Enjoy The Raw Food Diet!

I had such fun in my first year of raw! I ate all sorts of things as long as they were technically, theoretically...(at a pinch?) 'raw', and vegetarian/vegan. I watched various health problems melt away...I felt excited, exhilarated - on a raw 'high'!

I discovered Natural Hygiene. The simplicity, the logic, made absolute sense to me, and out went the dehydrated foods, the 'superfoods', the complex raw-food-pretending-to-be-cooked 'abombo-combo' dishes, making way for a love affair with fruit that has never abated!

At time of writing I've been raw for three and a half years. And '100%/close to' for all but the first few months. But...about eighteen months into my raw food journey, I had a period in which the list of 'non-optimal' foods that I felt I should prohibit myself from eating seemed to be growing daily with my reading, and, as well as feeling anxious about my food, I had fallen into the trap (that, ironically, so many cooked-food eaters are in) of having my life revolve around food, with every day full of dilemmas as to whether I should or shouldn't eat something, and what the consequences for my body would be.

Raw fooders by definition are people who hold themselves to very high standards, and we're generally enthusiastic 'all or nothing' types. The problem is that, if we push ourselves beyond the point we're ready to go to too quickly, placing too many restrictions on ourselves too soon, we can get to the point where we actually deserve the much misused term 'orthorexia' that cooked-food eaters love to apply to those following healthy diets, and in our constant worrying and ruminating can become poor advertisements for raw food.

There seems to be a downer/dilemma attached to just about everything that's a candidate for the raw fooder's gullet.

Have you ever denied yourself raw food you've desired because you've been worrying about one (or more...) of these?


AVOCADO 'I must only have half as Raw Food Teacher A says a whole one is too much.'
THE OTHER HALF OF THE AVOCADO 'Oh no - can't have it now. It's...oxidised!'
AVOCADO 'Maybe I shouldn't have it at all. People on the forum I like say it's 'clogging'.'

BANANA 'Mustn't eat it because my forum buddies say it's unripe unless covered with blotches/spots.'

BEETROOT 'Raw Food Teacher B says we shouldn't eat it as it's a high-sugar hybrid.'

CUT BAGGED SALAD. 'Hmm...would be so easy. But it's probably washed in chlorine.'

BRASSICAS 'Possible link with thyroid disorders?'

FRUIT 'Can only have x pieces a day as Raw Food Teacher C says any more is bad for us.'
FRUIT 'Can't buy that; it's not organic.'
FRUIT 'Can't buy those; they're not Fairtrade.'
FRUIT 'Can't buy those; they're not local.'
FRUIT 'Can't buy those; they're flown in.'
(CITRUS) FRUIT 'Can't have any more of those; could be bad for my teeth.'
(DRIED) FRUIT. (Ditto above.)

FLAX CRACKERS 'Shouldn't have dehydrated food.'

GARLIC 'Hmm...Debbie Took's article was quite persuasive and it said...no.'

HERBS 'Can't have those as toxic and, anyway, we shouldn't eat anything 'we can't make a meal of'.

JUICE 'Raw Food Teacher D says we shouldn't juice, as fibre and other nutrients are lost.'

LACUMA 'It's a powder, and powder isn't food.'

MUSHROOMS 'Shouldn't eat them as they're a fungus.'

NUTS 'Shouldn't eat them as Raw Food Teacher E says they're difficult to digest and not 'optimal'.

NUTS. They're dried...should only eat them from the tree in my garden when in season (er - me recently!)

NUT BUTTER 'Can't have that as it's not fresh, and it's processed.'

PUMPKIN SEEDS 'Can't have those as already had 10% fat today.'

OIL 'Can't have that as it's a fractionated food.'

OLIVES 'Can't have those as they've been salted.'

ONIONS 'Natural Hygiene says they're not food for us.'

RAWGOURMET FOOD 'Transition food' is only for beginners! 'Transition foods' are high in fat. 'Transition food' will drive you back to cooked food.' (Etc.)

ROMAINE LETTUCE 'I musn't eat it today, as I have to 'rotate my greens'.

ROOT VEG 'Perhaps shouldn't eat as once pulled from the ground the plant can't continue growing.'

SEA VEG 'Can't have that as I'm vegan and minute sea creatures get caught in the harvesting.'

SMOOTHIE 'Raw Food Teacher F says 90% of the nutrients are lost in blending.'

SPICES 'Can't have those - toxic stimulants.'

SPINACH 'Can't have too much as could be too much oxalic acid.'

SPROUTS 'Those following the diet I aspire to say they're 'pointless'.'

TOMATOES/PEPPERS 'They're 'nightshades'...'

SPROUTED WHEAT 'My forum buddies think grains are the devil.'


AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I'm not going to give my own views as to the validity of any of the statements above. Regular readers will know that I've planted a few of the 'downers' as above in my own articles. Suffice to say that some I agree with, and others I very much disagree with!

But, if this article has caught you at a point somewhere between the 'honeymoon' phase of the raw food diet and men in white coats knocking on the door, I do hope it will turn things around for you!

When I found myself, in that second summer, in a place where the raw food diet was making me feel anxious, I made some changes.

I stayed raw, but relaxed a little within the raw food diet. (I don't recommend that anyone relax into eating more cooked food - I've seen that happen with others too often to be convinced that it is anything other than the road back to ill health!)

When attending raw food potlucks, instead of taking fruit and leaves and eating nothing of others' offerings (feeling a little smug wearing my Natural Hygiene 'hat') I decided that I would instead partake of the various things on offer - cacao (toxic stimulant), fermented foods (that fizz - I'm sure we shouldn't be eating them!), nut/fruit pies (sure-fire recipe for 'football tummy'), dehydrated cookies, all sorts of weird concoctions.

When I went to California, as well as returning to our holiday home laden with piles of fruit and the most amazing romaine lettuces I'd ever tasted from farmers' markets, I partook of the rawgourmet cuisine out there with gusto! I tried packaged 'Leaf Cuisine' rawgourmet, visited well-known raw food restaurants, and ate dehydrated, salty food, because...I wanted to tick them off on my list of raw food restaurants 'experienced', wanted to take my husband, and because...they were fun! Places where raw food people gather have a buzz around them that always gives me a high, whatever the variant of raw food is on offer.

This relaxation within the raw food diet rejuvenated me. I've never looked back, and two years later am still very happily raw. If you can identify with any of this, whether you've been raw for months, years, decades, I hope my experience here can help. As I know of some people who didn't just spend a few weeks feeling anxious like I did, but have spent years feeling this way, and who, I believe, may well benefit from retracing steps a little before going forward again.


Let's remind ourselves of how far we've come.

Anyone who's following a Natural Hygiene-oriented raw food diet (which is how I describe mine) is light years from the standard cooked diet of the previous life.

Years of conditioning on a damaged, multi-ingredient cooked food diet dies hard. For most people, going raw is in itself such a huge step that restricting ourselves too soon within raw can backfire.

If eating 'less-than-optimal' raw food helps you enjoy your raw food diet more, go for it!

Oil, for example, is not an ideal food. Ideally we should be eating our salad without it. But a while ago, after visiting VitaOrganic in Wardour St, London W1, I developed a passion for huge crunchy brassica salads. I'd had such a lovely day in Soho and I had a psychological urge to recreate the meal I'd had there. I missed out the apple cider vinegar (for me that would be going too far!), but dressed my salad with cold-pressed sesame oil and lime juice, and...a little salt, which again, we should NOT be putting into our bodies - see my article on this!).

Sure, there's a valid and logical Natural Hygiene argument that says we should be able to eat foods without adornments and that these can pervert the tastebuds resulting in our being unable to enjoy food in its pure natural state. However....I cut myself some slack there and greatly enjoyed crunchy salads for several weeks. After a few servings, I cut out the salt! I'm not so enthusiastic about them now, but perhaps at that time my body was very much welcoming a particular nutrient abundant in red cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli!


Food is not the only thing that affects our health

So you went to a raw food picnic and had dehydrated cookies. But you spent three hours sitting in the fresh air, in the sun and interacting with other raw fooders! Sure, you could have stayed indoors mono-eating grapes. Which is better?

We can eat more avocado than someone else might consider 'optimal', go out for an hour and smile at everyone we meet, improving our mental well-being, not to mention that of others. Or we could spend that time furiously hammering the keyboard in a bid to convince someone on a raw food forum who happens to follow a raw food diet different from ours of the errors of their ways.


Raw food leaders are often more relaxed with their diets than their followers

I remember asking Dr Doug Graham ('80/10/10 Diet') whether he would be taking his own food to a party at SAF (London rawgourmet/vegan restaurant) recently. SAF food is just about as far from the high-fruit and leaves 811 diet that it is possible to get. He said no, that he would be having an '811 holiday' that day. Doug follows the policy that's it's the lifestyle you lead most of the time that is key to state of health.

I've seen 811 adherents on forums tell others firmly that herbs and spices such as basil, rosemary, cinnamon etc weren't '811'. In that case, someone should tell Doug that, as he enjoys them all.

(I'm using Doug as an example here only because he's the raw food leader I know the best. I also believe he has an integrity that certain other raw food leaders lack, and I've found he is upfront and honest about his (excellent) diet.)


Raw food leaders are fallible human beings

If a raw food leader has firmly told you that x or y is the way to go (or not go), that it is 'impossible' to be successfully long-term raw if you eat 'x', or 'impossible' to be successfully long-term raw if you don't eat 'x', please don't believe them! Because there are thousands (possibly hundreds of thousands) who are living contradictions of these diktats!

Also, however authoritatively your raw food leader talks, there will be other raw food leaders of equal intelligence, experience and love for their fellow-men and women that will feel differently.

And the raw food diet that your raw food leader promotes is just one variant of the raw food diet - the variant that they have come to prefer. I love a high-fruit diet myself but can see from the evidence of those thriving on other sorts of raw food diet that it is not the 'only way'.


Do we pay a price for eating 'less than optimal' foods?

For sure. Whenever we ingest a toxin (eg salt), or alter a food so that it is significantly different from the natural (eg dehydration) or mix lots of different foods that were never meant to be eaten together (eg foods from different parts of the world), we must surely pay a price. For me, it would not be logical to think otherwise.

