|
Observations, Trends and Predictions
Observation: In the 1950s, television commercials glamorized
cigarette smoking as extremely chic. If you didnt smoke, you werent cool. Health warnings on the dangers of cigarettes began to appear on cigarette packs for the first timein extremely small print. Nowadays, smokers are increasingly becoming social outcasts, forced to smoke in restricted areas in restaurants, public places and office buildings. Well, I predict a similar fate for those who eat meat: By the end of this decade, well see warning labels placed on all animal products, reading something to the
effect that this product contains, or will contain upon cooking,
carcinogelerated converts to holistic health. The rationale: anything
that boosts the immune system will increase survival. As a result, the consumption of enzymes, probiotics and green foods skyrocketed.
Its About Time Department: The medical powers-that-be admitted in several of their most prestigious scientific journals that iatrogenic (doctor-caused) disease was the fourth leading cause of all deaths. Wow.
Red (Meat) Alert: At the time of this writing, the U.S. is on the
verge of going to war with Iraq. My diagnosis: Its not just about Iraqi oil or deposing Saddam Hussein. The tendency to go to war is so prevalent in meat-eating societies because so many peoples neurological and circulatory systems are swimming in fear hormones as a direct result of eating the bodies of animals who were killed in a state of terror. No wonder theres
fear and suspicion in our inter-relationships, whether its between
individuals, tribes or nations. Undeclared bush wars worldwide (pun intended), terrorist violence and full-scale wars are all outer symptoms of an internal war inside us.
My prognosis: Human civilization will not know peace until we detoxify our bodies and reduce animal slaughter. The great Greek philosopher Pythagoras, George Bernard Shaw, Mahatma Gandhi and Indian guru Srila Prahupada all said the same thing in their own words: Until we give up violence-inflaming, fear-generating meat, we will continue to have wars. If we really want peace on earth, liberating people from meat addiction is necessary.
On the more positive side: Year 2002 has been a fantastic one for the growth of the live food community. There are raw food support groups sprouting up in almost all major U.S. cities. (See www.rawfamily.com, www.rawfoodchef.com, www.essene.org., or do a general internet search, plugging in words like raw foods, live foods, etc.)
Big-time raw food projects are flourishing. Raw food pioneer Karyn Calebrese, who appeared on Oprah (billed as an ageless superwoman) has just opened a massive 8,000 square foot restaurant, healing clinic and educational center in Chicago that includes a raw food restaurant, health classes and numerous state-of-the-art therapeutic modalities.
Roxannes, a gourmet raw food restaurant in Marin County, California, has a several months waiting list to get a table-for-two for dinnerunless of course, you have high enzyme connections. Roxanne, a ravishing blonde with kids and hubby in tow, is one of the most gifted raw food chefs on the planet. Her talents have been immortalized in Harpers Magazine, People, and the New York Times restaurant review. Shell soon be releasing a raw food cookbook co-authored with Charlie Trotter, rated in the Top Five of the
worlds chefs. The gossip is that Charlie contacted Roxanne to learn gourmet raw food preparation, knowing it was soon going to be very big.
Hippocrates Health Institute, the original home of wheatgrass,
sprouts and the healing center I co-created with Dr. Ann Wigmore in the 1960s, was recently voted number one teaching institute by Spa Management Group. (www.hippocratesinst.com/testimonials.html)
For three weeks this year in the Philippines, I trained the medical staff of a plush residential health retreat center on the ins and outs of enzymatic therapy and living foods. This type of open reception by medical doctors wouldnt have been possible a few years ago. (www.thefarm.com.ph)
NASA is exploring the use of edible blue-green algae as a food source for a future manned mission to Mars. Maybe I should volunteer my services as the first raw food chef in space? Im ready. Beam me up, Scotty!
More Cooked Versus Raw in the News
Over 30 years ago, I wrote on the dangers of cooking. Science is finally catching up with relevant research. Heres some of the latest:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has upped the number of recommended servings of fresh produce to nine per day.
In the physicians publication, Circulation Journal, doctors
specializing in diabetes, heart disease, cancer and juvenile diseases concur with the prestigious National Health Institutes recommendations that to prevent degenerative disease, we should be eating at least a 66% plant-based diet, ideally whole, unprocessed, organic and raw.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (www.pcrm.org), with a membership of over 4000 medical doctors, have adopted the position that not only is the vegan diet adequate but anything contrary to it compromises good health. Their next step is to acknowledge that the pinnacle of veganism are raw foods. Give them time and theyll come round!
It has been found that meat cooked at high temperatures has over 20 compounds called heterocyclic amines (or HCA) which are known to be cancer-causing. Many people feel that it is important to cook food thoroughly in order to avoid bad bacterial sickness (which is true), yet they fail to realize that cooking of any meat, poultry, or fish at high temperatures create carcinogenic dangers.
(www.gfhnrc.ars.usda.gov/News/nws9905a.htm )
Cooked starches also create their share of problems. Dr. James B. Sumner, Nobel Prize recipient and Professor of Bio-chemistry at Cornell University wrote in his book, The Secret of LifeEnzymes: "that getting old feeling after forty is due to reduced enzyme levels throughout the body. Young cells contain a hundreds of times more enzymes than old cells. Old cells are filled with metabolic waste and toxins. He claims most folks eventually lose their capacity to digest starch, which sets up any number of pathological conditions: fermentation, acid reflux and the accumulation of disease-generating, toxic waste deposits throughout the body.
Popular snack foods such as potato chips and french fries contain disturbingly high levels of acrylamide, according to new laboratory tests commissioned by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI, June 25, 2002). The tests were conducted by the same Swedish government scientists that two months ago first discovered this cancer-causing chemical in certain fried and baked starchy foods. CSPIs tests included several popular brands of snack chips, taco shells, french fries, and breakfast cerealsthe kinds of foods that were initially shown to have some of the highest acrylamide levels.
