PLEASE NOTE: Since the publication of our fall, 2008, Live Food Factor 2nd Edition, I have further re-edited & re-written my following Foundational Bedrock Teachings previously dropped into The Live Food Factor. Here is the best overview introduction to Natural Hygiene ever presented to Health Seekers. The changes in the following long & short excerpts are both perfectionistic & significant in both format and content. ENJOY!

AND SO -- Let us saddle up our horses! Our trail has been blazed by The 1800s Pioneers in Natural Hygiene! It is time to switch horses in the middle of your life-stream! You have joined up on what will be one of the greatest adventures of your lives! Friends of GetWell StayWell, America! and HighJoy and I are happy to take it with you all!

A paradigm shift is a dramatic change in one's belief system, a fundamental change in underlying assumptions. If a scientist works from the wrong theories or from misconceptions based on wrong assumptions, he or she will ask the wrong questions and design and conduct irrelevant experiments with erroneous if not dangerous conclusions. Dr. Lorraine Day applies so working, and wrongly so, to the present-day medical paradigm: "Modern medicine isn't getting great results in treating disease because its scientists are looking in the wrong direction, wasting time and money on incorrect theories."

Victoria BidWell continues: "This is a book about breaking free of addictions and creating the healthiest life for body, mind, spirit, and planet. It is a book about breaking addictions: specifically, addictions to cooked food and to taking drugs; and generally, addictions to self - sabotaging beliefs and to an energy-robbing lifestyle. Although most of us know an addiction in action when we see it, let us appreciate my clear definition of the term: An addiction is a process over which we are powerless and that leads to self-sabotage and ultimately, when allowed to run its course, to self-destruction. Addiction works at the subconscious level. It takes the path of least resistance. It defies conscious attempts to change. It takes control. It causes the addict to think and do things that are dangerously against his or her own best interests. It works against highest, personal values. It leads to becoming progressively more obsessive with thoughts and feelings that lead relentlessly to compulsive and destructive actions. It is characterized by fear and danger to self and others. Its sure sign is denial-in-action when confronted with a better way."

Susan continues: Beliefs are the hardest addictions to break. Most of us are so addicted to our convictions that we don't want anything to disrupt the cozy, little belief-worlds in which we feel safe. For some, beliefs take on religious overtones. Most of us are deeply attached to our ways of thinking since they define our lifestyles. Even when presented with strong evidence indicating that a painful or fear-inducing belief is untrue, that the truth is infinitely better, and that the universe is far more benevolent than suspected, even then, ignorance and insecurity can lead many of us to shrug off the evidence and meld back into the comfort zone of negative, although familiar and therefore comfortable belief systems.

For some of us to confess, even to our own selves, that we may need belief or paradigm adjustments, that we have been wrong and even blinded to the truth, it takes not only humility, but also courage. And it takes a willingness to shift into sometimes initially frightening, although ultimately freeing modes of seeing reality. Beliefs are so ingrained within some of us that we are willing to die or to enlist others to die for these cherished ideas about what is right and wrong, true and false. When such beliefs are grounded in altruism and heroism and for the greater good, and require that one sacrifice his or her life for The People, then dying for others would be commendable. But some people are too trusting. And rather than question the system, they blindly choose to follow dangerous dictates from the status quo, while holding onto beliefs grounded in lies that lead to the needless harm and even death to themselves and to their loved ones. For examples, some are willing to risk their lives in an unjust war rather than question the judgment of their political leaders, although it may turn out that the war was more for political imperialism and corporate privatizing than for defending the freedom of the People. Suicide bombers give their lives for their causes, blindly believing they are fulfilling their jihad-destinies. And some people subject themselves to chemotherapy, trusting in the system without researching the data, though the value and safety of the treatment is now highly questionable.

A paradigm shift often occurs when a person begins, slowly perhaps over a period of time, to view something from a radically different viewpoint. It is a shift, not in a mere theory, but in an entire perspective, an entire belief system. Sometimes, the shift is made instantaneously and can be mindblowing! Once a person makes a paradigm shift, he or she often becomes amazed or aghast or even amused or angry at how she or he could have deeply invested in a former, erroneous belief system!

Two examples of this situation are nearly always referenced when paradigm shifting is encouraged. One is the formerly popular belief that the world was flat until Christopher Columbus proved otherwise by sailing to the New World without falling off the edge in 1492. The other is Galileo - Galilei's 1610 adoption of Nicolaus Copernicus' 1530 theory, radical for their times, that the Earth orbited the Sun and was not a stationary center around which the whole universe rotated. Copernicus was branded a "heretic" by the Catholic Church, arrested, and publicly humiliated. It took until 1992 for the Vatican to reverse its earlier position that the Earth was the center of the universe! This belief has been so impossible to give up that some today have formed The Geocentric Bible Foundation. They are dedicated to perpetuating the myth that the Sun revolves around the Earth!

Victoria BidWell points out the all-pervasiveness & all-importance of paradigm shifting from The Medical Mentality to Natural Hygiene in our times:

Human history is full of paradigm shifts that have dramatically changed our value systems, preferred lifestyles, and prioritized goals: from spears to guns and atom bombs as weapons, from horses to cars and planes and rockets for transportation, from women who couldn'’t own property or vote and who were mandated by law to obey their husbands to women legislated to receive equal civil and political rights, from certain races/classes of people who were treated like second-class citizens or made slaves to their receiving legislated equalities. We have yet to make the paradigm shift that will save the Earth from exploitation at the hands of those run by uncontrolled greed and selfishness. One of the biggest paradigm shifts in all history occurred in the 20th century when Albert Einstein presented his theory of relativity, proving to the world. ITS ALL ABOUT ENERGY! He postulated that we live in a nonmaterial universe in which all matter at the most minute level is not matter at all but energy, made of differing atomic combinations vibrating at differing speeds! Out of his early 20th century discoveries and the work of other scientists after Einstein came the quantum physics paradigm shift that brought us televisions, nuclear bombs, spaceships, computers, cell phones, and CAT scans. Also from Einstein's work came the pop psychology movement backed up by the psychoneuroimmunologists (or molecular biologists) who taught people how to deliberately change their thoughts and feelings (non-material, non-measurable, metaphysical constructs) to bring about improvement in their physical health (material, measurable, scientific events). Now we are in the midst of another radical shift: from The Medical Mentality to Natural Hygiene health care, from the doctor as healer to the human body as healer, from lifestyle practices as unimportant to lifestyle choices as all-important, from surgeries and synthetic drugs as the best healing agents to The 10 Energy Enhancers as the very best healing strategies, from diet as irrelevant in health considerations to the live food factor as essential for Superlative Health.

Susan continues with Victoria:

Yet, some people arrogantly cling to erroneous theories. Imagine having dedicated the focus of your entire life to a theory and then having to watch some radical upstart come along and pull the rug out from under it! The close-minded always react with a staunch, egoistic desire to protect their theories, especially when a lot of money has been invested in them. Such is the case with today's global trillion dollar-a-year medical system. Dr. Gabriel Cousens explains: "Paradigm-shifting breakthroughs often hit cul-de-sac dead-ends in societal acceptance due to the vagaries of vested economic interest, political intrigue and pride of the ego." (Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine, p. xv). Eventually, though, the truth emerges. Those who are heavily invested in the previous paradigm will die. Younger scientists unattached to old theories then become free to test new hypotheses without scorn from older colleagues. Hence, the proverb has endured down through the ages: "Science changes, one funeral at a time."

Eating raw food is not difficult. But giving up cooked food is. We have already seen the many cumulative benefits to the individual on all levels when a raw food diet is followed. Chapter 1 gave us 10 reasons to go raw, but only one of those reasons is powerful enough to prompt change. The most highly motivating reason that inspires most people to sacrifice their French fries, convenience foods, or even indulgence choices at social gatherings is... HEALTH. We have already seen the many benefits conferred by the body to the entire living organism on all levels when one of the conditions for health is provided: a raw food diet.

Let us ask some telling questions. How many will give up that mouth-watering dish of twice-baked potatoes just so their complexions will glow? How many will quit making lasagna just to save the effort and time of scrubbing the melted cheese off the pan? How many will sacrifice sampling all the goodies at a potluck just to feel more spiritual? Who will give up the convenience of packaged, processed foods just to spare the landfill of paper and plastic wrappings? On the other hand, if a person were faced with a life-threatening illness, he might take a closer look at the wholesome, raw diet Nature has provided from the raw materials of air, soil, water, and sunlight. If a person were losing her mental capacities, she might give raw foods her serious consideration. If depressed, a person might decide to learn about the raw food promises. If extra energy were desired to commune with God at a higher spiritual level, a person might be attracted to eating light and right, raw foods. So, let us face it. Health is one of the most important things in this life: mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical health. People want to feel good, as the title of this book suggests in body, in mind, and in spirit.

If you are interested in improving any of these areas of your well-being and they are all intertwined, each affecting the other you will definitely want to educate yourself in healthful living practices. Victoria BidWell emphasizes: "We urge you to co-operate with The Natural, Physiological Laws of Life and understand why they work. The only other choice is to go against these natural laws and sabotage yourself in the process." The 1970s' T.V. ad was right:" It's not nice to fool Mother Nature! Not only is it not nice, it is not good, it is not wise, and it is not even possible! Fatigue and disease-in-progress penalties must always be paid when we break natural health laws, as they are immutable: they change for neither man nor woman, for neither child nor beast!

Virtually all raw fooders and other holistic health proponents have rejected the conventional, medical model of disease origin and its so-called "cures" via drugs, various treatments, and surgery. Yet most members of conventional society still do see disease through the teachings of their medical doctors. To go forward in The Superlative, Alternative Health Care System of Natural Hygiene education, we must first get deprogrammed from the false ideas into which we have been indoctrinated. Let us start with examining The Medical Mentality. This establishment, status quo model teaches that the cause of disease is 1 of 4 possibilities or combinations thereof: disease is due either to a mystery, an inevitability as time marches on, a genetic flaw, or the result of unfortunate encounters with malevolent microorganisms or to a combination of these 4.

2 MODELS OF DISEASE ORIGIN & HOW TO GET WELL From Victoria BidWell & Edited by Dr. Vetrano & with Susan

I am grateful to Victoria BidWell The List Lady for her clear-cut contributions and lists that appear in our Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7.

I also thank Dr. Vetrano for taking the time from her busy schedule to edit (3 times!) what was Chapter 4 and what has now become Chapters 4 - 7. I came straight from the raw food studies. And my Natural Hygiene background was limited, as I had studied only 100 pages of Dr. Shelton before writing my 1st Live Food Factor Edition. So Victoria spent many hours on the phone with me giving me a crash course in Natural Hygiene from her 2 BOOKS IN 1: The Health Seekers' YearBook with The Best of Common Health Sense. In the following, I collaborated with Victoria but gave her free rein up to where she turns the trail-blazing back to me. She brought her Natural Hygiene teachings to my 1st Edition ideas on disease origin, organized our ideas, elaborated upon them with new materials, introduced specific terms and definitions, and got the wording precise and correct throughout our chapters. In our collaboration, I conducted and collected virtually all of the research Victoria quotes. Because of her major role in the following, foundational teachings, therefore, when first person pronouns are used, that is my new friend in Natural Hygiene teaching. Victoria urges our readers to study and take to heart the Natural Hygiene Appendices E. and F. that she prepared before reading on, so that you may more fully appreciate and profoundly grasp these life-saving teachings that follow.

THE MEDICAL MENTALITY AT ITS VERY WORST!

1. THE MEDICAL MENTALITY holds that a person can appear "perfectly healthy" one day and then be mysteriously, inexplicably stricken with a dreaded disease overnight! The words "baffling" and "mysterious" are favored when explaining why the patient is ill and cause is unknown.
2. THE MEDICAL MENTALITY supports a belief in "The Germ Theory" as originally proposed by Louis Pasteur: disease is caused by microorganisms or viruses foreign to the body, which they invade and use as a host; and the cure of germ-inspired disease is a laboratory-inspired antidote.
3. THE MEDICAL MENTALITY holds that there are 10,000+ known and categorized and named diseases, each disease with its own cause or causes, known or unknown. Years of scientists' time and billions of Americans' dollars are spent annually, searching for the external, mysterious causes of various diseases and their antidotes.
4. THE MEDICAL MENTALITY looks at the "disease process" as warfare, as an enemy which "invades or attacks the body" and, therefore, as something which can - and must - be stopped: the symptoms must be palliated or suppressed; the body must, in some way, be "treated" with some sort of doctor-prescribed drug, treatment or therapy, or surgery to make the patient get well.
5. THE MEDICAL MENTALITY teaches you that illness is to be expected as the years advance since germs are everywhere and since disease is an expected, wear-and-tear part of the aging process. Doctors hopelessly and coldheartedly state: "You will just have to learn to live with it!" ("it" meaning "the pain and degeneration")... if standard medical treatment cannot get you well.
6. THE MEDICAL MENTALITY is not interested in promoting dietary nutrition as an integral part of getting well or staying well, although it may make minor concessions such as recommending a reduction in dietary salt or the adoption of a weight-loss program. The prevailing, pessimistic attitude, however, is that even if there were something to this "dietary nutrition," people would not change their eating habits, anyway. At its worst, The Medical Mentality does not have faith in the human being to change: A sense of hopelessness prevails.
7. THE MEDICAL MENTALITY looks at the practice of fasting to be synonymous with starvation; and fasting is, therefore, viewed as a form of dangerous extremism
8. THE MEDICAL MENTALITY refuses to acknowledge the evidence that any of the many alternative health care systems have any validity, whatsoever. It does this in the face of vast amounts of ever-increasing evidence and carefully kept records. Any improvement on the part of individuals under alternative health care systems is attributed to chance or to "spontaneous remission" or to other causes; or the improvement is branded as "dangerous in the long run," regardless of how much the person has improved.
9. THE MEDICAL MENTALITY encourages both a belief in and a dependence upon the medical/pharmaceutical complex as the final authority on all health questions and as the only real source of knowledge and power that leads to individual health. Conformity to Establishment Thinking and The Medical Mentality are systematically and relentlessly conditioned and brainwashed into the minds of The People, from birth unto death, through both subtle cues and by means of open intimidation by those in power. These tactics have all the trappings of a cult.
10. Under THE MEDICAL MENTALITY MENTALITY, you subject yourself and your loved ones to continued medical treatment, disregarding the all-too-often reality: you only get worse as the medical treatment continues. Furthermore, because you have been successfully indoctrinated by the medical-cult mentality, you have no hope and no desire to search for a workable, alternative health care system, no impetus to learn how to take personal responsibility for your own health.

NATURAL HYGIENE AT ITS VERY BEST!

1. NATURAL HYGIENE holds that health is the normal state of all living organisms and that health is maintained through natural, self-initiating, self-healing processes!
2. NATURAL HYGIENE holds that the one cause of all disease is the toxic saturation at the cellular level of the bodily tissues, blood stream, and fluids brought on by the depletion of Nerve Energy - This one cause of all disease is alternately termed "toxemia" or "auto-intoxication" or "toxicosis."
3. NATURAL HYGIENE views disease as orderly, backward degenerations at the cellular level and fluid levels as a result of Toxemia. In order to prevent these retrograde changes and to forestall degenerative changes in the actual structure and consequent function of cells, tissues, organs, and systems for as long as possible, the body isolates and/or eliminates abnormal accumulations of metabolic waste and ingested poisons. Such bodily-conducted actions of elimination (also called "excretion") may be called "disease" (acute); but they actually serve to prevent further, degenerative, long-term, and irreversible changes (chronic).
4. Because Toxemia is "The One Cause of All Disease," NATURAL HYGIENE refutes the concept that microorganisms - also called "germs" or "viruses" - are the sole, causative factors of disease.
5. Because only the body is capable of instituting eliminating, cleansing, healing, renewing processes, NATURAL HYGIENE rejects the ingestion of any substances which the body cannot metabolize and assimilate and which cannot be used in the normal, metabolic processes for appropriation into bodily tissues and fluids. Such unnatural substances can only further poison and then further enervate the body and are not to be considered as "food" or "nutrition," in any way. Both medication and "quasi-food" substances typical of the refined, chemicalized, processed Standard American Diet (SAD) are included in this poisoning category and are not only health-threatening, but also life-threatening.
6. NATURAL HYGIENE recommends the following as "The Ideal Diet" and, therefore, as the only foods fit for the highest level of human health and well-being: whole, raw and dried fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, and sprouts prepared in proper combination and eaten in moderation and when one is in a state of Emotional Balance. Non-toxic supplements are recommended to offset our depleted soils situation. Dr. Vetrano and Drs. Tosca and Greg Haag and I recommend only USANA.
7. NATURAL HYGIENE advocates fasting on water-only for some Health Seekers. Fasting provides physical, physiological, sensory, mental, and emotional rest. This deep and almost total rest provides the body with the ideal conditions that are necessary for the regeneration of Nerve Energy and that are mandatory for the elimination of toxins, cellular repairs, and fullest restoration of health possible.
8. NATURAL HYGIENE maintains that health is the personal responsibility of each individual and that God-given health, happiness, and Hygiene Joy are achieved only by the most conscientious and daily application of The 10 Energy Enhancers!

Victoria BidWell ..."The Wilderness Woman" Takes The Lead with Her Correct Natural Hygiene Teachings & Many Lists...

"DEER, DEER" HEALTH SEEKERS & LIVE FOOD ENTHUSIASTS!