But, if our overall vitality is high ('nerve-energy' in Natural Hygiene parlance) our bodies should be able to manage occasional transgressions. For example, if we eat salty poor food combinations at raw food restaurants, we may experience symptoms later. We may feel thirsty. We may get a tummy-ache. We may get gas. If we only partake of these foods occasionally I believe (OK, I'm hoping!) that there will be short-term eliminative symptoms only. If we ate these sorts of foods every day we could assume a greater and more long-term negative effect on our health. But occasional short-term symptoms from partaking infrequently should simply 'remarry' us to the sorts of raw foods we know we feel best on. We may find ourselves consuming a far higher proportion of fruit and leaves in the days to come than we would have done otherwise. When we are raw, I think we can trust our bodies to set up desires which will 'even things out.'


So...

if you really feel like papayas, but are denying yourself because they're not organic, because they'll have to ripen in the kitchen rather than under the sun, because they've been flown in...buy those delicious papayas - your body's crying out for them! If you feed your body what it desires rather than what your mind (or a raw food teacher, or those on a raw food forum) tell you you should or shouldn't, you'll feel all the better for it and be far better equipped to change the world/persuade supermarket managers to stock organic papayas etc!

If right now you have a desire for some raw food that you've prohibited because you do believe it's 'not ideal', consider having some! Have a whale of a time eating all sorts of raw foods you've denied yourself. My experience is that it will not 'open the floodgates' but in fact will more likely make you appreciate even more the sort of food you like to eat most of the time.

It can be hard on the ego (I do know!) to admit that perhaps we've pushed ourselves just a little further than we were ready to go. It may mean some loss of face on your favourite NH/811 raw food forum to say that, yes, you went to Euphoria RawRevolution yesterday, had 'sunburgers' and enjoyed them! But, actually, at the end of the day, other people worry less about your diet than you do, and so what if someone gives you a 'ticking off'!

If you are fine eating whole mono foods only, have been doing so for twenty years, then this article is not for you. However, for the remaining 99% of my readers...if you at any time find you're kicking against self-imposed shackles, I suggest retreat a little, regroup and make further 'improvements' (and, as discussed, that can be a subjective thing!) only when you wholeheartedly want to make them.

*****

I now follow a policy of eating whole, unprocessed foods in simple combinations most of the time.
But I reserve the right to eat virtually any plant food raw, in any quantity I fancy, as long as it's not been heat-damaged. On a close-to-100% raw food diet, that's as far as I want to go right now while I turn my attention to non-food aspects of my lifestyle, the improvement of which could improve my health far more than cutting down on pumpkin seeds could.

I do aim for 'purist' - it's a goal. It is a sin, however small we might like to persuade ourselves it is (and you can see in this article that I do my share of that!), to fall beneath the standards we know we can achieve and our bodies will manifest the consequences of our transgressions from what is perfect. But let's remember how far we've come, and continue to improve, but only at a rate that we feel happy with. Our 'inner selves'/'higher power'/the universe/God will give us a shove when we need to move on again, and when that happens we will be given the strength to find it easy to take a few more steps forward. We need to distinguish between that direction, direction we can trust, from the perplexing and sometimes destructive stuff our minds can get up to from listening to the opinions of other human beings.

It's this policy - of having a great time enjoying all sorts of raw foods, of (at least this point in my raw food journey) not placing too many restrictions on myself within raw, that has enabled me to stay raw now for three and a half years, without any cooked food cravings, without ever 'falling off the wagon'.

It's this policy that enables me to enjoy the raw food diet, and stay...rawforlife!

'I Know She Wrote An Article On.... (But Where?)'

This might help!

Firstly, I've put a 'Search' facility on the blog - will certainly help me! Top right hand column.

Secondly, a list of past articles for your consideration. To go to the article, just go to relevant year, then month in the Archive box on the right column of the blog and select article from drop-down menu.

And can I just say, as I don't have time to re-read every one of my articles, that you might find the odd thing written in an old article that seems strange from what you know of me now! Do let me know if anyhing seems very out of place. But be comforted by the fact that if I've changed my mind radically about something, I will probably have edited the article!

2008

Jan 08
The Olive - 'One Of The Most Perfect Foods'
Feb 08
Drink Your Greens! (green juice)
F-reezing
Omega 3 - Not Just From Fish
Mar 08
Best Water On The Planet - Free!
How to Make Nut Milk
Are Some Foods 'Better For Us' Cooked?
April 08
Wheat Pt 1 (Raw, Sprouted Wheat)
Wheat Pt 2 (How To Make Essene Bread)
May 08
How Many Raw Foods Do We Need For a 'Balanced' Diet?
The Future Is....(ode to oranges)
June 08
24 Hour Water Fasting
Mono Eating
July 08
Where Do You Get Your...Calcium?
Raw Food And Hayfever
Eat Locust (Move Over Cacao) (carob)
Aug 08
Do Raw Fooders' Poos Smell Of Roses?
But People Have Always Cooked Food...
'Anti' Supplements? Why?
Oct 08
How Long Do Raw Fooders Live?
Blending - Pros and Cons
Nov 08
The Breakfast Trap
Yes, You Can Stay Raw This Winter.
Dec 08
One Thing You Didn't Know About Fruit
Where Do You Get Your...Protein?
Grey Hair - A Diet Connection

Jan 09
'Healthy Cooked Food' - A Contradiction In Terms
Feb 09
Fool For Fruit Pt 1 - The Fruit Warners
Fool for Fruit Pt 2 - Too Much Of A Good Thing?
Mar 09
Fool for Fruit Pt 3 - Should Fruit Eating Carry A Health Warning?
Juicing - Pros and Cons
April 09
Spinach And The Oxalic Acid Thing
Periods - They May Be Normal, But Are They Healthy?
May 09
Mellifluous Melons
Where Do You Get Your...Iron?
June 09
Why Did T C Fry Die 'So Young'?
Herbs - Yea Or Nay? Pt 1 Herbal Medicine
July 09
Herbs - Yea Or Nay? Pt 2 Flavourings, Fragrances
Aug 09
But I'm Hungry!
Sept 09
Salt - Pt 1
Salt - Pt 2
Oct 09
The 'Danger' Of Not Supplementing For Vitamin D
Nov 09
Are You A Nutter?
Nuts - Eat Fresh, Eat Raw
Dec 09
Teeth And The High Fruit Raw Food Diet
Jan 10
'Breast Cancer Cannot Be Prevented.' Discuss.
Feb 10
Garlic - The Less Popular View
Mar 10
Debbie Does B12 Pt 1
Apr 10
Debbie Does B12 Pt 2
I Know She Wrote An Article on... (But Where?)

Love, Debbie Took
http://www.rawforlife.co.uk/

Debbie Does B12 Pt 2 (Dilemmas)

Whether to be vegetarian, or vegan... I've always been a vacillator, on the fence....Just prior to going raw I was vegan - indeed, I came across a raw food site for the first time 'by accident' when looking for vegan recipes. Then when I went raw I decided to be raw vegetarian, that is, include a little unpasteurised milk/cheese every few weeks or so. Then I had a period in which I just couldn't decide (although ate very little dairy), which culminated in my going for raw vegan, which is the diet I had followed 100% for fifteen months prior to these articles. I'd intended to continue being vegan as long as all seemed well. I hadn't taken any supplements, as, being Natural Hygiene-oriented, my policy had always been broadly anti-supplementation (see Aug 08 article for why), although, where B12 was concerned, I'd always admitted I wasn't sure, and that that could be the one exception.

In Pt 1 here I described how I'd had a couple of 'symptoms' that might have been nothing to do with B12, but, as they had occurred in a week when it was a hot topic (again!) on the 30Bananas forum, I had decided it was time I had my B12 tested.

The test included iron, calcium and folate/B9, and, to my relief (since I have written about the first two!) I was fine on these. But I wasn't fine on B12. It was lower than the lowest end of the normal range. A further test indicated that I was OK for 'intrinsic factor'. My B12 result was a great motivation to spend a little time going through the considerable amount of information I'd collected about B12 over the years, but had always baulked at the time needed to do so!

In Part 1 I discussed B12 in general - what it is, how much we need, where it can be found on various sorts of diet, 'absorption issues', and what can happen if we are deficient. And I decided I was not sufficiently brave (or foolhardy - depending on who you listen to) to write off all the potential perils of B12 deficiency as scaremongering and that I would be taking steps to raise my B12 level.

So what were my options?

1. Stay raw vegan, unsupplemented, and try to raise my B12 level within those parameters.

2. Stay raw vegan, but supplement for B12.

3. Switch to raw vegetarian.

The first part of the article was 'informational'. This part is more personal; it's mostly describing my dilemma between options 2 and 3, what I did, and what I then did.


THE OPTIONS

1. Stay raw vegan, unsupplemented

One way I could raise my B12 level without supplementation is to eat more of my food a) organic and b) unwashed. Here in the UK I grow quite a lot of food in the summer and we have a good fruit harvest in the early Autumn. So for a few months of the year I eat lots of food straight from the garden, mostly unwashed, with bacteria and no doubt minute insect matter clinging to it. But we're talking 50% of the year at most. For the rest of the year I have to rely on shop-bought food. I probably eat 60-70% of my food organic - the snag with loving tropical fruit like papayas and pineapples is that it is difficult to obtain organic locally - certainly in the winter. Also, the organic food I do buy is often washed. Even a water wash would destroy much of the matter on the plant foods that could manufacture B12 for me. (I did read that when fruit bats are brought into captivity and fed store-bought fruit they develop B12 deficiency. No source - can someone supply it?). But, nevertheless, I will be making an effort to increase my organic percentage and eat my food as far as possible in its natural state. (This is helped by the fact that a local organic retailer has just opened shop five minutes down the road from me!). I'll also be thinking about eating more fruit that can be eaten peel-intact, as I can't quite see how fruit such as bananas, melons etc could contribute to our B12, even if organic, as, because they are eaten without peel, they are effectively sterile.

Another possible way of righting my B12 level without supplementation would be to undertake a long-term fast, as Natural Hygiene literature includes case studies of B12 levels righting themselves through fasting, when the body, freed from the onslaught of food, can devote its energies to healing. The problem here is that, although I've undertaken several 24-hour fasts and two 3-day fasts, a longer fast would need supervision, and, right now, I'm not able to justify the time or expense to do that. (Some reading will say that if we really want to do something, we can always find the ways and means. What would I say to that? I would say that you are right.)

