Conscious Eating Part 27

Live-Food Nutrition, a Gift of Nature.

THE NECESSARY, LIFE-SUPPORTING PROCESS OF NUTRITION starts with suckling at our mother's breast and continues as we draw our life force from the all-giving breast of Mother Nature. Live foods, because of their high energetic structural integrity, give us the healthiest, food-sourced nurturance on the physical plane. Raw foods contribute the most to the energy of our SOEFs. Extensively processed fast foods give the least energy, and may actually serve to disrupt our own SOEFs. In order for us to absorb processed food, energy from our own SOEFs is needed to reorganize the disrupted SOEFs of the food. This means that a.s.similating processed foods indirectly depletes our SOEFs and accelerates the aging process.

Recent History of Live Foods for Health.

THE USE OF LIVE FOODS FOR CREATING HEALTH has had a strong foundation of medical support in the last 100 years. One of the first clinics to adopt a raw-food-for-health approach was the Bircher-Benner Clinic, started in 1897 in Zurich, Switzerland. Its founder, the world-famous Max Bircher-Benner, M.D., discovered the power of raw foods when he experimented upon himself for his own healing. He found that live foods healed his jaundice and inability to eat. Later, he had a patient who was unable to digest anything, including cooked foods, and who was slowly degenerating in health. In his studies, Dr. Bircher-Benner had discovered that the wise teacher Pythagoras, who lived circa 500 B.C, used raw foods to heal people with poor digestion. He applied Pythagoras' cure to the patient and he recovered. This is significant because there was-and still is, in some circles- a myth that live foods are difficult to digest.

What makes the raw foods in fact easier to digest is that they have their own digestive enzymes that do most of the work. In my own practice, I often start people with severe digestive disorders on blended raw foods. This approach is very successful, and again confirms that properly prepared raw foods are effective for digestive disorders where cooked, enzymeless foods have failed. When Bircher-Benner began to investigate the properties of live foods, he found that regardless of the seriousness of the disease, the living-food treatment was a powerful healing approach. Based on these principles, his clinic became one of the most respected healing centers in the world. He understood the causative role cooked and processed foods play in the epidemic of degenerative diseases. The tremendous increase in disease that we in the West are today witnessing is not something that has to be. Bircher-Benner wrote: "We are oppressed by an overwhelming burden of incurable disease which hangs over our lives like a dark cloud. It is a burden that will not disappear until men become aware of the basic laws of life."

One of the basic laws of life is to eat our foods whole, organic, and in their natural, raw state.

In the early part of this century another great physician, Max Gerson, M.D., also discovered the healing power of live foods-first for the healing of his own migraines, and then later for the supposedly incurable disease called lupus. He then applied this approach to every sort of medical disease, from clogged arteries to mental disorders. Gerson believed that a live-food and a live-juice diet was more than just a specific cure for certain diseases. He said that consuming raw foods was a way of eating which restored the diseased body and mind's ability to heal itself. Dr. Gerson recognized raw foods as a way to rebuild the vital regenerative force of the total organism. In 1928, he was even able to cure Albert Schweitzer's wife of tuberculosis with this diet. Later, he put Albert Schweitzer on a raw-food diet for his diabetes. As a result of this, Schweitzer was cured of diabetes and was able to stop using insulin.

Dr. Gerson also found that a live-food diet high in pota.s.sium restored the pota.s.sium-sodium balance and improved cellular respiration as well as enhanced the immune system. He began to apply this principle to the treatment of cancer with great success. This work was highlighted by his extensively doc.u.mented book, A Cancer Therapy: Results of Fifty Cases, which he published in 1958. His cancer treatments using these live-food principles have continued successfully in several locations in California.

Many of the great European healers and clinics advocate the use of live foods for healing and for maintaining high-level wellness. The internationally respected Dr. Paavo Airola, whom I studied with over a period of seven years, recommended a 100% raw-food diet for regaining health and an 80% raw-food diet for maintenance and prevention. During the winter, he recommended a little less raw foods. My personal and clinical experience with raw foods is that after about two years on an 80% live-food diet, the immune system seems considerably stronger and people essentially stop getting colds and the virulent flus that prey on most of the population.

At first, in my transition, I felt colder on raw foods, but by the second or third year, I felt comfortably warm. Now I even go outside many mornings before the sunrise, barefoot in the frost, as part of my way of communing with the earthly and heavenly forces. I just would not have been able to comfortably do that before beginning a raw-food diet. My personal experience was validated by a workshop on spiritual nutrition I gave in Anchorage, Alaska. As I mentioned earlier, I met a wonderful group of people who operated a live-food restaurant called the Enzyme Express. All the folks connected with the restaurant have discovered the same thing: that after a few years on a raw-food diet, they actually feel warmer during the cold Alaska winters and generally have a better tolerance for the cold. They shared with me that they also went through a transition where they felt colder in the beginning of their raw-food experience.