First, a crucial abstract noun: "physiology" is a general term in the sciences that basically names "all the processes that take place in the living body, in sickness and in health." The adjective "physiological" means "bodily" or "referring to the body." Next, please stop to enjoy Appendices E. and F. They will greatly enrich your grasp of what is to come here. By the end of our Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7, you will know more about how to get well and stay well than all medical doctors deeply entrenched in The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst.

Throughout my now 25 years of helping Health Seekers, I have always begun lessons with a new student/client by using the simple, binary approach, to separate the wheat from the chaff, by asking, "What are the only 2 ways to try to get well?"

Everyone knows the answer and gives some variation of this: "Do what the medical doctors tell you or do something else." After all, Health Seekers do not make it to me without going the medical route and finding only dead-ends, usually both costly and energy-draining, not to mention time-wasting.

They are all right. All the ways to try to get well other than the one conventional, status quo, medical route can be lumped under the term "do-something-else-health-care," also popularly called "holistic health care" and "alternative health care." All alternativists reject the medical model and propose alternative treatments, cures, pills, potions, and/or therapies. It should be noted, however: as long as the alternativist health care professional is telling the patient to do something or take something into his body that is toxic or unnatural in order to get well and stay well, the alternativist mindset is just a holdover of The Medical Mentality. (This does not, however, apply to user-friendly supplementation designed to compensate for depleted soils, our extremely stressful lives, and our toxic environments as supplied by USANA neutriceuticals.)

The alternative model lumps together all teachings of all alternativists. From A to Z: from aromatherapy to The Zone Diet; from massage, foot reflexology, and crystals to chiropractic, naturopathic, and hair analysis; from valid and physiologically correct to quackery and on the wrong track entirely alternativism umbrellas them all. The very best, overriding, alternativist health care system, however, is the scientific truth, is based on The Natural, Physiological Laws of Life, and gets the best results for sick and suffering Health Seekers. It is called "Natural Hygiene."

Under The Medical Mentality are 4 overriding schools of thought. Under the alternatives, if different diets to get well are included, are literally hundreds of schools of thought: from acupuncture to Zen. We do not intend to cover all these alternatives in our Live Food Factor book. Some are just modified versions of The Medical Mentality and on the wrong track entirely. Some seem harmless but do little good, either. When these "harmless dead-ends" and the sometimes phenomenal wastes in time and energy, not to mention money, are calculated into health-seeking, however, harm indeed has been done, since this Health Seeker ends up getting worse while taking the precious time traveling into each no-where-land. Sometimes, there is no coming back from these no-where-lands. There is no such waste when on the right track. Every alternative program that is firmly based in correct human physiology and health sciences and that shows how the body is self-healing if the causes of disease are removed and the conditions for health are provided is on the right track. But only one is the best of all the hundreds. In this Chapter 4, we lay out 2 paradigms: the medical model and the alternative model known as "Natural Hygiene" which is best summarized as "Health by Healthful Living!"

THE CONVENTIONAL PARADIGM:
THE MEDICAL MODEL OF DISEASE
ITS 4 TRADITIONAL SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT

The Medical Mentality is represented by 4 primary, traditional schools of thought: (1) The Mystery School, (2) The Wear-and-Tear School, (3) The Genetic/Congenital School, (4) The Germ Theory School.

SCHOOL #1 OF THE MEDICAL MENTALITY: THE MYSTERY SCHOOL

The Mystery School of disease origin is based on the assumption that the body is fundamentally flawed, that it will break down and contract or be stricken with disease, and that nobody really knows exactly why or what to do about it. In the case of "disease as a mystery," how doctors handle such cases is shrouded with occult factors. We are told that the causes of some diseases and their cures are simply "baffling," "mysterious," or "unknown." These explanations are backed up by admonition and intimidation to "follow doctors orders" and to never go outside the establishment for cures. The Mystery School is turned to when the other 3 schools fail utterly and probably accounts for about 10%, more or less, of conventional doctor and hospital case files in recent times.

SCHOOL #2 OF THE MEDICAL MENTALITY:
THE WEAR-AND-TEAR SCHOOL

The second school of thought under the medical model is based on the assumptions that the body is fundamentally flawed in design, that it will break down as time marches on by virtue of "wear-and-tear," and that disease is inescapable and disrepair inevitable. Dentistry and ophthalmology (eye doctoring) and orthopedic, replacement, and reconstructive surgeries are representative of this school. Some in The Wear-and-Tear School do acknowledge that the lifestyle choices primarily of wrong-nutrition, under-exercise, and over-stress have been known to accelerate breakdown. But most doctors and patients have little faith in the human ability to change these lifestyle habits and even less in the human psyché to be inspired to change. Wear-and-tear doctors, therefore, handle diseases with a "We can fix it!" approach. The medical doctors turn to administering drugs, performing surgeries to replace worn out parts or get rid of them completely, replacing blood, and generally doing what is necessary to get a few more weeks, months, or years in for their patients until inevitable and final breakdown occurs. In addition to many other diseases, such as arthritis, obesity, and chronic fatigue, 3 of the top 4 Killer Diseases in America today are all wear-and-tear situations: cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cirrhosis of the liver. Wear-and-tear patients, therefore, probably account for 70%, or much more, of conventional doctor and hospital case files in recent times.

SCHOOL #3 OF THE MEDICAL MENTALITY:
THE GENETIC/CONGENITAL SCHOOL

The third school of thought under the medical model explains the ongoing disease processes in the body as flawed-genetics, as a diseased destiny stored within one's DNA; and no cure is offered in most all cases. While it is true that some diseases are genetically determined and thus not preventable, such conditions are extremely rare compared to the numbers of sick people seeking medical intervention for wear-and-tear and germ-related disease situations. Flawed genetics or flawed-at-birth patients account for 2% - 5%, or even less, of conventional doctor and hospital case files in recent times. Dr. Lipton states: "Some diseases, like Huntington's chorea, beta thalassemia and cystic fibrosis, can be blamed entirely on one faulty gene. But single-gene disorders affect less than two percent of the population" (The Biology of Belief, p. 51). Dr. Lipton even cites a study in which the improved diet of mice prevented their genetic diseases from being passed on (p. 71).

In the most comprehensive study on nutrition ever conducted, genes were found to be virtually irrelevant compared to diet (The China Study, T. Colin Campbell, p. 71). Gabriel Cousens, M.D., corroborates Campbell when he points out that genes themselves don't cause disease, but rather, that an unhealthy lifestyle and poor diet can change gene expression in such a way as to develop disease. What we eat and the toxins to which we expose ourselves affect our genes. Dr. Vetrano re-emphasizes the conclusions of both men: "Good nutrition is very often master of heredity. And many Health Seekers who have had so-called 'genetic diseases' have recovered, employing fasting followed by an uncooked diet of fresh fruits, vegetables, and nuts and seeds. Supply the body with the correct diet and with all the requisites of life, and it is possible that even genetic errors, damaged genes, and mishaps at birth (congenital defects) may be corrected fully or to some extent." In addition, gerontologists now agree that 75% of a person's health after the age of 40 depends not on genetics, but on what that person has done to keep his genes healthy. About 80% of our health status is determined by diet, lifestyle choices, and other environmental factors. (See my Appendix F.) This is why identical twins can grow up with very different results. One can stay very youthful and healthy well into old age by practicing healthy habits, while the other, who breaks every law in the healthful-living book, inevitably experiences disease and debility early in life, by comparison. Even the Human Genome Project researchers align with this 80% determination, stating that genes are only a part of the story. The book Genetic Nutritioneering: How You Can Modify Inherited Traits and Live a Longer, Healthier Life by Jeffrey S. Bland, Ph.D., shows that scientists now have a huge amount of evidence that many diseases previously attributed to "bad genes" are now known to be caused by a bad diet that "feeds the genes," affecting them for the worse.

SCHOOL #4 OF THE MEDICAL MENTALITY: THE GERM THEORY

The fourth school of thought under the medical model of disease is The Germ Theory School: it holds that disease-producing microorganisms, either present in the body or by introduction, are the sole, causative factor in disease. The cure is to get rid of the germs, almost exclusively, with drugs, usually via injections. This school of thought probably accounts for 30% - 40% of conventional doctor and hospital case files in these recent, pandemic-phobic times. The Germ Theory is so pervasive in the collective American consciousness, and its basic tenets still operating so powerfully today, that a separate section is devoted to this theory later in another chapter.

THE BEST MODEL OF DISEASE ORIGIN: TOXEMIA THEORY
"HEALTH BY HEALTHFUL LIVING!" VIA NATURAL HYGIENE

Einstein laid the foundation for virtually all of the natural health care models when he showed the world that everything, including the human body, at its most fundamental level, is vibrating energy that follows natural laws. If we cooperate with the natural laws of our being, we will have health. The many alternative, holistic models of disease origin and health care that are on the right track are thus all energy-oriented. The alternative health care movement shook the world in 1986 when Fit for Life, the all-time best seller in diet and nutrition in history, made "Natural Hygiene" a common household term in millions of homes worldwide. Health via raw foods is the alternative movement now gaining the most momentum. As far as I am concerned, The Live Food Factor is so far superior in scope, content, research, organization, and especially correct recipes to Fit for Life that our book should now be heralded as "The New, All-time Best Seller in Diet & Nutrition in History!" Only time will tell if those of us sharing and promoting our Live Food Factor will make that happen. First, we must capture the global imagination of Health Seekers and spark them with inspiration that produces motivation to do right! In our new millennium, the people are becoming so well informed that they are rejecting the medical route and choosing the Natural Hygiene road to recovery. With our system, we learn this sequence of events: we get sick because we become toxic, and we become toxic because our bodies run low in Nerve Energy. I simply teach:

"DISEASE IS AN ENERGY CRISIS IN A TOXIC BODY!"

Virtually every new Health Seeker gets this and wants to know more about Natural Hygiene!

Since 1832, Natural Hygiene has been waved under the banner of "Health by Healthful Living!" For 25 years now, I have taught Natural Hygiene under banner of "The Superlative, Alternative Health Care System!" Its popularity is growing because it is systematically grounded in human physiology and the health sciences. It gets the best results for sick and suffering Health Seekers. For most sick people, it is the only route that gets good results at all. When Dr. Vetrano, Susan, and I speak of "The 10 Energy Enhancers" or "health care based on The Natural, Physiological Laws of life" or "Health by Healthful Living!" from this point on, therefore, we are speaking of all alternative health care systems based on principles that are on the right track and that align with those of the best systematic body of natural healing knowledge and health care known as "Natural Hygiene." To the degree the alternatives do so, to that degree will they be successful in helping Health Seekers get well and stay well.

CRUCIAL TERMS FOR HEALTH SEEKERS IN NATURAL HYGIENE

THE MAINSTREAM & SYNONYMOUS TERMS: "DISEASE" & "PATHOLOGY"

The second model of disease origin is The Toxemia Theory as Natural Hygiene teaches, specifically, as laid out by Dr. J.H. Tilden in his landmark Toxemia Explained book where he gives us The 7 Stages of Disease paradigm. Foundational to The Toxemia Theory is the Natural Hygiene definition of "disease" as "the natural, normal result of toxic accumulations within the fluids and tissues of the human body as a result of Nerve Energy supplies too low to keep itself clean." Again, simply put:

"DISEASE IS AN ENERGY CRISIS IN A TOXIC BODY!"

We use 2 common mainstream words over and over again and synonymously: in Webster's Dictionary, "disease" means "sickness," while "pathology" means "the study of disease." The adjective "pathological" means "diseased." But specifically, in Natural Hygiene, the abstract noun "disease" refers to toxin accumulation in the body ultimately leading to a downward spiral of pathological symptoms, usually with much pain, and an unnatural, untimely death. The only cure of disease in the "Health by Healthful Living!" model is a natural cure. It is based on providing the energy-enhancing conditions for health and removing the energy-draining leaks of disease. Only then can the body get its Nerve Energy supplies up and go through its own self-initiated, self-cleansing, and self-repairing processes. Only then can the body raise its molecular vibration and cellular integrity higher into health. In some cases of pathology, some Health Seekers may choose to undertake, for a relatively short period of days or weeks, a properly supervised or assisted fast on water-only or a fresh, raw juice diet. (For a crash course on The Natural Hygiene Fast and/or detoxing while on raw foods, refer to Chapters 14 and 15, the bulk of the most crucial teachings in both of which I wrote and Dr. Vetrano edited.) Specific terminology and definitions are used by Natural Hygiene health educators and must be grasped by Natural Hygiene Health Seekers if they are to move upward into health. These are neither Webster's Dictionary nor medical school textbook terms and definitions. Being totally natural when compared to conventional medical thinking, the "Health by Healthful Living!" paradigm is indeed through the looking glass and appears so many times backwards and upside down, or at least, very odd. And rightly so: the 2 models are opposite in many ways! A new vocabulary is therefore needed for these new concepts. To understand Natural Hygiene and profit from its health care system, Dear Health Seekers, please become familiar with the following terms and their specific definitions. What follows, therefore, is a deprogramming from the conventional medical paradigm to the unconventional Natural Hygiene alternative. Get ready to get turned upside down and maybe even inside out!

THE NATURAL HYGIENE TERM: "ENERVATION"

Foundational to the Toxemia Theory, also termed "The Health by Healthful Living! Paradigm" is the term "Enervation." Think of this as "exhaustion so deep that the body is in deep trouble!" Defined as follows, Enervation is the first of The 7 Stages of Disease: "the result of the body being so low in Nerve Energy (tired) that poisons created within the body and poisons taken into the body accumulate in the fluids and cells, and finally, in the tissues and organs and systems."

THE NATURAL HYGIENE TERM: "NERVE ENERGY"

"NERVE ENERGY," in Natural Hygiene, refers to the low-grade electricity generated by the brain that supplies current to the body and regenerates and repairs all tissues: bone, blood, skin, muscles, nerves, and glands. The Health Seeker best appreciates the human body as a wondrous, electro-chemical power system! It is Nerve Energy that "runs the whole show," such that all bodily functions and especially nutrition through diet, air, water, and sunlight, and the elimination of toxins from endogenous and exogenous sources are performed well within their normal, health promoting parameters. When a person lives in a state of high Nerve Energy, well nourished on The Ideal Diet, the body has the vital force it needs to keep itself well nourished and well cleansed, free of disease, and full of vitality for the reasonable demands made upon it from a lifestyle of moderation in all things good and avoidance of all things toxic! The very most joyful Superlative Health results only when Nerve Energy is high and bodily toxicity is at healthful, homeostatic levels!

"NERVE ENERGY" IS NOT "PLAIN, OLD "ENERGY!"

"PLAIN, OLD NERVE ENERGY" refers to...
anything... the body consumes in the form of food & drink,
anything... the body uses in the form of muscular output,
anything... the body generates in the form of heat,
anything... the body burns in the form of calories,
anything... the body employs to secrete fluids,
anything... the body and mind experience in the form of stimulation,
anything... the body ingests to get "hyped up" or excited,
anything... the body expends in the form of mental and emotional activity,
anything... the body, mind, and spirit exude in the form of charisma,
anything... the body stores in the form of potential activity.

Anything the mind and body consumes from the outside, anything the mind and body generate in the form of creative thoughts or mental constructs or emotional output, anything the mind and body exert in the form of muscular output is not "Nerve Energy." We may experience these activities, these "anything events" as stimulating and even feel fully energized when experiencing them. But what we are engaging in with these "anythings" is the expenditure of Nerve Energy and not the generation of Nerve Energy!

HOW TO RESTORE YOUR NERVE ENERGY!

The brain can also be likened to a high-powered battery that needs continual recharging on a daily and nightly basis. Its "low-grade electricity" can be "recharged" in 1 of 4 ways:

1. ADEQUATE SLEEP: time spent as needed
2. REST & CATNAPS DURING THE DAY: time spent as needed
3. COMPLETE REST: time spent during The Natural Hygiene Fast
4. QUIET, STILL TIME: time spent in meditation, biofeedback, prayer, or some still & calming inactivity proven to provide deep rest to the mind & body.

THE NATURAL HYGIENE TERMS: "TOXEMIA" & "TOXICOSIS"

The dictionary definition of "toxemia" means "poisons in the blood": it is sometimes used to mean "a generalized state of auto-intoxication." But the term "Toxemia" with a capital "T" I formally define in Natural Hygiene lexicon as Dr. Tilden's 2nd Stage of Disease: "the result of the body being so low on Nerve Energy that basic, eliminative and self-cleansing functions at the cellular level are held in check, such that poisons created within the body and poisons taken into the body from outside sources accumulate in the fluids and cells, and finally, in the tissues and organs and systems." This accumulation ultimately leads to pathological symptoms, including pain and suffering, and to an unnatural, untimely death. The only "cure" of disease in The Toxemia Model is based on providing the conditions for health and removing the energy-draining leaks so that the body can get its energy supplies up and then go through its own self-initiated detoxification and reparative processes and thus regain health.

"Toxemia" is also formally termed "Toxicosis" and informally termed "auto-intoxication" or "self-poisoning." But more specifically, in the Natural Hygiene lexicon, "Toxicosis" refers to the more advanced bodily condition of Toxemia or poisoning, not only of the blood but of the other bodily fluids and of individual cells and their specialized tissue groups. The entire body partakes of these retrograde changes when succumbing to Toxicosis. The weaker organs and body parts retrograde more dramatically and show breakdown first. Or it may be a very vascular organ or an organ of elimination that takes the brunt of poisons that flow into the organ. "Toxemia," rather than "Toxicosos," is used most frequently.