Fasting aside, I think it unlikely that I could raise my B12 level significantly just by eating a little more organic food while living in suburban Reading, UK. If I lived in a part of the world where I could live off the land all year round (with a source of drinking water not chemically treated - see Pt 1) I might feel more confident.


Option 2 - Stay raw vegan, but supplement for B12

B12 supplementation is most commonly found in tablet form. There are two types of supplemental B12: methylcobalamin and cyanocobalamin. The 'methyl' type is best, as the 'cyan' type has to be converted by the body into the active form, which is...methylcobalamin!

B12 tablets are best dissolved or at least chewed rather than crunched/swallowed, to increase the percentage absorbed. Some manufacturers call their tablets 'sublingual lozenges'. Having bought some of these on line, I can tell you that this is just a fancy name for....tablets Put them under your tongue and they do eventually dissolve, but it takes a while.

Dosage - I've found it very unsettling that different authorities - mainstream medical and alternative, and different manufacturers, recommend such radically different doses. I've seen 500 mcg a week recommended. I've seen 2000 mcg daily recommended! The tablets/lozenges are generally 1000-5000 mcg a go when the daily RNI is 1.5 mcg - the rationale for such huge doses as compared with the RNI is that only a fraction of what we ingest in supplemental form is absorbed and/or people who are low/deficient need a 'bump start', etc.

The tablets always contain a few things additional to the B12. That's necessary for it to be ingestible in tablet form. For example, they almost all (possibly all) contain magnesium stearate, which is used in the processing to prevent particles from sticking to machinery. Magnesium stearate has been shown in large doses to be toxic to the liver and cause skin damage. We have to ask ourselves if we want that in our body in 'small' doses.

If there are 'absorption issues' (explained in Pt 1), then B12 taken orally won't do much good, if any, as the B12 ingested won't be absorbed from the digestive system into the blood. In these cases, B12 injections could be the answer, as the B12 would then bypass the mechanism of absorption.

However, although these may be the only option for those with B12 deficiency and absorption issues, I'm a little concerned at the current fashion for having B12 shots, especially by those who have not had a low B12 reading, but are taking them simply for the 'rush of energy', the 'high' reported by athletes, opera singers about to go on stage, etc! Now to me this says 'stimulant', and stimulants work because the body is on 'red alert', 'all systems go', marshalling its energies to try to eliminate substances it doesn't want! This could be something in the shots apart from the B12, or it could be the size of the dose. In true cases of deficiency, where every effort has been made by other means to tackle the cause of the absorption problems, it could be that any negatives may be cancelled out, but surely those with a 'normal' B12 count, or even a low B12 count but with no evidence of absorption problems, shouldn't be taking shots?


Option 3 - Switch to raw vegetarian

Many of my arguments here are subjective, and I expect them not to have validity for some readers. For some (whether raw vegetarian or raw vegan), there is no dilemma. For me, there always has been, as, although I am convinced that we should not be murdering animals and feasting on their corpses, I have never been convinced that 'dairy' is always, in every circumstance, wrong.

I expect a few 'unsubscribes' after publication of this article, but hope that the majority of those who disagree with me here will not feel that from this point on nothing else I write can ever be of interest to them again.

Whilst on a vegan diet, I have always said that, if I moved to a Greek island, and lived next to someone who kept goats for milk, and was offered some feta cheese, made from the fresh unpasteurised milk of a happy goat milked by human hands (after she had met her kids' demands), I would switch to raw vegetarian at the drop of a hat. Re full breasts, the discomfort that can result, and 'relief', I have tried twice to write here about my own experiences when breastfeeding, but have deleted as...perhaps too much information!). Goats are not known for doing things they don't want to do, and, provided a goat is hand-milked, it can obviously easily signal its willingness or not to give its milk. The awkward bit came for me when I had to admit that, in Reading, UK, this scenario did not exist, and the raw goats' milk I was buying would be coming from goats attached to milking machines. Such a contraption would not only surely be uncomfortable for the goat, but would make it much less likely that a goat could signal its aquiescence, or otherwise!

One major motivation for my going raw was the Essene diet. This was raw vegetarian rather than vegan. However, in those days, the milk the Teacher referred to as being a good food for us would almost certainly have been collected via hand-milking. As it was described as food for man for just one month of the year, although it wasn't prohibited at other times, this would suggest that we should not be consuming anything like the amount of dairy the average person in the UK consumes. Also, in Essene times it would not have been consumed at the expense of the kids - it would have been surplus only (which perhaps explains the seasonal reference).

Some sources say that the Essenes had fermented dairy, eg yogurt, kefir; in fermented dairy the lactose that gives some digestive problems is pre-digested by the fermentation process (although, unfortunately, according to the Vegetarian Society B12 can be destroyed in fermentation!). Other sources conflict with this by stating that the Essenes never drank 'fermented liquids' (although this could be referring to alcohol). Incidentally, the Essene Gospel of Peace makes it clear that any milk drunk should be fresh, ie unpasteurised/raw - it describes an incident in which a serpent (the devil) was attracted by the smell of heated milk. I've always found this interesting as, when a child, I would not drink pasteurised cows' milk, detested the smell of heated milk (my Dad used to have it 'for his ulcer') and, weirdly, had nightmares about my parents dying in which I could smell heated milk.

Many of the raw fooders/Natural Hygienists that I admire, and that have influenced my thinking, were raw vegetarian rather than raw vegan. One of the most famous Natural Hygienists of last century - Herbert Shelton, and Doctors Norman W Walker ('Becoming Younger') and Ann Wigmore (founder of Hippocrates Institute), all included raw dairy of some sort in their diets, although never advocated the consumption of high amounts of pasteurised cows' milk. Of course that's not to say they couldn't have done better without dairy. That's something we can never know.

No other animal drinks milk after it's been weaned, and no other animal drinks the milk of another species. This is quite true, and an excellent argument for veganism that surely can't be disputed. Or can it? When the human being is described as simply one more species of animal, albeit a more 'developed' one, to justify anything, eg aggression, sexual behaviour, diet, it is just possible that we are falling into a trap, as the human being is unlike 'all other animals' in many respects. To list all of them would require a separate article, but here are a few: we laugh, we cry, we create (not just for reproduction or shelter), we wander all over the globe (we don't stay in one habitat or migrate along pre-determined lines), we symbolise...Whether by evolution, accident or design, the human being is different from 'all other animals' and I won't discount the possibility (and the irony) that big-headed, 'clever', 'powerful' man may actually be reliant, that is, dependent on animals! The 'Anastasia' books (Ringing Cedars Press), although fictional, suggest gently that animals may even want to serve man, and here 'serve' is used in the most positive and beautiful sense, in the way that we might serve our fellow-men. Could it be possible that when we then abuse their trust, their natural love for us, by eg killing them, factory-farming them, (or damaging their milk via pasteurisation) we pay a price, via their aggression, and via disease? (Edit - on a forum recently when I said that human beings are different from 'other animals' I was misunderstood - I am not saying we are 'superior'!! Animals live perfectly in accordance with nature. We often choose not to, and have to bear the responsibility for that.)

Although high consumption of pasteurised dairy is linked with illnesses such as asthma and breast cancer, these diseases are almost unknown in relatively healthy, long-lived communities such as the Abkhasians, Vilcabambans (John Robbins' 'Healthy at 100'), who consume a little, raw, dairy. The dairy consumed by such communities is often goats' which is closer in composition to human milk than cows'; it's more alkaline and, according to Dr Norman W Walker, less acid-forming.

One practical problem with raw milk is that it is quite difficult to obtain. It's sometimes available covertly at farmers' markets, or direct from farms, and a couple of suppliers sell it online. However, some (most?) farms are also sending the animals off to slaughter for meat. So it may be difficult to obtain raw milk without supporting those who are killing animals.

Raw cheese is more widely available. Two problems here (apart from links to the meat industry as above). Firstly, the cheese may not be so raw...I think regulations in the US still require the milk to be heated to 60C - unsure about the situation in UK. Whilst this is not as hot as pasteurisation (almost boiling point), it's way past the 'raw' cut-off point. Also, I believe that unpasteurised cheese has to be 'aged' for two months, which is why raw cheese is so often the stinky kind, making it a (particularly?) unnatural product for us, and of course is usually quite high in sodium chloride used in processing. This sort of cheese, whilst it may be labelled 'raw' or 'unpasteurised', is likely a long way from the fresh cheese consumed by the cultures previously mentioned.

I should at this point briefly mention eggs as a source of B12, as some raw food vegetarians do eat these and some (eg Frederic Patenaude) consume these whilst not consuming dairy. One ethical argument in favour is that hens will lay lots of unfertilised eggs (they do - we used to keep them) and that other creatures will surely eat them if we don't, but...I tend to go by the Natural Hygiene principle that something is food for us if we find it atractive, and raw eggs...just don't do it for me. Also, when hens are bred for egg-laying, what happens to the unwanted male chicks? So, for me, eggs aren't an option.


WHAT I DID

After a few days of 'crisis', taking everything into account, I decided that, at least in 2010, morally, the raw vegan diet trumped the raw vegetarian, and that I would stay raw vegan, but take a B12 supplement. I 'announced' this to 30Bananas, the raw food forum I frequented most. However, I do think that my decision might have been influenced by the fact that my ego rather enjoyed the 'public approval' I received. And it felt good that I could remain a member of 'the vegan club'. When I felt shaky, and felt conflict between principles of Natural Hygiene, my allegiance to Essene principles, and my supplement-taking, I buoyed myself up by reminding myself that there were other raw vegans who-did-not-generally-believe-in-supplements-with-the-exception-of-B12 - it always feels good to have a little 'support' from others for our decisions.

So, I took the supplement, twice a week, for several weeks.

And I....

hated it.

The 'Xylitol', the 'lemon flavor', the magnesium stearate and the rest of them...immaterial of whether the label proclaimed them to be 'of vegetable origin', I just don't want these isolated, unnatural substances in my body (which would also be likely to be the case for powders, potions, 'drops' etc).

Also, I bought the lowest-dosage 'lozenges' I could find - 1000 mcg. The label proudly proclaims I'm taking nearly seventeen thousand times my B12 RNI in one go. Doesn't quite match with my maths on a 1.5 mcg RNI, but seventeen thousand times, seven hundred times,whatever...I'm not reassured that, to date, 'no scientific evidence' has been found to show such doses are harmless. With increasing regularity nowadays we find scientific studies to show that various vitamin tablets people have been encouraged to take in high quantities ('mega' doses) in the past have not been improving their health, but the very opposite.


