Mono Eating (Or Just Eat An Apple or Five)

'Cook not, neither mix all things one with another, lest your bowels become as steaming bogs.'

This graphic description comes from The Essene Gospel of Peace, one of my favourite sources of dietary instruction.

The Teacher goes on to say: 'For I tell you truly, if you mix together all sorts of food in your body, then the peace of your body will cease, and endless war will rage in you.'

Hope I haven't put you off that slice of raw pizza...

Mono eating is a very simple way of eating; it means making a meal out of one type of food only. For example, when you feel like eating a banana, eat one, and then continue to eat bananas until you have no desire to eat any more. That may come at the second banana, or after 15+. Banana mono eating is popular with many on high-fruit diets, particularly sporty ones. I know men who run who eat a lot of bananas! But, of course, mono eating doesn't just mean bananas. Any plant food can form the basis of a mono meal.

Now I know many of you are already habitual mono eaters. But I can imagine others seeing the title and thinking, 'oh-oh, she was telling us to fast last week - now she wants us to live on lettuce.'

Not the case. I do believe that mono eating may well be the healthiest type of eating for us. However, after decades of eating all sorts of combinations of foods, most of us (me included) are neither ready nor willing (yet...) to embark on an exclusively mono eating raw diet. We make tasty raw concoctions because they remind us a little of the cooked food we left behind; 'rawgourmet' food can help enormously in the transition from cooked to raw, and also of course if offered to non-raw people it can help to make them feel more receptive to raw food.

But, if you're at the stage where you'd like your raw food diet to be a little simpler, and to move towards a more natural way of eating, try making some of your meals (perhaps breakfast, or lunch) in the coming weeks mono, as there are plenty of good reasons for doing so.

But first, let's look at the...

Objections to Mono Eating

'It's boring.'

Well, most of us have been brought up on complex combinations of lots of different foods, and just eating one food doesn't match with what we've been taught is a 'meal', but, if we scale the complexity of our eating down a little, we may find that a mono meal of ripe, juicy, sweet mango when we truly desire it is the very opposite of boring.

'I won't get all my nutrients if I don't have a balanced meal.'

Even if you mono eat for many of your meals, it's likely that you'll be receiving adequate variety in your food, but, rather than within one meal, over days, or weeks, or longer. If you lived on bananas and nothing else, you might well run short of nutrients - even those figures from history we're told lived on few foods ate at least two or three, and probably varied their food over the year. But your body is never going to let you live on bananas only - after a while you would naturally start feeling desire for another food - perhaps a citrus fruit, or some leaves, or avocado. Mono eating allows the body to become more finely attuned to what it actually needs, rather than the foods that our minds trick us into thinking we need.

Reasons to Mono Eat

No preparation time!

Just eat fruit as it is, completely naturally rather than pulverising it into a smoothie, or eat spinach from the garden (or the bag!). And mono eating is a convenient option when travelling.

A 'taste change' tells us when to stop eating

After we've mono eaten a certain quantity of a food we may find that the taste becomes unattractive. That's the signal that our bodies have had enough of whatever that food supplies us. David Wolfe ('Sunfood Diet Success System') describes it thus: 'When the organism has filled its need for that particular food, it no longer wants any more and the taste of the food changes...This is called an aliesthetic taste change.'

(I've looked up 'aliesthetic'; it's not in the dictionary - let's just take David's word for it!)

Well, that's the theory. The possible problem here is that some believe that this taste change is less likely to occur if we eat hybridised food, and a lot of our plant food is hybridised. Bananas in the shops are a long way from wild bananas, and weren't even yellow originally! On the other hand, David also says that 'pineapples can give a very strong taste change and can actually burn the mouth if one continues to eat past the signal', and pineapples are certainly hybrid fruits.

So, seems we can look out for that 'taste change', whether food is hybridised or not, but what is definite is that the food we mono eat must be raw. 'Instinctive eating' theory says that any food in its original, undenatured form interacts with our senses of taste and smell in a dynamic manner, and that cooking, fermenting and/or seasoning - in fact, anything that changes the food destroys the taste-change properties. The theory goes on to say that when foods are mixed, our bodies cannot detect the individual taste-changes of the component foods.

Maximises the chances of activating the mechanism for detecting satiation

Even if we don't experience the 'taste change', if we eat just one food rather than piling all sorts in, confusing our bodies from taste buds downwards, we are more likely to be able to notice when we've eaten enough.

Easier on the digestive system

Have you ever experienced 'fruit belly'? The 'six months pregnant' look when you're not? Not great whatever sex you are. This can happen when you mix fruit with, or eat it soon after, a slow-to-digest food like nuts. The nuts stick around in the digestive system for a while, the fruit piles in on top, wants to get out quickly, because it digests quickly, but - it can't - the exit's blocked by the nuts. What does it do while it's hanging around in that warm environment? Ferments, causing acidity and...gas!

And when we combine foods that are high in fat and high in sugar, the fat can interfere with the sugar getting out of the blood and into the cells (not good for those with 'sugar issues').

It's not the fruit that's the root of these problems - rather it's our insistence on mixing it with other sorts of food when it should be eaten alone.

Also, although the enzymes in raw foods help us digest them, we are reliant on our own digestive enzymes to break down the food into the nutrients our bodies need. Now, each type of food needs a specific type of digestive enzyme to break it down, and each of these enzymes needs a certain level of alkalinity (or acidity) in which to thrive and do its work. If we mix together lots of different foods, at any one time the environment is not going to be optimal for many of the enzymes that are needed, which is all taxing on the digestive system, and can deplete our energy.

How much simpler it is for the body to be given the task of digesting one sort of food only. And that is why, when we mono-eat, the food generally moves through our body very smoothly.

I first read about mono eating in Shazzie's 'Detox Your World' and she describes the plusses for the digestive system so beautifully that I remember it made me want to go and mono eat straight away! So I'll try it on you:

'After you've eaten like this, you notice something happening. Your gut moves! It's called peristaltic action: your gut literally starts to spasm and passes out the food that it's finished processing. This rarely happens with food that's combined, cooked or processed. It nearly always happens with raw eating. When this happens your gut can finally start pushing out waste, rather than (while it's having to work hard digesting all sorts of different foods) rely on you stuffing in more food in order to create enough pressure to force the other end open! Eventually, your poo will smell pleasant, you will go without straining, and it will look different.'