My hypothesis for this increased health and vitality is that during the beginning of the 80-95% raw-food diet there are sometimes mild healing crises. In this stage, one may become more vulnerable and sensitive to the environment since the body's innate intelligence directs its energies inward to cleanse and rebuild the system. Once one pa.s.ses through this stage, there is a building up of the vital force and the immune system. Once this force has become strong again, no matter what one's body type, one becomes more resistant to all adverse forces, including the cold weather. I find that I am now able to go out without a jacket while it is in the high-thirty-degree Fahrenheit range. My ability to do this is a dramatic contrast to what it used to be like before I switched to primarily live foods back in 1983.

Other physician pioneers have had their own positive healing experiences with raw foods. The Danish physician Kristine Nolfi switched to raw foods to heal herself of breast cancer. Based on her positive experiences with herself and her patients, she started the successful Humlegaarden Sanatorium in Denmark. While doing workshops in Sweden, I had a personal interview with Dr. Aly, who runs a famous clinic there. He has been highly successful with the use of fasting and live foods as a way to restore health.

In the US, Ann Wigmore was an active and successful proponent of live foods for over thirty years. Blossoming out of her work is a variety of live-food centers sprouting up all over the country. Viktoras Kulvinskas, who began his work with Ann, is another well-known proponent of live foods for healing.

Dr. Paul Bragg was one of the original American pioneers of raw foods and natural living in accordance with the laws of nature. His work has reached millions of people in this country. Until he pa.s.sed away in an unfortunate swimming accident at age 96, Bragg was in vigorous health in large part because of his 80% raw-food, "fresh is best" diet and regular fasting as a way of life.

Dr. Norman Walker, who lived to age 116 and ate primarily raw foods and juices, is another famous raw-food pioneer in the United States with thousands of clinical successes.

One of the greatest pioneers of live foods for maintenance of optimal health as well as for the treatment of disease was Dr. Szekely, who translated The Essene Gospel of Peace, Books One-Four, and brought the Essene teachings into the awareness of the twentieth century. Over a period of 33 years, from 1937 to 1970, at his clinic at Rancho La Puerta, Mexico, he established one of the greatest modern human experiments using live foods. He saw more than 123,600 people (approximately 17% of them came with the diagnosis of medical "incurables"), with better than 90% of them regaining their full health. Dr. Szekely's translation of the Essene healing methods into his clinical work highlights the fact that live foods for optimal health and for the treatment of disease is not a new discovery but has been part of the Western and Judaic-Christian tradition for at least two thousand years. The Essenes, who established communities 200-300 years before and during the time of Jesus, were said to eat primarily live foods and were reported by historians to live an average of 120 years.

Based on his study of the Essenes and his own clinical experience, Dr. Szekely developed a useful way to categorize foods according to their energetic and physiological effects rather than their biochemical makeup of calories, protein, carbohydrates, and fats.

To briefly review, foods that have a high degree of life force and, in turn, enhance the human life force (SOEFs), Dr. Szekely called "biogenic." Biogenic foods increase the SOEF organization on every level. They help to reverse entropy and the aging process. These are high-enzyme, raw foods that have the capacity to revitalize and regenerate the human organism.

The second category of foods is called "bioactive." These are foods capable of sustaining and enhancing an already-healthy life force. They add to our SOEFs. Bioactive foods include fresh, raw fruits and vegetables. They have less enzymes and inherent life force than biogenic foods but are still very beneficial to the system.

"Biostatic" is the name of the third category. It includes fresh foods that have been cooked. These foods can be slightly life-sustaining in the short term but are gradually life-force-depleting in the long term, because they require the human organism to give of its SOEFs to reactivate the SOEFs of the cooked foods so they can be absorbed. The end result is a slow depletion of the human SOEFs. Biostatic foods are cooked or minimally processed foods, as well as foods that are raw but no longer fresh.

The fourth category of foods is called "biocidic." These are life-destroying foods-foods which without question disrupt and deplete the SOEFs. Biocidic foods have gone through much processing and are full of additives and preservatives. They are the plastic, fast, "convenience foods." Biocidic foods also include all cooked flesh foods because of their rapid putrefaction, unless they have been freshly killed and eaten.

Mother Nature has given us a wide variety of food choices. Ideally we will choose foods that reverse the effects of entropy on our system. To reverse entropy is to help reverse aging and to enhance health. These are the biogenic and bioactive foods. Unfortunately, despite all the information available, most of our population still chooses foods that increase our entropy and accelerate the aging process. These choices are difficult because so many of us are so addicted to satisfying our taste buds and are attached to fixed eating habits and cultural concepts.

Paavo Airola often pointed out that in making the transition to live foods it is important to be sensitive to the type of foods traditionally eaten by the individual's family of origin and their ancestors, along with considering the genetic background. Sometimes the question is raised as to whether certain ethnic groups without a major live-food tradition, such as the East Indian, Chinese, and j.a.panese, can, or should, make the transition. In these cultures people had to, and still do, cook their food in order to kill parasites, virulent bacteria, and amoebas. This may be one of the main reasons for cooking food in these cultures, but it does not mean that these individuals cannot make an intelligent and careful transition.