AND WHAT I'M DOING NOW

So I tried. I wrestled with the issues, I had plumped for vegan, but after a month, I knew there's no way I'm going to be swallowing these things for ever more. Every fibre of my being militates against it.

I'm neither happy with consuming the milk of goats attached to milking machines that may come from a farm rearing animals for meat. But neither am I happy with taking supplementation. But...neither am I happy with (very) 'low' B12. And, of the two options described above, although they're certainly 'a rock and a hard place', I'm 'less unhappy' with dairy than I am with supplementation.

*****

The next step? In two months' time I will retest for B12, to see whether a month of supplementation followed by two months of dairy, has made a difference to the level. If not, I'll investigate factors that might be affecting absorption (although my 'intrinsic factor' test result was OK).

Did I feel any 'better' after a month of B12 supplementation? No, I felt fine before, and still felt fine after. Did I feel any better after having some raw cheese? As with the supplementation, not a jot of difference. And have the 'symptoms' that I described at the beginning of Pt 1 abated? Well, I haven't had any more strange mental turns! But that was just one occurrence, so only the daft would say 'ah, B12 deficiency!' Waking with pins and needles? It's still happening. Perhaps I'd better ease off on the knitting.


(IMPORTANT! POSTSCRIPT)

After finding one place in the whole of the UK that produced mild raw goats' cheese, and after enjoying it for a few weeks, I decided to stop sticking my neck in the sand and enquire as to what happened to the male kids. I was assured that all their goats led happy lives (of course...) and that the male kids were...killed. One method apparently was to hit them hard against a rock. I am ashamed of myself for not having enquired earlier, and will stop buying the cheese. I'm very, very sorry, and it looks as if my foray (again) into dairy will now be ending. Which means unless I can find some source that doesn't involve killing (highly unlikely) I will be reverting to vegan again! And taking the b_____ supplement! It's the lesser of two evils.

Regular readers, who generally find me confident and resolute (well, most of the time?), will note that I have, to date, been unable to resolve the B12 situation satisfactorily.

And there we will have to leave it!

PPS 24.5.10 (Well, not quite leaving it there...)

As I've mentioned in the articles, I'd had a test for 'intrinsic factor' which indicated to me that I didn't have an absorption problem in that regard. However, I did still worry a little that, being an old hag who had followed a standard digestive-system-abusing diet for many years prior to raw, I might still have 'compromised' my digestion in some way, that is some other 'absorption issue'. HOWEVER...I've now had a follow-up blood test, three months after the reading of 159 that was below the lowest end of the 'acceptable' range. Having ingested B12 via dairy and supplementation, my B12 level has now risen to 220. This supports there not being any absorption issues with me - looks as if the low figure was simply due to not ingesting enough B12, and previous supplies from a diet several years previously had run down - simple as that.

I'll continue to have my blood tested annually. Like many other raw vegans who have been through similar (Dr Doug Graham, Tonya Zavasta etc) I'm hoping that supplementation is something I will only have to do occasionally, when the level dips below that at which I feel comfortable and/or I experience symptoms that could be, might be.... to do with B12...

Debbie Does B12 Pt 1 (Do I Care?)

I've been asked so many times when I'd be writing about B12, but have always ducked out. Too difficult, too much info to go through...

But having my own B12 tested has rather forced the issue, so....it's a LONG ONE! But, B12...could it be anything else?

Part One contains the background to it all, basic info on B12, sources, symptoms etc. In Part Two (to come) I'll discuss the options available for raising B12.

Usual disclaimers - not a doctor, not a nutritionist.


MY B12 ADVENTURE - HOW IT STARTED

As Vitamin B12 is found in largest quantities in foods of animal origin, it must be one of the most frequently-occurring topic threads on vegan internet forums. At the time my 'adventure' started, there it was again, on the 30BaD forum. Well-known raw vegan Harley Johnson (aka durianrider) had taken B12 shots and, as usual in any B12 thread, there was lively discussion/debate about what some refer to as 'The B12 bogeyman'. B12 deficiency can result in some rather unpleasant things happening (and more on that later).

Now, in the week that thread was up, I'd woken up at night a couple of times with 'pins and needles' in my fingers. I'd also had a strange mental 'thing' where,for an hour or so, I'd had problems separating two strands of my life and had had a memory blank-out. Before we go on, I had not decided these were definitely 'symptoms of B12 deficiency'. I'd been launching a new business and had had hardly any sleep for two days - and I'd also developed a passion for knitting! Two simple explanations for the phenomena. But, sure, as these things also happened to be on the (very long) list of things that could (could) be due to B12 deficiency, and it was a hot topic on the forum that week, I decided it was about time to have my own B12 level checked. I don't think I'll ever know for sure what was actually causing these symptoms, but they certainly motivated me to go through all the B12 info I'd collected over the years and try to make sense of it, the results of which I hope will be of interest to you.

Prior to that, I had rather stuck my neck in the sand on the B12 thing. I am 'broadly anti-supplements' (note the first word), hadn't supplemented for B12, but hadn't been as confident in my position on this as with other nutrients.

For example, on the main website (http://www.rawforlife.co.uk/) I'd said this:

'With the possible/debatable exception of B12 in some cases, supplements...are generally unnecessary.'

And in my blog article August 08 entitled 'Anti-Supplements. Why?', I'd said this:

'Whether or not raw vegans need to take Vitamin B12 for example is a hugely-debated area. At present, I do not supplement for B12. There are many healthy long-term raw vegans who do not, and some symptoms that have been attributed to B12 deficiency may well be due to other factors, eg deficiencies of other vitamins/poor absorption. But - OK - I'll admit I'm not totally sure on the B12 thing, but I'd be far more likely to switch to a raw vegetarian diet than supplement.'

The only thing that I'd rap myself for here is the use of the words 'long-term', as, without quantification, that could mean anything, and I'll discuss that later.

So, I've always been pretty much 'on the fence' where B12 was concerned. I knew the raw vegan diet was no problem for protein, iron, calcium, various other nutrients, and that supplementation in general was unnecessary. But B12...wasn't sure.


MY B12 TEST RESULTS

(After three years of raw - one year 100% vegan and the other two years, taken as a whole, 95-99% vegan.)

There are different ways of testing for B12, and some say that the blood test (the most common way) isn't the most accurate. According to the Vegan Society, the blood test can give a falsely optimistic picture of the B12 level eg if algae is consumed, as B12 'analogues' can imitate true B12). However, as I don't eat algae, or another sea veg in any significant quantitiy, I felt the blood test a fair starting point at least. B9 (folate), iron and calcium were thrown in.


B9/folate Fine Way-hay!

Calcium Fine Way-hay! (And bone density test last year good as well)

Iron Fine Way-hay!

B12 Low. Below the lower boundary of the normal range.
Bother, bother, bother. A spanner in the works!


My level was 147. Normal range in the UK is 211-911. The lower boundary varies by country between 100 and 200. So, if I was Canadian, where the low end of the range is 150 I'd be hanging to the 'normal' cliff-edge with my fingernails.

So...

I had to ask myself...

Do I CARE about 'low'?

And, if I do care about 'low', should I increase my B12 by:

a) staying raw vegan unsupplemented and trying to increase my B12 by whatever means
or
b) staying raw vegan but supplementing for B12
or
c) switching from raw vegan to raw vegetarian (ie including some dairy - for me, animal-eating would never be an option and I'm not attracted to raw eggs).

More about a) b) and c) in Part 2. (I don't think there's a d), but if there is, I'm sure someone will let me know!


DO I CARE ABOUT HAVING 'LOW' B12?

Firstly, it is possible that there are shortcomings in the blood test. A Raw Food UK forum contributor (Jack) suggested that blood levels could be irrelevant, as this is simply where the B12 enters the body from the food before being transferred to the liver where 50-80% of B12 is stored. He felt that meat-eaters would have a glut of B12 in the blood because the liver is already full of it, and that to get a true reading of one's B12 level, the liver should be tested rather than the blood.

And I know there are other ways of testing B12 (eg urine). I know, I know....but, unlike some of my raw food buddies, I don't actually believe that doctors know nothing and, if the blood test is the standard measure of B12 level used by the medical profession, I'll go with there being some value in it.

There are plausible arguments in favour of not caring whether one is 'low' on a particular nutrient compared with the average population. I've used them myself. The average person ingests a host of nutrient-destroying substances (eg coffee, alcohol, nicotine etc) and the RDAs/RNIs are set deliberately high to take account of this.

And, sure, my B12 is bound to be low compared with the average, as I've eaten very few foods of animal origin for three years (none for the last fifteen months). But 'lower than average' - I'd be relaxed with that. 'Lower than the lowest of the normal range' - no, I'm not comfortable with that, and I'll explain why.


WHAT IS B12 AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Vitamin B12 is a water-soluble vitamin manufactured by microorganisms (bacteria). Another name for it is 'cobalamin', which comes from the presence of the mineral cobalt in the centre of its structure.

As with the other B vitamins, B12 helps build the material that makes up our genetic blueprint - our DNA. It's also important in the production of red blood cells, in maintaining a healthy nervous system, helps release energy from our food, is of great importance in the growth and development of children, and it's important for...about a million other things. For example, it acts with Vitamin B9 (folate) to synthesise methionine - one of the eight essential amino-acids. It also limits the build-up of a potentially damaging molecule called homocysteine (which can raise the risk of heart attack), allowing it to be converted to methionine. (Although it has to be said that high homocysteine is normally characteristic of a diet high in concentrated protein, ie meat rather than vegan diet.)


HOW MUCH DO WE NEED?

The UK RNI (Reference Nutrient Intake) for adults is 1.5 micrograms a day. This is tiny compared with RNIs for other nutrients - 1.5 millionths of a gram. The reason supplement manufacturers recommend such large doses - 1-2000 mcg once a week, or even a day, is that only a small proportion of the B12 we ingest is absorbed. Can we have too much? Consensus in the nutrition world is that high doses of B12 should be no problem, which of course (caveat emptor) only means there's no 'scientific evidence' to suggest otherwise. B12 is water-soluble, but excreted via the faeces rather than the urine.