More natural?

With the exception of Jane Goodall's chimps (who were seen wrapping fruit in leaves) the animals around us generally eat one food at a time.

Mono eating experiences

Celery - I remember one day having an intense desire for celery - not something I normally crave! Bit into it, and it tasted amazing. Remember thinking, 'wow, now I'm raw, celery tastes so good!' So I chomped my way through a stick. Then, on the second stick, it tasted quite unpleasant. An excellent example of 'aliesthenics' in action.

Sweet potato - this happened when I was grating sweet potato for raw 'koftedes'. I started eating it, and it tasted so...sweet! Marvelling at how many years of my life I hadn't even realised sweet potato could be eaten raw, I ate...and ate! I don't remember getting the taste change, but what I do remember is - the experience Shazzie described. Around an hour later I went to the loo and emerged feeling...very light.

Bananas - I didn't experience a taste change, although lost appetite after three (the 'stop' signal) and 'peristalsis' occurred within half an hour!

Apples - I ate five apples yesterday as preparation for this article. I didn't get the taste change, nor the signal to stop eating, but at the five point began to feel quite uncomfortable. However, it later occurred to me that I hadn't given the apples a fair chance. As, I hadn't actually had the desire for an apple in the first place, rather I was just eating them mechanically as an 'experiment' for this article. Thinking back to when I'd experienced the aliesthenic taste change with the celery, I realised that it must be the case, that, for the taste change to operate, desire has to be present before eating. No wonder my body wasn't playing ball.

Conclusions

When mono eating...

Make sure you truly desire (have appetite for) the food

To give yourself the best chance of experiencing the 'taste change' that tells you when you've had sufficient, only experiment when you feel a genuine desire for a particular food. If you have a banana just because that's all you have in the kitchen, or you eat lettuce because you think you 'should' have some, aliesthenics probably won't kick in.

Buy in quantity a few foods that you know you regularly experience desire for

You know the sorts of foods that you enjoy eating most (mine would include oranges, cherries, olives, spinach and papaya, which gives me a great excuse to pop in a lovely picture of lots of them!)

.

Experiment on an empty stomach

'Instinctive eaters' say that appetite will ensure your instincts are sharpened.

Then, see if you experience the 'taste-change'. Some people report subtle changes, others more dramatic. With some foods, you may, as I found, experience no taste change at all. If not, stop at the point at which you have no true desire to eat any more.

And, whatever the case, your body will thank you.

Global 24 Hour Water Fast

Over the last few years, I've completed many 24-hour water fasts. I know some of you will have as well (and indeed fasted for longer periods) but it's also the case that many raw fooders have either not fasted for any period of time, or have tried 24 hours but not completed.

Hence my call for raw fooders around the world to join me on a 24-hour fast this Saturday 14th June.

As I'm writing solely on the basis of my own experience, and a little research, that is, as a lay person, I'm going to protect myself (and you) by saying that if you your diet is currently poor and/or you are ill, have any 'health condition', are pregnant, elderly, etc, please consult a health professional before embarking on any fast. However, for those who enjoy at least relatively good health, and especially those who are following a high or 100% raw food diet, a 24-hour fast should present no problems, and on the contrary will confer considerable benefits - both physical and psychological, and, as we know, the two are linked!

This is a true fast, that is, a fast as understood for the past few thousand years. Water only.

It's only 24 hours, so no big adjustments to lifestyle are necessary. Financial outlay nil.

BENEFITS OF FASTING

Physical

Even those of us who have been raw for a long time know only too well how it is still possible to abuse our bodies by piling in food beyond the call of appetite, and by mixing all sorts of foods that may well not be digestively compatible. We may be ingesting toxins through some non-organic food, and through the air we breathe, and may also have some inside us remaining from our pre-raw diets.

Fasting gives our bodies a rest from the process of digestion, and an opportunity to use the energy freed to do some house-cleaning.

Psychological

Raw is very exciting! However, all the information, the amazing delicious new foods we're discovering, the tempting online goodies, trying to make sense of the conflicting information offered by the 'gurus', the debates on supplements, superfoods, the lure of gourmet raw food, can create a lot of 'mind-chatter'! And yes we can (just a bit, sometimes?) start to feel a tad overwhelmed... So, a 24-hour fast is an excellent psychological break from thinking about food, and a break from the constant oral gratification and titillation that has certainly been a feature of some of my days on raw.

The 24-hour water fast is a test of commitment, of self-discipline.

You will very likely feel more at ease with yourself after a 24-hour water fast. Charity (love) begins at home. Love yourself first, and you will be better-equipped to love others (I mean love as a verb - a 'doing' word). A fast is a great example of 'tough love' applied to oneself. It may seem 'a bit hard' in the short term, but brings long-term rewards and builds character. As a 100% raw fooder, I'll admit I'm not on a 'raw food high' all the time. Sometimes I have 'bad days', for example when I've been living very much at odds with nature - not getting enough fresh air or sunshine, or acting out of line with my 'higher self', allowing that ego of mine to get me wound up with situations, with people...or raw food binge-eating (it's possible - this is the woman who made a whole batch of cookies once 'for her family' and ate them all herself in a couple of hours). Completing a 24-hour water fast allows us to feel right with ourselves again, as we can feel rightly proud of having taken steps to make reparation, made a commitment, kept a promise and exercised self-discipline. In short, we've passed a test, and it is, albeit 24 hours only, certainly a test for any (relatively) affluent Westerner, as most people I know are not accustomed to depriving themselves of much!

Fasting is denial. It's the much-needed antidote to the 'I want it, so I'm entitled to have it! Now!' mind-set that has led to so much suffering in our culture.