In India, there has always been a tradition of vegetarianism. There is also a history of those who ate very little, or only raw foods, as part of their spiritual development. One of the most famous of these was Shivapuri Baba, who lived to be 137 years old. At the age of 50, after living in the forest on just roots and tubers for 30 years, he went on a 35-year, world walking tour. He spent time with different spiritual, cultural, and political leaders, including four years with Queen Victoria in England. Born in 1826, he left his body in 1963. It was said that he ate raw foods up until a few years before his death, when he began to accept the cooked food of his visitors. It was said that after this he began to lose some of his vitality and to age noticeably. He was, however, quite alert and clear until the time he left his body.

Satya Sai Baba, one of the few Indian spiritual teachers who has transcended his culture's food traditions, gets to the core issue of the resistance to live foods: Out of all the species ... Man alone tries to cook and change his food. A seed when planted will sprout into life ... but when cooked, the life is destroyed ... it is man alone who is subject to the most health trouble.... The reason is that man does not like to partake of food as G.o.d created it. He is the victim of his tongue, which he wants to be satisfied in terms of taste, and so his own likes and dislikes come in the way of what he should eat. Man seeks to change the foods available in nature to suit his tastes, thereby putting an end to the very essence of life contained in them. Because he is exterminating the life-giving forces in the food available to him, he is increasingly subjecting himself to disease. So, it follows, again, that if man were to eat foods in their natural states, he certainly would not be subject to disease.

Cooked Foods Are Damaged Goods.

AVARIETY OF RESEARCH HAS SHOWN that a good percentage of nutrients are destroyed in cooking. Viktoras Kulvinskas estimates that the overall nutrient destruction is around 80%. Although there is some variation in research findings, most agree that over 50% of the B vitamins are destroyed by cooking. Thiamine (B1) losses have been recorded up to 96%, folic acid losses up to 97%, and biotin losses up to 72%. Vitamin C losses are up to 70-80%. The Max Planck Inst.i.tute for Nutritional Research in Germany has found that there is only 50% bio-availability in protein that has been cooked. Cooking alters protein into substances that disrupt cellular function and speed up the aging and disease process. In general, it can be said that cooking also coagulates the bioactive mineral/protein complexes and therefore disrupts mineral absorption, such as calcium in pasteurized milk. Cooking foods disrupts RNA and DNA structure and, as already discussed, destroys most of the nutritive value of fats, creates carcinogenic and mutagenic structures in the fats, and produces free radicals in fats. According to Dr. William Neusome of Canada's Department of Health and Welfare Food Research Division, cooking transforms certain fungicides into cancer-causing compounds. We can a.s.sume that with all the potent pesticides, herbicides, and additives that go into our foods, cooking will transform a certain percentage of these into more carcinogenic or mutagenic (producing changes in gene patterns) compounds. Cooking is risky business.

Other research has uncovered the fact that even when cooking organic foods, there is a burned or browned section created by cooking which is highly mutagenic. This results primarily from the heated protein. Some of these chemicals in the cooked protein have been isolated and fed to animals, and they appear to be cancer-causing. The browning that comes from the interaction of carmelizing sugars and amino acids, such as the brown crusts on bread and toast, has also been found to create mutagenic substances.

There is an old saying: "If it's not broken, don't fix it" I believe this applies to the way Mother Nature has presented us with her food, in an "unbroken" way. Nevertheless, humans insist on virtually unrestricted use of cooked foods. The message of Jesus in The Essene Gospel of Peace, Book One (p. 36), rings as true today as it did then: For I tell you truly, live only by the fire of life, and prepare not your foods with the fire of death, which kills your foods, your bodies, and your souls also.

Live Food Boosts Immunity.

AS DESCRIBED EARLIER, research by Paul Kouchakoff, M.D., in 1930 showed that every time we eat cooked foods, we get an increase of white blood cells in our blood stream. Dr. Howard Loomis has regularly repeated some of Dr. Kouchakoff's results in his clinical work with hundreds of patients. This finding is a potentially significant discovery for helping us learn how to protect and maintain our immune system. Overstimulation of the immune system three or four times a day by ingestion of cooked food is definitely an ongoing stress on the system.

Specific immune factors in raw foods, such as the gibberellins and abscisic acid (found in avocados, lemons, cabbage, and potatoes), help support the immune system. The other major way raw food helps boost the immune system is that it keeps us healthy via its detoxifying properties, "anti-" free radical enzymes, cleansing properties, and physical and energetic enhancement of our total biological organism. When we are healthy, the immune system naturally follows suit. Research at the Linus Pauling Inst.i.tute found that a raw-food diet in mice had the same cancer-preventing properties as high doses of vitamin C. In general, I have observed that my clients who have been on an 80% or more live-food diet for six months to two years have a significantly stronger immune system than the general population and get significantly less colds and flus than they did previously

Lesser-Known Health Factors in Live Foods.