We store B12 in the liver, so have reserve supplies that can last for sometime (how long? No one's sure, let alone able to say in individual cases.) We also recycle B12 in various ways, such as through recycling of bile. But we only recycle a percentage of that originally ingested, which means that if stores run down and are not replenished, our B12 level will gradually reduce over a period. And how long can we keep going on recycling B12? The $64K dollar question...again, the answer is: we can't know for sure.


WHERE CAN B12 BE FOUND?

In an omnivorous diet: It can be found in relatively large quantities in animal flesh and organs, because the animal has ingested it itself (perhaps via tiny creatures such as insects in its plant food and/or bacteria in its food or water which then manufacture B12 in its intestines, or via supplementation of animal feed, or even by eating poo (some animals do). It can also be obtained from the sources listed for cooked/raw vegetarian diet below, in cooked vegan diet below, and in raw vegan diet below.

In a cooked or raw vegetarian diet: It can be found in significant amounts in dairy and eggs. (USDA Nutrient Database records no figure for B12 in honey.) It can also be obtained from the sources listed for cooked vegan diet below, and in raw vegan diet below.

In a cooked vegan diet: B12 can be obtained from vegan processed foods that have had B12 added in the processing (sometimes known as 'fortified' foods), eg some grain products, spreads (eg sunflower/soya, and Marmite) burgers, soya milk etc. It can also be obtained from sources listed in raw vegan diet below.

In a raw vegan diet: Although some claim that we can simply manufacture B12 ourselves in our intestines from, effectively, nothing, most say that there needs to be something ingested, eg B12 or the bacteria that make it, for the B12 production, or recycling, to take place.

B12 can be obtained from bacteria in soil that has not been chemically treated (the chemicals kill the bacteria), insects (may be microscopically tiny) on plant food, and water that has not been chlorinated (bear in mind however brilliant your water cleaning system is, the water that went into it in the first place would have been chlorinated, ie bacteria killed).

I've said'on', rather than 'in' plant food. Some do claim that wherever other B vitamins are found, B12 will be as well, but that the amounts aren't detectable by measuring equipment and/or that when plant foods are prepared for laboratory analysis, acids and other substances are used that destroy the B12 (unlikely I'd have thought). Suffice to say that I haven't come across any scientific evidence that proves there is B12 in (as opposed to on) plant foods sufficient to meet our needs.

Usually in a raw vegan forum discussion thread on B12, someone will advocate sea vegetables, such as the algae spirulina, or nori. This is a controversial area. The snag could be that they contain compounds structurally similar to B12, known as B12 analogues, which may disrupt normal B12 metabolism by competing with true B12 for absorption. But others cite studies that show that true B12 is present as well and that the body can tell the difference between 'analogues' and true B12 and that there is no problem, pointing out that these 'analogues' can also be found in multivitamins, B12-fortified food and animal foods. My feeling is that unless sea veg is eaten straight from the sea, then surely B12 is going to be destroyed in the washing and processing (and, yes, even if it does come from 'pristine'(!) waters). For me, 'jury's out' on whether sea veg are a source of B12.

Some raw fooders believe that fermented products contain B12, or at least help promote a healthy flora internally conducive to making B12. Again, this is a controversial area. I haven't come across any proof that fermented foods contain B12. (The Vegetarian Society did report that studies showed B12 to be absent in substances such as shoyu, miso etc, which of course aren't raw anyway and very high in sodium chloride. ) Natural Hygienists believe we shouldn't be eating fermented (they would say 'rotting') food full stop and that if we follow the correct diet we shouldn't need any help with our 'intestinal flora' and that ingesting so-called 'healthy bacteria' will interfere with our own bodies' attempts to heal and be detrimental rather than beneficial.

B12 can also be produced in the lower part of the digestive system, but, unless we eat our own poo (which I don't feel 'drawn' to do) that's not much good to us, as it's 'on its way out' by then, ie past the stage where our bodies would absorb it.

And of course B12 will be found in breastmilk (as long as the mother has sufficient B12 herself).

So these are all possible sources of B12 on the raw vegan diet. I eat unwashed garden produce (often with tiny bits of soil - the crunchy bits (!) and quite likely various tiny creatures attached) for several months of the year, but this seems to have been insufficient to keep my B12 in the 'normal' range.


COULD IT BE....AN ABSORPTION ISSUE?

Even if we ingest lots of B12, or bacteria that make B12,will we be OK? Well, not necessarily.

What people on all sorts of diet have to bear in mind is that meat-eaters can be deficient in B12 too, and many are (about 40%!) Of course they're getting lots of B12 via the shortcut of eating animals that had a good supply because they ate/made their own. So why would meat-eaters have B12 problems?

Firstly, B12 can be destroyed by water, sunlight, the heat of cooking, alcohol, smoking, mercury, oestrogen in birth-control pills, and sleeping pills. And anything that upsets the balance of 'flora' in our digestive systems can negatively affect B12 absorption. Prescription antibiotics would be one example, but heavy consumption of garlic and strong spices (that have an 'antibiotic effect') could be detrimental to B12 absorption.

And what is the case with many people, on all sorts of diet, is that they are in fact ingesting sufficient B12, but their digestive systems (eg stomach, small intestine) are faulty, which means that the B12 they're ingesting is not being absorbed into the blood. This can happen in people who have followed a very poor diet in the past, who have had intestinal surgery, and in those who have generally had a history of digestive and/or bowel issues. What happens is that there is a lack of a molecule called intrinsic factor, which is needed to bind with B12 to enable it to be absorbed by the body. (By the way, 'intrinsic factor' was coined by Castle, who called B12 the 'extrinsic factor'.)

But lack of 'intrinsic factor' isn't the only thing that could negatively affect absorption of B12.

Natural Hygienist Dr Virginia Vetrano describes the process of absorption:

'The vitamin must first be separated from the materials to which it is bound before it can be combined with the intrinsic factor. In food, B12 compounds are largely protein or peptide-bound and these must be separated from the vitamin by digestive juices before B12 can be combined with the intrinsic factor.'

Now, I've recently edited the section I had written on low hydrochloric acid (HCl) in the digestive juices, because, following discussions with a nutritionist, it seems far more likely that it would be a high HCl level that's the issue, as if there is excess HCl produced in the stomach the environment in the lower intestines would be too acidic for optimum enzymatic activity sufficient to digest the peptides bound to the B12. (High HCl is most commonly found in those on poor diets, eg high in meat, alcohol, salt etc.)

Vetrano continues: 'The third stage of absorption is to transport the B12 into the cells of the gastrointestinal mucous membrane.' Some claim that damaged intestinal mucosa could inhibit absorption, that there are certain foods (eg salt, oils, isolated sugars, spices etc) that irritate the intestinal lining and cause it to secrete (extra) mucus to protect it, and that this mucus inhibits absorption of B12. Others (notably Natural Hygienist Susan Hazard writing in the Eighties) say that the mucus hardens, through inflammation as a result of condiment use. The theories seem plausible, although I haven't been able to find any scientific support for them.

The B12, if it's made it through the various minefields described above, is eventually absorbed at the far end of the small intestine - the terminal ileium.

I did have a further blood test. I don't know the details, but I was told I was OK for 'intrinsic factor'. I don't know what the state of my HCl is, nor my gastrointestinal mucus membrane (I eat very little salt, spices etc, or at least in the last couple of years). But I may well investigate these, particularly if my efforts to raise my B12 level by mouth (discussed in Pt 2) come to naught.


IS B12 MORE AN ISSUE FOR RAW VEGANS THAN THOSE ON OTHER SORTS OF DIET?

Raw food leaders disagree on this. For example, Dr Doug Graham ('80/10/10 Diet') says that rates of B12 deficiency are not higher amongst vegans or raw foodists than they are amongst meat eaters. But Gabriel Cousens MD (Tree of Life Center) says: 'There's 18 studies of vegans and live fooders, three on live eaters...in every single study, 18 out of 18 shows that, after about six years, about 80% of vegans or live fooders become B12 deficient. Please note that 39% of meat-eaters are B12 deficient. So the rate is about twice as much.' ('Live food' is virtually synonynous with 'raw'.)

I tend to go with Dr D on a lot of things, but Dr G's statement on B12 makes more sense to me. People can argue till the cows come home (vegan equivalent needed?) that there is some B12 on plant food, but the fact remains that in the vegan diet there is only a tiny fraction of the amount available in omnivorous or vegetarian (or even cooked-vegan-including-fortified-processed-foods) diets, and, as we only absorb a tiny fraction of that ingested, surely, unless vegans eat all their food with soil and insects clinging to it and drink water from a mountain stream, vegans need to look out for themselves where B12 is concerned.

Here's the brilliant (non-raw foodist but enthusiastic advocate of the vegan diet) Michael Klaper MD on B12:

'Vitamin B-12 is made by little microscopic plant cells called soil bacteria that live in the earth. And long ago when the earth was healthy and the soils were healthy, before we put all sorts of chemicals on them, The surface of the earth was covered with vitamin B-12, and there use to be lots of vitamin B-12 in our lives even if you were a pure vegetarian 300 years ago. You'd open up your cottage door and outside the back door would be a beautiful organic garden, and every carrot you pulled out of the ground would have little particles of vitamin B-12 sticking to it. When it came time to get your water, you'd take a bucket of water out of the stream, there would be vitamin B-12 in the stream water. There would be B-12 in the well water you brought out. There would be B-12 under your finger nails from working in the garden. There would be plenty of B-12 in your life and you needed so little of it, that it was not an issue.

We've become very isolated from the earth and we've lost our natural sources of B-12. Cows have B-12 in their muscles because they're eating grass all day and their pulling up clumps of dirt that have B-12 producing organisms clinging to the root of the grass. They eat the B-12 producing organisms who then produce the B-12, gets absorbed into their bloodstream and goes out into the muscles and is deposited into their muscles and livers. But that is bacterial B-12 in the cow's muscle. The cow did not make it, nor did the pig or chicken. It's true that you can go up to the cow, bash it's brains in, rip open it's abdomen and tear out it's liver and eat it to get your vitamin B-12. But I submit to you there is far less expensive and less violent ways to get your vitamin B-12.

(Dr Klaper then goes on to discuss B12-fortified vegan cooked foods, which is essentially supplementation.)