Fasting has in the past been associated with penance and, yes, it is an act of contrition, for our sins - however you like to interpret that. Something I read said that one day's fasting for each year of our lives can wipe our bodies' slates clean. So, if anyone feels they have led a 100% perfect life, no need to fast! And for everyone else...

WILL FASTING HARM YOU?

A 24-hour water fast should be beneficial, not harmful. On any fast, the body runs first on its existing supply of blood sugar, then converts stored fat into sugar, and only when fat reserves are exhausted will it start munching on its own structure, ie protein. For most Westerners, it will take weeks, even months, for that to occur, and a fast of 24 hours should present no threat to protein reserves.

WHY THIS SATURDAY 14TH JUNE?

I've deliberately scheduled the 'join-in' fast for just a few days hence, as a longer notice period would run the risk of some who are interested forgetting about it and/or having too much time in which to find reasons not to do it.

INTERESTED?


PREPARATION TIPS

I'm an expert on finding excuses not to fast - must have used most of them in the past, out of laziness, trying to avoid doing just a little work on myself, as that's what a fast is.

If you're thinking 'can't fast Saturday as I'm out in the evening', pull the fast forward a little, eg go Friday 8 pm to Saturday 8 pm.

An excuse I came up with relatively recently was that there was so much food in the fridge it would be wasted if I didn't eat it. So, if your fridge is packed right now, start running down supplies, so you can't use that one. BUT just before you start the fast, get in some of your very favourite fruit, as a reward for when the fast is over. A purchase, eg of some exotic fruit, that you might normally consider extravagant would be justified by the money you're saving on food on the fast day.

If you still eat a little cooked food, don't have a cooked food blow-out on the Friday, using the excuse that because you're fasting Saturday all your excesses will be covered. All it will mean is that that opportunity for your body to do some significant house-cleaning will be lost, as the fasting day will likely be taken up solely with undoing the effects of the day before, so net progress nil. Also, a poor diet the day before the fast will make the fast day that much harder, as some uncomfortable detox symptoms may be experienced, eg tiredness, flu-like symptoms. So, ideally, follow at least a high raw diet for 1-2 days prior to the fast. You can eat plenty, but just make sure it's all good stuff.

Water - four litres (eight pints) should be more than enough (in fact, I never drink anything like that much). If like most people you don't have a state-of-the-art ioniser or distillation system, use a filter jug or bottled water.

DURING THE FAST

Forewarned is forearmed.

Here are some hurdles that you might encounter on a 24-hour water fast, and my suggestions for overcoming them.

The feeling of an empty stomach

If you still eat cooked food, when your stomach has emptied its contents from the last meal, you will likely be subject to 'gnawing' sensations, caused by the acidity from the last cooked meal. Forget what you've been led to understand all your cooked life - this is not true hunger. Think of the gnawing as a little devil inside you. The gnawing will make you feel uncomfortable; it may even feel painful, and you will probably experience strong cravings for food. This little devil knows you are doing something very good for yourself, and it doesn't like it. It will do everything it can to make you lose your self-control and cave in. Resist.

If you are very high/100% raw, then the gnawing sensation will probably not be present. You will simply be experiencing the sensation of an empty stomach and you may or may not be used to this. But, even if you've been used to interpreting this as 'I'm hungry' and going to the fridge, you should have no difficulty in resisting that impulse as you are not prey to the gnawing that the cooked eater experiences.

In both cases, consider the sensation of the empty stomach with detachment. So your stomach is empty. That doesn't mean it 'needs' food. Just because it's empty doesn't mean it needs to be filled. The stomach is at rest. Visualise the food moving out of your stomach and around your small intestine (the wiggly tubes in the middle of your abdomen), where the body absorbs what it needs.
After that it will move into the large intestine (the thicker tubes around the outside), then into the colon, then the rectum, then out! At that point, your body will be free of the task of digesting food and can get onto the serious business of doing a little cleaning out, and perhaps a little repair here and there.

Boredom

This is just one of the 50+ (100+?) reasons we eat when we're not actually hungry. If you're not working, get engrossed in something, eg a good book - or some forum discussion! Or perhaps spend some time making your outer environment more beautiful, to parallel your inner improvements.

Feeling weak, tired...

This could be illusory. We're so conditioned to feel that if we don't eat for - shock horror - a few hours we will feel weak. But do we really feel weak? During the fast, try entertaining the concept that, actually, you could have more strength and energy than normal as your body isn't having to cope with the usual digestive onslaught, and get stuck into a physical task - you might be surprised at your increased energy! And, if you really do feel tired, perhaps it's because your body is putting lots of energy into the internal house-cleaning. Rest, perhaps by lying down or having a long luxurious bath.

Having to prepare food for others

Most times I've fasted, I've had to prepare an evening meal for others. Be careful...it's SO easy to pop a sun-dried tomato into your mouth without thinking and blow 16 hours of self-discipline in a couple of seconds. Detach yourself psychologically from the food you're handling. Look at it, admire it, enjoy it by smelling even, but tell yourself 'mmm, that's lovely, but it isn't food for me right now.'

Temptations of the ego

A long-term raw fooder told me that he'd often fallen around two-thirds of the way through a 24-hour water fast. I know that point. Be careful - it's when the end point is in sight that you are most vulnerable from the machinations of that little ego-devil..it will persuade and flatter. It will say to you, 'Come on...you've done lots of good! You've done virtually a day now. Who needs to be a clock-watcher? You're far too sensible to need to be pedantic about this.' But - resist that. Recall that you did promise yourself 24 hours - no less. Our egos get up to all sorts of things, and they're so prone to repeating past self-destructive behaviour that, actually, they'll be working against our passing this test. But our Higher Self want us to succeed. Listen to that voice instead. Remind yourself that you're only doing 24 hours. By resisting temptation for just a few hours more, you'll have completed exactly what you set out to achieve.

Other people

I recommend not telling anyone else you are fasting (except other raw fooders who are joining in). Most of the time my family haven't known I've been fasting. When preparing food for them in the evening I've told them, 'I've eaten earlier', or 'I don't feel hungry right now.'

