'Liver Flushes' and 'Mucoid Plaque'

I still occasionally see people extolling the benefits of 'liver flushes'.

In the same family we have 'gallbladder flushes', 'intestinal cleanses', etc. The process of the 'flush' generally consists of a few days of juice diet followed by drinking a large quantity of oil and something acidic (eg lemon juice/vinegar). If vomiting hasn't occurred, the health-seeker will then pass, it is claimed, 'gallstones'. Although it is possible for people to do these things without commercial help, we see companies charging vast amounts for products/programmes built around these practices.

We also see people recommending the eating of 'bentonite clay', which, it is claimed, will free 'mucoid plaque' (and photo's of what is claimed to be 'mucoid plaque' are presented to horrify us all - yes, surely 'better out than in'!)

In this article, I'm going to draw together information from various sources that I hope will persuade anyone tempted to part with their money, or even simply to carry out such 'cleanses' themselves, that they are nothing more than 'snake oil' - quack remedies.

John MacDougall MD: 'Many people believe this alternative therapy really works, but the 'gallbladder flush' is a myth.'

Raw food leader Frederic Patenaude: 'I believe this is one of the biggest scams running in the alternative health movement.'

I will also freely admit that a 'liver flush' was certainly on my 'to do' list in my first year of raw, and know lots of intelligent, savvy people who have been persuaded to do them. It's only because I'm an insatiable internet researcher (OK, and perhaps a natural sceptic!) that I discovered that these 'flushes' were not quite what they purported to be, and I share the results of my findings, conclusions and suggestions with you here.

I also feel that, probably, most of the people recommending them (and selling them) do genuinely believe in them themselves, and have others' interests at heart.

I will explain how I do believe that people do experience feelings of well-being on the 'flushes', and how the days spent on them can indeed change people's lives for the better, BUT that these phenonema are either the result of deception OR due to good things associated with, or that lead from, the experience of the flushes. If that doesn't sound clear, and I realise it may not, please read on.

I'll be discussing most the 'flushes' which have the common element of a juice diet for a few days, followed by drinking a cup (at least - often much more) of olive oil and a cup of lemon juice (or anything acidic, eg vinegar) over a few hours. Variations include ingestion of magnesium sulphate, herbs etc. I'll comment more briefly on 'cleanses' that involve eating clay.

I'll include quotes from raw food leaders, and also evidence from medics (some overlap between the two groups).


'THE XXX FLUSH IS FANTASTIC - I EXPELLED HUNDREDS OF GALLSTONES!'

Those 'stones'...

Dr Douglas Graham (in Fresh Network 'Raw - Your Biggest Questions Answered'): 'The oils consumed are saponified by the body, meaning they turn into little beads that have a soap-like quality. True gallstones are made of either calcium or cholesterol, or a combination of the two. The 'stones' that are passed following a 'gallbladder flush' (sometimes called a 'liver flush') are no more than the oil consumed the previous day, saponified. If these 'stones' are left on the dashboard of a car in the sun, or any other warm spot, they will melt back into oil. The green and brown colouration in the stones is due to the presence of bile salts.'

Thomas Lodi, MD (also in FN book as above): 'When the stones that are passed after a 'gallbladder flush' are examined, they are not found to contain cholesterol, bile pigments, bile salts, calcium or any other constituents of gallstones, but rather residues from the oil ingested.'

(Note that Graham and Lodi differ on whether bile is present. I have heard people describe the 'stones' as very foul-smelling, and indeed bile is foul-smelling - bitter, sour, sulphurous.)

Frederic Patenaude: 'Here's what a pathologist has to say on the topic. The 'recipe' he's referring to is the gallbladder flush: 'Real gallstones are faceted polyhedra. What you'll get from the recipe are spheres. One of my correspondents describes a friend who saved the sphere and displayed them to his friends. Real gallstones hurt bad when they pass through the cystic and common bile ducts. Real gallstones sink in water. (As an autopsy pathologist, I'm very familiar with this.) The 'gallstones' you'll produce from this recipe will float, as the 'alternative thinkers' themselves point out. They claim that real gallstones float, too. Liars.' (Source: http://www.pathguy.com/)