Everything in the garden is lovely...(well, yes it is, but...)

Please bear in mind that many raw vegans on forums insisting that B12 is no problem on a raw vegan diet 1) haven't been raw vegan for very long (so B12 levels from a previous diet may still be high) and/or 2) haven't a clue what their own B12 level is. I can understand the viewpoints of those who don't care, so haven't tested because they think the B12 thing is all scare-mongering and a fuss about nothing, but do bear in mind that their views are, in the vast majority of cases, opinions (and optimism?!) rather than conclusions based on experience.


SIGNS OF DEFICIENCY

Yes, B12 scare-mongering...is it, or isn't it?

Meat-eaters and supplement-manufacturers certainly try to scare vegans with all sorts of stories about where their diet will lead them if they don't eat corpses, buy the latest supervitamin/mineral powder etc. In most cases, I've found myself 'unbovvered' (UK joke), but, B12...hmm.

After levels of B12 in the blood drop, levels in the cells drop. It's at that stage that there is said to be a 'deficiency'. (As my tests didn't go beyond the blood, I don't know if I was simply 'low' or 'deficient'.) When there is B12 deficiency, levels of various compounds are disrupted. Fatigue is the most common problem, but, OK, are you ready? Here comes...that Really Scary List.

The Really Scary List

Breathing difficulties
Raised homocysteine increasing risk of heart attack
Numbness and pain in limbs/extremities
Irreversible damage to nerve cells, spinal chord and brain
Irreversible neurological damage, paralysis or death
In infants - permanently arrested brain and peripheral nerve development
Dementia

Yum yum, we all want some of those, don't we?

And...the doomsayers' piece de resistance...these symptoms may take up to 20-30 years to 'manifest' - aaaaaaaaaaarghhhhh!

So, if it's the case that the animal-food-eaters/medical profession are attempting to scare vegans into eating animal products (or supplementing for B12) then they've done their job rather well. The 'ah, but it can take 20-30 years for symptoms to show' has been particularly effective in the sport of Squashing the Raw Vegan. (The cynic will say, with good reason I feel, that ten years ago, the warning tended to be that it could take five years for symptoms to show, but faced with increasing numbers of healthy five-year unsupplemented vegans, those trying to discredit the diet simply upped the figure!). I'm not sure what the scientific evidence for the 20-30 years assertion is, or whether that it's that the deficiency is 'lurking' for the whole of the period, 'exploding' in a manifestation of dreadful symptoms, or whether it's simply that for eg 19 of the 20 years the vegan is in fact not deficient, and then in Year 20 s/he becomes deficient - for some reason.

But one reason the '20-30 years' thing is so effective in wiping the smile off the happy vegan is that there aren't enough raw unsupplemented vegans of 20-30 years' standing to form any sort of statistically significant pool to say 'look at us, we're doing fine!' Raw vegans who have had any cooked vegan B12-fortified food (eg spreads, soya milk etc) in that time won't do, as certainly if it's in the last few years, B12 could still be relatively high due to recycling. Raw vegans who've used non-food supplementation at any time in that period won't do either, as non-food supplementation, eg tablets, contain extremely high doses of B12. And raw vegans who call themselves vegan, or who people think of as vegan, but have in fact had a small amount of dairy in those years won't do either. I'd long cherished the idea that Dr Virginia Vetrano, thriving in her 80s, and a vociferous advocate of not supplementing for B12, had been vegan, but recently heard that, like many of the classic Natural Hygienists, she has included dairy in her diet.

In fact, if there is anyone who has been 100% raw (or virtually?) and 100% vegan and unsupplemented (in any form) for 20+ years and has had their B12 level tested recently and it's in the 'normal' range, I've never come across them, nor heard of them, nor have met anyone who has. I'm thinking they might be as rare as hens' teeth.

The only person I can think of who gets anywhere near that is Dr Doug Graham, who has been raw vegan unsupplemented for twelve years. I'm not sure whether he's had his B12 tested recently, but assume he's probably on top of it, as he did supplement twelve years ago when he'd had symptoms, the cessation of which on supplementation suggested to him that he had probably had a B12 deficiency.

Unfortunately, there are no lifetime (let alone 'generations') vegan communities/cultures to say that, even if we do eat all our food straight from the ground, unwashed, that B12 won't be an issue. It may well be that it isn't, but obviously it would be helpful if there were vegan cultures that could be an example for us all. But I haven't come across any. This of course doesn't diminish the vegan diet in any way. Just because it's 'normal' for cultures to eat animals, to damage their food, to drink alcohol, to inhale smoke, to kill members of other societies, etc, and that we haven't yet found a culture free of all those things, doesn't mean that a way of living that excludes those things isn't the right way to go. It's just that, where B12 is concerned, it would be useful to have a helpful prop in the argument for raw vegan unsupplemented, but...we don't (at least yet) have that.

As, over the years, whenever anyone has claimed that X or Y culture/community is (lifetime) vegan, on researching, I've always found a bit of dairy creeping in somewhere (or if not dairy, meat/fish)! Over and over again I've found that reportedly vegan cultures - on closer examination - have a little (just a little) dairy, usually in the form of goats' or sheeps' milk or cheese (unpasteurised, ie with all bacteria present, of course).

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So do I CARE about my 'low' B12? Yes I do.

That word 'irreversible' certainly chills the bones, doesn't it? And sure, again, when that word is used, it's not generally used in conjunction with any statistics that might back the claim. It could mean 'one in a million cases', and we all know that if that unfortunate person has been following a vegan diet, as opposed to an omnivorous diet, the newspapers will fall over themselves in their stampede to attribute the dreadful occurrence to the 'extreme' vegan diet whilst neatly overlooking the millions that are getting all sorts of horrible diseases and dying prematurely from the conventional cooked omnivorous diet!

But on the other hand, the magnitude, the severity of the symptoms (together with seeing a few too many posts from vegans complaining about tingling/pain in their extremities) has had me thinking that I'd hate to find myself in 20 years' time with something nasty and be saying 'Well, blow me down, seems they were right after all...', as I have lots left I want to do in the next 50+ years! Not sure if I want to take the risk.

Here's an account from someone who did appear to have classic B12 symptoms. Brother Nazariah (Essene Church of Christ): 'For seven years I followed a vegetarian diet. I then became a raw vegan and after five years lost the ability to walk. All of my extremities - hands, fingers and feet - were in such pain that I couldn't move. I had central nervous system problems and was B12 anaemic.' (He switched from raw vegan back to raw vegetarian (the Essene diet), attributing cessation of his symptoms to eggs.)

In Part Two here I'll be describing how, having decided that I did care about my low B12 figure, I considered the various options available to me for increasing it. I'll discuss these options then let you know which one I (eventually) decided to take.

Garlic - The Less Popular View

In my second year of raw food, I was excited to be contacted by a journalist who wanted to write an article about me for a women's magazine and possibly make a TV series too. He was very enthusiastic about raw, and we chatted about various things, finding lots of common ground, until...the subject of garlic came up. I happened to say that, after being raw for a while, I'd come to dislike the taste of garlic, and had found some information to suggest that perhaps garlic wasn't all it was cracked up to be, and could even be something health-conscious people should be avoiding.

He was shocked that I could suggest such a thing. He swore by garlic, and told me about the various ailments that garlic is said to be beneficial for. I did say it was a controversial area, but he appeared not to be able to entertain the concept of garlic being anything but a wonderfood. I didn't hear from him again much after that, and I often wonder if my doubts about garlic had raised some doubts in his mind about me!

On raw food forums, I've seen garlic lovers get a little upset at any criticism of garlic. It's dangerous territory, but...here I go! In my article on the hallowed garlic, I won't be providing 'balance' as in putting forth the pro's and cons. You can all find the pro's of garlic by simply googling 'garlic health food' and you'll find millions of words on what a wonderful thing it is for us. Rather, I'll try to provide (some) 'balance' to those millions by presenting you with some information/thoughts on garlic that you don't hear so often.

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When I was a child in the Sixties in the UK, garlic didn't enjoy the reputation it holds today. Most people disliked the odour, let alone the taste. But with books such as Elizabeth David's Mediterranean Cooking, package holidays in the Seventies, and the foodie-ism of the Eighties, garlic enjoyed a surge of popularity in cooking, and health writers began to extol the virtues of garlic as a health food.

The mainstream has a love affair with garlic. It can do no wrong. I used to love it myself until raw. Then, as so often happens when we go raw, we start to experience things differently, with our senses, intellectually...we talk, we read, we think, we meditate...and our old cherished beliefs are thrown up in the air and our eyes are opened to other possibilities.


Is garlic a natural food for us?

Garlic is not a food at all. Not many people would enjoy popping a clove of garlic into their mouths and having a good chew, or a bowl of cloves if they were hungry.

Garlic in breastmilk can give a baby colic. It is one of the things its pure body doesn't like. Garlic is one of those substances like stinky ('aged') cheese (mould), chili, alcohol etc that relatively healthy, vibrant, responsive small children with relatively unadulterated taste buds and desires, generally dislike. That should tell us something.

As children get older, they are conditioned into 'accepting' garlic in small amounts until, because they've come to associate it with pleasant situations, because older people they admire like it, and because it's been cunningly slipped into all sorts of foods (even crisps!), they learn to like it. In some households, garlic is in so many meals (I used to have a vegan cookbook that had garlic in just about every meal bar the desserts) that children get so used to the taste that they grow up to be adults who feel that meals taste bland without it. In this way, garlic perverts the tastebuds just as salt, chili and other substances do, resulting in our (sadly) rejecting food in its natural state.

After I'd been raw for a few months, I no longer liked the taste of alcohol. For someone who'd liked a drink or five for the past 30 years, that was quite incredible. But, alcohol came to taste like it had done when I'd first tried it as a child - not good. Same happened with garlic. Before raw, I was certainly a garlic-lover (someone once told me that he could find me quite attractive but would need a gas-mask I ate so much garlic). But, even just a few months into raw I was finding that the amounts of garlic that (some) raw food recipes recommended rendered the meal inedible for me - it tasted so unpleasant. I started halving, then quartering the amounts, and now use it in tiny amounts only if I'm making a raw dish for cooked-food people.


What happens when we eat garlic?