RAW PLANTS HAVE AN INCREDIBLE VARIETY of health-promoting factors such as plant hormones, which help our metabolism, and paciferans, which are antibiotic substances. They are loaded with a variety of bioflavonoids such as rutin, hesperidin, vitamin P, flavons, flavonals, and methoxylated bioflavonoids, including n.o.belitin and tangeretin. n.o.belitin and tangeretin have more cortisone activity per weight than injectable cortisone. These two bioflavonoids have been found to remove heavy metals, drugs, and hydrocarbons from our bodies. They also have been found to decrease red blood cell clumping. In one experiment, three to four oranges or five tangerines decreased blood viscosity by 6%. In beet roots there are anthocyans which have been shown to be helpful in treating cancer and leukemia. There is also a variety of plant fibers that completely fulfill our need for fiber in the diet. Some plants have bitters which help our digestive secretions. Plants contain essential oils, saponins, and also chlorophyll, which is so important for our health.

Researchers have found that some factors in raw foods stimulate production of the healthy bacterial flora. This is significant because healthy colon bacteria protect against candida overgrowths, the growth of numerous pathogenic bacteria, constipation, and colon, blood, and tissue toxicity The myriad health-restoring components contained in the unbroken wholeness of raw foods are partially or completely destroyed by cooking. Trying to list them all is like trying to list all the known and unknown herbal medicines in the rain forest.

I want to expand on the concept that the wholeness of a food is crucially important. It is the wholeness of raw foods which is health-producing and nonreproducible by science. We do not fully understand why a raw-food diet is so effective, but it is clear that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Cooking or other forms of processing destroy qualities and components of our food for which the significance is not yet, or perhaps never will be, known in its totality.

We do know that live foods have been used as a powerful healing treatment primarily in Europe, but now also here in the US. A live-food diet has been used with great success to heal arthritis, high blood pressure, menstrual difficulties, obesity, allergies, diabetes, ulcers, heart and other circulatory diseases, hormone disturbances, diverticulosis, anemia, weak immune system, and other degenerative diseases or poor states of health. Many people have found a live-food diet an excellent aid for improving the brain/mind function. The research on animals, as well as longevity studies in human cultures around the world, all suggest that a high percentage of live food in the diet plays an important part in creating a healthful longevity. A group of ancient Greeks, the Pelegasians, were said to eat only raw fruits, nuts, and seeds and lived an average of two hundred years according to Herodotus, the "father of history."

Some Food Factors with Bad Reputations.

WITHIN ALMOST ALL FOODS exist some factors that may be toxic in high concentrations. According to research compiled by the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences National Research Council, these factors are not significant if taken in moderate amounts and if one's general health is good. Research into the question of the goitrogenic (ant.i.thyroid) effect of eating raw cabbage and other members of the Bras-sica family and their seeds, as well as peaches, pears, strawberries, spinach, carrots, soybeans, and peanuts, has found that "The goitrogenic effects in man of edible portions of Bra.s.sica other than rutabaga and white turnips are not regarded as firmly established." The research has found that most of the goitrogenic factors of the Bra.s.sica family are in the seeds rather than the edible portions. It has also been suggested that some of the goitrogenic factors in rutabagas or white turnips could be transferred through cow's milk. It is generally thought that even these effects can be offset by increasing one's intake of high-iodine foods, such as kelp or dulse.

Another concern is the effect of naturally occurring oxalates in spinach and rhubarb. Many researchers believe that it would take eating almost nine pounds of rhubarb to get any acute poisoning, and that the oxalate content of vegetables has no significance in causing acute poisoning. The research on problems of chronic oxalate intake suggests that it would be impossible, with an adequate calcium intake, to have a problem with calcium deficiency from a normal oxalate intake from vegetables. One two-year study on rats showed that with a diet of 0.1% to 1.2% oxalates there were no abnormalities. In one extensive study on children put on a high-spinach diet and other high-oxalate foods, no evidence of any alteration of calcium, vitamin D, or phosphorus metabolism was found. It is possible, however, if a person has a low calcium intake or poor calcium metabolism, that a high-oxalate diet could cause a calcium deficiency.

One way to avoid the oxalate issue in nuts and seeds, such as sesame and sunflower seeds, is to soak them overnight and rinse several times in the morning. By this process much of the oxalates are washed out and therefore do not pose a problem. In general, unless one has a low-calcium problem, one need not be too concerned about a moderate intake of oxalate foods.