Christian Sies (The Lancet, Apr 16, 2005): 'A 40-year-old patient with many 1-2mm gallstones underwent a 'liver cleansing' with apple and vegetable juice, followed by 600 ml of olive oil and 300 ml of lemon juice, taken over several hours. She painlessly passed semisolid green 'stones' with her stool. She brought them to her doctor, who examined them under a microscope and found no crystalline structures (as would be seen in an actual gallstone). Heating to 40 degree C for 10 minutes caused the 'stones' to melt. Analysis showed they contained no cholesterol, bilirubin, or calcium (like a real stone might have). Chemical analysis found the 'stones' were fat globules mostly from the olive oil. The investigators next made similar balls that looked like stones in their lab by mixing olive oil and lemon juice and then drying the mixture. Sometime later, the actual stones, which were made of cholesterol, were removed from the woman's gallbladder by a surgeon.'

Peter Moran, MB, BS, BSc (Med): 'The stones are merely bile-stained 'soaps' produced by partial saponification (soap formation) of the oil. A recent demonstration found that mixing equal volumes of oleic acid (the major component of olive oil) and lemon juice produced several semi-solid white balls after a small volume of potassium hydroxide solution was added. After air-drying at room temperature, these balls became quite solid and hard. When formed in the intestine, these objects absorb bile and become green. It has also been shown that red dye will appear in the interior of the 'stones' if consumed with the oil.'

Moran has also used ultrasound images showing the movement through the gallbladder of real gallstones to demonstrate that these 'stones' are not gallstones. He also points out that gallstones sink, and the 'stones' float. He adds: 'Supporters of the flushes claim that although some kinds of stones sink in water, cholesterol stones, being composed of lighter material, will float. That's not true. Cholesterol stones can display some buoyancy while in the gallbladder, but only by floating between the older, concentrated bile lying in the lowest part of the gallbladder and the fresher, less concentrated bile above.' (In other words - not in the toilet!).

So the 'gallstones' people have been so overjoyed to be 'free of' are simply spheres the body has created to deal with all the oil drunk!


EATING CLAY ('MUCOID PLAQUE')

As I've just shown that the evidence of 'cure' in 'liver flushes' is simply the result of ingesting the ingredients of the 'cleanse' itself, I'll show how similar applies with 'cleanses' involving the eating of clay.

The manufacturers claim that this frees the body of 'mucoid plaque'.

Is there such a thing as 'mucoid plaque'?

Dao Earl: 'No, and that has been proven by colonoscopy.
Dr Doug Graham: 'I have spoken to over a dozen surgeons that specialise in intestinal surgery..never once has any of them seen evidence of mucoid plaque.'
Frederic Patenaude: 'Practising physicians have dismissed the concept of mucoid plaque as a hoax. A pathologist at the University of Texas School of Medicine said that he has 'seen several thousand intestinal biopsies and never seen any 'mucoid plaque'.

But...the photo's...

What is it that comes out of people after these 'cleanses'?

Here's a forum contribution from someone who tried such a 'cleanse' (sorry - I have no name, so if you're reading, please let me know who you are!):

'I am currently on day four of the XXX herbs cleanse, and I have been producing stuff that looks like the 'mucoid plaque' described, for the past two days. I started this cleanse very hopeful and open minded. However, doubts have been creeping in, actually since the 'mucoid plaque' stuff has been coming out. This morning, about three hours ago, I mixed a sachet of the toxin absorber, which is basically psyllium husk and bentonite clay, in a little water and have let it sit. It is now exactly the consistency of the 'mucoid plaque' that I have been producing. This has convinced me it is a scam, to be honest. As far as I can see, the toxin absorber (bentonite clay) doesn't shift the plaque - it IS the plaque. It's right here, before my eyes, in this cup. I've decided not to continue with the cleanse. I'm feeling very bunged up and crampy today, and if I thought it was actual mucoid plaque shifting, I wouldn't mind, but I feel like I've just clogged myself up with clay.'

From raw food nutritionist Adam: 'I think the reason the photo's look convincing is because you take the average three-heavy-meals-a-day person whose elimination system moves pretty slowly. Get them to fast for a few days while taking the mucus-lookalike-producing sachets and then start eliminating what seems like tons of accumulated waste, whereas it's probably just last week's dinner plus the sachets. Fear sells. People don't always listen to those who 'make sense' because our whole financial system is based upon marketing (fake) 'solutions' for people's (fake) 'problems'.