If you tell others, you run the risk of their derailing you, that is, affecting your motivation and resolve with their reactions,which may be due to defensiveness connected with their own diet, or well-intentioned, but misplaced, concern.

Also, if you tell others, you may be tempted to feel the suffering martyr, or even feel smug (neither of which are good feelings to have when you're fasting). So just fast, with no fuss - don't broadcast it.

'Symptoms'

If your diet is good, then it's unlikely that you'll experience any significant 'symptoms'. I sometimes have a mild headache, and my reading has suggested that this could be due to toxins leaving my system (blood vessels in the head contracting to protect the brain as the toxins leave), so could be the non-organic fruit I eat occasionally, too much sea salt perhaps, and perhaps just breathing the air...embrace that headache!

BREAKING THE FAST

If at the end of your 24-hour fast you then eat in a way that is not healthful (eg you have a standard cooked meal or you binge-eat raw food, chucking all sorts of digestively incompatible things into your body in a mad frenzy - as you might have guessed, I've been there) you run the risk of reversing all the good work accomplished in the previous 24 hours. I suggest breaking your fast with a juice, and/or a salad made from green leaves and fruit (including non-sweet, like cucumber and tomato).


A 24-hour water fast may not be as exciting as a detox in Thailand, or a 90-day Juice Feast, both of which are excellent in so many ways, but need a bit of life re-arrangement and/or £££s/$$$s. But a 24-hour water fast, as a one-off, occasional,or once-weekly event, is relatively easy for everyone to fit into their lives.

I hope you can join me at RawforLife this Saturday 14th June, and, if it's the 'first time' for you and you complete successfully, or indeed if you are reading this article at any point after 14th June, and you complete a first 24-hour water fast, do let me know. And if you're an experienced faster, do please join us.

The future is...

It's not 'sexy' or exotic, like the durian (OK - opinions will be divided...) or young coconut. It didn't enter the Raw Fooders' International Top Ten Favourite Foods (giveittomeraw.com). I can't claim it's locally-grown (at least not for me in the UK, but I'm very glad other countries share it with me), it's very unassuming, and generally considered quite commonplace, but please give a big fanfare for the SUPER, SUPER food that is...


THE ORANGE!

In my cooked life I'd always considered oranges a bit boring. This would in no small part have been due to the fact that as a child I'd understood oranges as synonymous with that diluted sugary drink called 'squash'. As a young adult, packaged juices came onto the market, but most were made from concentrates, and although in the years to follow, non-concentrate juices were introduced and I drank and enjoyed the juice, I still tended to give the fruit itself the cold shoulder. Why? Because, compared with satsumas and clementines, the fruit seemed a bother. Messy to eat in quarters, and a pain to peel (it would have taken me, um, a whole minute maybe?!)

In the first six months of raw I remained unexcited by the orange. Until, one evening, I felt a little thirsty. I peeled an orange and cut it into thick slices. It was...a revelation. SO much sweeter than I'd remembered, and as I experienced the joy of the taste, the feeling of a glow inside, and gulped down the copious water it gave me, I felt as if I'd discovered a NEW fruit.

The orange is beautiful, and whether its outer garments are present or not, such a treat for the eye. The photographs for the pictures on this page were all taken in the kitchen, and outside, on a dull day, but when I looked at the pictures...well, you can see that the sun found a way of shining through!

If you're an orange-lover, you'll need no pitch from me - maybe you'll just bask in the pictures then go eat an orange. But, if, like me, you've been relatively unmoved by the orange for the first 'x' years of your life, now you're raw I urge you to rediscover this gorgeous fruit,which wants so much to give us its good things!

Don't juice it, don't put it in a smoothie, dressing or sauce. Although I blend and juice most days, I'm suggesting that you rediscover the orange by sampling it as it is - unfractured, unpulverised...although do peel it. Although I advocate eating the peel of some fruit and veg, I don't feel we should be eating orange peel - the taste and toughness tell us that. But one thing that juicing does take from the orange is the...

PITH

The 'correct' name for pith is 'albedo' (sounds much better than pith, doesn't it? I think I'll call it 'albedo' in future!). My googling reveals that this contains almost as much Vitamin C as the flesh of the fruit and contains pectin, the soluble fibre that helps ease the passage of food through our digestive systems. David Wolfe ('Sunfood Diet Success System') tells us that the pith (albedo) is high in nutrients generally, so...keep that pith! Rather than keeping the peel on, quartering the orange then sucking out the juice, peel it and cut into thick, albedo-ey wedges!

So what nutrients do oranges contain? Well, amongst others, Vitamin C, B vitamins (niacin and thiamine), potassium and...

CALCIUM!

And in fact the calcium issue is what prompted me to write this article. I regularly test my wee with pH strips. For those unfamiliar with the acidity/alkalinity issue (Dr Robert Young, 'The pH Miracle' and others), briefly, the things we do each day create acid in our bodies, our bodies need to keep the blood alkaline, and they will do whatever's necessary to restore balance (bodies that are too acidic are breeding grounds for illness). If lots of acidic foods are eaten (eg cooked food, meat, fish, pasteurised dairy, alcohol etc) the body has a tough job, and calls in mineral reserves (eg calcium) to help. We can help enormously by eating alkaline-rich foods (plant foods).

Now, as a 100% raw vegetarian, and more recently, vegan, raw fooder, I'd been disconcerted to find that, whilst my pH levels during the day were alkaline, my 'first morning wee' was very acidic. Now it's true that the first morning wee reading will always be the least alkaline of the day, but mine was below the 'safe' level, according to all the sources I checked (and believe me I checked a few, just to be sure!). I wasn't sure why this was - perhaps I was having stressy dreams (stress creates acid, and running two businesses has taken a bit of a toll recently) - but, as a woman 'of a certain age', I didn't want my body leeching calcium from the bones...

So, what happened? My fruit-eating is generally biased towards the first half of the day, as fruit is best eaten on an empty stomach. This, for those who are unaware and who regularly suffer from 'football tummy', is because fruit digests quickly, that is, it needs to pass through and out quickly. If it is eaten on top of, or with, slower-to-digest food such as nuts/seeds/grains, its path out will be blocked, and it will ferment, causing gas...