Phytates are another natural substance in some foods, especially grains such as wheat, rye, and oatmeal. They occur in some nuts and seeds as well. They form a complex with calcium that keeps the calcium from being absorbed. Fortunately, a normally functioning intestinal tract produces an enzyme called phytase which releases calcium from its phytate-bound complex when it is transiting through the intestinal tract. The calcium is thereby freed up to be absorbed. Unless we take an excess amount of phytates into the system, there is usually enough phytase to keep them from having any effect on our calcium absorption. By soaking and rinsing nuts and seeds, we wash out the phytates as well as the oxalates. The way the body eliminates phytates seems to mirror the general way the body handles most of these naturally occurring seemingly adverse factors in our food. If they are taken into the system in small enough quant.i.ties, our bodies usually have the enzymatic systems to protect us from these substances potential negative effects. For more on oxalates and phytates, see Chapter 23.

We should also be aware of naturally occurring estrogens in carrots, soybeans, wheat, rice, oats, barley, potatoes, apples, cherries, plums, garlic, sage, parsley, licorice root, wheat bran, wheat germ, rice bran, and rice polishings. Estrogens are also found in edible oils such as cottonseed, safflower, wheat germ, corn, linseed, peanut, olive, soybean, and coconut. In a publication put out by the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers concluded that: ... the consumption of any food product in a quant.i.ty sufficient to cause a physiologic effect due to estrogens it contains seems remote.

On the other hand, someone with an estrogen-sensitive cancer should be aware of these naturally occurring estrogens.

There is a variety of toxins in some of our naturally occurring foods. In some aged cheeses there are high concentrations of histamine, tyramine, and tryptamine, which are normally detoxified by an enzyme in our system called monoamine oxidase. Some people under psychiatric treatment are given drugs that are monoamine oxidase inhibitors. If these people eat these cheeses, they may get severe cases of acute high blood pressure. These substances are not a problem, however, as long as the body biochemistry is functioning in a normal manner and we are not taking any antidepressive drugs.

In nutmeg and mace there are high concentrations of a toxin called myristicin. Carrots, parsley, celery, and dill have a little myristicin also. In small amounts myristicin has been noted to be helpful for toothaches, dysentery, diarrhea, rheumatism, and skin problems. In large doses, such as one ounce of nutmeg or two whole nutmeg nuts, it may cause shock, stupor, acidosis, and/or intoxicating symptoms with euphoria for up to 24 hours after ingestion. As in most cases, a little is okay, and a lot may be dangerous.

Another poison is thujone, an oil of wormwood; it is mentioned in the Bible nine times. It is the primary flavoring of the liquor called absinthe. In high doses it may produce convulsions. A muscle weakness and paralysis of the lower legs, called lathyrism, can occur when eating various types of vetch. Some people can develop favism, an anemia in which the red blood cells break down from eating uncooked fava beans. It occurs primarily in Mediterranean cultures and is transmitted by a s.e.x-linked gene of moderate dominance. In brown mustard, horseradish, broccoli, cabbage, and arugula, there is a substance called isothiocyanate which acts as a mucous membrane irritant.

Some beans eaten in their raw form such as soybeans, lentils, black-eyed peas, partridge peas, and mung beans, as well as peanuts and vetch, have trypsin inhibitors which block this cla.s.s of digestive enzymes. The trypsin inhibitors cause poor protein digestion and result in putrefaction and gas. Research on raw soybeans shows that their trypsin inhibitors decrease growth in chickens. Researchers have also specifically found that the trypsin inhibitors are a major cause of the poor utilization of raw soybeans. Kidney soy and lima beans are the highest in trypsin inhibitors and have the best improvement of digestibility after heating, which destroys this inhibitory enzyme. The other beans and peas do not show such a dramatic improvement in digestibility after heating. Trypsin inhibitors were found in 23 of 26 pulses in India, as well as in wheat and guar gum. They are also found in egg whites. Much of the trypsin inhibitor is found in the seeds before they sprout. When the seeds are sprouted much of the trypsin inhibitor is washed out as a result of the sprouting process. My observations and reports from others indicate that there is some improvement with sprouting, but that even sprouted beans and peas are still not so easy to digest. I do not recommend more than occasional use of even sprouted beans or peas for those on a live-food diet because of this research and my personal observations. This is especially true for those with a vata const.i.tution. In earlier chapters when I refer to legumes as part of the diet, I am referring to cooked legumes as part of the traditional vegetarian diet. They are especially important for fast oxidizers who need a higher protein intake.

Raw soybeans, kidney beans, and other legumes such as peanuts, groundnuts, jack beans, sword beans, horse beans, sweet peas, lentils, common vetch, and mung, green, lima, navy, kidney, pinto, French, black, white, casto, and horse beans also have factors called hemagglutinins. When 1% of the diet is raw soybeans or .5% of the diet is raw kidney beans, growth in rats is suppressed. The theory is that the hemagglutinins line the intestine and block fat and protein uptake. All edible legumes that contain hemagglutinins are poorly absorbed unless they are cooked thoroughly (until the hemagglutinins are destroyed).