Dr Doug Graham: '...if you eat clay, the clay must come back out of you. It combines with the mucus in your intestinal tract [by the way, he also says that the psyllium itself, as an irritant, would form mucus], forming a sludge. Wet clay is excellent for modelling, and readily takes on the shape of its container. Hence, when photo's are taken of the clay inside the intestines, it can appear to look like plaque. When it comes out of the body, it can look like old faecal matter. But it is no more than the clay you ate the day before. It seems people are very easily fooled. Almost, it seems, they want to be fooled.'

EDIT - I recently came across an excellent article on 'mucoid plaque', written in 2004, here.


SO WHY DO PEOPLE OFFER TESTIMONIALS TO 'LIVER FLUSHES', SAYING THAT THEY CHANGED THEIR LIVES?

(I'm returning to 'liver flushes' here, but some of the following would also apply to the 'eating clay' products.)

Because, in many cases, they did experience very pleasant feelings - physically and/or psychologically during the 'flush', and the days spent 'liver flushing' did change their lives, in a positive way, often hugely.

I'll suggest a few reasons why these things could occur:

Stimulant effect

When we ingest something toxic, there is a stimulant effect. The body goes on 'red alert', 'all systems go', marshalling all its resources to cope with, fight, eliminate the invader. That's why we feel stimulated initially (with 'pay-back' later...) when we ingest drugs such as tobacco, alcohol, coffee etc (and to some extent cooked food).

Oil is a fractionated substance that our bodies are fine with when it comes as part of nature's package, ie within whole foods, not so fine with when we have it alone, eg as a salad dressing, and VERY not fine with when we drink a whole cup (or more) of it! Fractionated, unnatural substances in large quantities are toxic, and our bodies will respond accordingly. The enormous energy that the body will muster as its systems rally to cope with all that oil will certainly feel stimulating and may even result in a euphoric 'high'. This can be very pleasurable, and will of course ensure that we make good associations with 'flushes' in memory. However, stimulant effects deceive.

Placebo effect

I know what it's like in the first year of raw. We're pretty much on a 'high' anyway, and feel tremendously excited trying out all sorts of things! We're going to feel quite enthusiastic about doing the 'flush', be thinking quite positively, and, when we act 'as if' we're feeling good...we often do feel good! Also, if we've just paid £100 for the privilege, we will want to feel we're feeling good, and persuade ourselves that we are!!

The 'stones'

If we believe the 'stones' are 'gallstones' we're going to be very elated when we see these things come out of our bottom! Closely related to the placebo effect.

Laxative effect

Natural Hygienist Herbert Shelton: 'As the excess of oil has a laxative effect, the victim of this form of charlatanry and humbuggery often receives temporary relief from abdominal distress. This relief convinces them, also, that their 'stones' have passed.'

Juice diet

The juice-only diet in the days preceding the drinking of oil will in itself have a very positive effect on wellbeing, giving the body a much-needed digestive rest and freeing up energy for detoxification. Just two days freed from the standard diet (or in fact the digestion of any solid food) is a treat for the body.

Introduction to raw food

Often people who try these 'flushes' may, through trying them and similar 'treatments', stumble upon raw food sites, which of course are the real life-changers! (I suppose if I thought that every person on a standard cooked diet having a 'liver flush' would then discover and follow the raw food diet, I'd be saying 'Viva liver 'flushes'', but I'd also hope that they would soon discover articles such as this, and realise that, while they may have been part of an interesting journey to raw food, it's time now to give them the boot!)


LONG TERM USE OF 'LIVER FLUSHES'

I doubt there's any long-term problem caused by doing these things once or twice. A raw food diet can enable the body to bounce back from the various indignities we've subjected it to in the fast.

But I am concerned for those who do them over and over again, who haven't realised that they are fake 'remedies', and have become addicted to the short-term feelings (as described above) of well-being experienced on them.

I remember someone who had done several 'flushes', asking, if the flushes are fake, why after repeated 'cleanses', do fewer 'stones' come out?