When Nerve Energy is low, elimination of toxic waste is impeded: the body must operate under a toxic overload: a handicap. Poisons saturate first the blood stream and bodily fluids, and then the cells, tissues, organs, and systems. What I have formally termed "The Descent into Disease" will continue unless strict, Natural Hygiene measures via The 10 Energy Enhancers bring about an intervention and The Ascent Out of Disease. It is a 2-way staircase each Health Seeker can take...if she or he has not descended into the pathological point of no return. If no contraindications are warranted, the very best, easiest, quickest way to so ascend back up into health is by taking The Natural Hygiene Fast.

The Toxemia Model of disease is best exemplified by Natural Hygiene teachings from Dr. Tilden, Dr. Shelton, Dr. Scott, Our 3 Texas Doctors Vetrano and Tosca and Gregory Haag, T.C. Fry, and myself. And although many other alternative health care models are based on the reality that we get sick because we got toxic, many of their teachings are neither correct nor as systematized and clearly set forth; and nearly all of them tell you to "take something" or undergo some treatment or therapy to improve your condition. Others want to throw an incorrect and dangerous twist into their brands, such as eating an all-fruit or almost all-fruit diet or taking very long fasts regardless of contraindications. The correct Natural Hygiene model has been gaining momentum because it gets the best results among Health Seekers who are strict in its application of what Dr. Shelton and 1800s' doctors called "Health by Healthful Living!" This alternative health care is based on self-initiated education, self-responsibility, and self-care, rather than on drug and doctor dependency. In comparison, taking the Natural Hygiene approach is far, far less costly than going the medical route and totally non-toxic for the Health Seeker!

Health Seekers have come to me so many times, grasped this concept of why they are sick, and exclaimed with variations of: "Oh, my God! I'm sick because I'm toxic!" They get very happy and excited! Some get very angry! Some of these people have spent as many as 10 years and more, investing as much as tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in the medical route and in alternative routes that were really just holdover dead-ends from The Medical Mentality only to get decidedly worse! Their next question is always some variation of: "What do I do to get back my energy and end my crisis?" Great hope is on their horizons! Within days or weeks of doing right and eating live, they get better and then better and better! The whole time, they had been on one of the wrong tracks that led to no-whereland dead-ends. The happy answer to: "How do I get well and stay well?" is simple. First are needed a few more definitions and my many lists. Being dubbed "The List Lady" by Susan, I am so grateful and pleased to provide these in the following, so that you, too, will be best-educated and know how to end the energy crisis in your toxic bodies and recover the health and high joy of your youthful days! I hope and pray that you will share these teachings with Health Seekers in your corners of our globe!

THE NATURAL HYGIENE TERMS: "ACUTE DISEASE" & "CHRONIC DISEASE"

In this Natural Hygiene model of health care, disease is divided into 2 distinct types. Illnesses or disease symptoms are evaluated as "acute" in the earlier stages, meaning the body can make a complete recovery into health if strict, corrective action is taken soon enough. Examples of short-lived, acute illnesses are the so-called "common cold" and a mild case of the "flu," diarrhea, headache, indigestion, fatigue, and all "-itises" and all in their very early stages.

Disease that has progressed until irreversible tissue damage has taken place is evaluated as "chronic and degenerative." Examples of long-term, chronic diseases include most advanced cancers and emphysema, gangrene, ulcerative colitis, and rheumatoid arthritis. Chronic, degenerative disease is latter stage disease, meaning the body can at least arrest the degeneration, or at best, make a partial or near-full recovery into health if corrective action is taken immediately and strictly.

Susan pointed out to me such a simple but profoundly well-put reality: when people get sick, they really don't care about models and schools of thought explaining the causes of disease. They simply want to get well! They want what "gets results." And the very best results and fastest results come with healthful living habits. The 2 most important healthful living habits are: (#1) getting enough rest and sleep for revitalization of Nerve Energy reserves and (#2) eating the raw food diet for both energy conservation and provision of necessary and wholesome, raw materials so that the body can rebuild healthy tissues most efficiently.

I will say, however, that after all my years of working to help Health Seekers in all stages of acute and chronic diseases, once a person starts studying Natural Hygiene in depth and studying especially Dr. Tilden, Dr. Shelton, Dr. Vetrano, and my 2 BOOKS IN 1: The Health Seekers' YearBook with The Best of Common Health Sense, this Health Seeker who both studies and lives strict Natural Hygiene enough to reap benefits invariably does want to learn more and eventually does indeed then "care about models and schools of thought explaining the causes of disease." Out of love for fellow man, woman, and child, they are driven to learn more and to share the blessings of this knowledge. This is how a Health Seeker turns into a Health Revolutionist, out of the humanitarian desire to share this amazing information and help end pain and suffering, whenever possible, among others!

To clearly understand The Toxemia Model of disease origin, let us first rule out emergency situations of wear-and-tear patients and accident victims who need 11th hour medical intervention because they are in the throes of death or extreme distress (about 5% of sick persons). Let us then address all Health Seekers with acute or chronic diseases (about 95% of sick persons). For these Health Seekers, the systematic application of The Superlative Alternative is the best one that gets the most consistent, most dramatic health results without any drug and doctor dependency, whatsoever, and without the enormous expense that comes with them. Simply put: The Toxemia Model offers the best solution for any Health Seeker with diseases, acute or chronic!

A NATURAL HYGIENE QUALIFICATION OF THE TERM "CURE" TO MEAN "THE BODY ALONE DOING THE CURING"

Many alternativists use the term "cure" freely. But we never, ever use the word "cure" except in the strictest sense that "all cure is body-initiated, body-conducted, and body-maintained when the conditions for health are provided and the causes of disease are removed." And the word "medicine" is never used unless The 10 Energy Enhancers could metaphorically be considered the only "medicine" man, woman, and child should ever take. It should be noted that Dr. Shelton did actually use the term "cure" in his very first book, "The Fundamentals of Natural Hygiene," in 1922. But after that, he decided to give Natural Hygiene its own and mutually exclusive terminology and definitions so that Health Seekers would not confuse The Toxemia Model with The Medical Mentality.

THE NATURAL HYGIENE REJECTION OF THE TERMS: "THERAPY" & "TREATMENT"

Because The Medical Mentality and Natural Hygiene are so opposite so much of the time, the same vocabulary cannot be used for both without misunderstanding. While many alternative health educators opt to use the terms "treatment" and "therapy," Natural Hygiene alternativists are dead-set against using these medical model terms. We want to free Health Seekers from The Medical Mentality altogether. Therefore, there are no treatments or therapies or pills or potions to take that will get you well: there is only the self-healing body receiving your natural, healthful living care to get you well.

The Hygienic leaders, teachers, and doctors are so convinced that only the body does the healing, that they never use the terms "treatment" or "therapy" to mean Hygienic measures such as fasting and prescribed exercises, for examples. They speak, instead, of "providing the conditions for health." To repeat: Natural Hygiene educators want the Health Seeker to think outside the medicine man's bag and get into his or her own body-as-healer, instead. This paradigm shift must be made. The Health Seeker must step through the looking glass...if he or she wants to get well and intends to stay well without drug or doctor dependency.

THE NATURAL HYGIENE TERMS: "DETOXIFICATION," "DETOX," "DETOXIFY," "DETOXER"

A final term must be addressed: "detoxification" and its variants: "detox," "detoxify," and "detoxer." Dr. Vetrano has just issued a statement proposing that Natural Hygienists leave these terms exclusively to the medical world from which they originated in 1867. The medical model employs toxic drugs to reduce the even more toxic properties of poisons within the body system. Enervating, toxic detoxification (There is an oxymoron for you!) treatments and therapies are also employed by M.D.s. For examples: addicts are given toxic methadone to get off heroine, or they take enervating sweat baths to get alcohol out of their already tired systems.

Nevertheless, I have asked Dr. Vetrano to allow the use of this trendy and popular term and its variants in The Live Food Factor, especially since the whole idea of getting pure and clean is so attractive to people who would like to have all life has to offer at its best! We want to make the use of this term perfectly clear in all our following teachings. "Detoxification" and its variants herein always refer to "the natural, physiological processes of the body alone doing the cleansing, eliminating, and excreting of toxins as a result of discontinuing toxic substances and instituting The 10 Energy Enhancers." "Detoxification" never refers to taking some medicine or over-the-counter drug to get clean. Preferred, Natural Hygiene synonyms for these medical-minded "detox" terms are "cleansing," "elimination of toxins," and "excretion of wastes." All alternative health care systems correctly based in physiology and on how the body works in health and disease are on the right track, but none use the special definitions in the foregoing terminology. These are unique to the Natural Hygiene paradigm and lexicon.

Virtually all emergencies, far-gone cases of wear-and-tear, blunt force traumas, and 11th hour crises absolutely require medical and/or chiropractic intervention to end suffering and save lives. Barring these extreme situations, however, the Health Seeker takes into the body only 4 nutritive Energy Enhancers: pure air, pure water, sunlight, and non-toxic, raw foods in digestive-friendly combination. (See our solution to the depleted soils situation and our troubled times at the end of the www.health4thebillions.org item you have just purchased for a 5th item in this list.) The Health Seeker practices the 6 other non-nutritive Energy Enhancers to inspire natural healing.

For the Natural Hygienist, there is but one disease (Toxemia) and but one natural healing process (revitalization, cleansing, body chemistry balancing, and repair). From this natural perspective, getting well becomes...AN ADVENTURE! And staying well...FUN!

THE 10 ENERGY ENHANCERS VERSUS THE 10 ENERGY ROBBERS

While Dr. Shelton never did consistently name or list The 10 Energy Enhancers and while T.C. Fry named and numbered an unwieldy 22, I have provided just 10 that encompass all healthy living habits. These 10 lifesavers are listed in the order of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: survival needs first, aesthetic and social needs last. Since we speak of "The 10 Energy Enhancers" as synonymous with "Natural Hygiene" so many times throughout our live food factor adventure, I present them now for your ease of understanding not only Natural Hygiene, but of appreciating how live foods factor in with 9 other factors for the health of your body, mind, spirit, and planet.

THE 10 ENERGY ENHANCERS were also called "the basic requisites of life" or "the primordial requisites of life" by The Pioneers of Natural Hygiene. Practicing them consistently and strictly causes the body to adapt by building health:

1. Cleanliness -- inside & out
2. Pure Air
3. Pure Water
4. Adequate Rest & Sleep
5. The Ideal Diet of non-toxic, properly combined, raw fruits & vegetables, nuts, seeds & sprouts, organic whenever possible
6. Right Temperatures
7. Adequate Sunlight
8. Regular Exercise
9. Emotional Balance which includes freedom from addiction, high self-esteem, a purposeful life & meaningful goals
10. Nurturing Relationships.

The mental and emotional factors (Energy Enhancers #9 and #10) are covered in several places throughout our Live Food Factor book. And for more in-depth reading on the science behind the mind/body connection, order my GetWell*StayWell Affirmations for Americans! It is the best resource for beginners and provides 500 affirmations in print and on 4 compact discs that reaffirm the importance of The 10 Energy Enhancers and all of Natural Hygiene in a fun and powerful way!

THE 10 ENERGY ROBBERS are also called "the remote causes of disease" or "the secondary sources of disease" by The Pioneers of Natural Hygiene. Practicing them consistently and almost exclusively causes the body to adapt by building disease.

1. Uncleanliness -- inside & out
2. Impure Air
3. Impure Water
4. Inadequate Rest & Sleep
5. The Standard American Diet of processed (cooked), refined, chemicalized meat, dairy, fruits & vegetables (mostly cooked) & grains & junk food
6. Wrong Temperatures
7. Inadequate Sunlight
8. Lack of Regular Exercise
9. Emotional Unbalance which includes addictions, low self-esteem, a purposeless life & meaningless goals
10. Toxic Relationships.

THE REMOTE OR SECONDARY SOURCES OF TOXEMIA:
ENDOGENOUS TOXINS & EXOGENOUS TOXINS

While the one and only, direct cause of Toxemia is critically low Nerve Energy, also termed "Enervation," the remote or secondary sources or causes of Toxemia are many; and they are seen in energy-draining lifestyle choices. As I re-emphasize later, the average sick and tired American is making several hundred, if not 1,000+ such slow-suicide choices every day! All people auto-intoxicate from 2 sources: from within the body resulting in what we term "Endogenous Toxemia" and from what we take into the body from the outside resulting in what we term "Exogenous Toxemia." The Health Seeker will learn to minimize the sources of Endogenous Toxemia through an energy-conservative lifestyle that is governed by The 10 Energy Enhancers and to eliminate as totally as possible, the sources of Exogenous Toxemia through an energy-wise lifestyle that excludes The 10 Energy Robbers.

THE LIST OF ENDOGENOUS TOXINS

"Endo" = "within" + "gen" = "generated or borne." Endogenous Toxins, therefore, are "generated within" the body & include the following:

1. Natural, normal metabolic waste; on-going, toxic byproducts at the cellular level
2. Spent debris from cellular activity
3. The natural, normal death of cells in healthy numbers or inordinate, wholesale death of cells in unhealthy numbers due to the disease process at work
4. Emotional &/or mental stress in normal displays or in excess
5. Physical fatigue, in normal amounts or in excess.

THE LIST OF EXOGENOUS TOXINS "Ex" = "outside" + "gen" = "generated or borne." Exogenous Toxins, therefore, are "generated outside" of the body & include the following:

1. Unnatural food & drink typical of The Standard American Diet
2. Natural food deranged by processing, refining & preserving
3. Improper food combinations resulting in creation of toxins upon digestion
4. Medical/pharmaceutical/herbal drugging by health care professionals
5. Supplemental drugging from taking inferior, toxic supplements
6. Tobacco, alcohol & all forms of recreational drugging
7. Environmental, commercial & industrial pollutants.

These energy-robbing lifestyle practices result in poisonous waste storage within the body and retrograde changes, away from the direction of health and toward poison-retention and malfunction at the cellular level. These backward, malfunctioning changes as a whole are named or identified by the abstract noun: "disease." But I live in Concrete, Washington, for a reason: to tell you that there is nothing abstract about the pain and suffering of the disease process in action! The changes in a person's mobility, swollen tissues, complexion, demeanor, and the pain and misery accompanied by diminished capacity...there is nothing abstract about these! They are as concrete as it gets! Over time, the Endogenous and Exogenous Toxins accumulate far beyond the body's Nerve Energy capacities to conduct a "poisons-in/ poisons-out" balance. For the average person deep into The Descent into Disease and eating the pathogenic, cooked food supply, enough Nerve Energy is never available for him or her to climb out.

"LIVE FOOD - IT'S ALL ABOUT ENERGY!"

For thousands of years, the power of the body to make good use of a period of time set aside for fasting has been known. And now, the power of the body to make good use of the 100% live food diet in revitalizing, detoxifying, balancing body chemistry, and healing is becoming known. The body must conserve its Nerve Energy, generate more Nerve Energy (by resting, sleeping, and very still activities like meditating), and minimize both the incoming toxins and bodily-created toxins in order to have sufficient Nerve Energy to cleanse fluids and tissues and initiate excretion of poisons and self-healing. And since for most people, cooked food is the main source of "incoming toxins" that stresses their bodies (See Chapter 6.), this practice must be stopped if one intends to detoxify, get well, and stay well.

"LIVE FOOD - IT'S ALL ABOUT ENERGY!" That's our motto. By eating live fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, and sprouts, the Health Seeker first conserves Nerve Energy which is, thus, freed up to be used by the body, mind, and spirit to create health and happiness. (What a blessing! Who could ask for anything more?) Following are 7 wonderfully conserving and freeing reasons I always use to show Health Seekers how to get high energy and high joy, naturally! FUN! CONSUMING LIVE FOODS CONSERVES NERVE ENERGY!

1. Energy is conserved because the body is not required to expend energy manufacturing digestive enzymes to process live foods (See Chapter 6.), as naturally occurring enzymes are present and alive in abundance in raw foods.
2. Energy is conserved because the body is not required to continually detoxify fluids and tissues of Exogenous Toxins created when heated, refined, chemicalized foods are eaten: the Exogenous Toxins are not present in correctly chosen, live foods!
3. Energy is conserved because the body is no longer creating nor being required to eliminate toxic by-products (Endogenous Toxins) of cooked food metabolism.
4. Energy is conserved because the body moves fiber-rich, peristalsis-stimulating, live foods through its digestive tract with a high-energy/high-efficiency quotient compared to what it takes to move cooked, fiber-deficient foods.
5. Energy is conserved because live foods are nutrient-rich and thus provide the body with both the best, digestible, assimilable building blocks and supplies needed for energy-efficient, metabolic activities. (See Chapter 7.)
6. Natural Hygiene teaches Health Seekers to eat foods in digestive-friendly, biochemical compatibility. If the Health Seeker will eat live foods in proper combination, energy is conserved because the body does not have to detox from any Endogenous Toxins that are poisonous by-products of poorly combined foods.
7. Energy is conserved when live, non-toxic foods are eaten in modest amounts and strictly according to genuine hunger: the digestive task set before the body is easy and efficient on energy demands. In energy-draining comparison, supermarket shelf foods, especially condimented, spiced, sugared, salted, high-fat and high-starch foods are addicting. Their consumption leads to overeating for most people. The big energy task set before the body is doubled on SAD foods: the foods are energy demanding to digest, and huge amounts typically eaten by most are hugely demanding to metabolize.