As everyone knows, our breath stinks of it. Breath the same day as eating garlic isn't too bad, as everyone can identify the smell as garlic. But the day after, although garlic-breath doesn't smell like garlic anymore, the garlic that had been ingested the previous day results in even worse breath that smells...disgusting. The sulphur?

We also exude garlic through our pores. That suggests to me the body is trying very hard to expel it. Also, I'd noticed way before going raw that garlic would always make me thirsty. That indicates to me that, like salt, the body is demanding water to try to neutralise the effects of something harmful, to flush it out. As Dr Doug Graham puts it so well, 'the solution to pollution is dilution'.


Does everyone love garlic?

Garlic has certainly been revered by many in the past. But some have gone against the flow...the Roman poet Horace wrote that garlic 'is more harmful than hemlock'. Ancient Hindu texts ('The Laws of Manu') forbade eating garlic as 'unclean' (unhealthful).

Tibetan monks don't eat garlic. Some yoga teachers and Buddhists believe that garlic interferes with meditation. Ancient Indians believed garlic would lure people away from spiritual endeavours.

Dr Robert C Beck, DSc, in research carried out in the 1980s (and, no, I don't have a source) found that it had a detrimental effect on brain function. And he recalls from his days as a pilot in the 50s a flight surgeon telling pilots not to touch garlic three days before a flight as it would double or triple their reaction time.

Some people do report 'brain fog' after eating garlic (and I'm one of them).


Garlic has antibiotic properties

Indeed it does, through the action of allicin. It's interesting that some garlic advocates, whilst shy of conventional antibiotics as prescribed by doctors, will see the 'antibiotic' properties of garlic as a plus, because it's a 'natural' antibiotic. Well, that's OK then...except that it isn't.

'Antibiotic' (Concise Oxford Dictionary): '(substance) capable of destroying or injuring living organisms, esp. bacteria.'

Bacteria are our clean-up agents. As everyone knows, bacteria are essential for our well-being. Now, just for the sake of argument, I'll go with the popular 'good and bad bacteria' theory (I don't actually agree with it, but...maybe an article on that in ten years' time?) I haven't read anything to suggest that that crushed garlic coursing through our digestive system actually knows the difference between the 'good guys' and the 'bad guys'. The number of times I've heard people confidently declare that garlic only kills the 'bad' bacteria - could someone show me the study that proves this?

If you are a gardener, and have grown garlic you may have noticed that your garlic will be untouched by bugs. Nothing eats it. Insects won't eat it because it will kill them. In fact, garlic grown amongst plants deters insects. Garlic is a pesticide.


Garlic has medicinal properties

Certainly does. Countless studies have shown that garlic has positive effects on certain symptoms in unhealthy people.

And, like all medicines, there have also been a host of reported adverse effects after ingesting garlic. They're in the same category as many on the list of 'side-effects', that patients are warned may occur, that you would find in the leaflet in a medicine bottle box. Sure, they haven't been proven (they've come from case reports), but this simply means that no studies have been financed to prove/disprove them. Here are some of them: oesophagal and abdominal pain, small intestinal obstruction, contact dermatitis, rhinitis, asthma, bleeding, myocardial infarction, urticaria, angioedema and ulcero/necrotic lesions (Journal of Herbal Pharmacotherapy 2001 Vol 1, no 1, pp63-83 - the author does cite sources).

The Natural Hygiene view of medicine is that medicine per se is toxic. It may indeed suppress certain symptoms, but at the same time it gets up to all sorts of other tricks in the body -the results of which are not so 'beneficial'. People are duped into thinking they've discovered a 'miracle cure' just because one symptom has vanished, but, sadly, the 'cure' is an illusion. There is always a price to pay for ingesting things that we really shouldn't be putting into our bodies, whether pharmaceutical or 'natural'. Short-term gain leads to longer-term pain; the suppression of one symptom will simply be swapped for more problems later on. But although many people know that, they so often still prefer the 'quick fix' cure than change their lifestyles.


Does the fact that garlic reduces cholesterol, 'balances blood sugar' (etc) mean healthy people should be eating it?

As you've probably guessed from the last section, the answer as I see it must be 'no'. As it wouldn't be logical for a healthy person to take medicine (even daily).

Does the fact that aspirin (may) 'reduce the risk of a heart attack' (in very unhealthy people with heart problems) mean that healthy people who are not at risk of heart attack, should take an aspirin each day? Maybe the very unhealthy person who will not change the lifestyle that led to heart problems in the first place would find the risk of gastrointestinal upsets and stomach bleeding from aspirin a reasonable trade-off. But this would not apply to the healthy person.

So, if someone with high blood pressure is taking a medicine (or even garlic?) to reduce high blood pressure and/or lower blood pressure, regardless of whether it is actually a good idea for that person to be taking that medication rather than addressing the root causes of the problem so that they don't have to take the medicine with its various side-effects, should a healthy raw fooder with no blood pressure problems be ingesting that medicine?

It would be daft, wouldn't it?

So, as garlic is clearly an antibiotic, and clearly a medicine, rather than a food, why are so many raw fooders still adding garlic to their food? I guess one answer could be 'I like the taste'. Sure, just as some of us used to like the taste of meat, sodium chloride, coffee, alcohol...


*****

A raw vegan (or raw vegetarian low-dairy) diet will reduce cholesterol and blood pressure, and Gabriel Cousens MD has showed us how the raw food diet can reduce and eradicate the need for Type II diabetes medication.

I know that most of the world won't be switching to raw any time soon, but does it really make sense for healthy raw fooders, or new raw fooders on the path to health, to mix medicine with their meals?

'Breast cancer cannot be prevented.' Discuss.

Disclaimer:

Not a doctor, nor a scientist.

*****

A lady called Barbara Ehrenreich has just published a book on her experiences with breast cancer. It's called 'Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World.'

Ms Ehrenreich is angry about what she describes as the 'positive thinking' culture in US (and UK etc) surrounding breast cancer.

I've just read an article by Ms E. There's a picture of her and, indeed, she looks very grumpy.

Some quotes from the article:

'There was, I learned, an urgent medical reason to embrace cancer with a smile: a 'positive attitude' is supposedly essential to survival.'

Ms E's use of the word 'supposedly' indicates that she doesn't believe it. Which is interesting, as most of the medical profession believe that stress, depression and negative attitude will have negative physiological manifestations, ie affecting mental and physical health. Whether a positive attitude is 'essential' is I suppose debatable, as if physical causes of illness are removed a person may still heal, but surely conventional science would support the idea that positive attitude will at least increase the chances of healing occurring?

'Positive attitude' in itself of course could make a whole article, but I'll sidestep that one for now, as there is something else I want to focus on.

'No one among the bloggers and book writers seemed to share my outrage over the disease...'

Let's look at 'outrage' for a moment. My dictionary says 'forcible violation of rights'; 'deed of violence...offence or indignity.'

Ms E also says that breast cancer is an 'injustice'.

And she says:

'The notion of breast cancer 'prevention' should itself set off alarms, since there is no known means of prevention...'

So Ms E sees breast cancer as something that's been forced upon her, that it's unfair, and that it could not have been prevented. And she's angry that the people who've tried to help her are 'denying reality.'

*****

You won't be surprised to hear that I'll be disagreeing with Ms Ehrenreich and presenting information that suggests that breast cancer can certainly be prevented, and that if we get breast cancer, the cause is somewhere within an unnatural lifestyle.

Breast cancer is a sensitive subject. Many of us know people, sometimes very close to us, who have died of breast cancer. I started putting this article together with some trepidation - would there be a backlash from those who have suffered (directly or indirectly) from breast cancer telling me how ignorant and heartless I am? But then I thought...sod that. If this article results in just one woman making changes in her life that at least greatly reduce the chances of her becoming ill, and increase the chances of her seeing her great-grandchildren, it will be time well-spent.

In this article I'll be discussing links between certain lifestyle factors and breast cancer. Links found by Proper Scientists, Proper Doctors - not just us daffy raw foodists.

I haven't followed the article with a lengthy list of citations, because it's a blog, not a dissertation. But, if you google each topic, you will find lots of studies to back up what I'm saying. Some studies will say definite link. Others will say 'we're not sure'. And, sure, a link between A and B doesn't mean that A caused B. Posh way of saying that is 'correlation does not imply causality', ie if women doing certain things are more likely to get breast cancer, it could be that the sort of women doing those things are also more likely to be doing other things that are linked with breast cancer, that weren't examined by the researchers.

Those who, like Ms Ehrenreich, maintain that 'breast cancer cannot be prevented' are presumably not taking any of the links seriously until they're all proven and ratified by x number of replicated studies, and causal factors proven. Trouble is, they're going to have to wait a very long time for that, in which time the dairy industry, the alcohol industry, the artificial milk manufacturers etc are going to do their best to poke holes in the arguments of, and discredit the research of, those whose findings can help millions of women. Time in which women will continue to suffer needlessly and die prematurely from breast cancer.

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There is a common thread running through all the lifestyle factors linked with breast cancer, and that is:

Unnatural living.

Breast cancer doesn't appear to be a problem amongst animals, or at least not animals that aren't fed and watered by human beings.

There are cultures where breast cancer is unknown, or at least almost unknown. And there have been large areas of the world where it has been almost unknown throughout history - until relatively recently.

So why does the human female (and occasionally the male) get breast cancer? And why particularly the human being in modern 'Westernised' culture?

There are obviously things that we are doing that are giving us breast cancer. To date, we've been presented with quite a lot of 'clues' as to what these might be. They're all ways of living that are unnatural, not practised by any other animal in the world, and break nature's laws. It's my contention that when we break these there will be a price to be paid, of some sort.

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Dairy

Professor Jane Plant, PhD, CBE, explains in 'Your Life in Your Hands' why she believes that giving up milk is the key to beating breast cancer.

She'd noticed that the incidence of breast cancer in China was very low. (Or, at least it was at the time she was diagnosed; lifestyles in China have become much closer to the Western in recent years.) She'd found statistics that showed that 'only one in 10,000 women in China' died from breast cancer, compared with '1 in 12' in Britain!

However, research also showed that when Chinese people moved to the West, within one or two generations their breast cancer rates approached those of their host community. Their breast cancer rates also leapt when they moved to Hong Kong, and in fact the Chinese at that time described all Western food as 'Hong Kong food' because of its prevalence there. Most people in China couldn't afford 'Hong Kong food' and the slang name for breast cancer in rural China was 'Rich Woman's Disease'.