But, anyhow, sometimes I break the rules, and don't always suffer the consequences, and a few days ago I did eat a lovely, lovely orange in the evening.

The next morning my pH level had shot up to the highest I'd ever seen for a first morning wee, and well into the 'safe' zone! Repeated the orange-eating a few evenings more, and every morning good news on the strips! I'm wondering if it's the calcium - cheers to the orange for saving my bones!


And ever since then I have indeed been on 'Planet Orange' and known that the orange had to have an article all to itself.

ALKALINE

And, in case anyone's puzzled, although oranges are termed 'acid fruits', they have an alkalising effect on our bodies.


From Dr Leon A Wilcox's essay 'The Wonderful Orange' in Hilton Hotema's 'Man's Higher Consciousness' (italics are mine):

'For twenty years I have been trying to put over a message about the wonderful orange and the benefits to be obtained from its use...Citrus fruits will always return an alkaline reaction when taken into the stomach by themselves. These fruits (in fact all juicy fruits) should never be eaten at the same meal with cooked or baked foods, nor should they ever be eaten with sugar.' He goes on to say 'cooked foods contain a certain amount of starch. When fruit juices come in contact with starch in the stomach, the reaction is certain to be fermentation. The fermenting process is what generates acid. So you see it is not the fruits that make the acid; it is the food combinations. A common sight in any restaurant in the morning at breakfast is people drinking a glass of orange juice or eating grapefruit, followed by a sweet roll, then washed down with a cup of coffee. This makes a nice acid breakfast and, if continued long enough, will produce an acid stomach, neuritis or some kind of rheumatic condition.'

LIVING ON ORANGES?

The Hilton Hotema book also includes reports of people who achieved radical health transformations by living on oranges/orange juice only for relatively long periods. Two articles ago I looked at historical accounts of people who, it is claimed, subsisted on only two or three types of food. According to Herodotus, the oldest inhabitants of Greece lived on 'dates and oranges'.

Recently, I read raw fooder Victoria Boutenko tell us how her son Sergei used to spend days ski-ing with friends. They'd feel tired regularly and need to re-fuel (so they thought) with large meals. Sergei on the other hand felt continually energised on a diet of just two oranges a day!

MUCUS


One more specific from my own experience: on a raw diet, my sinuses are a lot clearer than they were when cooked. But, all the same, I've noticed on occasions that very shortly after eating oranges there has been a marked effect in that I've felt even clearer and without going into too much detail have felt a little mucus being freed. In Arnold Ehret's book 'Mucusless Diet Healing System' he reprints Ragnar Berg's Table, which organises foods by their acid-binding potential. The higher the food's acid-binding potential the greater its ability to dissolve mucus. Olives and figs come in highest, but the orange is still relatively high and can be described as an excellent mucus-dissolver (and thanks as so often to David Wolfe's 'Sunfood Diet Success System' for this information).

SUPER FOOD

The orange is a SUPER food! Oranges make me GLOW!


Have you heard of the 'Doctrine of Signatures'. That says that the appearance of a plant, of a food, gives us a clue as to how it can benefit us. Think of a walnut, rich in Omega-3s, good for the brain. Now what organ does the walnut resemble? Left and right hemispheres?

Now look at this picture of an orange. What does it resemble?

LET THE ORANGE SHINE INTO YOUR LIFE!

(EDIT - since writing this article I've 'juiced' oranges in a new way (my thanks to Dr Doug Graham) which gets around some of the disadvantages of juicing. Juice several oranges, then stir some of the pith back in. Makes a wonderful slushy drink (though you'll need a spoon!))

Greek Feast

We've been having a run of good weather lately (well, we had when I started this article!) Everything in the garden seems to have doubled in size in a few days, I've been frantically scrubbing the bird-do's off the garden furniture, and phoning the local herb farm to see if they have any basil seedlings yet for the patio (since I neglected to start any from seed this year...) Isn't it wonderful to eat outside, smell the flowers, the herbs, listen to the birds, breathe some fresh air?

Here's a wonderful raw Greek menu for your next al fresco eating! Although the RawforLife monthly e-zine features recipes that don't require a dehydrator, RawforLife Blog is 'allowed'...but, if you don't have a dehydrator, you could mop up the Greek salad juices with Essene Bread instead (recipe at the RawforLife Blog here).

• Greek salad (recipe - well, let's say 'instructions' - below)
• RawforLife Greek Flax Crackers (recipe below)
• Tzatziki (A 'sour-cream' dip made with cashews, lemon, cucumber and mint - for recipe see RawforLife Blog here)

GREEK SALAD

Put into a large bowl as many thick wedges of large, juicy, tomato that you can eat (and more). Ditto thick wedges of cucumber. To that, add: sliced bell pepper, sliced red onion, raw olives (from therawgreek.com here) and chopped oregano*.

Then drizzle in a little olive oil and lemon juice and give it a good stir. Don't worry too much about quantities - if you have a little too much oil and lemon, it will, mixed with the tomato and red onion, make delicious juices.

*use fresh or dried. In the summer, I usually use fresh as it grows in the garden, but, having been to many Greek islands where the tavernas generally use dried despite oregano growing wild there, dried can actually make your Greek salad taste more 'authentic'!

RAWFORLIFE GREEK FLAX CRACKERS

These are strongly-flavoured tomatoey crackers. Sometimes when I make them they come out crisp and crackly; other times a bit chewy. Either is good! I know lots of you know how to make flax crackers, but I've added a little extra in the instructions for those who have never made them before - RawforLife Greek crackers would be ideal for your first go!

(makes 3-4 trays)

• 1 cup flax seeds (linseed), whole, soaked in 1 cup of water 2 hours
• 1 cup flax seeds, ground
• 1 red bell pepper, roughly chopped
• 2 cups roughly-chopped tomatoes
• 1/2 cup chopped cucumber (don't peel)
• 3 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 small red onion, chopped
• 10 raw olives, stoned and chopped
• Oregano - 2 tbsp fresh, or 1/2 tbsp dried
• 1 tsp sea salt

1. Place all ingredients in processor and process until quite smooth, but still a little textured and colourful.

2. Divide mixture between 3-4 paraflexx-lined dehydrator trays (3 if you want them a little chewy and 4 if you want them extra thin 'n' crispy).

