% nutrient-dense food, you can practically disease-proof your body. (J. Fuhrman,M.D., Discover The Health Equation, 1999)
The Paleolithic Diet .... consisted of a small amount of fruit, mostly berries (in the North), leaves and vegetables, nuts, fish, poultry & meat, occasionally eggs. From a (hunter-gatherer) diet that was largely raw and based on animal products and vegetables, man changed to a (agricultural) diet that was high in carbs & sugars and cooked foods. This began a period of degeneration, even though the food was whole, natural and of high quality. (Dr. S. Bass - www.drbass.com)
DECORATE - Make your meal beautiful
Especially easy for raw-food eaters - to make colorful presentations!
 Try decorating the table, arranging the food on the plates and using edible food garnishes.
Use color! The human eye loves color! Fruit and veggie meals are easy, they are often colorful and naturally attractive.
Use table cloths, flowers arranged in a vase, beautiful dishes, items. Get ideas from magazines and books. And combine colors attractively - perhaps have a base color in different shades, or use only two colors.
Reserve some of the most colorful vegetables to go on top of a torn salad. Use skewers creatively, or green onion top-leaves to tie together vegetable sticks in bunches. For serving dishes you can use hollowed-out cabbage heads, scooped-out avocado halves or melon halves.
Garnishes can be real simple - chopped fresh herbs, sesame seeds, parsley sprigs or a berry with leaf. Or edible flowers.
Make some melon balls with a melon baller. Use a vegetable peeler to create decorative carrot or zucchini twists. Or use a sharp knife for all sorts of creations: radish roses, tomato butterflies, avocado fans or cucumber boats. Why not get a book on food garnishing techniques?
Have fun!  
WEIGHT LOSS TIPS
What works for one person may not work for somebody else - so here are 3 ideas:
  • FAST, FASTER, FASTING
    • Expect to lose up to 2 lb (1 kg) a day while water-fasting - this method is super-fast. Also you will get rid of coffee-cravings, chocolate-cravings etc. You have to take time off, lie down to conserve (redirect) energy, preferably not even read. But you will end up wonderfully rejuvenated to body and soul. Good start on a new diet.
    Watch-out: your metabolism is going to become more efficient - so if you go back to the same diet as before, you will end up fatter... Also - after the fast, even on a weightloss diet, your weightloss will be zero or minimal for months due to this metabolic/digestive efficiency.
    Dr. Fuhrman (ANHS conference 99): "You know - fasting is not that great treatment for obesity in general, in other words I don't routinely recommend fasting for people who want to lose weight - I'd rather that they lose the weight first, and then come in to fast. When they begin their fast at a more normal weight, that's when we see the most effective results." [...for chronic diseases]

  • LOW-FAT & LOW-CALORIE
    • A method that works for many - eat foods low in calories and high in nutrients (=high nutrient-per-calorie ratio). The typical Natural Hygiene raw vegan diet is a good example - it can be designed to be more or less detoxifying (and fat-reducing), depending on how much nuts and fruits are included. ---- BUT how come so many vegetarians are overweight? Could it be because they overconsume on carbohydrates, and therefore overwork the insulin mechanism? (See below.)
    Lennon/Taylor (The Natural Hygiene Diet): "Researchers have found that overweight people eat about the same amount of calories as thin people. What makes overweight people overweight is not that they eat so much more, but that they get a much higher percentage of their calories from fat and refined carbohydrates."
  • HORMONE-BALANCING DIET - LOW-CARBOHYDRATE
    • Insulin is the hormone of fat storage. Carbohydrates increase your blood insulin. Fat won't make you fat, and cholesterol won't make your cholesterol higher. The culprit is carbohydrate! --- Carbohydrates will make you fat, and increase you cholesterol. (Compare how cows are fattened with grain, pigs with cooked starches.)
    ---- Avoid high-carbohydrate foods = rice, bread, grains, potatoes, sugar. Minimize fruit-eating. And balance low-carb foods (non-starchy vegetables) with enough protein (can be vegetable/soy-protein or eggs & raw dairy for vegetarians - animal proteins for non-vegetarians) and enough fat (nuts, avocado, desalted olives, butter for vegetarians) at each meal. (Fats make you feel satisfied.) ---- If you try it - don't forget to eat as raw as possible - most books about this method have a conventional SAD (Standard American Diet) approach. And use "sequential eating" (food combining technique).
    Note: if you use to get a sugar craving 2-3 hours after eating, it is a typical side-effect of eating too much carbohydrates at your last meal. (Reason: low blood-sugar due to lots of insulin in the blood.)
    (See e.g. Sears: The Zone, The Soy Zone etc.; Eades: Protein Power)
     (ANHS) Health Science 5/2000: "If you eat predominantly whole fruits, vegetables, and legumes - with the addition of nuts and avocado - and you avoid flour products and sugars, you will be more or less in the "Zone" percentages..."
    Drs. Heller (The Carbohydrate Addicts Lifespan Program): "Cravings for starches, snack foods and sweets as well as the tendency to gain weight easily are often symptoms of physical (hormonal) imbalance."