Sprouts are a wonderful, healthy, biogenic food; yet even alfalfa sprouts eaten in excess and harvested before they are mature contain a small percentage of an amino acid a.n.a.log called canavanine, which has been reported in several individual cases to cause a worsening of symptoms of people suffering from systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The canavanine concentration is highest in alfalfa seeds and decreases in concentration after the third day of sprouting. Because canavanine is water-soluble, rinsing the sprouts each day also decreases the concentration. Alfalfa sprouts are best to eat when they are fully mature. This mature stage is their nutritional peak, when they are a rich green in color and have their first leaf division. At this stage they have minimal canavanine and do not cause any problems. This is usually around day seven. For several years, I have advised my SLE clients and others with rheumatoid-like diseases about these considerations when using alfalfa sprouts. As yet, no one following this advice of selecting mature alfalfa greens and not eating them in excess has suffered an exacerbation of their symptoms. Some research shows that canavanine has anti-tumor and anti-leukemia effects.

Buckwheat sprouts require some moderation also. I have found two people who developed what seemed to be cold sensitivity, allergic symptoms, and painful skin nerve sensitivity worse with sunlight after eating the super-nutritious buckwheat sprouts in amounts equal to 20% of their dietary intake for six months. Prior to this extended excessive intake, these two people had eaten buckwheat in moderation without developing any symptoms. Their symptoms almost all went away upon limiting this excessive amount of buckwheat sprouts. I have heard several secondhand reports of similar symptoms in others who have eaten an excess of buckwheat sprouts. Again, all the symptoms immediately went away on the cessation of excessive intake of buckwheat sprouts. The message is that almost any food, no matter how biogenic and healthy, may have small amounts of hidden toxins that can cause symptoms if eaten in excess for a long enough period of time.

Another enzyme cla.s.s found in plants are cholinesterase inhibitors. Cholinesterases are enzymes that play an important role in nerve impulses. Raw potatoes had the highest concentration of these inhibitors among 17 vegetables studied. The fruit of eggplants has some of these cholinesterase inhibitors, as do roots and leaves of tomatoes. There is a small amount in asparagus, Valencia oranges, turnips, radishes, celery, and even carrots. In potatoes exposed to sunlight, there is a buildup of cholinesterase inhibitors called solanin alkaloids, particularly in the eyes, skin, and sprouts of the potato. This alkaloid buildup can be toxic. A potato in which these alkaloids have acc.u.mulated will have a green tint to it. The way to prevent this sunlight-activated alkaloid buildup is to store potatoes away from the sunlight. Putting potatoes in a brown paper bag is one way to shield them from light. Researchers have not detected harmful effects from any other vegetables because the cholinesterase inhibitors occur in such low amounts. These green potatoes with solanin are still poisonous even when cooked. One way to protect yourself and others is to tell produce markets and health food stores about the danger of potatoes exposed to sunlight. The potatoes should be stored in a covered bin.

Although it is useful to be aware of the little-known potential toxins in fruits and vegetables, it is important to maintain the larger perspective that sprouts and other live foods contain many antioxidants, anticarcinogens, live enzymes, electromagnetic energies, a high zeta potential, and high levels of minerals, vitamins, nucleic acids, paciferans (plant antibiotics), aux-ones (beneficial plant hormones), and other factors, the health benefits of which far outweigh the potential dangers of naturally occurring toxins. A healthy body has a sufficient defense to metabolically detoxify the naturally occurring toxins as long as we are not eating them in excess. Although excess is hard to define, I eat two to four ounces of mature alfalfa sprouts almost every day as part of my sprout salad. I consider this a moderate amount. Part of being a conscious eater is to have a holistic perspective about these issues and to eat in a moderate way using a variety of sprouts and live foods in the diet. Seeds that can be sprouted are broccoli, alfalfa, clover, radish, fenugreek, chia, buckwheat, wheat, rice, millet, and a little mung seem fine. The rest of the beans-aduki, lentil, and soy-are best minimally or none at all. In this way, Mother Nature's gifts of food can be eaten with love and not fear.

The Bioelectricity of Live Foods.

THE ELECTRICAL POTENTIAL OF OUR TISSUES AND CELLS is a direct reflection of the aliveness of our cells. Live foods enhance and maximize the electrical potential in cells, between cells, and at the interface of cells with the micro-capillary electrical charge. The proper microelectrical potential gives cells the power to rid themselves of toxins and maintain the selective capacity to bring in the appropriate nutrients and oxygen supplies. In Spiritual Nutrition and The Rainbow Diet, I describe a model for how this selection process works on the electromagnetic level. Researchers have discovered that with disease there is a decrease in selective capacity of the cells to absorb and excrete. This results in a buildup of toxins in the cells and a decrease in efficiency of cell metabolism. There is also a weakening of cell membranes of tissue cells and blood capillary cells through which nutrients and oxygen are selectively filtered in, and toxins filtered out.

I am particularly interested in this lowering of electrical potential effect because many of the people I see are just not feeling well, but all the lab tests they have had with other doctors show that they are not overtly, clinically diseased. The drop in the electrical potential is the first step in the disease process. These are people in a state of meso-health, or subclinical "disease."