3. Spread mixture out to four corners of each tray,using the back of a spoon, flat of a knife, or spatula. Keep spreading - don't worry that it's getting too thin... Smooth over large holes, but don't worry about tiny ones. Have faith - the 'gloopiness' of the flax and the dehydrating will ensure that your crackers hold together.

4. Mark out in squares, eg 4 x 4.

5. Dehydrate at 105F for 10 hours. Then flip, removing paraflexx sheets.

6. Dehydrate at 105F for another 8 hours, or longer (until crispy).

Greek salad, crackers and tzatziki could be served with confidence to raw and non-raw people alike and of course would make a colourful and tasty addition to an outdoors buffet, or indoors, as the case may be...(comfort for those in rainy climes - the more rain the cleaner the air).

How many raw foods do we need for a 'balanced diet'?

The standard cooked diet has all sorts of tentacles with which to draw the newbie raw fooder back in, and I felt concerned a while ago to hear that someone had reverted to a normal' (ie part-cooked) diet because she felt that a 'varied' cooked-food diet was better than her 'limited' raw one.

Was she right to be concerned?

We are told from schooldays onwards to make sure we're getting a 'balanced' diet, that we need to eat a wide variety of foods in order to obtain sufficient vitamin this or that, mineral this or that, protein, calcium, etc. We' re told to eat from various 'food groups', to put meals together on that basis, or at least ensure we're eating from all within a day, within a week...it can not only seem quite complicated, but this advice is still ringing in our ears when we embark on a radical change of diet, to raw.

Of course, 99% of life-forms don't appear to have such problems. Most animals eat just one or two sorts of food (perhaps varying by season) and, somehow... seem to make everything they need for their bodies from these foods. But then of course, they are eating their foods whole, and don't cook them.

Of course, the obvious retort to that is that we're not animals. Is it the case that it's all a lot more complicated for human beings?

Time and time again, in the cooked-food nutrition world, we hear that health and longevity are linked to very simple, rather than very complex, diets - diets consisting of a small number of foods rather than a large variety. We hear of those in other parts of the world managing to be strong and healthy, and relatively free from the diseases that plague people in the UK, without seemingly worrying about whether they're eating a balanced meal or getting enough of certain nutrients. What does appear to be common to all these accounts is that these people are eating a far higher proportion of their food whole and raw (if not all of it) than even the average 'healthy eater' in this country.

But when we damage and destroy our food by cooking it, boy do we make things complicated!

Here are some accounts of human beings, apparently living healthily on very 'limited' diets. To my knowledge, not one of these accounts is backed up with testimony of 100 witnesses, scientific evidence, etc, so I'll leave it to the reader as to whether to attach any credence to them. But, it would be reasonable to guess that, in these cases, the foods spoken of are raw.

The Roman poet, Horace, describes his diet: 'As for me, olives, endives, and smooth mallows provide sustenance.'

(The olive is a fruit containing all sorts of great things for us, including fat - see RawforLife Blog article here. Horace was combining this with green leaves.)

John The Baptist is reputed as living on 'locusts and wild honey'. I researched this some time ago and found evidence to suggest that 'locusts' was, before translation/edits, the 'locust-tree', another name for the carob tree. Many raw fooders will know carob as a highly nutritious pod with a chocolatey flavour.

Arnold Ehret, raw fooder, ate mainly apples, raisins and green leaves. Although, in Ehret's time, raisins had seeds, so he would have been consuming some fat within these.

From Hotema's 'Man's Higher Consciousness'

'Dr Evens said 'Among instances of longevity, we have the ancient Britons who, according to Plutarch, 'only begin to grow old at 210'. Their food consists almost exclusively of acorns, berries and water.'

Herodotus:

'The oldest inhabitants of Greece, the Pelasgians, who came before the Dorian, Ionian and Eolian migrations, inhabited Arcadia and Thessaly, possessing the island of Lesbos and Lokemantos, which were full of orange groves. The people, with their diet of dates and oranges, lived on an average of more than 200 years.'

Should we believe these claims of longevity? We know that the Bible talks of men living 700 years plus in the distant past. Perhaps all these accounts are fictitious, perhaps people in those days measured time in a different way, perhaps they couldn't count... perhaps...

Raw fooder David Wolfe ('Sunfood Diet Success System') describes how he lived on a grapevine for a week once after a horse ate his food. Well, I'm wondering if the grapevine could sustain us for a lot longer than a week...the vine in my greenhouse produces thousands of grapes each September/October, and, of course, vineleaves. The leaves don't taste good this time of year, as the vine is still in the early stages of growth, but in the early autumn I can eat the leaves, the fruit, and because I always eat the pips in grapes (see RawforLife article here ) I get green leaves, fruit and fat from just one plant (note - please campaign to have the seeds put back into our fruit!).

The Essene Gospel of Peace tells us: 'Be content with two or three sorts of food'. (But it also said 'Cook not.')

People on a standard cooked diet will indeed find their bodies prompting them to eat lots and lots of different foods, in a frantic search for all the things that have been cooked out of their foods - our bodies know! But of course they will often eat and eat in vain, and be piling in those toxins that lead to illness.

And, despite sensationalist TV programmes on people purportedly living solely on chips, jam sandwiches, whatever, I haven't seen any credible evidence of people existing healthily in the long-term, on 'limited' diets consisting of a small number of cooked foods, and it concerns me that the grain we send to people who have very little to eat is often then cooked.

But it appears to be the case that the more raw, ie undamaged, foods in our diet, the fewer foods we need to obtain everything necessary for our bodies. My hunch is that if all our food is whole and raw we can actually meet our bodies' needs on perhaps two or three foods only, varying by season.

