This post was written by SuperFoodie on July 4, 2009
Posted Under: Superfood Talk

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We thought it would be helpful to our readers to see the questionsand answers to many germane raw food diet and wheatgrass questions.Below is an email conversation between two wheatgrass & rawsolid enthusiasts.

Hi Charles,

My name is Gabrielle. In a conversation I had earlier now with KKshe spoke so highly about your knowledge and the health create bymental act you are working on. She suggested asking you inreference to some scientific studies proving the benefits of rawfood dieting on people. I would love to know besides about yourbusiness and how you are running.
Best,
Gabrielle

Hello Gabrielle -

Thank you for your note. KK and I have been colleagues for manyyears, I appreciate her faith in me.

I am not sure exactly what message I might have that would be ofuse to you. My work is related to to the simple but profoundrelation we have with what we individually, and collectively,choose to lay into our mouths. That realness has changed our planetand we are now at real risk. The repercussions of this areaffecting us in every concept of activity, from health, toagriculture, to environment, to social and economic justice, and soon.

We cannot forget to mention the terrible difficulties we havecreated for all fellow species, industrial plant and animal, thatinhabit this fragile droplet whirling in space. Where will it end?it appears we have a few decades at most to reorganize ourlifestyles to bring about a ’soft arrival’, or experience a hardone should we not change our ways of consumption in all areas. Onlythen will we see whether humans will be allowed to assume theirproper role as ’stewards’ of the earth, rather than despoilers.
For me, diet is a focal point, which from there spirals out to skinsenses many current issues we face from a medical structure out ofcontrol and invalid in many ways, to how we rearrange our personalcarbon footprint, to redressing the terrible suffering we inflicton other species. I also believe that fundamentally, whether we areoverweight ‘westerners’ or underweight ‘third worlders’, we are allmalnourished - and this is a primary problem to address, as so manyother issues tubing from it. Our forcible and mental abilities havebeen seriously eroded by an improper diet. This will letdown us inthe final analysis.

To those ends my work is directed in practical and utilitarian waysthat hopefully others can assess and adopt should they find themuseful and valid in addressing problems we individually andcollectively face.

Not sure what else to register on this matter, other than that nowis an important time for like minded people of all persuasions toresult together. I wish you the best of luck in moving forward withyour visions and dreams, hopefully realized in pragmatic ways forgroup who suffer.

The raw / living foods movement is one very basic and simple way wecan change a behavior, i.e., eating, that will bring about changesomewhat the same way millions of blades of grass thriving underconcrete roads can actually lift and break them!

Again, beat out of luck in your efforts. Please feel free tocontact me should you wish further discussion.

Charles

Hi Charles!

Nice to be in touch with you!
Do you advocate wheat open juice? Do you believe it is digestiblefor family! Or why do you think is necessary? Isn’t fruit andgreens enough when they are organically full-grown?
What else do you feel brings the result to the head in yourview?
I like to keep things simple if possible! I ambience verycomfortable with a natural hygienic approach.
I am looking for scientific documents proving the benefits offruits and greens on individuals upbeat! Which ones do you findmost important? Do you have access to any e-docs I could read?

Thanks for your response.
Gabrielle

Hello Gabrielle -

Thank you for your take note. since you like to ‘have got itsimple’, I suggest that all the answers to your questions arereally contained in Dr. Wigmore’s several books. specifically,though, I would answer your questions as follows:

1) I advocate wheatgrass juice or barleygrass juice strongly. It isone of the most nutritious substances available to us in thesetimes. If one cannot tolerate wheatgrass (too sweet for many) thenbarleygrass is a great alternative. Also, wheatgrass seems to be anexcellent ‘medicament’ for soft tissue and organ problems, whilebarleygrass seems to work very well for ‘arthritic’ and bone typeissues in my go through.

2) The juice is very digestible for fill up, and provides many manybenefits in juice form whether used as a drink, or implant. Theeffect implants have on helping the liver to cleanse cannot beunderestimated. It is important to grow the grass in soil if you doindoor gardening, and it is C. H. Best if you add ‘azomite’ orother mineral supplement to the soil until you get your compostingsystem going. This is because the food we eat is no break than thesoil it is grown in, and since the 1950’s we have seen aspectacular fall in the nutritional content and value of allcommercially grown foods, even organic in many cases. This is dueto fertility issues with the soil. Wheatgrass juice is the best wayto get elements, known and unknown as yet, that we need for healthyliving, especially if you use enriched composted soils that havebeen carefully nurtured. Wigmore really addressed this problem verywell in her Hippocrates Diet book.

3) I do not think just organically grown fruits and greens areenough in this day and age. A close reading of Dr. Wigmore’s systemclearly shows her inclusion of living (i.e., fermented, sprouted,blended) foods of many types, and sea vegetables, in addition tofruits and vegetables. she also strongly encourages uptake ‘wild’foods because they struggle to make their livelihoods in ways’domesticated’ plants do not. in this struggle their nutritionalassess is much improved. Read the book ‘The Secret Life of Plants’for information of interest.

5) I believe all the above are critical additions to the diet,especially as it relates to getting sufficient oils and otherenzymes in the diet. Avocados may not be quite enough, so we mayneed to look to flax seed and fats made available from nuts andseeds such as sunflower, and as enhanced by the making of ’seedstop’ or almond yoghurt, in her scheme. When we eat this way, weshift our pH to a more appropriate level, and we enhance the florasystems in our gut - really the key to our survival. As Edgar Cayceonce mentioned in one of his readings, ‘The Peyer’s Patches’ in thesmall intestines are a critical enzyme factory in the body we mustprotect’. We do this with a proper way of building a compostingsystem in our own bodies through foods judiciously selected andcombined properly, while holding a respectful attitude for thegifts we receive from this beautiful earth. I think Chief Joseph ofthe Nez Perce had profound things to say in this regard.