Professor Hans Eppinger, chief medical doctor at the First Medical Clinic of the University of Vienna, found that a live-food diet specifically raises the microelectrical potentials throughout the body. He discovered that a raw-food diet increases selective capacity of the cells by increasing the electrical potential between the tissue cells and the capillary cells. Raw foods significantly improved the intra/extra-cellular excretion of toxins and absorption of nutrients. Dr. Eppinger and his co-workers concluded that live foods were the only type of food that could restore the microelectrical potential of the tissues once their electrical potential and the ensuing subtle cellular degeneration had begun to occur. This correlates with the research by Dr. Kollath that raw foods alone, and distinctly not vitamins and mineral supplements alone, were able to restore his animals to full health from the half-health condition of meso-health. Their research findings that live foods have a regenerative power and ability to restore orderly functioning on the cellular and electromagnetic level of the organism support my own clinical observations over the last 19 years. In essence, we can say that by restoring the electrical potential of the cells, raw foods rejuvenate the life force and health of the organism. A live-food cuisine is a powerful, natural, healing force which gradually restores the microelectrical potential and overall functioning in every cell in our body. Eating primarily raw foods is a gentle, delicious, nature-oriented, and gradual way to restore health. Eating live foods means that one is paying attention to Mother Nature and accepting her gifts the way she gives them to us. It is a specific way to commune with Mother Earth daily.

Kirlian photography has been a useful tool to validate our understanding of the bioelectric effect of live foods on the health of the human organism. Kirlian photographs by Harry Oldfield and Roger Coghill, in their book The Dark Side of the Brain, reveal electroluminescent fields (natural radiation fields) surrounding living organisms that take the form of a coronal discharge. It is thought that what is seen in the photographs is the electrical conductivity of the skin cells as they are influenced by the cellular radiations of the rest of the cells of the body. From the point of view of the SOEF theory the strength of these fields indicates the SOEF strength of the cells. Oldfield and Coghill believe these actual electrical fields maintain the integrity of the biological system. According to them, if these fields have more energy, they better maintain the physical structure and function. If the fields are depleted, they are less able to maintain both structure and function. They hypothesize, as I do, that human beings and all living organisms are ultimately made up of patterns of resonant energy. This energy is reflected in the functioning of each cell. The actual molecular structure of the cells is guided by DNA, which acts as a resonant receiver of the different resonant frequencies of the body and also as a transmitter of a specific resonant frequency. The stronger the resonant frequency of the cell, the stronger the natural radiation field. In other words, the electroluminescence is a measure of the life force of the cell. The stronger the life force of each cell, the stronger the electroluminescence of the total Kirlian photographic field, which is the sum of the electrical potential of each cell.

By using this system, these researchers were able to understand how the life force of people and foods is affected by various conditions. One of their photographs shows a person who had been eating junk food for 24 hours. It reveals an absence of any electroluminescent energy. This picture is typical of 12 subjects who were put on junk food. It is juxtaposed with a picture of the electroluminescence of a man who had been eating whole foods for 40 years. There is a dramatic difference between his highly charged field and the junk-food absence of any field. Another photographic comparison was made of the electroluminescence of the same cabbage live, and then cooked in a pressure cooker for ten minutes. The live-food cabbage had a significantly brighter and larger electroluminescent field than the cooked cabbage.

They also applied this technology to a.s.sessing storage techniques and effect of different processing methods on foods. They found that the natural radiation of the processed food varied with the cooking method. The results of food processing, in order of highest natural radiation, were: raw wok cooking steaming microwave cooking pressure cooking and prolonged boiling deep frying barbecue and grilling oven baking The results with food storage, in order of highest natural radiation, were: Fresh raw food had significantly the most energy.

Raw food stored in the refrigerator for four hours was the next highest.

Freeze-drying showed 75% of the original energy.

Freezing showed 30% of the original energy Gamma radiation leaves almost no natural radiation, and in the case of avocado, the Kirlian field was totally obliterated by the gamma radiation.

Biophysics of Living Foods.

THE NEW SCIENTIFIC MODELS developed by the brilliant minds in sub-molecular biology and quantum physics have made it possible to develop corresponding scientific models in the biophysics of nutrition. This broadened conceptual understanding helps us better comprehend the importance of living foods and the rainbow diet, and gives us an expanded knowledge of multi-energetic, nonmaterial aspects of nutrition. In the future, the bioelectric energy of food may become one of the most important considerations in the field of nutrition.

n.o.bel laureate Szent-Gyorgyi describes the essential life process as a little electrical current sent to us by sunshine. He is referring to highly charged single electrons that are involved in transferring their energy to our own sub-molecular patterns without changing our molecular structure. These wandering sunlight electrons belong to the electron clouds of the submolecular world described by quantum mechanics. These quantum physics models begin to validate our more intuitive model of vegetarian food as condensed sunlight energy which is then transferred to our human organism.