Here's a Natural Hygiene explanation of why that might be. When our bodies first encounter a toxin, they will, if reasonably vital, react quickly and dramatically to deal with it. The most vital bodies will vomit out the oil, but the less vital will saponify the oil into balls to expel it. However, as with any toxin, the more we have, the more our bodies will be 'worn down' into 'tolerating' increasingly frequent doses of it, but at great price to our long-term health. Therefore, the ability of the body to quarantine up the oil into little balls will reduce with each flush. This will be enervating to the system, not to mention increasing the amount of fat in our bodies as the body is less able to expel, thereby increasing the chances of our getting real gallstones!

Drinking oil is not a good thing to do. Peter Moran, quoted earlier, has also said in his explanation of why 'liver flushes' are fake, that it is possible that a large oily meal (eg the flush) could stimulate strong gallbladder contraction and that a real gallstone might be expelled amongst all the fake ones.

(This sort of thinking is allied to the idea that if a herbal concoction promotes vomiting, or diarrhoea, or weeing, it is 'cleansing'. Natural Hygiene says that the vomiting, diarrhoea, and/or weeing is simply due to the body's efforts to expel the toxic irritant concoction itself and not 'healing' in any way, and is traumatic and enervating for the body.)

Also, Peter Moran says that even if the ingredients of the 'flush' did stimulate contraction in this way, those who do actually have real gallstones often have impaired ability of the gallbladder to empty anyway. (I'm not sure what the solution is, but it would seem daft to ingest large quantities of fat - the reason for the problems in the first place - in a misguided attempt to 'kickstart' the gallbladder into action.) So, if you do have real gallstones, they're unlikely to come out in a 'flush', and, if you don't have them, as explained - what you're seeing the toilet bowl aren't gallstones.




HOW TO CLEANSE WITHOUT BUYING SO-CALLED 'FLUSHES/CLEANSES'

Just remove the cause of toxicity and your body will do what's necessary to clean up. All by itself.

Liver/gallbladder problems will be due to the standard cooked diet. Raw food teacher Natalia Rose: 'I never recommend using oils therapeutically - there are much better ways to cleanse the organs. The gallbladder cleanses as the whole system cleanses...If you know you have a liver or gall bladder problem [my italics] you know that's from too many cooked proteins and cooked fats - not just in the liver and gallbladder but throughout the body. So you'd want to take a Pritikin-type approach and not only cut out meats and dairy but also limit nuts, seeds, avocados and oils dramatically.'

Herbert Shelton: 'Gallstones, kidney stones, liver stones, pancreas stones, etc, result from perversion of metabolism. The real cure is to restore normal metabolism. Normal metabolism will dissolve the stones. The tendency of an excess of oil is to further impair metabolism. Such treatment does not do good, but may do considerable harm.'


THE TWO ELEMENTS OF 'LIVER FLUSHES' THAT DO TRANSFORM HEALTH, ALL BY THEMSELVES, ARE:

• Fasting (no food at all), or (not as good as fasting, but quite good) a juice diet. And to cover myself, if fasting for more than 24 hours, seek advice of suitably-qualified professional etc etc!
• Positive thinking

Please don't drink oil or eat clay.

Excellent video from Michael Klaper, MD

Shortest post to date, but could be the most important one.

Here is the most persuasive video I've ever seen on why we shouldn't be eating animal foods ('health reasons'). Some of you may already be familiar with it, but I hadn't seen it before, so thought I should post it.

A medical doctor explains, in a very watchable, entertaining (and humorous!) way.

I realise many of you are vegetarian, or vegan, but please consider sending the video to people you love who aren't, and prevent them from suffering needlessly.

(PS Yes, it's not about 'raw' as such (he's not a raw foodist, but does at least explain why people should increase their raw percentage), and, yes, he promotes grains (which I'm aware some raw people think are the devil), BUT, for 99% of the population, who aren't, realistically, going to be going raw (at least not this week), this video could nevertheless enormously improve their health!)

Why Do We Eat Chili? Because We're Grown-Ups!

In the UK, there's a reality TV programme called 'Come Dine With Me', where a group of strangers throw dinner parties for each other and then grade each other's efforts - you may have a syndicated version in your country. Although raw, I'll admit I find this programme a true 'guilty pleasure' (although I do wish someone could tell Dave Lamb, the presenter, that people who don't meat but do eat fish aren't 'vegetarians'!).