According to People magazine, one of the top three dietary choices among celebrities in Hollywood is live foods.
Dr. Mercola, M.D., a very popular, influential medical doctor,
advocates a diet of 80% raw for health. His free bi-weekly e-newsletter documents his recommendations with the latest medical research. (www.Mercola.com)
TOO HOT TO HANDLE
Over 85% of the caloric content of the cooked/processed food is rendered unavailable as a true energy source. The higher the temperature, and the longer a food is cooked, the less of nutrients remain. Foods of animal origin create foul gas and over 35 different organic acids. The lack of raw fiber and the presence of these dangerous acids dramatically slow peristaltic action. The longer food stays in the GI tract, the more likely the proteins rot, fats turn rancid and starch turns sour and overly acid. This leads to cellular malnutrition and/or toxemia.
Cooked food is like a culinary prozac, suppressing emotional and mental baggage which eventually needs to be worked through. Yes, its true, we live in an addicted society whose anti-life lifestyle practices lead to premature death and poor quality of life.
Even though all raw diet is optimal, its overnight acceptance would create havoc to our economy: the medical /drug establishment would collapse, animal husbandry and slaughterhouses would go bankrupt, and the need for
cooking stoves would disappear, unless they are converted, as did a friend of mine, to a place to store an overflow of books!
I admit, most folks are not ready for an all-raw food diet. Yet when theyre ready, the transition can be made by increasing the amount of whole foods while decreasing substances and other chemicals that have been shown to accelerate aging and promote degenerative disease. Eat at your own risk only after consulting a nutritionally oriented physician for potential antidotesenzymes, probiotics, superfoods and lots of prayer!
Prediction: Fitness guru Jack La Lane may have started it all on his black and white TV show in the 1960s, but no one envisioned the sheer magnitude of the physical fitness boom, now a multi-billion dollar a year industry. This growth will continue, and with the help of youth-building enzymes and superfoods, athletes will compete at even higher performance levels well into middle age.
Prediction: Just as the tobacco industry is under attack for concealing the lethality of their products, lawyers, in behalf of their sick clients, will soon be suing the beef, pork, poultry, dairy and fast food industries!
Not everyone is inclined to sue, however. Those already waking up to the dangers of meat-eating are forming 12-step modeled support groups (M.E.A.T. as in Meat Eaters Anonymous (in) Transition) to help each other give up their addiction to eating dead carcasses.
Trend: Year 2002 was the year mad cow disease really made people madliterally. The result? Out of fear, more folks switched to a plant-based vegan diet than any other previous year. This includes raw fooders as well, but admittedly, exact numbers are hard to come by.
In the news: The threat of both an anthrax and small pox attacks by terrorists acceonsumed, as long as support is there in the form of enzyme supplementation.
New Life Viktorian Food Preparation Guidelines
Enzymes are very heat sensitive and are deactivated within an hour even at only 118 degrees F. You can learn to prepare your foods in ways that does minimal damage to its nutritional content. Below are my top ten suggestions for improved dietary intake.
1. Soaking nuts, seeds and legumes at room temperature from 4 to 20 hours (depending on the size of the seed) rids these foods of harmful enzyme inhibitors, phytates, oxalates and other toxins. Soaking and sprouting seeds increases enzyme levels a hundred-fold as well as converts protein to amino acids, fats to free fatty acids, and starches to simple sugars.
2. If youre trying to lose weight, sprouted foods and live foods in general are your ticket!
3. Learn to ferment foods at home. Fermented seed and nut milks and home-made sauerkraut introduces friendly probiotic bacteria into your gastrointestinal tract.
4. Low temperature dehydrators can expand the variety of delightful dishes you can createenzyme-rich cookies, breads and seed/nut loaves. Youll loveem.
5. Eat living food at room temperatures minimizes nutritional losses and increases the ease of digestion.
6. Boiling and steaming foods are better than baking, frying and
microwaving, the latter harsher methods produces carcinogens and causes more post-meal leucocytosisthe abnormal rise in the number of white blood cells. Using a ceramic crock pot set at the low end (about 180 degrees F.) minimizes post-meal leucocytosis even more.
7. Dont be compulsive, neurotic or overly rigid about dietary change. Be aware that there is a better way and make a plan to gravitate towards a total lifestyle improvement at your own pace. You will eventually experience more joy, freedom and inner peace, as well as a radical increase in energy and wellness. On raw foods, youll have more time to do it all.
8. Learn to make eating fruit and greens as a quality upgrade to your comfort foods.
9. Be passionate and enthusiastic about your health. Take the DIE out of your DIEt by killing less of your food. Become more and more alive with LIVE foods. Stop aging. Start youthing.
10. Look and feel the best you can in 2003 and beyond by cleansing and rejuvenating through living foods and supplemental enzymes. Go on health vacations to raw foods oriented spas and/or yoga centers. Hey, how about spending time with me at my newly openly residential healing center in Arkansas? Or attend my residential living foods retreat (April 4-8) in the greater N.Y. metropolitan area at the N.J. Integral Yoga Center. Please call iyiyoga@aol.com; 201 796 7585 for details.
11. Bonus suggestion: Be good to yourself and love others.
Rev. Viktoras Kulvinskas, M.S. is the author of Survival Into 21st Century, Lovers Diet, Youthing with Enzyme Systems ( Y.E.S. to Life), and many other books. For bio and free E-zyme Times internet newsletter, residential retreats, live food recipes, log into www.youthing.com.
by Rev. Viktoras Kulvinskas MS
For more information, phone/email consultation and guidance in health and or super blue green foods, please contact
Viktoras 870-867-4521; youthing@alltel.net
|