By eating raw, more energy is conserved and freed up, for cleansing and healing, for rising to your calling and living out your dreams! For giving and receiving love. For making the world... A Better Place! RAW FOODS = RAW ENERGY! SO SIMPLE! FUN!

ENERGY ENHANCERS #4: REST & SLEEP!

Sleep is a period of complete unconsciousness of the individual and a function of the nervous system exclusively: with the advent of sleep, the body shuts down consciousness. Non-nervous tissues of the body, such as bone and muscle and blood, do not transmit nerve impulses; nevertheless, these nonnervous tissues, too, need the period of nightly sleep, as they, too, do have their own healthy functions and need revitalization and restorative time. Are Adequate Rest & Sleep "The Missing Energy Enhancers" in your life that are preventing you from reaching Superlative Health? Are you following the other 9 Energy Enhancers but still suffering in ill health? An estimated 4 out of 6 American adults report "daytime sleepiness." This makes them sluggish, irritable, unable to focus on tasks at hand. It also means that sleep-deprivation among our citizens has reached pandemic proportions! This much we Natural Hygienists have fully established: "Sleep is a part of the life of every animal and human in the world." Rest is helpful. Fasting is helpful. Meditation is helpful. But Sleep, and only, Sleep is absolutely necessary for renovation and recharging of the nervous system and affords a period of revitalization for other structures so that the organism can continue to function normally and be WELL.

SLEEP PROVIDES 2 PRIMARY NEEDS

1. A period of revitalization for the nervous system & renewing of Nerve Energy
2. A time of decreased activity for the repair of organic damages & rebalancing of body chemistry.

THE MISERIES OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION

1. Toxins that are eliminated more rapidly while sleeping accumulate to an abnormal, unhealthy degree if one does not take Adequate Sleep. These retained wastes damage tissues and organs throughout the body. If the nervous system is not recharged by nightly sleeping, it cannot send the proper number of nerve impulses to the various bodily organs for their proper functioning! Consequently, these organs function poorly. The result is greater toxin accumulation. Eventually and relentlessly, the individual takes The Descent into Disease.
2. Enervation from insufficient Sleep leads to a lowering of available, vital Nerve Energy: this causes all organs to work less efficiently, resulting in poor digestion and toxin accumulation from impaired liver, kidney, lungs, and intestines.
3. Drowsiness and inability to concentrate to actual impairment of memory and physical performance, particularly reduced ability to carry out mathematical calculations, cause endless, everyday problems in personal and financial lives.
4. COUNTLESS MORE MISERIES! BEWARE! This list could go on and on. Every cell and organ of the body is adversely affected: hallucinations, mood swings, increased heart rate variability, Irritation/Inflammation of the digestive tract resulting in body messages causing insomnia, decrease in release of growth hormones, decrease in normal body temperature, significantly decreased metabolic activity of the brain after only 24 hours, decreased immune system function measured by decreased white blood cell count, abnormality in hormone production regulating hunger and appetite that causes a desire to eat well in excess of caloric demands to stimulate oneself into wakefulness and resulting in obesity.

THE BLESSINGS & BENEFITS OF GETTING ADEQUATE SLEEP

1. During Sleep, the entire human body is permitted a priceless and profound Rest: this deep Rest can neither be traded for blood nor bought with money!
2. During Sleep, sympathetic nervous activity decreases, while parasympathetic activity increases, reducing muscular tone to almost nil. This provides a much greater Rest of the skeletal muscles compared to that of simple, wakeful resting.
3. During Sleep, arterial blood pressure falls; pulse rate decreases; skin vessels dilate. This deep Sleep, therefore, affords deep Rest for the heart and for the muscles of the arteries.
4. During Sleep, activity of the gastro-intestinal tract increases, improving digestion and absorption of food to promote better nutrition.
5. During Sleep, skeletal muscles are completely relaxed; when in resting wakefulness, especially when under stress, muscles are tensed to some degree.
6. During Sleep, the metabolic rate falls by 10% to 20%, thus permitting the bodily tissues, organs & systems a much-needed, deep Rest.
7. During Sleep, healing and repair wherever needed throughout the body increase. During Sleep we generate energy to get well! Healing and repair are most profound while both sleeping and undertaking The Natural Hygiene Fast.

RECUPERATION & RECOVERY COME FROM REST & SLEEP!

Recuperation from a temporary or partial exhaustion will take place with 1 or 2 days of extra Rest & Sleep. If, however, you continually burn the candle at both ends, day in and day out, for years, you will be forced into paying the price of exhausted Nerve Energy and even exhaustion of reserves. If you persist in the excesses that waste Nerve Energy, then Enervation will follow... "as night follows day." This leads to lowered functioning capacity of every tissue, organ, and system in the body. At this point, to get well, it could take the enervated person many weeks or even many months (or years) of 12 hours a day or more of Rest & Sleep, along with strict, low-keyed, 10 Energy Enhancers' living.

Rearranging the lifestyle to align with Natural Hygiene and relearning how to best deal with stress and taking time for Adequate Rest & Sleep are your only antidotes to fatigue. Any product over the counter or illegal that promises otherwise is selling stimulants that only give a false sense of being energized while further depleting Nerve Energy reserves! Stimulants are traps! Unlike the high cost of stimulants, and happily so, Energy Enhancers of Rest & Sleep are FREE for the dozing!

ACUTE DISEASE VERSUS CHRONIC DISEASE

First, let me repeat that the word "disease" is an abstraction. There is no such concrete thing you can hold in your hand or that you can otherwise measure, that you can point to and say: "This is a disease," like you can hold a rubbery, round object in your hand and say, "This is a ball." There are only abnormal conditions of body tissues and fluids and their malfunctioning and your misery. These are always accompanied by unpleasant, subjective experiences of fatigue, malaise, irritation, itching, inflammation, ulceration, and/or scar tissue and pain/suffering. Whenever we use the abstract word "disease," therefore, we are always referring to these concrete realities of malfunction and misery at all levels of our fearfully and wonderfully made bodies. With this clarification, The Toxemia Model separates disease into 2 distinct classifications: acute and chronic. Their mutually exclusive characteristics follow.

3 CONSIDERATIONS IN UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ACUTE & CHRONIC DISEASE

1. Disease evolves from Enervation to Toxemia to acute symptoms of Irritation and then Inflammation. These are the formal terms used to name the first 4 stages of disease in Dr. Tilden's 7 Stages of Disease paradigm. When these symptoms are not reversed through healthful living habits, the symptoms worsen and evolve further into chronic disease and the latter 3 stages of disease, formally termed, "Ulceration," "Induration," and "Chronic Degeneration."
2. The 6 ways acute and chronic diseases differ are mutually exclusive. Once a person descends the stairs from acute into chronic, great steps upward into health can be made; but he or she can never return to fullest and most vibrant health.
3. All people who are living The 10 Energy Robbers will eventually develop acute and then chronic disease if accidental death does not get them first! This reality makes "Our Live Food Factor & 10 Energy Enhancers Message" of utmost urgency and a complete blessing for absolutely every person on the planet!

6 WAYS ACUTE DISEASE & CHRONIC DISEASE DIFFER

1. Acute disease has been short-lived in the making, in process only a few hours, days, or weeks. Due to higher Nerve Energy reserves and thus a lowered adaptation to tolerate toxic saturation, natural healing takes place. To repeat: examples of short-lived acute illnesses are the so-called "common cold" and "flu," diarrhea, headache, indigestion, fatigue, and all "-itises" in their earlier stages. Chronic, degenerative disease, by contrast, has been long-lived in the making, in process over many months or years. For the chronic sufferer, due to lowered Nerve Energy reserves and thus an increased adaptation to tolerate toxic saturation, natural healing does not take place without strict, healthful living intervention. Examples of long-term chronic diseases include diabetes, emphysema, gangrene, rheumatoid arthritis, all the advanced stages of colitis, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases.
2. In acute disease and while practicing The 10 Energy Enhancers, the sufferer may have flare-ups ("healing crises") due to a higher vitality. In virtually all cases of acute disease, complete recovery into health is reached once healthful living practices are instituted and detoxing and repair are completed. The chronic sufferer exhibits lowered vitality and experiences progressively worsening symptoms as time goes on and does not have the vital energy to conduct any healing crises.
3. Acute disease may last only a few hours, days, or weeks in the healing process. Even without learning about and practicing energy-enhancing habits, many people are healed of acute disease because their living habits are healthy enough and their Nerve Energy reserves high enough. But eventually and without exception, if energy-robbing habits are continued long enough, acute disease will evolve into chronic degeneration. Chronic disease will last the rest of the chronic sufferer's lifetime and will be the death of him or her if strict adoption of The 10 Energy Enhancers is not implemented before the pathological point of no return.
4. Acute disease reflects a strong enough Nerve Energy supply and residual vitality that powerful elimination of toxic waste and repair processes are still possible. Chronic disease reflects a long-term state of toleration of toxins. It is a state of continued elimination of enough toxins to sustain life but in compromised, ever-lowering health. In the latter stages of chronic disease, the natural healing rate is much slower for the Health Seekers who have weakened their defense mechanisms (also collectively called the "immune system") by conventional medical treatment and who have taken years of drugs, surgeries, and other energy-draining treatments. For medical model refugees deep into chronic degeneration who have so weakened themselves on dead-end medical routes, the arrest or partial recovery rates are much lower and much less dramatic. Even in chronic cases, however, the cleansing, eliminating, chemistry balancing, repairing processes are still possible if The 10 Energy Enhancers are implemented soon enough.
5. Acute disease is designated "remedial" or "corrective in nature," because the disease evolution itself is an orderly, natural process by which the body attempts to eliminate toxins and repair itself. Acute disease results in complete reversal of the disease process if The 10 Energy Enhancers are strictly followed. Chronic disease is also designated "remedial" or "corrective in nature," but one cannot expect the same recovery results as in acute disease. In chronic disease, complete arrest of the disease process and possibly some reversal and even much reversal of the abnormal tissues and fluids into health can be expected. In chronic disease, some tissue changes of a detrimental and many times irreversible nature have taken place. The tissue degenerations are sometimes reversible, sometimes not, depending on the severity and the type of tissue damage. Still, these improvements for chronic sufferers are causes for celebration compared to the dead-end medical route paradigm where virtually all just get worse and worse!
6. Acute disease uses up energy in the elimination of toxic waste and in cellular repair, such that the tissue integrity and normal organs' and systems' functioning are fully restored. The Health Seeker may feel enervated or exhilarated when the acute crisis passes, depending on the amount of Nerve Energy expended and on the kind and amount of toxic overload expelled. This is the time to take extra rest and recuperate the Nerve Energy expenditure of getting well. Chronic disease is characterized by progressive fluid and cellular poisoning and retrograde changes, such that tissues, organs, and whole systems lose their functional integrity, ending in long-term misery and/or death of the chronic sufferer.

IN SUMMARY: OUR MESSAGE IS URGENT! "Take action during acute stages! Do not let your disease evolve into the chronic degeneration! Once you get well, you cannot go back to your old bad habits if you intend to stay well!"

THE 7 STAGES OF DISEASE PARADIGM BY DR. J.H. TILDEN - OR - HOW TO REVERSE THE DISEASE PROCESS!

AS SUMMARIZED BY VICTORIA BIDWELL

Repetition is the backbone of learning new information until it is fully internalized. Do let me repeat the most crucial teaching of all herein: "The One Cause of All Disease" is termed "Toxemia." It is defined as "the poisoning of bodily fluids and tissues." We become sick because we first became toxic. And we became toxic because, just before getting sick, we ran so low on Nerve Energy that the body could not keep the tissues and fluids clean. We burned our candles at both ends. The solution to "the energy crisis in a toxic body," therefore, is to get the Nerve Energy back, to revitalize! With restored reserves of Nerve Energy, the body can go about detoxification and repair. Since disease is the bodily adaptation to a toxic overload via The 10 Energy Robbers, the reversal of the disease process is simply an energy-enhanced body ecology via The 10 Energy Enhancers! What I term "The Descent into Disease" was first presented by Dr. J.H. Tilden in his landmark 1926 publication Toxemia Explained as "The 7 Stages of Disease." The role of raw foods in the climb out of disease, regardless of the Stage, early or advanced, is 3-fold.

1. They are free of Exogenous Toxins.
2. They provide the human body with the superlative nutrition the body needs to perform its basic, metabolic tasks.
3. They provide this nutrition in an energy-conservative package, being easy and energy-efficient to digest. Less Nerve Energy used to process the food ingested = more Nerve Energy for detoxification and repair. Remember: "It's all about Nerve Energy, first and foremost!"

THE 7 STAGES OF DISEASE: A 1-PAGE SUMMARY OF AN ENTIRE BOOK! STAGE 1 IS ENERVATION:

Nerve Energy is so reduced or exhausted that all normal, bodily functions are impaired, especially the elimination of Endogenous and Exogenous Toxins.

STAGE 1 IS ENERVATION: Nerve Energy is so reduced or exhausted that all normal, bodily functions are impaired, especially the elimination of Endogenous and Exogenous Toxins. Stage 1 thus begins the progressive, chronic process of "Toxemia Toleration" that continues through all of The 7 Stages. The toxic sufferer does not feel his "normal self." He feels either stimulated or depressed.

STAGE 2 IS TOXEMIA: Nerve Energy is too low to eliminate metabolic wastes and ingested poisons at a normal rate. These toxic substances begin to saturate first the blood stream and other fluids and then the cells themselves. The toxic sufferer feels inordinately tired, run-down, and disoriented or "out of it."

STAGE 3 IS IRRITATION: Toxic build-up within the bodily fluids and tissues continues. The cells/tissues where build-up occurs are irritated by the toxic nature of the wastes, resulting in low-grade Inflammation. The toxic sufferer often feels exhausted, irritable, itchy, even hostile or irrational or in a fog. If the toxic sufferer goes to a medical doctor at this point, the doctor can only guess at a name for the malaise or "dis-ease" or cannot find enough disease symptoms present to pin on a formal name to the complaints and declares: "There is nothing wrong with you! This is all in your head!" A psychiatrist may then be recommended.

STAGE 4 IS INFLAMMATION: The low-grade, chronic Inflammation from Stage 3 has led to the death of cells. An area or organ where toxicants have amassed next becomes fully inflamed. The toxic sufferer experiences actual pain, along with pathological symptoms. The Doctor entrenched in The Medical Mentality now can clearly see a pathology: he names the set of symptoms and begins treatments.

STAGE 5 IS ULCERATION: Tissues are destroyed. The body ulcerates, forming an outlet for the poisonous build-up. The toxic sufferer experiences a multiplication and worsening of symptoms and pain. Standard medical doctors typically continue drugging and often commence with surgery and other forms of more radical and questionable treatment at Stage 5. The standard doctor easily names the disease and declares: "You're just going to have to learn to live with pain!"

STAGE 6 IS INDURATION: Induration is the result of long-standing, chronic Inflammation, interspersed with bouts of acute Inflammation. The chronic Inflammation causes an impairment or sluggishness of circulation: and because some cells may succumb, they are replaced with scar tissue. The toxic sufferer endures even more physical pain. In this 6th Stage, standard medical doctors continue with drugging and/or surgery and/or other modalities/treatments.

STAGE 7 CHRONIC, IRREVERSIBLE DEGENERATION: Cellular integrity is destroyed through their disorganization and/or cancerous proliferation. Tissues, organs, and whole systems lose their ability to function normally. Biochemical and morphological changes (change is form) from the depositing of Endogenous and Exogenous Toxins bring about degenerations and death at the cellular level. The toxic sufferer is "a pathological mess" heading toward his or her deathbed.

THE NATURAL HYGIENE MODEL & RECOVERY EXPECTATIONS YOUR HIGHEST HEALTH POTENTIAL - WHAT IT'S DETERMINED BY

1. Your systemic weakness, which is affected by your inherited predisposition and your past injuries and irreversible damage already done to your body,
2. The amount and kinds of toxins present in your body,
3. Your existing Nerve Energy reserves,
4. Your complete abandonment of The 10 Energy Robbers,
5. Your strict adoption of The 10 Energy Enhancers.

TO SUMMARIZE: In virtually all cases of acute remedial or corrective disease complete recovery ("bodily cure") is reached once a long enough fast is taken and/or healthful living practices are instituted and revitalizing, detoxing, chemistry balancing, and repair are complete. Well over a million case file records at Natural Hygiene facilities over 3 centuries show that people enjoyed greatly improved to marvelous results in virtually 100% of the acute cases reviewed. Records of out-client/patient care through office calls or in-client/patient care at clinics, schools, and retreats attest to the efficacy of Natural Hygiene care to achieve acute disease recoveries. The very long list of alternativists worldwide include these: Dr. J.H. Tilden, Dr. Herbert Shelton, Dr. Keki Sidhaw, T.C. Fry, Dr. William Esser, Dr. Vetrano, Drs. Tosca and Gregory Haag, Drs. Burton, Dr. David Scott, Dr. Alan Goldhamer, myself, and many dozens of T.C. Fry's graduates who have run in the past or are currently running Natural Hygiene facilities.