Anyhow, on a recent 'Come Dine With Me', one of the guests said how much he detested hot (as in spicy) food. In fact, he did make a Big Fuss about it and, as the programme is, after all, about cooked food, and spices are so prevalent in modern cooking, one does wonder why he agreed to take part in the programme. After an evening in which he left uneaten most of the food prepared for him, and asked how on earth his fellow guests could eat it, one guest answered with some exasperation and rolling of eyes 'because we're grown-ups!' Cue cheers from most of the TV audience, who would most likely have united with the other guests, who had identified him as 'the odd one out', and, because he didn't want to eat chili, was unsophisticated - not a 'grown-up'.


'Because we're grown-ups....!'

Chili is something that, like alcohol and nicotine, (and cooked food), we are averse to the first time in our lives we try it.

Natural Hygienist Mike Benton, writing in the original (Eighties) 'Life Sciences' course, on chili:

'The truth is that cayenne pepper, along with all other hot peppers, chilies, etc, contain harmful alkaloids...when hot peppers are eaten, the body is thrown into an emergency state in an attempt to eliminate the toxic oils and substances in the peppers...All hot peppers contain a poisonous alkaloid called piperidin and a harmful crystalline substance known as piperin. Hot peppers also have acrid resins and volatile oils which irritate the digestive and urinary tracts.'

Generally, when children encounter even a small amount of chili in food for the first time, they feel like their mouths and stomachs are on fire. They don't like it. That is because their bodies are still sufficiently pure and sensitive to detect and react to the harmful substances in chili.

However, with repeated doses (just as with cooked food, just as with any drug), their vibrant little bodies are ground down and literally 'beaten into submission', until... 'an adult who has abused his digestive system for a number of years on a conventional diet merely experiences that momentary burning warning which is the weakened body's signal to avoid the hot pepper.'

The burning sensation is there to tell us 'do not eat'. Clear enough to other mammals, who don't eat chili. But, being human beings, we are forever prey to that devil inside us who likes to pervert the natural, to harm ourselves, to deceive ourself and others, to (it hopes) our ultimate destruction, and it persuades us that it is 'grown-up' and sophisticated to enjoy food with chili.

But this is a lie. As it's not a sign of a developed, or strong, system that the 'tolerance' level for chili (and other toxic substances) is raised, but a sign of a weakened system that has lost the vitality to react.

Herbert Shelton in 'Toleration Means Loss of Vital Resistance' describes it thus:

'If you are not accustomed to using fiery condiments and you undertake to use red pepper, it causes the lips, mouth, tongue and throat to burn intensely. When swallowed, it produces discomfort to the stomach. There is later a feeling of discomfort in the intestine as the irritating pepper passes along. When, finally, it's expelled in the stools, the anus and rectum burn as much as did the mouth when the pepper was swallowed.

Persist in the use of the pepper and its irritating effect grows less and less until, finally, it produces no burning of the mouth and throat, no distress in the stomach and intestine, no burning of the rectum and anus. The membranes of the entire digestive tract become thickened and hardened in defense against the repeated irritation. The protective thickening impairs their other functions. The sense of taste is dulled, digestion is impaired. Doubtless something similar to this takes place in all the tissues of the body that are subjected to chronic irritation by alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, arsenic, opium, salt and other poisons and irritants in common use. They, too, must undergo changes to defend themselves.'

The more chili we eat, the more we abuse our digestive systems. Those with IBS symptoms generally find their symptoms worsen after eating spicy food. The gastric specialist, Franz J Ingelfinger MD, showed that hot and highly seasoned foods harm the stomach lining, adversely affecting our ability to absorb nutrients. (And the sensory nerves, which are affected by the burning sensation caused when eating chili, can become damaged and die on repeated exposure to the alkaloid capsaicin in chili.)


Chili is 'warming'/stimulating

Sure it is. This is because the capsaicin so irritates the body that the heart rate/circulation is increased as the body works hard in order to remove it from the system (perspiration will increase as well). The chili overall acts as a stimulant. Stimulants have the effect they do because the body senses something toxic and goes on 'red alert' (heightened response) and 'all systems go' (feeling of energy, a 'rush') to marshall all bodily resources to eliminate the toxic invader. Nora Lenz: 'These foods are eaten only for the abusive thrill reaction they force upon the body, reactions which are easily mistaken as 'energising' the body when in reality the body is losing its energy stores...'.