I'm a long way from that right now, as I am somewhat of a piggie and, although 100% raw, certainly don't discipline myself - my grocery bills are quite high...

But, I'm looking towards a far simpler diet in the future. I have in the garden the vine, which just keeps growing each year, with no upkeep needed save cutting back once in the winter. There's a mature hazel-nut. I've just planted an eating-apple tree and sown mallow. My baby olive tree, against a wall (the garden faces south), has lasted a winter that's included thick snow. A fig hasn't done much to date, but a friend has a mature tree, which is encouraging. And, if it does well, I'll be looking into methods of drying.

I believe we can meet our bodies' needs from a relatively small list of foods, many of which (not all - in UK!) can be obtained from the land around us, as long as they're eaten whole and raw, and suggest that if you eat all your food raw, as long as you're including green leaves, fruit and a little fat in your diet (eg from seeds), you can probably stop worrying about whether you're getting a 'balanced' diet.

And, if anyone's worried about the economy, look in the garden. And if you don't have one, move out of the city.

No time to soak the nuts? How much does it matter?

So, you've found a great recipe in an uncookbook, you've dashed out after work and bought all the ingredients, got them home, and...aargh - it says 'soak the nuts'. Do you a) eat at 2 am the next morning or b) use them dry and hope for the best? Does everyone soak their nuts? Every time? How much does it matter?

What happens when nuts are soaked?

Unsoaked, nuts contain enzyme inhibitors. These are what allow nuts in the ground to stay dormant, ie keep from sprouting, until the conditions are right for growth. When the climate is right, the nut germinates; it sprouts, as the first stage of the process towards becoming a tree.

Soaking the nuts that find their way into our homes makes them think it's a showery April - the enzyme inhibitors are released, the enzymes are activated, and...the nut comes to life! Although we don't usually need them to sprout as such, the changes that do occur with soaking are beneficial.

BENEFITS OF SOAKING NUTS

Enzymes and nutrients increase

The enzymes that are activated reduce the burden on our own digestive system enzymes, thus giving our bodies more energy for other things. Also,when the enzymes are activated, great things happen! Vitamin content increases, proteins break down into amino acids, fats into fatty acids, and starches into sugars, which is all good news for our bodies - saving them the work!

The nuts become softer

Chewing is an essential stage of digestion, but dry nuts can be hard work for the mouth. We tend not to chew for long enough, and hard nuts can feel uncomfortable in our stomachs. Soaking softens them.

Also, it is much easier to blend nuts with water, eg to make almond milk, after they have been soaked and softened, which is good news for the (many) raw fooders who don't own a Vitamix or similar.

Water content increases

The nuts absorb water as they soak. This brings them closer to their natural, fresh state. So soaked nuts will increase the water content of your meal.

Also, as they soak, they increase in volume. So you get more (in a way!).

HOW TO SOAK NUTS

Soak nuts in about double their volume of water (filtered). In the summer cover the bowl with something to keep insects off, eg netting, or a stocking.

Some say that the nuts that float to the top are rancid. I'm not so sure...most times when I soak walnuts and almonds (bought from a reputable source), significant quantities rise to the top. I don't find they taste rancid, and in fact find no difference in taste between the sinkers and floaters. I think it likely that the floaters are less fresh, but I'd waste a lot if I threw them out each time...I'll leave that one with you!

After soaking, the nuts must be drained, rinsed thoroughly, then drained again. Don't use the soaking water for anything else as it contains the enzyme inhibitors. Once rinsed and drained, either use, or refrigerate; the nuts should keep for 2-3 days.

HOW LONG SHOULD NUTS BE SOAKED?

In general, the harder, denser and thicker-skinned the nut, the longer the soak needed. I've studied various sources, averaging out, and suggest the following soaking periods:

• Almonds and hazelnuts: 8-10 hours
• Walnuts and brazils: 3-4 hours
• Macadamias, cashews and pine 'nuts' (seeds): 1-2 hours

What if the recipe doesn't say 'soak'? Should we not soak in those circumstances?

Check the front of the recipe book to see if the writer has issued a general directive, ie to save themselves writing 'soak' on every recipe. Having said that, occasionally raw food writers will use nuts dry. This can mean either not soaked at all, or soaked and dried.

In these circumstances, I recommend soaking the nuts as usual, but dry them afterwards. This means drying them just on the outside, at a low temperature for a very short time, as we don't want to reverse all the good things that have happened during soaking. Either dry with a cloth and leave at room temperature, or blow a little air on them by using a dehydrator at 95-105 F - I've just dried some soaked almonds, and it took 45 minutes only.

So what if there's no time to soak?

For the reasons above, I believe, and many raw fooders do, that nuts should always be soaked for optimal health. But does everyone soak their nuts, all the time? No. Some raw fooders don't soak their nuts, all the time, or indeed any of the time! Some raw food leaders (although they would appear to be in the minority) don't generally soak their nuts. Many people in the raw food world, including myself, use nuts dry occasionally, but this is definitely the exception rather than the rule.

But first, a crumb of comfort...if you're new to raw food, you might be (as I was in the early months) feeling frustrated at the number of times you come across a recipe you'd like to try, only to find it should have been started yesterday...But, in time, you will gradually change your food preparation routines. Whereas, in the old life, you might have thought, before leaving for work, 'Do I need to get anything out of the freezer?' you will start to think, 'Must put the almonds in soak.' Or, if you've just been shopping and collected all the ingredients for a meal to make later, instead of putting the nuts in the cupboard, you'll put them into soak. It does get easier!

And, secondly, a little soaking is better than nothing. If there's no time to soak properly, try to soak for at least half an hour. And remember that if you are using nuts dry and the recipe says soaked you may have to compensate for the loss of water by increasing any liquid in the recipe, or high-water foods such as tomato.

Ultimately, you'll need to decide, if time is short, whether to use the nuts unsoaked or not, and whether the loss of benefits from soaking is outweighed by other considerations. I'd advise never to use nuts unsoaked if preparing food for others, but if they're just for you...? Three tips for when eating unsoaked nuts: 1) Chew well 2) Eat in moderation (no more than a handful) 3) (from David Wolfe 'Sunfood Diet Success System') Eat 'dormant' nuts with green leaves to help along the digestion, otherwise they may 'sit heavy in the stomach'!