It cannot be said, however, that complete recovery is reached for people with chronic, degenerative disease who get similar care. But it can be said that the chronic Health Seeker's situation did either arrest or improve, even improve tremendously, providing the pathological point of no return and/or deathbed illness had not been reached. At this "point of no return," the person is literally on the deathbed, with little or no energy even to lift a finger. The organs and systems are failing. In chronic, degenerative disease, by definition, "Irreversible damage has occurred." The realistic results to be expected, therefore, are either arrest of symptoms or partial, but sometimes, near-complete reversal into improved health. Still, arrests and partial to near-complete reversals are causes for celebration compared to the dead-end medical route paradigm prognoses for chronic patients deep into degeneration and getting ever worse with no hope in sight!

Obviously, it is best to take action during the acute rather than the degenerative stage. Both the acute and chronic will have to strictly, conscientiously, consistently follow the healthful living practices in all areas of their lives once arrest or partial or complete recovery is achieved. Only a very, very few Health Seekers who are deep, deep into chronic degeneration are too far past the pathological point of no return to recover: probably only 1% or 2% of Health Seekers reading this at this moment. If these 1% or 2% open this document today or arrive at the doorsteps of a Natural Hygiene spot in this deathbed condition and as a last resort tomorrow, it is sometimes just too late for their self-healing bodies to do the work of revitalizing, regenerating, rebuilding, and renewing. The body does have its limits. Still, these far-gone Health Seekers are very, very few in comparison to the vast majority who are in earlier stages of disease. Tempus fugit! Carpé Diem! (Time flies! Seize the day! )

I am begging all of you here: The moment you see signs of "The Old, Grey Mare She Ain't What She Used to Be Syndrome," please, do something immediately! PLEASE DO NOT WAIT! There is not room here to go through the 10,000+ diseases the medical doctors have named to convince you to turn to Natural Hygiene RIGHT NOW. And I doubt you would care to wade through such a dissertation if one were set before you.

But, let me share just one heart-breaking example of a Health Seeker who recently visited my facility: Our Hygiene Homestead in The Woods. For some years, she had watched symptoms of mild deformation and pain and limited movement develop just in her hands. Not knowing about Natural Hygiene, she of course went the medical route, including very toxic drugs with damaging side effects. When she saw her very first gnarled knot slowly appear in her hand with diminished movement and with pain accompanying attempts to move her fingers, that was the very moment she could have done something to stop the relentless development of the brutal disease we all know as "rheumatoid arthritis." If she had only known! This life-changing, heart-breaking disease almost always starts in the hands and progresses throughout the body and especially to the knees and hips until the once-active person with a life of promise and activity ahead cannot even handle basic, bodily functions without help. After a long fast, the pain in her hands left, but not the pain in the knees. It breaks my heart, when one does not know about Natural Hygiene and waits too long.

Most of the time, when the conditions for health are consistently provided, results can only be called "MIRACULOUS!" The real miracle, however, is simply the natural, healing capabilities of the body, so wonderfully resourceful in its design when accessed in time! To claim your own virtual healing miracle, see how to best get strict with The 10 Energy Enhancers in Appendix G!

NATURAL HYGIENE'S "HEALTH BY HEALTHFUL LIVING!" MOTTO: 1 DISEASE PROCESS & 1 WAY TO RECOVER!

For the vast majority of us Health Seekers who do choose the alternative route, our full recoveries (acute) or arrests or partial-to-near-full recoveries (chronic) are do-able. WE ARE AMONG THE NATURAL HYGIENE INTELLIGENTSIA! We know that disease is as natural a process as is health. We know that in disease, the body has a low Nerve Energy reserve, with a too-many-toxins in/not enough-toxins-out imbalance established and building. We know that the body's job is to keep the blood, fluids, and tissues clean, and that in disease, the body has a low Nerve Energy reserve and resorts to putting toxins away in special areas to eliminate them when reserves are higher. We know that in health, the body has a high Nerve Energy reserve, with a toxins-in/toxins-out balance maintained.

We Hygiene paradigm shifters correctly understand it impossible to find congruent the idea that there is one cause of all disease with the idea that disease is caused by some mysterious force, wear-and-tear, bad genes, or dangerous germs. We well informed correctly find it impossible to reconcile the ideas of letting the body heal itself by providing the conditions for health with drugging and cutting practices to create health. We Natural Hygiene Intelligentsia are filled with truth, confidence, and optimism! Those with The Medical Mentality remain in the dark, mystified by all the disease around them, and very often, and understandable, so feel victimized, demoralized, hopeless.

One Natural Hygiene Pioneer taught the idea of "one disease, one healing." Turn of the 20th century Florence Nightingale, the mother of nursing, taught: "There are no specific diseases, only specific disease conditions." Dr. T. Colin Campbell, author of the recently published landmark The China Study, a book based on the largest nutritional study ever conducted, concurs with our pioneering teacher. When asked if he could make specific dietary recommendations according to certain diseases, Campbell replied that he had come to see, through decades of research, 2 truths. First, diseases all have "impressive commonalities." And second, the same good nutrition benefiting the body in disease prevention can also nourish a sick body back to health. Wouldn't it have been nice if "Health by Healthful Living!" had been taught to us starting in kindergarten, in a simple format, culminating in making of us all well-informed and disciplined caretakers of our physical bodies and examples of mental and emotional well-being upon high school graduation?

IN DEFERENCE TO THE GOOD DOCTORS

Written by Victoria BidWell & Endorsed by Us Other 4 Women: Dr. Vetrano, Dr. Tosca Haag, Victoria Boutenko & Susan Schenck

As pitifully outdated and absolutely wrong as "The Medical Mentality as Its Very Worst" is and the personnel who perpetuate it are, the collective group of individuals who have supported it and do continue certain of its practices in the medical paradigm have contributed much good to society. No doubt about it: their sophisticated, technological gadgetry and pharmaceutical genius enable them to prolong the lives of seriously sick and deathbed-ill people. The Good Doctors and their staff, with their space-age, life-support systems, keep people in severe, degenerative conditions alive when no Hygienic intervention or guidance could so do. Their cutting edge work in tissue regeneration is genius.

Furthermore, we all know at least one person who is alive today only because of spectacular, heroic, medical intervention by The Good Doctors and their personnel. (Had this person turned wholeheartedly to healthful living practices years earlier, however, his health would have undoubtedly improved so greatly that he would not have needed the medical intervention in the first place!) Please do understand that this book is not discounting that "The Good Doctors and their personnel" do good. Of course, we acknowledge enthusiastically that the medical-minded collective have made invaluable contributions and have instituted certain practices that can only be called "absolute blessings": providing insulin to diabetic sufferers, offering child birthing services, reviving a stopped heart, carrying out kidney dialysis, performing organ transplants and life-saving emergency surgeries, prescribing narcotics in cases of excruciating pain, outfitting amputees with prosthetics, performing replacement and reconstructive surgeries, giving dental aid, offering many kinds of First Aid services and follow up support to a long list of trauma and burn victims, and numerous like measures. Such services provided by The Good Doctors and their personnel are, indeed, "absolute modern medical blessings."

Nevertheless, what we do assert is that on the whole, those with their Medical Mentality in no way offer "The Superlative, Alternative Health Care Program" whereby we can learn to prevent disease in its earliest stages of Enervation and Toxemia and enhance health by removing the remote causes of disease (The 10 Energy Robbers) and providing the conditions for health (The 10 Energy Enhancers). We speak here, therefore, in deference to The Good Doctors and their personnel, and commend them for their good works. We only wish there were more of them! If only the medical students were to turn their attention to studying the conditions for health while in school, in addition to memorizing the names of 10,000+ diseases and what drugs to prescribe for the diseases! If only the doctors were to teach the suffering people how to enhance their health through energy-conserving lifestyle practices rather than devoting themselves almost exclusively to prescribing drugs and unnecessary surgeries and other enervating "therapies" and "treatments"! Then, we would not have the suffering class as the largest and most miserable and demoralized group of Americans among us today! What Good Doctors and personnel we would then have!

This concludes my many lists and contributions and exacting teachings on Natural Hygiene as... "The Superlative, Alternative Health Care System." Now Susan takes the lead with and Dr. Vetrano and me to back her up.

The Live Food Factor is 700 pages long: you are getting just a fraction here. Many, many more pages of The Live Food Factor foundational teachings of Chapters 4 - 7 are not in this gift. I have given you the most brilliant overview ever presented of "NATURAL HYGIENE as THE SUPERLATIVE ALTERNATIVE!" To receive & make use of our full teachings, start with your purchases of the 2 best-ever, take-it-home, do-it-yourselves handbooks on Natural Hygiene: #1... 2 BOOK IN 1: The Health Seekers' YearBook with The Best of Common Health Sense #2... The Live Food Factor: The Comprehensive Guide to the Ultimate Diet for Body, Mind, Spirit & Planet.

SO, WITH ALL THIS GOOD NEWS, WHY DO SO MANY OF US CLING SO DEFENSIVELY TO THE MEDICAL MENTALITY?

Susan "with Victoria BidWell" concludes Chapter 7 of The Live Food Factor:

For many people, it takes time to switch from The Medical Mentality to Natural Hygiene. For most, the switch is not instantaneous. In the following, Victoria and I give 14 separate answers to the above question. Undoubtedly, many more exist. The reasons vary for some of our clinging, seemingly desperately, to the conventional medical paradigm. The reasons are different for every clinger.

1. Many of us have mind-sets entrenched in The Medical Mentality; and we are initially shocked and need time to digest the new ideas, try them out, and verify that they are correct.
2. Many of us respect unconditionally our doctors and cannot imagine they might not know absolutely everything. We put them on pedestals and worship them, more or less, as infallible gods.
3. Many of us, including our doctors, have put complete faith in The Medical Mentality and ask no questions. Many doctors are so sure of themselves, that our surety in them is likewise engendered. But we must consider that most doctors are only doing what they learned in medical school. Most doctors think they are on the right track, having spent so many years in medical school and having seen so many patients' symptoms relieved by their treatments/drugs. For people who do not take good care of themselves, some drugs, such as antibiotics and painkillers, appear at least temporarily helpful because they so successfully mask symptoms and relieve pain due to the mimic phenomenon.
4. Most of us, including doctors, fully believe in The Wear-and-Tear Theory, and therefore, look for no other, better way. Most all of us believe that sickness is inevitable, even normal and natural, especially as we age. So many of us fully believe that most people are simply going to get sick, sooner or later.
5. Most of us, including our doctors, believe that the root cause of illness can be effectively tackled by drugs. Few see that taking drugs to cure an illness is like cleaning your kitchen with dirt! Many doctors get frustrated at their inability to cure their patients permanently. The few medical doctors who manage to break the mold by thinking outside the medicine bag do so at the risk of being branded "quacks," "medical heretics," or "alternative health renegades." They fear losing their licenses or being sued for not following standard procedures.
6. Most of us have been completely propagandized into believing The Medical Mentality through cultural indoctrination. Those who have been fully indoctrinated into the status quo completely trust the mass media programming, the reporting on scientific studies, and all the messages in pro-drug/pro-doctor advertisements. In the book Trust Us, We're Experts! How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, we get a behind-the-scenes peek into how the powers-that-be carry on systematic brainwashing. Nearly all of us have been conditioned to worship the men and women in white laboratory coats so that we will believe in and automatically go to doctors, purchase pharmaceutical remedies, and submit to hospital treatments without so much as a question. As David Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D., points out, "The fact that many opinions are held by great masses of people is hypnotic. Few minds can escape the appeal of the authority of mass agreement…. Few can resist the propaganda of the news media" (The Eye of the I, p. 182). Public relations expert Edward Bernays confessed to having been hired to promote the health benefits of bananas, bacon, and Crisco cooking oil. In his book Propaganda, he explains how people are made to depend psychologically on what physicians and other opinion leaders say. "Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.... Our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of." When you come to realize the truth in Bernays' warning, that the pharmaceutical corporations and government agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) care more about money than they do about your health, it would be like discovering your mother has Munchausen Syndrome, a mental disorder in which a mother is driven to do great harm to her children or take their lives just to satisfy their own maternal neuroses. It is shocking to learn that many of those whom we have trusted to protect our health are actually poisoning us, even killing us with their drugs, surgeries, and other treatments while their "health care" costs drain all but the very rich very dry.
7. Another reason is that many of us fit the profile of "natural-born followers." We prefer to let anyone in a position of medical authority take responsibility for our health: doctors, nurses, hospital personnel, pharmacists, nutritionists. We do not want to acknowledge that we have to do a whole lot more than swallow "magic bullets" to be healthy. Many of us do not want to accept the need for self-responsibility.
8. Furthermore, many of us take the path of least resistance in our health pursuits. In the short run, it is vastly easier to take a pill or injection, to get a surgery or a treatment, than to change lifestyle habits, and especially, our diets. Taking the path of least resistance, though limited, saves us from putting out effort. Taking a drug, which requires the very least effort, also gives us instantaneous, symptomatic relief, unlike the much slower process of natural recovery of health via The 10 Energy Enhancers. Some do not want to learn what is poisonous. Some do not want to detoxify their environments. Some do not want to quit their jobs, if they are too stressful or if the workplace environment is too lethal. Taking the path of least resistance is so much easier than making so many new decisions and so many new choices that will require so much more energy that so many so do not have! To revamp lifestyles completely it all takes so much effort! It is so much easier to swallow a pill or go in for a treatment or both. It is far, far easier to have someone else do the research and reasoning concerning our bodily needs. Yet, as Victoria Boutenko writes, "When we let others observe and reason for us, in a sense, we consciously choose to stay blind and deaf" (Green for Life, p. 3).
9. Most people want the quick fix, even if it doesn't cure in the long run. Dr. Joel Fuhrman, author of Fasting and Eating for Health: A Medical Doctor's Program for Conquering Disease, prophesied that the time might come when doctors would be accused of malpractice for not prescribing the substantially more effective, nutritional approach to their patients. In an interview with Shelly Keck-Borsits in her book Dying to Get Well, however, Dr. Fuhrman is less optimistic and points out how well-worn is the path of least resistance: "The masses will continue to seek instant gratification via dangerous nutritional habits and drug-seeking." Most people have just not been inspired to put much effort into their health.
10. Another reason many of us cling so desperately to the medical paradigm is that we have taken a victim stance in life, especially when it comes to our health. All 4 schools of medical thought are perfect set-ups for the victim mentality: we are victims of a mysterious disease, we are victims in danger of wearing out, we are victims of our DNA, we are victims of germs. Some of us are victims of combinations of these 4 schools. Some have attended all 4 schools and appear hopelessly entrenched in The Medical Mentality. The helpless, hopeless victim falls into depression or rants and raves about how horrible it is to grow old and how his or her medicine isn't working and how bad its side effects are. "It wasn't my fault! A better way I was never taught!" are both the victim's funeral dirge and tombstone epithet.
11. And yet another reason is financial. Many people don't want to invest much money in their bodies. If health insurance won't cover the alternative doctor or health retreat, they won't go. They spend more money on upkeep of their cars' bodies than on their own bodies. They take more pride in their luxury vehicles than in turning their bodies into luxurious vehicles for their souls! Some are fearful of upsetting the economic structure. The new approach, while creating many new jobs, would also put many people out of jobs. Keep in mind that the Standard American Diet is part of The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst: until just recently, most doctors have claimed that diet has little or nothing to do with health! Therefore, most medical professionals, food giants, restaurant owners, pharmacists, drug salespeople, employees of the American Cancer Society and other such organizations searching for cures via drugs and herbicide and pesticide producers, and even some veterinarians, as well as some alternativists who disclaim the diet/health connection...all would have to change or radically revamp their careers to some degree if not radically if Natural Hygiene were to rule! Such revamping would then directly affect, all the way down the employee ladder to janitors and cleaning ladies. Toxicity is big business in this country! Throughout The Health Seekers' YearBook, Victoria and Dr. Vetrano call those whose livings are based on building acute and chronic disease, addiction, emotional and mental suffering: "The Disease Industrialists," and rightly so!
12. Many of us resist the idea that diet is absolutely, intimately connected to vibrant health and wellbeing. We have been so poorly educated about health and nutrition in schools and via the media, that we often completely separate the impact of what we eat on a daily basis from our day-to-day experiences of health... or lack of health. We want you to make the connection, then get well and stay well! FUN! When an animal is sick, we inquire as to what it has been eating. When a person is sick, we just take him or her to the doctor. When there is an ad for pet food, it emphasizes nutritional value. When there is an ad for human food, it emphasizes taste and convenience, or ridiculously enough, even sex appeal! Veterinarians and farmers both know that animal health depends principally on diet. They also know that animals will adapt to unnatural, cooked, and chemicalized foods by fattening up, aging prematurely, and developing other serious disease symptoms. For agribusiness entrepreneurs, fattening animals so that they mature quicker for an early slaughter and immediate market turnover is just, plain "good business." The trick is to get the animals to market before the disease process to which the sickening diet is contributing becomes noticeable to the few and far between inspectors from the FDA. For the millions of pet owners out there, the emphasis, however, is not on shortness of life, wealth, and apathy to animal sentience, but on length of life, health, and love for their creature companions. Raw food diets for pets are becoming all the rage among those who are in the know. More and more people are putting their beloved dogs and cats on raw meat instead of the more convenient, canned, bagged, or boxed pet food that has been heated and processed for extended shelf life. Horse lovers know that dried grass hay and alfalfa in the winter and fresh grasses in the summer will leave their horses happy, sleek, and full of life. Victoria and Dr. Vetrano, both horsewomen who began their love of all animals in early childhood, agree: "Horse lovers would never dream of feeding their steeds a steady diet of cooked foods!" Yet few people apply this common sense to their own feed troughs or even stop to consider that just such a diet of uncooked food may also be far healthier for themselves!
13. Perhaps most challenging of all, some of us just, plain do not want to relinquish our favorite SAD foods and do not want to even try to switch to health-enhancing diets. Worse yet, some of us do not even think it possible to end our deep-seated addictions and have given up, even though we know better! Reluctance to give up our favorite, toxic, cooked foods in exchange for raw food health may be the biggest mental and emotional stumbling block for most aspiring paradigm shifters! So much of our identity or our few, reachable pleasures in life revolves around food. The idea that we might have to change our diets to obtain health is, for some, a fate worse than living in food-related diseases. Some people would sooner change their religions or even let themselves die than change their eating habits. In fact, Devivo and Spors point out that our entire social structure revolves around food and is... "linked to love, sex, agreement, admiration, obedience, control, belonging, reward, indulgence, and self destruction. Our very identity of who we are contains food likes, dislikes, events, recipes, and restaurants. To be outside of that paradigm can be very unsettling" (Genefit Nutrition, p. 181).
14. So, why do so many cling so defensively to the medical model? Victoria BidWell, in an intense phone consultation, finally got me to understand that all these 13 reasons and many others you may come up with, ultimately, fit under one umbrella. One understanding and loving answer covers all: "They cling so because they do not yet know and have not yet internalized The Superlative, Alternative Natural Hygiene Health Care System. To truly know is to do right spontaneously...every time, because the knowledge has been internalized and the consequent wisdom has been turned into doing right...every time." Victoria, Dr. Vetrano, and I hope we have now let that cat out of its SAD bag!