All this led Professor Plant to conclude that diet could be a key factor in breast cancer (and similarly with prostate cancer - the UK rate was 70 times higher than in rural China).

She did initially look at fat, and it was certainly true that a much higher percentage of calories in the Western diet than the Chinese diet came from fat. But Jane had been following a low-fat diet prior to her being diagnosed with breast cancer. But then, for her, the penny dropped. Most of the fat she had been having was dairy. However, the Chinese ate no, or at least virtually no, dairy. (Although, they are not generally vegan - where no dairy is eaten, meat and/or fish is.)

She immediately stopped eating all cheese, butter, milk and yogurt and 'within days,the lump started to shrink.' (And, for those who are thinking that perhaps it hadn't been cancer at all, Jane is a medical doctor and had been 'experienced at detecting cancerous lumps.') After six weeks of excluding all dairy, she couldn't find the lump at all.

More about Jane Plant and why she believes that dairy is a causal factor in breast cancer here.

(It's at this point that I hope there won't be anyone who won't bother reading the rest of the article, and simply ring their mother, friend, whoever to announce 'Just stop eating dairy! Your breast cancer will be gone!'. Because, firstly, dairy is not the only factor linked with breast cancer. And, secondly, there may well be factors that studies have not identified yet.)

But let's discuss dairy a little more before leaving it.

From T Colin Campbell, PhD ('The China Study'):

'In rural China, dietary fat intake (1983) was very different from the United States in two ways. First, fat was only 14.5% of caloric intake in China, compared with about 36% in the US. Second, the amount of fat in the diets of rural China depended almost entirely on the amount of animal-based food in the diet...Thus, the association between fat and breast cancer might really be telling us that as the consumption of animal-based foods goes up, so does breast cancer.' (p85)

And many studies have linked high consumption of fat (particularly saturated fat - found in meat and dairy products) with breast cancer.

Is drinking another animal's milk unnnatural? Staunch vegans will ask whether drinking the milk of other animals after human beings have been weaned from their mother's milk can ever be natural, and the argument does have a certain logic. I differ a little from the hard line in that I would be happy to drink a little milk from a goat who had fed her kid, had surplus, and appeared to be happy to be milked by human hands. (But, as that scenario doesn't exist where I live...I'm vegan.)

But let's examine the diet of the typical Western woman. She will consume far more dairy, in the form of milk, cheese and yogurt than even 'conventional' nutritionists will deem as being 'necessary'. She will consume so much dairy that, in order to meet her appetite for it, cows will live in misery, attached to milking machines, with their calves taken off to slaughter to meet the demand for flesh. I know many readers will not need the following illustration, but as 99% of us live blind (including me for most of my adult life) here it is: What if someone took the baby of a human mother away from her, murdered the baby ('humanely' of course), roasted the corpse then ate its flesh,, attached her to a milking machine for the rest of her milk-producing life, and drank the milk that had been intended for her baby? Modern dairy production and consumption isn't just unnatural; it's evil.

If we are to consume dairy, everything suggests that it should be in the very small amounts that the Chinese do, and we should endeavour to obtain milk from a source that does not also kill animals for meat.

Certainly the unnaturally high consumption of dairy in our society causes much illness - for example, asthma, heart disease, and, it is suggested - breast cancer. And some feel that pasteurisation (cooking) of milk exacerbates problems. Regular readers will know I do refer to the Essene Gospel of Peace from time, and it's interesting that 'milk' is referred to as a good food for man, but heated milk is the devil's favourite!

Alcohol

Drinking alcohol increases breast cancer risk. The more alcohol, the higher the risk. When you drink alcohol, you are taking poison, regardless of any (alleged) 'benefits', which are usually just the effect of mixing the poison with a few good things, eg red grapes. The net effects are bad.
Is drinking alcohol natural? We don't see animals glugging it down.

Not breastfeeding

Breastfeeding offers protection against breast cancer; the longer women breastfeed, the less likely they are to get breast cancer.

Breastfeeding is natural. The suppressing of a biological function, and in some cases even taking drugs to stop the flow of milk, is unnatural. 'Some women can't breastfeed'? In Britain and the US around 60% of women breastfeed their babies at birth. In Sweden and Norway, the figures are 95-98%. Perhaps Scandinavian women are made differently.

Birth control pills

Women on birth control pills have a higher risk of breast cancer (removed only after ten years off them). Is birth control natural? I'll just point out that it 'has been said' that sex is for reproduction and/or creation (not necessarily the same thing). Will be regarded as a quaint theory by many. (OK, I'll say here that I have myself used birth control a LOT, but have come to feel that we pay the price in various ways for preventing intercourse from resulting in creation.)

HRT

Hormone Replacement Therapy increases the risk of breast cancer.

Obesity, old age

Obese post-menopausal women are more likely to get breast cancer. I did read an article that said 'we do not know exactly why this is.' Surely common sense would say that it's simply because overweight older women are likely to have done lots of the various things associated with breast cancer, eg eaten more dairy, drunk more alcohol, etc. No great mystery there!

Deodorant/anti-perspirant use

Conflicting studies. But see Lisa's comment at the end of the article re toxins. Makes sense to me! And here of course, IF these cause, or a contributory cause of breast cancer, natural living would of course come to the rescue. One thing most people find on a raw plant food diet is that the need for deodorant lessens, if in fact it is needed at all.

Multivitamin use?

April 10 edit - 'A major study has revealed that women who take a daily multi-vitamin pill are nearly 20 per cent more likely to develop breast cancer. The shock finding has rattled Australia's $2.5 billion complementary health industry, which is urging consumers not to panic, News Ltd says. In a 10-year study of more than 35,000 women, researchers discovered those who regularly took a multi-vitamin pill increased the risk of developing a tumour by 19 per cent.
They said the result was concerning and needed investigation as many women use multi-vitamins in the belief they prevent chronic diseases such as cancer. A "biologically plausible" explanation is that taking vitamin and mineral supplements significantly increases the density of breast tissue, a strong risk factor for breast cancer. Folic acid, often present in a potent form in multi-vitamins, may also accelerate tumour growth. The study, conducted by Sweden's Karolinska Institute and published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, has been greeted with interest and caution by Australian experts. Women who took a multi-vitamin pill in the study had higher breast tissue density than those who took no vitamin supplements

(Please see my Aug 08 article on supplements.)

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So what about 'heredity'?

Yes, research says that if your mother/grandmother had breast cancer you're more likely to as well. But please don't see that as a death-knell! The reason for the increased incidence is most likely to do with the fact that lifestyle patterns are inherited. If our Mums loved to anaesthetise themselves with a G & T in the evening, we may well copy that behaviour into our adult lives. If our grandmothers saw cream cakes and ice cream as treats and gave them to us when we stayed with them, we may see those sorts of foods as 'nurturing', 'comfort' foods. Also, women are less likely to breastfeed if their mothers didn't (or at least didn't for very long). Cancer 'gene'? Even if that's the case, all that means is that you might have a slight tendency. But, with lifestle, you can change yourself into the sort of person who is far less likely than the average to get breast cancer, rather than more.

'If X causes breast cancer, why don't all women who do X get breast cancer?'

I'd suggest because the effect of one negative lifestyle factor may to some extent be balanced by scoring health points in other areas of life, that enable the body to detoxify sufficiently that which causes or contributes to cancer. Or, perhaps their body is indeed labouring under the onslaught of, eg, high saturated fat, but is manifesting this in some other sort of illness.

(Also, of course, a diet high in raw fruit and vegetables will be high in antioxidans and phytochemicals (carcinogen-detoxifying compounds) which will, research suggests, to some extent protect against cancer.)

'I know a woman who eats a hunk of Cheddar a day, loves her Scotch, is 94 and fit as a fiddle.'

As I say on my website, sometimes I wonder if these people are kept alive as a sort of divine IQ test for the rest of us. Do we model our lifestyle on the one (apparent) exception to the rule, or consider the millions that aren't?'

*****

Returning to Ms Ehrenreich, she maintains that breast cancer cannot be prevented.

So, according to Ms Ehrenreich, the woman who lives on bacon butties and cream cakes, likes a bottle of vodka or five, has her child on artificial milk from Day One, and is obese, and then gets breast cancer, can be sure that her lifestyle had absolutely nothing to do with it. She's just been plain unlucky. It's just something that's 'happened' to her, it's very unfair, and there's nothing she could have done to prevent it.

But, equally, if I don't qualify what I've said, I'll get furious comments of the sort 'I know a teetotal vegan who has breastfed her children till university and has breast cancer - you smug cow!' And I do know of women who have led lifestyles of the kind most would describe as 'healthy', and have breast cancer.

I have noticed that some people can get very upset if it is implied that they have done anything that might have caused their illness - if they are in any way to 'blame'. And I have seen much venom directed at those who have suggested that it is people's 'sins' to blame for their afflictions. But if we define 'sin' as any deviation from the perfect way we know we can live (the way our 'higher power', 'authentic selves', 'God', whatever... knows we can live), with regard to ourselves, our greed, our self-control, with regard to how we treat the creatures we share the world with, what's the problem in suggesting there may be a price to pay for our transgressions?

As to whether we are to 'blame' for our cancer, most of us have been conditioned since birth, by society, to live in various unnatural ways, but at various stage of our life we will receive knowledge - surely the degree to which we are culpable depends on the information at our disposal and what action we then take.

As a raw foodist, I certainly don't think I'm 'immune' to cancer. Quite a few aspects of my lifestyle are unnatural, and I may well pay the price for them. And, even though I don't drink or have dairy, if I detect a lump in my breast next week, and it's diagnosed as cancer, I'll still be maintaining that there will be something I could have done (or, more accurately,not done) to have prevented it.

*****

Ms Ehrenreich believes that breast cancer cannot be prevented and that those who think otherwise are 'denying reality'. Isn't it her that's 'denying reality'?

At present, very, very, likely reasons for breast cancer are staring us in the face. Science may not yet be able to prove everything to the nth statistically significant degree, but let's not wait around until they do! We may not have identified all the possible factors, we may not be understanding the how and why, but we have it in our power to avoid the unnatural lifestyle practices that very, very likely lead to cancer. It is surely only the complete ostrich who believes that 'breast cancer cannot be prevented.'

'The curse causeless shall not alight.' (Proverbs 26:2)