Another little piece of the biophysics of live foods is the theory of John Dougla.s.s, M.D., Ph.D., who says that live foods have a higher energy ability to awaken relatively inert molecules in our system by either taking an electron or giving them one. This high-energy, electron transfer ability is described as the "high redox potential" of a particular molecule. Vitamin C has this property of a high redox potential, as do raw foods. Dr. Dougla.s.s believes the high redox potential of raw foods, which is destroyed by cooking, is an important factor in their healing power.

There is some interesting original work by the German fatty acid and light researcher, Dr. Johanna Budwig, with what she calls the sun-electron or biotron. Dr. Budwig hypothesizes that the biotron "guides" the Krebs cycle, one of the bio-electron cycles involved in the production of cellular energy. The biotron is also thought to be directly absorbed into our brain from the sun. Some theorists think that the biotron supplies up to one-third of our energy directly into our system from the sun. Dr. Budwig believes that several tablespoons of flaxseed oil per day will enhance this biotron energy absorption. The concept of the biotron is in the initial stage of exploration, but worth contemplating.

The sunlight energy, when transferred to us indirectly through our food, is almost completely lost to us if the transfer of the vegetarian nutrients is second-hand through animal foods. The Kirlian photography studies suggest that the sunlight energy in vegetarian food is also significantly lost if the bioelectric, resonant energy patterns are disrupted by cooking or processing our foods. Another message, then, which comes through when we think of food and the human body in terms of bioelectric energy, is that foods in their live state pa.s.s on the bioelectrical energy from the sun directly and maximally to us. The plants store it for us in the process of photosynthesis. Then, as I have suggested before in a more metaphoric way, they release their stored light into us. One ramification of this is the plants transfer their bioelectrical energy into our cells in a way which increases the individual electrical potential of each cell, and therefore enhances the health and bioelectrical energy of our whole living organism. This is one of the secret stories of live foods and even the rainbow diet. Our biological lives and health are dependent on the electric radiation of the sunlight. This bioelectric radiation stored in the plants, as nature's gift to us, is lost or greatly diminished when live foods are cooked, irradiated, or even stored for more than a few days. By increasing this bioelectrical energy in our cells, we increase our health, vitality, and longevity.

Biophotons.

IN 1984, THE GERMAN RESEARCHER DR. POPP wrote a scientific paper pointing out the existence of biophotons. Biophotons are the energetic phenomenon of ultra-weak photon emission from living systems. Popp showed that DNA was an important source of photon emission. He was able to measure this emission with a device that he created called a bio-photon meter. It seems that 97% of the DNA is filled with areas called entrans which give off this photon emission, and only 3% is filled with genetic information. He found that this "ultra-weak" photon emission from living cells and organisms differed from the phenomenon of bioluminescence.

This biophoton emission has several characteristics that are generally accepted in the scientific community. One is the intensity of continual luminescence, which is a few thousand photons per square centimeter. The spectral range of the biophoton emission is from the infrared to ultraviolet. Proliferating cell cultures were found to radiate more intensely than those in which growth has ceased. Dying cells will give off an intense photon emission just before they die no matter what the cause of death. Photon emission can be influenced by almost any agent. Dead cells do not have any biophoton activity.

These characteristics have certain implications when applied to live foods. The existence of biophoton emission is an important aspect of understanding why it is crucial to have an abundance of live foods in one's diet. Biophoton emissions are given off by cell DNA, RNA, and other forms of macromolecules including enzymes, viruses, chlorophyll, and hemoglobin. Popp has stated that biophotons are vital indicators of the state of health-giving qualities of foods. The higher their biophoton emission, the more health energy they have. He also found that the biophoton energy of healthy people was much higher than the biophoton emission of people in poor health. It then becomes obvious that the more foods we eat which have macromolecules that are actively emitting biophotons, the better it is for our health. He found that wild organic foods gave off twice as much bio-photons as cultivated organic foods. He also found that organic foods gave off five times more biophoton energy than commercially grown foods. Cooked and irradiated foods gave off almost no biophoton energy. The scientific and health message here is obvious.

One of the reasons for their importance for our health is that biopho-tons are theorized to be light particles which relay cell regulatory and metabolic information both intracellularly and between cells. In my book Spiritual Nutrition and The Rainbow Diet, I theorized a specific form of communication between the cell nucleus, where the DNA is located, and the cell wall, which controls the entry of nutrients into the cell and the release of toxins. The biophotons seem to be important in regulating all metabolic processes in the body. This finding supports Dr. Bircher-Benner, who at the turn of the century called the light in our foods the most important vital factor. It fits with my work and theories about the importance of live food. Food affects us on all levels of our existence; it is not simply calories for the physical body. We are light beings. When we eat foods that are filled with light, we bring that light into our bodies. This biophoton research shows that these foods not only supply light to uplift our spirits, but they supply the necessary energy for the regulators of metabolism of our cells via the directed exchange of biophotons.