The good news about the new "Health by Healthful Living!" paradigm is that we are no longer among the ill-informed or see ourselves as victims, fearing that we are at the mercy of a mystery, or that we will wear out before our time, or that, at any time, our genes from within or some pathogen from without could wreak havoc on our health. We no longer fear and tremble every time we get a cancer screen. Some of us no longer even bother with twice a year physicals or dental check-ups. Excluding external factors beyond our control, we are now in total control of our health! Health via The 10 Energy Enhancers and, especially, the live foods will make us masters of Superlative Health!

Another pleasant surprise about this alternative paradigm shift is that the price tag often reads: "FREE!" There is no need to pay costly medical bills for doctors, laboratory tests, surgery, drugs, toxic supplements, and other medical world products. Some may want to spend initially on a new, marvelous, powerful kitchen machine to make raw food preparation easy and fun or on exercise equipment or a health retreat visit. But for the most part, and if you want to forego these initial costs, this alternative paradigm in health care is free for the taking! Yes, "FREE!" Advertisement studies have announced the word to be the most favorite in the American vocabulary and the one that catches the eye the most when appearing in the printed word. Not one of us enjoys just throwing our money away. Except for the cost of quality food and good drinking water (The price of food must be paid whether live or SAD.), the other 8 Energy Enhancers are completely "FREE!" Your body is its own healer and doesn't charge you a penny! For those of us who are used to thinking that health care and even preventive medicine should be expensive, this financial freedom comes as a huge relief and a great delight! FUN!

"Let Food Be Thy Medicine and Medicine Be Thy Food." -- Hippocrates, Founder of So-called "Modern Medicine" 400 B.C.--

Eventually, a person may become disillusioned enough and sick enough and desperate enough with the medical model to try an entirely different kind of "medicine": LIVE FOODS. After a few weeks of eating a near all-raw or 100% raw food diet, the person is sold: Nature does prove to be the best "medicine." Hippocrates was right. Food can be "thy medicine." And medicine can be "thy food." And yet, it all seems so strangely surreal, so fantastic, like Alice in Wonderland: everything is through the looking glass or even upside down or both. Suddenly, the real pharmacopoeia becomes the "farmacopoeia"! Attributed to Meryl Streep is the statement: "It is bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children's health than the pediatrician."

Cooking food destroys life-promoting properties. Fire had its place back in the Neanderthal day: to cook beasts for survival food, to heat caves, to ward off predators. But when applied to the foods we eat today? Cooking (fire) is seductive, exuding warmth, engendering a "Nothing better than mom's home-cooking feeling." Cooking (fire) jogs our memories of love and happiness while the heated foods release aromas delicious. But let us not be fooled: fire kills live fruit and vegetable matter. Victoria's silly poem says it all: "Plant an unfired seed in the ground, and watch it sprout... watch it grow. Plant a roasted seed, and watch it not... watch it rot. Only disease will a heated seed sow."

Unheated food is "true medicine." The body heals itself, cures itself of disease, when properly cared for, properly nourished, and keeps a toxins-in/toxins-out balance. The body needs the proper, raw materials for its best building blocks, to be found exclusively in natural, sun-ripened fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and sprouts. Raw foods are alive! Cooked, denatured, chemical-ridden foods are dead! Look at a juicy, organic apple. If you eat it, its life force will be used by your body as superlative nutrition at the cellular level! Raw food is full of nutrition which the body needs and uses for rejuvenation and vigorous living: vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients galore, fats, proteins, carbohydrates, enzymes, biophotons, fiber, and so much more! None of this is so with the cooked apple. Instead, the cooked apple's toxic by-products will add to your burden! If you want more out of life and to live in pleasure and happiness, eat live foods. If you want less out of life and to die in pain and misery, eat dead foods.

Dr. Herbert M. Shelton paints a colorful picture for us and the results of this "Health by Healthful Living!" Paradigm shift in his most upbeat of all 80+ volumes authored Health for the Millions: "When one adopts Natural Hygiene, one lives in a new world. The transition from the old world to the new is immediate. All Nature becomes more beautiful and glorious! Duties which were irksome become easy to perform. We breathe purer atmosphere. New purposes animate us. New strength, energy, and power to perform are infused into us. The change in our character is equally as great! We see in every tree and shrub and in every blade of grass a beauty of which we had not before been conscious! Our whole life is permeated by a new spirit of love and good will! We develop a gentleness and kindness that are new to us. A fresh zeal enters into our relations with those around us. Strength is given us to perform whatever we choose, with cheerfulness and delight. Troubles, anxieties, cares are dissipated; for we know that our welfare is secure and on a firm basis."

The proof is in the raw pudding. Let live foods be "thy medicine." And let medicine be "thy foods." Chances are, no matter how healthy and happy you are now, you will be amazed at how much more health and happiness are to be discovered and plucked and savored along your raw life adventure and enjoyed to the Hygiene hilt!

Are you ready to switch horses in the middle of your life-stream? You do not need to get off. And don't worry. You won't fall off. You do not need to get all wet, either. You just stand in 1 stirrup and then swing yourself over to the other cozied-up horse! Then, you keep riding wherever The Superlative Alternative takes you. There, you will find... "The Loveliest, Liveliest Trails in The Wilderness!

"DEER, DEER" HEALTH SEEKER FRIENDS OF OURS... ARE YOU READY FOR THE RIDES OF YOUR LIVES?

Then - Let's saddle up our horses! We've a trail that has been blazed! We intend to get as good as it gets - with GOD'S AMAZING GRACE! We will ride the greatest, greenest pastures & peaks of high energy & health! We need only not stray from - but stay on - GOD's Back-to-Nature Trails: NATURAL HYGIENE by way of THE PHYSIOLOGICAL LAWS OF LIFE!

THE NATURAL, PHYSIOLOGICAL LAWS OF LIFE AS TAUGHT IN NATURAL HYGIENE

Victoria BidWell summarizes from hundreds of pages of Natural Hygiene texts by The Pioneers & gives her parenthetical extrapolations

1. LIFE'S GREAT LAW: Every living cell of the organized body is endowed with an instinct of self-preservation, sustained by an inherent force in the organism called "vital force" or "life force." The success of each living organism, whether it be simple or complex, is directly proportional to the amount of its life force and inversely proportional to the degree of its activity. (The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides Life's Great Law with propaganda to program The People into thinking that the 75 trillion cells of the body which make up "human life" must, without question and at all times, be subjugated to the dictates of The Medical Doctor and that lasting, reliable, dependable health and even "life" itself comes only through such subjugation. In fact, absolutely everyone in society is expected "to have" a Medical Doctor to the extent that many are in shock when a Natural Hygienist tells them he, or she does not even "have" a medical doctor!)
2. THE LAW OF ORDER: The living organism reflects order in form, construction, and function and is completely self-constructing, self-maintaining, self-directing, self-repairing, self-defending, and self-healing. (Although most Medical Doctors do acknowledge that science has revealed much about how the body works, The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides The Law of Order with propaganda to program The People into thinking that the presence of disease in the body is often times a "mystery," with no known causes and no known cures. Or that disease is an "enemy at war with the body," a war that can only be won by following the dictates of The Medical Doctor. Or that we all "just wear out." Or that disease is caused by germs against which the human body has no power to create its own immunity. The implication here made by the M.D.s is that the body is, in actuality, "disorderly" and unable to fend for itself, that it needs a medical doctor for that task.)
3. THE LAW OF ACTION: Whenever action occurs in the living organism, as the result of extraneous influences, the action must be ascribed to the living thing that has the power of action and not to the lifeless, the leading characteristic of which is inertia. (The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides The Law of Action with propaganda to program The People into thinking that the drugs pushed by those in control of The Medical/Pharmaceutical Industry have the power not only "to act" but "to heal," as long as these drugs are introduced into the body, exactly as Medical Doctors dictate. Likewise, alternative health care dieticians are fond of promoting foods by portraying them with powers of action which they absolutely do not, according to The Law of Action, possess! To do so is just another rendition of The Medical Mentality.)
4. THE LAW OF POWER: The bodily power employed, and consequently expended, in any vital or so-called "medicinal action" is vital power used up (or "expended Nerve Energy"), in other words, "natural power from within and not from without."(The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides The Law of Power with propaganda to program The People into thinking that the bodily response to any stimulation from ingestion of toxic medicines which The People experience comes from powers inherent in drugs/poisons, while the scientific truth is that the power experienced comes from the body being stimulated by drugs/poisons to rid itself of the drug.)
5. THE LAW OF DISTRIBUTION: The power of the body, whether that power is great or little, is distributed in a manner proportionate to the importance and needs of the various organs and tissues of the body. Power is distributed where it is needed most to keep the body alive - until death do it part. A healthy body with high Nerve Energy reserves distributes its energy freely to all demands made upon it for normal functioning and even extraordinary tasks at hand. But for a body failing, power is distributed first and foremost where needed to keep the body alive as long as possible. (The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst makes no effort to attempt to override such an obviously Common Health Sense affirmation of how the human body works.)
6. THE LAW OF CONSERVATION also termed "THE LAW OF AUTOLYSIS": Whenever nutritive abstinence (fasting or a low-calorie intake) is affected to bring about improved health, the living organism's reserves are conserved and economized: living structures are autolyzed in the inverse order of their usefulness, while toxic substances are eliminated in the process. This Law refers both to The Natural Hygiene Fast and to weight-loss done right. (The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides The Law of Conservation with propaganda to program The People into thinking that any kind of fasting will ultimately lead to an unbalanced biochemistry and to living on essential tissues, thus ending in starvation. The M.D.s see fasting as a dangerous form of extremism. Along these same lines, any dieting for weight-loss that does not follow The Basic Four Food Groups, no matter how the foods are served, cooked or raw, condimented or plain, is deemed extreme and dangerous by those of The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst.)
7. THE LAW OF LIMITATION: Whenever and wherever the expenditure of vital power has advanced so far that fatal exhaustion is imminent, a check or brake is put upon the unnecessary expenditure of power; and the organism rebels against the further use of even an accustomed stimulant. Here is where the metaphor cliché - "You can't beat a tired horse!" - is useful: a horse can get so exhausted that it lays down and just barely lifts its head to look at its master and groans in misery if the master beats him to get up. (The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides The Law of Limitation with propaganda to program The People into thinking that "extraordinary, warlike measures" must be used in hopes that science will kill the enemy-disease. Limitations of the human body are absolutely not respected. This false paradigm employed "to cure" often translates in reality as "to kill" as Nerve Energy reserves are squandered on treatments.)
8. THE LAW OF SPECIAL ECONOMY: Under favorable conditions, the vital organism stores up all excesses of vital funds above the current expenditures as "reserve funds" to be employed in time of special need. The body puts energy currency in its bank. (The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides The Law of Special Economy with propaganda to program The People into thinking that no matter how deathly weak a person gets with therapies/drugs prescribed by The Medical Doctors, war [against what Hygienists correctly denote as "symptoms of toxic overload"] should continue to be waged, that "reserve funds" [if this term were to even be recognized by The Medical Doctors] should bravely be deployed in hopes of winning victories over the dreaded enemy-disease. Doctors love to call for "extreme measures," extreme use of energy.)
9. THE LAW OF VITAL ACCOMMODATION: The response of the vital organism to accommodate itself to external stimuli is DNA-determined, based upon a self-preservative instinct which adapts or accommodates itself to whatever influence is set before it. (The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides The Law of Vital Accommodation with propaganda to program The People into thinking that the most effective way to train the body to accommodate to self-preservation is to become dependent upon a chosen Medical Doctor's thinking and care and to follow the chosen M.D. dictates without question, even when they are only getting worse, treatment after treatment.)
10. THE LAW OF STIMULATION, ALSO TERMED "THE DUAL EFFECT": When a toxic or irritating agent is brought to bear upon the living organism, the body puts forth vital resistance that manifests itself in an action at once accelerated, but also impaired. The body is stimulated and can even appear to be full of energy during the process! This resistance, however, has a dual effect: what goes up must come down. Stimulation diminishes the bodily power precisely to the degree to which it musters up action! The increased action is caused by the extraordinary expenditure of vital power called forth when stimulated. The available power supply is thus diminished by this same amount that was used during the stimulatory process. All toxins = stimulants = energy-draining. (The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides The Law of Stimulation with propaganda to program The People into thinking that the therapies and drug treatments prescribed by M.D.s should be followed, without question, regardless of the fact that The People experience loss of energy, loss of mental clarity, loss of hope, and finally, loss of life. In the M.D.s' paradigm, "to stimulate" is a good thing: in Natural Hygiene, it is "to poison and to waste Nerve Energy that should be conserved for detox and healing.")
11. THE LAW OF COMPENSATION, also termed "THE LAW OF REPOSE: " Whenever action in the body has expended the substance and available energy of the body, Adequate Rest and/or Sleep is induced in order to replenish the body's Nerve Energy. (The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst does not negate the need for Adequate Rest & Sleep. That need has been clearly established by science. The Medical Mentality does, however, muddy The Law of Compensation with propaganda to program The People into thinking that to take sleeping pills, whenever falling asleep naturally becomes even slightly troublesome, is a perfectly harmless practice and a good thing.)
12. THE LAW OF SELECTIVE ELIMINATION: All injurious substances which gain admittance by any means into the living organism are counteracted, neutralized, and expelled as fully as the bodily Nerve Energy supplies allow by such means and through such channels as will produce the least amount of harm to living structure. It follows, therefore, that if Nerve Energy supplies are low and a person has become very toxic, he will not have the Nerve Energy necessary to expel fully the Endogenous and Exogenous Toxins present in his body and he will thus start The Descent into Disease. (The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides The Law of Selective Elimination with propaganda to program The People into thinking that the flesh and blood, nerve and brawn of the human body have a virtually unlimited ability to tolerate and/or to detoxify a virtually unlimited number of mild and even virulent toxins commonly served in the foods from The Standard American Diet, found in our polluted environment, and omnipresent in the drugs and treatments prescribed by The Medical Doctors.)
13. THE LAW OF UTILIZATION: The normal elements and materials of life are all that the living organism is ever capable of constructively utilizing, whether it is well or sick. No substance or process that is not a normal-factor-element in physiology can be of any value in building up the structure of the living organism; and that which is unusable in a state of health, is equally unusable in a state of illness. (The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides The Law of Utilization with propaganda to program The People into thinking that virtually anything called a "food" by The Standard American Diet Industrialists and anything called a "drug" by the Medical/Pharmaceutical Disease Industrialists can be consumed absolutely and positively without harm and not only with impunity, but also with benefit. This is good news to The People who seek pleasures non-stop! They are happy to be brainwashed into the "Eat, Drink & Be Merry, for Tomorrow You Surely Will Not Die!" mindset.)
14. THE LAW OF QUALITY SELECTION: When the quality of nutriment being received by the living organism is higher than that which made up the existing, living tissue, the organism will discard lower-grade cells to make room for appropriating the superior materials into new and healthy tissue. (The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst makes no effort to attempt to override such an obviously Common Health Sense affirmation of how the human body operates, all the while offering the direct contradiction: "What you eat does not matter!")
15. THE LAW OF THE MINIMUM: The development of living organisms is regulated by the supply of that essential element which is least abundantly provided or utilized. The essential element in shortest supply determines the amount/rate of development. (The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst makes no effort to attempt to override such an obviously Common Health Sense affirmation of how the human body works.)
16. THE LAW OF DEVELOPMENT: The development of all or any parts of the living organism is measured in direct proportion to the amount of vital forces and nutritive materials that are directed to it and brought to bear upon it. (As noted in "LIFE'S GREAT LAW," - the first Law given - The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst does not acknowledge the "vital forces" ["Nerve Energy"] aspect of The Law of Development and overrides the "nutritive materials" aspect of this Law with propaganda to program The People into thinking that the quality of the "nutritive materials" of The Standard American Diet are totally adequate to supply health and that SAD consumption by humans is absolutely nothing to worry about.)