So-called 'healing' effects

If our body still retains any vestige of vitality, our noses will run when we eat chili. The hotter the meal, the more they will run. Some have been persuaded that in this way the chili is 'detoxing'. But the reason our noses run is that additional mucus is being produced by the body to protect delicate body tissues from the irritants.

Some extol chili's benefits as an 'antibiotic'. Rather than get into lengthy discussion here, I would say that, sure, if you believe that it's a good thing to take antibiotics with your meals, eat chili - I'm sure it will kill all sorts of things in the digestive tract.

We do see the occasional study that suggests chili may 'cure' this or that. One recently showed that chili 'attacks' cancer cells. However, not only was the Cancer Research UK organisation reserved with their comments ('This research does not suggest that eating vast quantities of chilli pepper will help prevent or treat cancer.'), but even if eating large quantities did reduce cancer cells, what price this for the harm it would be doing to our bodies in other ways? Drugs (and by that I mean anything toxic to our bodies) don't cure. They suppress one symptom whilst getting up to mischief elsewhere. The only way to remove illness (if it's not too late to) is to remove the cause of the illness.


So why do people eat chili?

They eat it because, like so many things, they've been seduced into eating it by the 'grown-ups', and, after initial resistance, have accustomed themselves to it, and, like other drugs, have come to enjoy it - some to the extent that their tastebuds have become perverted and, sadly, food without chili (ie the pure, the natural, the unadulterated) is seen as 'bland'.

Some eat it for the 'kick'. They have come to enjoy and long for that feeling of stimulation as described earlier - the feeling of the body 'under challenge' as they eat. But as with all cases of ingestion of toxic substances for titillation, for kicks, there will be 'payback' in the long term from the cumulative effect of abuse of the digestive systems.

Raw people who use chili are still 'in transition' from cooked food. Yes, even those who have been 100% raw for 20 years. I have chili occasionally - perhaps every 1-2 months at raw food restaurants, and in the occasional kale and avo salad, and this is evidence that I haven't yet totally rid myself of the addiction to the titillation, to the kick of toxic substances that characterised my old cooked diet. I don't beat myself up about this (see my last article 'Enjoy the Raw Food Diet'), as I'm 'on the journey' myself and not 'there' yet, but let's see our clinging to these substances as what it is, rather than trying to fool ourselves.


Chili and the Chainsaw Massacre

When we eat chili, we are inflicting violence on our bodies. If we do it repeatedly, that sensitivity - the signals that tell us good from bad - cease to operate effectively.

Think of those other substances that we instinctively disliked as children but are then persuaded by our role models that we should have them, eat them more and more frequently until there are no longer any (apparent) adverse effects, finding we can 'tolerate' larger and larger quantiies as time goes on. They're always substances that are toxic to us.

We've started to twig that that figure of manhood from days gone by - the man who can 'take his liquor' - is in fact a tragic figure, that the reason he can drink large quantities of alcohol without the body (in the immediate instance at least) exhibiting the effects is because the body has lost the vitality to react. As Robert Rust explains: 'The body has been forced to choose a slower road to death via toleration rather than a quick one by maintaining sensitivity.'

Most people, when they first see a fictional murder on TV or in a film, are upset, are affected. But, for many, repeated exposure anaesthetises until the violence has less and less effect, until a TV drama seems dull without it, and there is a search through the TV schedules for the titillation/shock element (in heavier doses) for 'entertainment'.

Is comparing chili with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre a bit OTT? Well, maybe, but this article isn't really about chili. It's about what 'grown-ups' do. When our devious minds (and the minds of others) persuade us, through their flattery, through their lies, that we should do something that is harmful to us, physically and/or psychologically, and we come to repeat that action until we get to the point where we can no longer detect the harm it is doing us, we will pay a price, with our bodies, with our spirits.

Chili because we're 'grown-ups'?

We can't be children again. But raw food can help us regain the innate knowledge we had as children, and still have, but has been hitherto hidden in a mass of confusion. We can start to see the 'grown-up' world as it really is - a world of deception.

And when we understand that, when we can see again, we can turn from the world of the 'grown-ups', and, armed with that precious gift of knowledge, can start on the journey towards truly growing up.

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).

*****

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.