I believe that we absolutely MUST eliminate processed foods fromour diets, as it is having further disastrous force on us, and allfollowing generations. Read Dr. Weston Price (Price - PottengerFoundation) for the background on this. you can analyse out theirwebsite.
Authors I advise include E. Howell - Enzyme Nutrition (info aboutenzymes), M. Fukuoka - One Straw Revolution (info about healthyhorticulture/farming) and Dr. M. Gerson - The Gerson Therapy (infoabout nutritional treatment of disease from a medical doctor’sexperience). They each give real information from real world getand insight. From these masters you can find many further avenuesof study.

Best of luck in your problem solving!

Charles

Thanks Charles,

I appreciate our point of view. Could you explain your point ofview further and why organic produce isn´t enough!?

What do you think about fasting on water! do you have any directexperience with it?
What type of experiment do you use for the client? Also, is thereany regulating body for juice therapies or can anyone just curepeople with juices in the US?

Thanks again.

Gabrielle

Hello Gabrielle -

In receipt of your write down to me I would match your questions inthe following manner, founded on my reading and experience:

1) You asked me to explain my point of view further. Pretty openended question, but I will add this to try to put my previous briefcomments in perspective. We in the west have lost control over ourfood ply. The way the food chain is now organized is very very veryvery precarious, to register the least. Read ‘The Omnivore’sDilemma’ or ‘Fast Food Nation’ for extremely useful information.This industrial (and even the ‘new organic’) model is providing uslow quality nutrition at tremendous environmental and spiritualcost worldwide, though at the register it seems ‘cheap’. It isunsustainable.

I believe that we can turn it around by every individual growingfood in gardens, on decks, in pots indoors, on roof tops, or incommunity gardens, or, if so lucky, a small mixed producesomewhere. Remember, during WWII in the US 2/3 of our fruits andvegetables came from so called ‘victory gardens’. We all need toshuffle the connection between the solid we eat, and where it comesfrom. Currently, if you are in the US, you will not like thepleading to that question. At the least, support your localfarmer’s markets when you can.

2)You ask why I think ‘organic produce’ isnt enough. Well, this isa pretty broad category as well, so I will take the liberty toenjoin that I think ‘organic produce’ trucked in from the SanFernando valley or Mexico is not a good trade off, if you livesomewhere other than California or Mexico where the matteroriginates. But you are asking, I think, about food economic value.If you do not know the source of the solid food you eat, you aresimply gambling. If you are eating ‘organic produce’ that is grownfrom hybrid seed, on earth worked with machinery, you are probablynot getting full value food. Food then shipped in is picked green,handled, and ‘refreshed’ at the grocery store or grocery over theperiod of several weeks. That food is constantly deteriorating innutritional treasure, from a deficit to begin with. That is why Iso strongly recommend that people include freshly made wheatgrassor barley grass juice grown from locally grown organic seed ofknown variety in their own home under their own control. At leastin this way you will be getting a complete food for thought in itsfreshest and most nutritious form.

3) Fasting on water - I have fasted for as much as 7 days onliquid, and 23 days on water, rejuvelac, and barley grass juice. Iam not a fan of water fasts. I found them very tough on my system,and I open that the someone results for me were short 3 day juicefasts, as recommended by Dr. Wigmore among many. Ideally, for me,juice fasting one day per week, four 3 day fasts in a year, and oneweek in a year is the trump hygienic regime. Calculate it out: inthis way you ‘fast’ about 70 years in a year, or over 2 months! Ireckon this method is consider shaking a blow in which there issediment. You shake the sediment into set, and in our case the bodyhopefully will eliminate it as it rejuvenates, cleanses, andstrengthens itself. For me this is a very very beneficial routinethat allows me to continue working at my usual tasks in life, whilecarrying on internal work as well.

4) Testing for clients - well, I suggest some very basic ones overtime. I weigh people ONLY ONCE per week. I natural covering someflexibility / bending, torso mass index, and pH of saliva andurine. I also protector blood pressure. Thats about it, but I wouldrecommend stool samples if there is a laboratory that can really dogood investigating for parasites. I also have a ’subjectivefeelings’ set of questions I ask.

5) Juice therapy in the US - this is and has been a verycontentious issue. Morris Fishbein, one of the early founders and’bigshots’ in the American Medical Association, actively attackedtherapies outside the allopathic model. The book ‘The GersonTherapy’ is very good, along with books about Hoxey, Naessens, andCaisse. There are a few medical doctors that have really stucktheir necks out lately, such as Dr. Lorraine Day. You might want toreview her website in particular, as she ultimately recommends adiet that is quite similar to Wigmore’s. Still, what Fishbeinpushed so long ago is still deeply ingrained in the establishedmedical model of the US present. To this day, in the US, this is anarea of real disagreement, and legal pitfall. One can have juicetherapies, but how one promotes, explains, or employs them isfairly less than straightforward. I believe in Europe it is mucheasier to go an alternative route, and even have it covered byinsurance.

I hope the above helps answer some of the questions you posed tome.

Best wishes

Charles