    Plus - exercise!   Resistance exercise is especially important.
    THE GREATEST SECRET - ATTENTIVE EATING
    .... To begin with, we should eat only when hungry. This insures our maximum enjoyment and relish of the food. We should first enjoy the sight and aroma of the food and feel gratitude.
    Then , as we put the food in our mouth, it is best to close our eyes to help us concentrate our attention on the taste of the food and to shut out all distractions. Be total in eating with no other thinking. Do not read while eating, or listen to T.V. or converse with anyone. To do so will withdraw most of your attention from the sensual enjoyment of the food.
    ..... it is almost impossible for me to gluttonize when I eat with total attention to the taste of the food. - I would literally have to force myself to eat more than 60% of what I usually eat when not paying attention ...
    .... For those who practice meditation, the use of eating as a meditation is the easiest of all meditations to master. (Stanley Bass,Ph.D.: Self-Mastery through Attentive Eating) (For more on this, see Dr. Bass' website, links below.)
    FOOD COMBINING
    - The animals in nature experience a much higher level of health than we do - not only eating high-water content food, they are also properly combining their food. That's the beauty of it. They eat one food at a time. We eat anything we can get our hands on, including them!
    - As you start experimenting with the proper combinations of food, you will come to realize firsthand what a truly marvelous tool proper food combining is in the quest to lose weight. (H. Diamond, Fit for Life 1985)
    - Most of the reasons why traditional hygienists recommended food combining doesn't hold up under scientific scrutiny. ...It's not how you combine your food that makes the difference, it is the overall quality of the food, the nutrient/calorie ratio etc.
    Individuals with poor digestion may need specific dietary recommendations, but generally speaking, food combinations are almost never needed for most people. (J. Fuhrman, M.D., ANHS conference 1998)
    There was a famous case, written about by Beaumont, during the American Civil War, where a soldier received a gunshot wound which caused a large visible opening to appear in his stomach. His digestion was studied for a period of time by several doctors present, and they observed that his food digested in different layers. ...
    I have tested this principle thousands of times on myself, patients, and friends for over 40 years, and each and every time I reversed this order, problems arose in digestion. (S.Bass Ph.D.: Ideal health through sequential eating, see link below)
    PROBLEMS WITH TOO MUCH FRUIT ON ALL-RAW DIET
    Fruitarians say white sugar's poison, but that fruit sugar is good. However, the body doesn't distinguish between fruit sugar and natural sugar...... I don't care how natural, how pure, how organic the fruit, if you take too much of it, you'll overactivate the pancreas which could produce low blood sugar, and eventually diabetes.......People think if you eat natural foods you're going to do no wrong, but it's not true. (S.Bass: In search of the ultimate diet)

    Dr. Bass: In other words, now you're advocating the use of cooked foods, when someone has damaged the flora?
    Dr. Cursio:     That's right. ......
    Dr. Bass: And what damaged the intestinal flora, would you say?
    Dr. Cursio: I say, for one thing, the high fruit diet.
    Dr. Bass: The high acid?
    Dr. Cursio: Yeah! The citric acid and the high intake of fruit and carbohydrate
    ..........
    Dr. Cursio: Then I made my shift into more green stuff, blended salads early, cut out the orange juice -- like I'd give the child the milk and I'd use the vegetable juice. Then I saw the difference. The children were better - were more sturdy. Instead of pigeon-chested or chicken-chested, they were fine-chested. .....

    Dr. Cursio: ..... I figured that the B12 and the essential factors were missing. ... So hence the egg yolk and cheese .....
    Dr. Bass: Does that mean to say that one cannot live on nuts, fruits, and vegetables today without the use of egg yolks?
    Dr. Cursio: You could. You [your body] would have to go through a tremendous change, and I doubt that you could make it. ....   (S. Bass, Ph.D.: With three generations of vegetarian hygienists)
     [Ed note: After this exchange Dr. Bass spent many years researching how to compose an all-raw all-vegan diet, that is optimal, and sufficient. See links below.)
    COOKBOOK
    The Health Promoting Cookbook
    by Dr. Alan Goldhamer
    :: In this unique cookbook no oil, salt, sugar, or animal products are used. :: High-carbohydrate low-fat vegan approach.
    From the introduction:
    "In my practice I treat more people who are suffering and dying from the consequences of using and abusing chemicals than I care to think about. We all need to remember that headaches are not caused by an aspirin deficiency..."
    "We are told that any combination of heated, treated, processed, chemicalized "foods" will meet our nutritional needs so long as we take plenty of vitamin pills, heartburn medicine, and headache remedies."
    "...Then when you took your car back to the guy who said it would run fine on coffee ice cream and you complained of pinging and a fouled up carburetion system, he would keep you waiting for two hours and then tell you that it was probably "all in your head", that you should "learn to live with it", ask "what do you expect at your car's age", then announce "there is nothing that can be done".