"DEER" BACK-TO-NATURE HEALTH SEEKERS!

If you are considering a visit to Our Hygiene Homestead in The Woods, I want to provide my following teachings in Chapters 14 and 15 dropped into The Live Food Factor book for your review of what to expect when you come! These teachings, now rewritten and significantly improved, take up most all of both these 2 chapters: they appear in bold-face so you will know when I am teaching and when Susan is speaking. I got involved with The Live Food Factor in order to see that the Natural Hygiene was correctly and thoroughly presented. Please read these 2 exciting, eye-opening, and crucial chapters before we talk about your making a reservation for fasting, juice dieting, or eating! May these teachings bless you and your loved ones! - "The Wilderness Woman!" Victoria Bidwell

MY HYGIENIZED CHAPTER 14 of The Live Food Factor
- Detoxification & Healing
via Natural Hygiene -

Victoria BidWell is fond of reminding me, "IT'S ALL ABOUT ENERGY!" As a former stimulant addict, I now realize I was looking for energy in all the wrong places. Toxic food, drink, and medications appeared to supply energy momentarily when my metabolism shifted into high gear to eliminate them. All the while, taking these protoplasmic poisons actually resulted in wasted energy.

"As Natural Hygienists, We Are Energy Conservationists!"

By Victoria BidWell with Dr. Vetrano & Susan Schenck

Susan writes: I want to thank Victoria and Dr. Vetrano for their extensive contributions and editing running throughout this chapter and the next. In Chapters 14 and 15, we are building on the foundational, alternative health care science and teachings laid down in Chapters 4 through 7. Your review of these chapters would be most useful at this point. Victoria with Dr. Vetrano's editing provide a summary here:

If we want more energy, we must stop wasting it and start generating it! Real energy is generated while engaged in just one of The 10 Energy Enhancers. Can you guess which one? It is during Sleep primarily, as well as during other periods of Rest, all forms of quiet meditation, and/or fasting on water-only. Energy is expended while engaged in all The (other) 9 Energy Enhancers; but its use is conserved, minimized. The very biggest conserver of all The (other) 9 Energy Enhancers is #5 - The Natural Hygiene Diet. When all is said and done, as Health Seekers, we are energy conservationists of our own body ecologies!

All the energy freed up with The Natural Hygiene Diet can now be used for cleansing, biochemical balancing, repair, and other life-supporting, health-enhancing work. As soon as sufficient Nerve Energy reserves are replenished, your body will proceed to detoxify and heal itself at the cellular and subcellular levels. As elimination of toxins proceeds, actual normalization of cellular structure and function at the molecular, atomic, and subatomic levels will lead to repair and rebuilding of cells, tissues, organs, and entire systems. These events have been likened many a time, by the Natural Hygiene doctors and physiologists, to "Nature's Microsurgery - at Its Finest!"

Few people are at the deathbed, pathological point of no return. Except for those rare cases, this cleansing and subsequent complete healing (for acute cases) and partial to near-complete healing (for chronic cases) is useful, and it is available to everyone. Learning and applying this knowledge is like winning The Superlative Health Lottery! And virtually everyone who enters and stays with it is a winner!

Although most people can safely go through toxin elimination and healing on their own, we are including here a precautionary disclaimer from 2 BOOKS IN 1: THE HEALTH SEEKERS' YEARBOOK WITH THE BEST OF COMMON HEALTH SENSE: "If you are ill or on medication, do not attempt this program without the supervision of a practitioner experienced in the dramatic effects of turning from a lifestyle that engenders disease to one that promotes health." We also advise: "It is absolutely essential that you consult an alternative medical doctor before discontinuing any prescribed medications."

The body is amazing in its ability to regenerate, renew, and repair - once the conditions for health are supplied! The natural diet for humans is composed of non-toxic, raw foods. They should be eaten in proper combination for ideal digestion and in moderate amounts and under the influence of Energy Enhancer #9: Emotional Balance. This biologically correct food supplies the body with the nutrition it needs to optimize the detoxing/healing processes. Also important are the 4 non-dietary forms of nutrition: Pure Air, Pure Water, Sunshine, and Adequate Rest & Sleep. Well-supplied, especially with these 4 Energy Enhancers, the body will proceed to detoxify and heal tissues - in its own chosen order and in its own sweet time.

The person in acute stages of illness who experiences a symptom flare-up or who just feels tired, uninspired, and out of sorts all of the time - both situations being typical of the earlier stages of disease - will have an easier and speedier time of elimination of toxins and recovery than someone in the latter stages of Nerve Energy exhaustion and toxic overload characteristic of chronic, degenerative disease.

For the individual who has been burning the energy candle at both ends, microscopic waste residues, exogenous poisons, and toxic endogenous by-products of metabolism inevitably accumulate from years on SAD cooked and poorly combined foods. Lacking the Nerve Energy to keep itself clean, the body adapts with a process called "disease." All endogenous and exogenous remote sources of Toxemia, including cooked SAD food toxins, end up in 1 of 3 places. They are deposited within the cellular protoplasm. They are present in the fluids around cells and tissues. Or they circulate in the bloodstream and lymphatic system.

Happily, all these poisons are mobilized for elimination just as soon as sufficient Nerve Energy supplies are replenished! As elimination of toxins proceeds from the tissues, the poisons enter bodily fluids and exit through the primary organs and systems of excretion. The largest excretory system of the body is the skin: its surface area is about 15 square feet for the average individual. The other primary organs of elimination are as follows: the lungs, liver, kidneys, the digestive tract, and the circulatory and lymphatic systems.

Susan: Now we see the beauty and promise of going through detoxification and healing! Most people experience the process as episodes of healing crises recurring over various time intervals: hours, days, weeks, months - or even years for the person in advanced stages of degeneration. These episodes are invariably interspersed with periods of natural highs that eventually stabilize and become the permanent condition: clearheaded, euphoric well-being accompanied by physiological peace unlike anything experienced in recent years or past decades. Victoria calls it... "Something akin to the peace that passes all understanding."

Homeopathic pioneer Samuel Hahnemann, M.D. (1755 - 1843) observed that healing tends to proceed in reverse order as the symptoms first appeared. Consider all the Exogenous Toxins of food-generated residues. Consider the Endogenous Toxins of poor food combining. Consider the ingested, absorbed, and inhaled environmental pollutants, as well as drugs taken. Victoria BidWell points out: "Virtually all toxins are all retained and build up when there is an energy crisis in a toxic body!" With revitalization, these retained poisons typically detoxify in reverse order of when they were either taken into the body or created within the body and then accumulated. In other words, you will detoxify from the lactic acid created from this afternoon's exercise routine before the toxins created and stored from last month's poorly combined meal. You will detoxify from the hamburger you ate yesterday before the grilled steak you ate last July.

What should you expect? As long as you observe a complete package of healthful living practices, especially Adequate Rest & Sleep, then revitalization, cleansing, and repair will proceed. Progress is more rapid for some than for others. The pace is speediest while eating 100% raw. The pace goes more slowly when you are partially raw. Even when eating merely 5% cooked food, the process does slow down. If you stay 100% raw or mostly allraw and provide all the other conditions for Superlative Health in right amounts, your body will eventually rid itself of virtually all toxins accumulated ever since infancy. The more raw, the better - if your digestive system is not greatly compromised and can handle raw foods in quantity! All the while, revitalization, detoxification, renewal, repair, biochemical rebalancing take place simultaneously. The body's healing intelligence is awesome!

Susan with Victoria: The bulk of this process usually completes within weeks or months for most people who are more tired than toxic. Dr. Vetrano realistically estimates it could take more than a year for the seriously sick person who is enervated, toxic, and into latter stages of disease. For the very ill, deepest levels of excretion of poisons and subsequent renewal can be expected to take years. Who cares? However long it takes, you are getting better, sometimes noticeably and dramatically better, every month - if not every week! Although it can never be proven scientifically, we go by a simple rule of thumb. For every year of eating cooked food, you need a strict month of doing everything right. "TO DO RIGHT" especially means "eating a nearly all-raw if not 100% raw food diet and getting plenty of Rest & Sleep and practicing all other 8 Energy Enhancers." The entire cleansing, renewal, healing process is greatly sped up by undertaking The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast. That is why it is called "fast-ing" = the revitalization, detoxing, and healing take place the fastest of any other approach!

The Fatigue Factor: "What Goes Up Must Come Down!"

By Victoria BidWell

Many people going through detoxification complain of feeling "so tired all the time. " In the following, I explain this Fatigue Factor letdown as simply, "What goes up must come down!"

Reasons are 2-fold why a Health Seeker, when going onto raw, wholesome, non-toxic, nonstimulating foods, feels especially tired, out of sorts, and maybe discouraged - and perhaps even lacking the mental/emotional wherewithal to continue. First, the body is no longer continually being stimulated with toxic food/drink. Their absence in the system leaves the detoxer to experience an actual state of extreme tiredness. The continual excitation and titillation is severely missed by the former stimulant junkie once they have been cut off. They had been delivering what felt like a genuine and wonderfully energetic boost! In physiological reality, the body had been continually overworking to expel the chronic use of stimulants. You can only whip a tired horse for so long before he gives up responding with heroic energy bursts and then drops to his knees and finally is laid low in exhaustion and agony. The second reason a detoxer feels fatigued without stimulants is because the body is working hard to detox existing poisons from fluids/tissues. This requires extra energy and leaves the detoxer feeling extra fatigued. (See The Law of Simulation or Dual Effect.)

A person who cannot get going in the morning without coffee is the classic example of this drugging/stimulating effect in action. But that effect is also inherent in all toxic food/drink and waiting to be expressed as soon as a person ingests them. This perceived "genuine and wonderfully energetic boost" is a total illusion! In physiological reality, it is a real drain - and not a genuine boost! Ingestion of stimulants/poisons in toxic food/drink are inspiring the body to respond by going into an alarm mode to store or excrete these unnatural and toxic substances. Taking these stimulants/ poisons just squanders readily available Nerve Energy. So, if one's Nerve Energy Meter reads "Near-Full," the person feels strong and energetic for the moment. But if one's Nerve Energy Meter reads "Near-Empty," the person just feels drained and weak and inevitably crashes soon thereafter.

Dr. Shelton exclaims: "WE SHOULD GET OUR OF BED IN THE MORNING WITH A BOUNCE!" Tell me, Dear Health Seekers, is that how you get up? An estimated 90% of American adults have to jump-start with this dark brew. Drinking the coffee is just beating your already tired body to get a little more mileage out of you before you - like the beaten horse - fall to your knees and collapse in exhaustion and agony. (See, again: The Law of Stimulation or Dual Effect.)

WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN! When a person so stimulates himself with a drug (cooked, toxic food/drink) and feels up, he must come down with the inevitable drain and very real drop in energy. Among Health Seekers who quit the poisons altogether and become bona-fide detoxers, most experience this unpleasant Fatigue Factor to one degree or another. They often dive into the physical, mental, and emotional doldrums and can hardly drag themselves around. This is not the time to quit, Dear Health Seekers! Revitalization is just around the corner!

Since all food/drink typical of the Standard American Diet are toxic, the ingestion of their exogenous poisons sets up a dangerous chain of events that leads first to exhaustion and finally to disease and untimely death. Certain foods and chemicals can be singled out as especially hazardous to your health: meat and dairy, refined sugar and flour, all excitotoxins, salt, all hot spices, and caffeine, for examples. The fact is that all cooked and/or SAD food is stimulating, toxic, energy-draining, and disease-promoting. Once your Nerve Energy reserves are exhausted, all cooked/SAD poisons lead to no fun and ultimately - to an early grave.

The Fatigue Factor links in this health-robbing chain of events follow:

• Habitual ingestion of SAD food/drink, most of which is cooked, introduces Exogenous Toxins into the body.
• Digestion of poorly combined foods releases endogenous by-product poisons into the body.
• Continual stimulation & irritation to the body's 75 trillion cells result in poisoning of tissues & fluids that leads to The Descent into Disease.
• Bodily toleration to poisons builds up while Nerve Energy reserves drain down.
• Biochemical & psychological addiction sets in as the body reaches upper limits of its ability to tolerate poisons: The Descent into Disease is well underway.
• As long as the food/drink poisons are ingested on a daily basis, the cooked SAD food eater experiences constant stimulation boosts: his body is now in chronic, low-grade activation of The Fight-or-Flight Response & depression sets in.
• The second-to-second drain of Nerve Energy on the body, mind, emotions & spirit to deal with SAD toxic food/drink leads to all-out fatigue & burn-out - termed "Enervation" - & to subsequent auto-intoxication, termed "Toxemia."
• The final, fateful, fatal link? Once Enervation sets in? The SAD cooked food addict has begun The Descent into Disease. Unless this person gets on the right track, he or she is well on the way to an early & miserable death. NO FUN.

While serving as College Instructor and Exam Corrector for most of the 3,000 students taking T.C. Fry's 2,200-page correspondence course, The Life Science Health System, I prepared from it an overview of what symptoms to expect when providing your body the ideal conditions for detoxifying and healing. Throughout my Natural Hygiene teachings, you will easily see why I am "The List Lady." And so, in the following, I alert you to 4 certain and 19 possible detoxification symptoms in the following list!

4 Certain & 19 Possible Detoxification Symptoms

By Victoria BidWell

You cannot make deals with your body or control its DNA-determined events. You can never know exactly what to expect. Every person is different, depending on inherited predisposition, available Nerve Energy supplies, amounts and kinds of toxins present, and irreversible damages already done. How strict you get with The 10 Energy Enhancers is the final, determining factor. I can, however, preview for you what to expect.

Some Health Seekers undergo a lengthy, dramatic, troublesome, and even miserable detoxification. Others notice no discomfort at all as they enjoy ever-increasing levels of higher energy and sharper mental clarity and higher Natural Hygiene Joy! Whether you experience one of these extremes or find yourself somewhere in between, be alerted to the more common detox symptoms. Ride on through them to get to the other side and reach your greatest state of Superlative Health and Hygiene Joy!"

Next, I provide a 23-point list of what to expect while undertaking The Natural Hygiene Fast or eating a non-toxic, raw diet. The first 4 describe initial and ongoing events common to all detoxing Health Seekers. The remaining 19 appear in no particular order. They may or may not be the detoxer's experience as revitalization, cleansing, repair, and biochemical balancing take place simultaneously, or at least in stages and cycles, throughout the body's 75 trillion cells. I repeat, "Every detoxer's experience is different!"

1. Nerve Energy supplies revitalize. This physiological event sounds too abstract to grasp. We get it when we see firsthand or learn of Health Seekers who do revitalize. They start a fast while terribly tired. They remain terribly tired for days and even weeks. And then, they revitalize so fully that many disease symptoms disappear. They move about energized and look bright-eyed and bushy-tailed - all without having eaten an ounce of foods for many days and even weeks! If we had a Nerve Energy Meter to measure Nerve Energy supplies for such detoxers, it would be obvious that while getting well, this Meter's needle would have moved from "Near-Empty" to "Full"- and even their reserve tank would be filled!
2. Body chemistry normalizes. Dr. David Scott of Scott's Natural Health Institute in Strongsville, Ohio, has developed his own blood tests on approximately 100 different parameters that he works up on a weekly basis for patients at his facility. So useful in charting progress are these blood tests that he requires them before admitting his patients.
   
   Most fast during their visits. But some are simply eating raw and living The 10 Energy Enhancers. Almost invariably, every patient with initial out-of-range readings shows blood chemistry moving in the direction of normalizing, with or without a healing crisis having taken place. If bodily reserves are adequate and time allows, a patient may fast to complete normalization on all parameters. If reserves are inadequate, refeeding commences with periods of detoxification, healing, and body chemistry balancing taking place while feeding on nontoxic, live food meals and/or drinks.
   
   While blood tests are seldom required at other alternative health care facilities, guests/patients can always request them. Similar results of blood chemistry moving in the direction of normalizing, with the Health Seekers going through healing crises that often end in complete normalizing (whether fasting or living strict on the raw, clean diet), are virtually universal in all cases. Without the costly blood tests, we can only surmise that body chemistry is normalizing in ourselves, as well, when we undertake to detox, whether it is during an at-home or in-clinic fast or by the slower route of eating raw foods and applying strictly The 10 Energy Enhancers.
   
   I recently asked Dr. Scott if, in his opinion, a person in apparently good health, with no chronic, degenerative problems, a person who just wanted to start his or her own detoxing program by fasting and without going to a retreat, could safely undertake a short fast of 7 - 10 days. His response was a definite, "Yes. That should not be a problem under those circumstances, as long as the person is truly fasting, staying in bed, resting, and avoiding stimulations of all kinds."
   