WHEAT Part II: How to make Essene Bread - step by step, with pictures

'Sprouted breads', 'Ezekiel bread'...may or may not be baked at relatively low temperatures (ie as compared with a sliced white), but they're not raw. Raw breads are made at no higher a temperature than 118F, and often lower. There are lots of recipes for tasty raw breads (often made with a flax base) on raw forums and in raw recipe books, but they generally require the use of a dehydrator. Essene bread on the other hand needs only air, light and a little water (for sprouting). So, this article is not about making a multi-ingredient raw bread that looks and tastes a little like cooked bread - the kind that might satisfy non-raw friends and relations. It's for those who would like to try making a small portion of the most elemental raw bread - bread made from wheat only.

One of my inspirations for going raw was The Essene Gospel of Peace. But, to be honest, when I read the words 'do not cook' the first time, they went in one ear and out the other! But it all came together, with other things, a while later...The EGOP contains dietary advice that is pretty much in line with the experiences and practices of raw fooders in recent years, except these words were said to have been spoken thousands of years ago. It describes a process rather like an enema or colonic, advises us to fast, not to eat before midday, and not to mix lots of ingredients together (which of course is a bit of a problem for gourmet raw food...)

Here, Jesus, or the Teacher (depending on who one believes the EGOP is about) tells his followers how to make bread:

'How should we cook our daily bread without fire, Master?' asked some with great astonishment. 'Let the angels of God prepare your bread. Moisten your wheat, that the angel of water may enter it. then set it in the air, that the angel of air also may embrace it. And leave it from morning to evening beneath the sun, that the angel of sunshine may descend upon it. And the blessing of the three angels will soon make the germ of life to sprout in your wheat. Then crush your grain, and make thin wafers, as did your forefathers when they departed out of Egypt, the house of bondage. Put them back again beneath the sun from its appearing, and when it is risen to its highest in the heavens, turn them over on the other side that they be embraced there also by the angel of sunshine, and leave them there until the sun be set. For the angels of water, of air, and of sunshine fed and ripened the wheat in the field, and they, likewise, must prepare also your bread. And the same sun which, with the fire of life, made the wheat to grow and ripen, must cook your bread with the same fire. For the fire of the sun gives life to the wheat, to the bread, and to the body. But the fire of death kills the wheat, the bread, and the body.'

The people listening to the Teacher's instructions were living in Israel. Here is my UK-type-climate version:

Essene Bread

Makes one serving (The whole process, ie draining yesterday's soaked seeds for sprouting, soaking new ones, making the bread, and washing up, takes me no longer than ten minutes each morning, if that.)

Take one quarter cup of hard wheatberries (wheat seeds). I buy mine from The Fresh Network at £5.99 for 5 kilos (about 12 lbs).

Soak the berries for 24 hours. I recommend using a sprouting jar (a large wide-mouthed jar with a mesh lid). If you don't have one, band some netting to a wide-mouthed jar. If you live in a warm climate, soak in the fridge, else the berries will quickly ferment.

Drain, rinse, drain again, making sure all the water has drained out, then sprout for 24 hours (rinse twice in that time, ideally...), tilting the jar - mouth downwards - at a 45 degree angle, propping it in a small bowl.

The berries will sprout more on a bright day than a dull day. But it doesn't matter - just to have sprouted at all is enough. You can just about see here (below).

(Note for those in a warm climate - don't let the wheat get too warm, else it will ferment. Also, your wheat may well sprout enthusiastically in just a few hours and, if so, you will have to adjust the timetable, that is, process a few hours later rather than 24 hours later.)

Next day (morning) process the sprouted berries. I use a mini food processor. Process until you can form a sticky ball of dough. It will be grainy and textured - no need to aim for smooth. I give it 3-4 goes in the processor, around 15 seconds each time, pushing the mixture down to the blade between goes.

Stop when the dough looks like this.

Gather up the dough into a ball, then, using fingers, press out flat,

to around the size and thickness of a small pitta bread.

Leave in a light place, on baking parchment. It doesn't need to be in direct sunlight. On a dull day it will be ready by evening (turn midday). On a warm sunny day it can be left outside and will be ready by lunchtime (turn mid-morning); to keep flies away, cover with a piece of fine netting (or one of those 'tents' that are used to protect dishes at outside buffets).

What does it taste like? Very 'plain', but of course that's how it's meant to be - the whole wheat, and nothing else. For most people, nothing like 'bread-as-they-know-it'. I thought it tasted strange at first, as I wasn't used to the taste of pure wheat. Then I got used to it, and the wheat started to taste sweet to me. Then I grew to love it. I suspect that at the time the instructions were given, the bread was eaten plain. However, I usually spread it with mashed avocado, sliced tomatoes and a pinch of sea salt. Although it's breaking the 'fruit with slower-to-digest food' rule, I do also love it folded with dates mashed inbetween, and don't seem to suffer any ill-effects!

Postscript Dec 08: This article is probably the most frequently-visited of all the RawforLife blog articles, and has been linked to on many raw food forums. Two things I'd like to make clear:

1) I've heard it referred to as 'Debbie Took's Essene Bread'. It most certainly isn't. It is Essene Bread as described in The Essene Gospel of Peace.

2) People have asked if they can add this and that to the recipe. And I've seen recipe books describe multi-ingredient raw breads as Essene breads. The Teacher instructed us not to mix foods together, and was quite clear that the bread should be made of sprouted grain only. Adding other grains and/or salt and/or dried fruit/whatever may make a tasty 'raw/sprouted bread' popular with raw fooders (and I have enjoyed such breads myself), but this would be in direct opposition to the Teacher's instructions. I realise people may want to add ingredients to the basic recipe, but please...don't then call it Essene bread.

I'm also aware that there are manufacturers of cooked breads who are using the name 'Essene Bread' to sell breads which are nothing of the sort.