3. Blood, fluids, and tissues are cleansed. At Dr. Scott's Natural Health Institute, prior to undertaking a fast and at the end of the visit, the patient may be invited to observe a sample of his or her own live blood under a glass slide and through a microscope. Dr. Scott's sophisticated technology allows you to view the microscope picture of your blood sample, greatly enlarged, on color television. Typically, prior to the fast, the blood is filled with unmistakable debris. But the blood is seen to be startlingly clear and clean afterwards. This is the scientific, impressive, astounding proof of Dr. Tilden's 7 Stages of Disease paradigm!
4. The tongue gets coated and tastes bad - usually bitter. The coated tongue may be light and barely white to heavy and furry and quite colorful! Depending on what is being eliminated, the coated tongue can exhibit any range of colors: from the most common white to greenish to reds and browns. This "detoxer's tongue" is the single, most visible sign that the body is cleansing. If a person fasts to completion, the tongue will turn pink and appear clean. The breath will smell pleasant. The bitter taste will disappear. These events occur at about the same time that a genuine and compelling hunger returns. If a faster breaks his fast to begin refeeding without going to completion, the white and furry tongue will disappear, often within minutes or sometimes hours after that first bite of nontoxic, raw food. But the tell-tale detoxer's tongue will just as speedily return between feedings as long as clean, raw foods are taken. This return of the detoxer's tongue is the sure-sign that detoxing is continuing. While eating the non-toxic raw diet and when elimination of toxins is not yet complete, Health Seekers will, therefore, experience the detoxer's tongue between meals and snacks, usually slightly. It is more dramatic upon awakening to break the night's fast/sleep with breakfast. With the morning meal, we are literally breaking a fast of the night's sleep: that is why the word elements = "break" + "fast."
5. Headaches are the universal "join-the-club badge" of the toxic faster or detoxing raw fooder. These headaches result primarily from withdrawals of the most notorious of the Exogenous Toxins: caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, sodium chloride, cooked food, SAD food, and drugs.
6. When resting nearly 24/7 and not eating, most fasters not terribly tired need less sleep. In fact, the most common complaint of most fasters after the headache is the inability to sleep. Some speculate that while toxins are circulating in the bodily fluids in preparation for elimination, the poisons can stimulate the mental, emotional, physiological, and physical functioning. Insomnia very often is the result.
7. Nervous irritability and irrational, emotional outbreaks can occur. These are also withdrawal symptoms, commonly experienced for 3 - 10 days and sometimes in cycles. Because of this unstable emotional/ mental state, I must forewarn you not to any make major, life-changing decisions until withdrawal is full and complete, until stability is regained! I have seen people mess up their lives for years to come, or for the rest of their lives, by not heeding this warning.
8. Cleansing, and more so during periods of fasting than while eating raw, can bring about a unique, physiological state with unique brain function. This state is often called "faster's high" or "detoxer's high." Whether fasting or eating all non-toxic, raw foods, this pleasurable, altered state of consciousness is also called a "spiritual high" because the mind is so much sharper and clearer than when tired and toxic. Some even report being visionary in perception and thought. This spiritual high is brought on by one or more events: by the detoxer's experience of deep rest and revitalization, by the lightening of the person's toxic overload, by the detoxer completely letting go of emotional stresses, by trusting completely in the healing powers of the body, and by the faster's subjective experience of holding high hopes for healing. Finally, physiology explains the high. It is brought on when the 200 billion brain cells live not on glucose from daily food or stored glycogen, but on released and oxidized fatty acids from stored fat. This unique, physiological state is called "ketosis." The altered neuron and total body function from all of the above can result in extraordinary mental, emotional, and/or spiritual experiences - especially if the detoxer has a very big imagination and/or a mindset that enjoys transcending the material world! FUN!
9. The kidneys increase filtration. The urine becomes foul-smelling and dark-colored. Kidney stones are sometimes passed.
10. The liver undergoes cleansing, often with virtually no symptoms, except blood tests that show out-of-normal readings indicating a healing crisis in progress. A complete liver cleansing is typically followed by disappearance of any existing, so-called "liver spots" or "age spots" on the hands and face.
11. The gall bladder cleanses. Bile is sometimes vomited. Stones are sometimes passed.
12. The mucous membranes throughout the length of the digestive tract and respiratory system are cleansed. Throughout the mouth and sinus orifices, phlegm is coughed up, sneezed out, and otherwise eliminated by nearly every detoxer at some point. Phlegm is the sticky vehicle in which ride toxins for elimination. Phlegm appears in differing shades of whites, greens, and browns. This is when what The Medical Mentality calls the "flu" or "common cold" can occur. Symptoms include the following: cold sores, fever, shivering, sneezing, runny nose, coughing, sinusitis, inability to keep warm, and more. In Natural Hygiene, the misnomers "flu" and "common cold" are always replaced with the physiological reality: the body has reached upper levels of toleration for toxins and is conducting an elimination.
13. The breath can become foul-smelling. This is an olfactory indication of pollutants leaving the body in the form of toxic molecules in exhaled breath.
14. Weight loss always occurs during the fasting detox and almost invariably occurs with the raw food detox, as well. Such weight loss is temporary and should not cause concern. Body weight will normalize on the Natural Hygiene program. To reach their desired weight, some Health Seekers will want to start a regular aerobics or weight-lifting exercise program as needed for either weight loss or weight gain, respectively. But after a fast of more than a day or 2, all Health Seekers will regain some weight immediately upon refeeding, as the body is in a slight state of dehydration while fasting and will quickly re-hydrate itself fully once feeding is resumed. After a fast, the detoxed Health Seeker will rehydrate and gain pounds upon eating juicy foods. One must eat lightly to avoid an undesired weight gain.
15. The skin can become an avenue for intense elimination of toxins. Red spots, pimples, pustules, itching rashes, or even open and ulcerated sores (almost always small rather than large) may come and go, repeatedly. The body's orifices and pores may give off offensive odors, mild to strong. The mouth may have a foul or very salty taste as the body eliminates poisons and sodium-chloride, respectively.
16. Nausea, cramps, pain and/or unpleasant rumblings in the stomach and/or intestines can occur. Signs of detoxing and healing, these may be misinterpreted as hunger. This is always a false hunger. Genuine hunger, by contrast, is always a mild and pleasant urging to eat and is experienced as subtle cues in the mouth and throat. This is much akin to being thirsty, an experience to which we can all relate: the tongue seems to get larger, and the body cries for attention until thirst is quenched. Like that, the mouth and throat call for food when genuine hunger is experienced. Most people have never experienced genuine hunger in their entire lives and cannot relate to this description experientially. We hope to change all that with these teachings. After all, being able to identify genuine hunger is at the crux of feeling satisfied on the live food diet and is therefore crucial to our success as Health Seekers!
17. Pain may be experienced in localized areas where plaque, calcifications, tumors, cellulite, or some such toxic deposits exist. With continued cleansing and healing, especially during The Natural Hygiene Fast, the body breaks down these unhealthy tissues, cleans the toxic fluids, and eliminates the morbidity. Such pain experienced is often simply a retracing impulse. Or this pain can be actually felt concomitant with structural or organic abnormalities during mending of past injuries.
18. Weakness invariably occurs with fasting. The body's energies are being directed away from the musculoskeletal system and toward the cleansing of bodily fluids and tissues, especially tissues within the torso. Normal reaction time can be off. Shakiness can also occur, with or without the weakness. Bouts of weakness and/or shakiness may also occur while eating raw and detoxing.
19. The reproductive organs of both male and female undergo excretion of toxins and healing. This healing has led to restored capacity to reproduce in cases of sterility and to increased fertility in cases of limited fertility. Many cases of men and women able to procreate, once detoxified, are on record.
20. Enlarged organs return to normal size if The 6th Stage of Disease - Induration (or hardening) - in Dr. Tilden's paradigm has not yet been reached. If the fast is long enough and if the gland has not fully hardened, many prostate enlargements have been known to reverse to normal and soften.
21. Swollen, edematous tissues normalize. All men and women experience swollen tissues normalizing as tendons on hands and feet appear and their true facial features emerge. Puffy eyes, hands, and feet are the first to normalize. (It is wonderful for these Health Seekers to look like themselves, again! FUN!)
22. Nervous system tissues of the eyes are cleansed. The reported cases of arrest and partial reversal of chronic degeneration in cases of macular degeneration, glaucoma, and cataracts are few. Nervous system tissues are among the least responsive to correct, even once the conditions for health are provided. Many cases, however, of dramatically improved vision after a completed period of detoxification and healing are on record. Health Seekers often report one or more of the following visual events: an upgrading of eyesight so that glasses are no longer needed, a downgrading in strength of prescription glasses, more sharp and more clear vision with colors more bright and vivid, eyes that no longer burn or hurt when in use, dry eyes that re-hydrate and otherwise normalize. Disappearance of annoying floaters, the mis-shapen black specks that move around on the surface of the eye lens and that can obstruct vision, also can occur.
23. The arteries are cleaned out of fatty/cholesterol/toxin plaque. Blood tests during cleansing often show a rise in fats as they leave their arterial storage places and move into the bloodstream prior to elimination. Given sufficient time for healing, tests also show a normalizing of all body fat readings. With normalizing of cholesterol and triglyceride levels, pulse rate and blood pressure also move into normal ranges. This last change is perhaps the very most exciting to most, since half the American people die of a heart and/or vessel disease! "Death by cardiovascular disease" is seldom seen as the "Cause of Death" on death certificates among Health Seekers who go through the cleansing and healing and who follow up with strict, healthful living practices while living!

This ends my long list of "POSSIBLE DETOXIFICATION SYMPTOMS." This list, however, is far from exhaustive. For the complete story, we urge that you review some of the many supportive materials in The FastWell & GetWell Library at:
www.getwellstaywellamerica.com.
Fasting for the Health of It: 100 Case Histories Selected from Over 200,000 Clinical Records by Jean Oswald and Dr. Herbert Shelton is a tremendous inspiration! The Hygienic System, Volume III: Fasting and Sunbathing by Dr. Shelton is the most detailed and complete text on fasting ever written. Dr. Vetrano and Drs. Tosca and Gregory Haag have also prepared over 30 live DVD lectures on what to expect while fasting and detoxifying on raw foods, specifically, and with healthful living practices, in general.

The 2 Extremes of What to Expect while Fasting

By Victoria BidWell

If a person experiences any detoxification symptoms whatsoever, she can rejoice! Cleansing is occurring! "SOMETHING GOOD IS HAPPENING!" is the comforting motto for all novice detoxers. The guests at Our Hygiene Homestead in The Woods like to playfully - and sometimes agonizingly - role play me and my responses to their complaints or reports of any of the following: a really foul taste in their mouths, nausea, vomiting, nagging aches or pains anywhere, shakes, ad nauseam. For I always respond with "GOOD!" or "WONDERFUL!" or "VERY NICE!" And these detox symptoms are all good, wonderful, and very nice, indeed! When The 10 Energy Enhancers are being provided during a fast? YES! Something good is always happening when the faster is good and miserable! Misery is all par for the course and just as it should be!

If virtually no symptoms appear after fasting a few days or going raw for a week or 2, and if the energy is good, it means the Health Seeker is enjoying a detoxification honeymoon high. However, if a person does not experience noteworthy symptoms and if he or she is in an advanced state of chronic degeneration and if the energy has been and continues to be low, especially terribly low, this is a red flag warning. It means he or she is so weakened that very little Nerve Energy has been recuperated for elimination of toxins and healing thus far. More patience and time are needed just to get the Nerve Energy Meter well past "Near-Empty." These greatly weakened Health Seekers need to be under the care of a qualified professional to monitor progress. Every person is different. Many people breeze through, riding on a detox honeymoon high. A very few others may need care every step of the way. Most people undertaking a serious cleansing and healing do experience themselves somewhere between these two extremes.

Recorded case histories from natural healing retreats show that a very few persons deep into pathology will only get well with a long fast or a series of short fasts. These rare cases do exist. These very sick people need to complete their detoxification and healing under supervision or assistance. We are not offering pie-in-the-sky promises, miracle cures, panaceas, or other such irresponsible teachings here! (That was one of my few complaints, besides "the all-fruit diet," with T.C. Fry's teachings.) We want people to know the science and the truth - and to break free of The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst in the process!

We do offer this general detox rule: The more junk food a person has eaten, the more abuse to which he has subjected his body, the more he has depleted his existing Nerve Energy reserves, the more drugs he has taken, the more sleep he has neglected to secure, the more toxic his fluids and tissues have become from a lifetime of endogenous and exogenous poisoning, then - the more Nerve Energy he will need to recoup before the body can initiate major detoxification and renewal, much less bring them to successful conclusions. Many relatively young and drug-free people in good health and with high Nerve Energy reserves may experience only very mild detoxification symptoms or no noticeable symptoms at all when going raw.

Our follow-up general detox rule is just as important to heed: The more a person wants to remain cleansed, healed, and highly energetic, then - the more strict must be the energy-conserving, healthful living habits once the detoxification and healing period is complete. A key cornerstone to experiencing this feels-good, natural high is the 100% all-raw food plan or close to 100%.

You can fight The Fatigue Factor! You may be running on "Near-Empty" Nerve Energy reserves. You may be so over-stimulated by the day's activities/concerns that you are unaware of how tired you really are. Stop to take complete rests. If you are indeed running on "Near-Empty" Nerve Energy and Fight-or-Flight Response adrenaline, you are a crash just waiting to happen. You have lost touch with your body. You are living in your head as you experience the excitement of an over-stimulated mind, over-demanding daily schedule, and over-stressed emotions. I have seen many people get in terrible and costly accidents or make horribly unwise decisions when so enervated, over-worked, and over-stimulated - all at the same time!

Many a seemingly energetic Health Seeker has vivaciously arrived for a fast at a retreat's doorsteps and then simply collapsed into deep exhaustion. Such people hardly had the strength to get out of bed once they let go of stimulating substances, thoughts, and emotions. I have seen this happen countless times and in a matter of hours or just a day or 2 - and always to one's great surprise and chagrin, if a novice faster.

A Quick Overview of the Digestive System's Duties

By Victoria BidWell

The small intestine precedes the large intestine (also called the "colon" or the "bowel"). They are both basically long tubes lined with "inner skin" which is moist at all times. The open passageway through them is called the "lumen." The small and large intestines have entirely different structures and functions.

First, let's look at the small intestine. Digestion begins in the mouth. Food is chewed and liquefied with saliva and salivary enzymes in the mouth into a mass called a "bolus." The bolus is swallowed down through the esophagus and further liquefied with gastric digestive juices, especially hydrochloric acid and pepsin for digesting proteins, and is churned by the muscular stomach into a substance called "chyme." The stomach's pyloric sphincter opens to permit chyme passage into the lumen of the small intestine. Many folds characterize the 3 small intestine sections which process chyme further: the duodenum, the jejunum, and the ileum. The duodenum receives alkaline pancreatic juice to digest starches and liver bile to process fats into an absorbable liquid called "chyle." Now, absorption of chyle from the small intestine and into the blood stream is ready. Microscopic, specialized, finger-like projections called "villi" line the folds of the small intestine. The villi are covered with microvilli which are topped off with brush-like borders. The villi, microvilli, and their brush borders ingeniously provide enormous surface areas for nutrient absorption. From there, chyle is absorbed by the blood. Then, the nutrients travel to their final destinations: the cells' doorsteps. Here the nutrients are assimilated into the cells to be used for nutrition. The 3 sections of the small intestine add up to 18 - 23 feet in length.

At 5 - 6 feet in length, the large intestine is short by comparison. It serves primarily as the body's trash compactor and storage container once most of the food's available nutrients have been absorbed at the brush borders of the small intestine. Material in the colon consists of dead cells and other bodily and food waste, as well as plant fiber and other indigestible materials. Bacterial colonies proliferate and homestead in the colon according to the amounts and types of debris present. These bacteria decompose some of the cellulose and other bowel contents, producing their own waste material, some of which may either be nutritive or toxic to the body. Lacking the villi of the small intestine, the cells lining the colon have virtually no absorptive capacity. Besides serving as a moving storage container, one of the colon's primary functions is to absorb water into the blood stream so that feces are not watery, but instead, take the characteristic, tubular, soft shape so easy and pleasant to pass. The colon cells also do allow absorption of minute amounts of nutrients and other byproducts of bacterial decomposition while the feces pass through the bowels. Some of these by-products may be toxic, particularly those that result from the putrefactive decay of cooked foods, especially meat and other animal products.

Bowel contents passing through the lumen finally evacuate via the rectum, anal canal, and anus. Movement of food through the entire digestive tract is performed by peristalsis: autonomically controlled, rhythmic muscle contractions of the gastro-intestinal walls. Although peristalsis is an energy-intensive process, little energy expenditure is consciously experienced by persons eating 3 square meals a day. Two reasons account for minimal awareness of colon activity. First, the digestive tract has relatively few nerve endings beyond the mouth and throat to send signals to the brain; and so, among the healthy people, digestive activity goes by unnoticed. And second, the person eating has become used to the digestive process since it goes on all day, every day, 24/7. Most fasters, however, become very aware of their digestive tracts and the lack of this day-in, day-out intestinal energy expenditure. And persons deep into intestinal pathology, whether eating or fasting, are acutely and painfully aware of the passage of bowel contents through the lumen!

Susan notes how Dr. Alec Burton stated in a lecture at the American Natural Hygiene Society's 1994 Annual Conference that, basically, the entire digestive process is estimated to be only about 10 - 15% efficient in terms of energy liberated for the non-digestive, daily tasks. That is, the body uses 85 - 90% of the energy extracted from food just to process the food, to extract its nutrients, to circulate them to the cells, and to eliminate the intestinal and urine remains! I have noted other physiologists estimate a 75% energy expenditure. Either way, the remaining 10 - 25% of the energy liberated from our foods goes to the following: muscular movement, body heat, mental/emotional energy needs, reproduction of cells and glandular substances, and many other non-digestive, business-as-usual functioning throughout the body.

Are Enemas, Colonics & the Colema Board Treatments Recommended?

By Susan Schenck with Victoria BidWell

Susan begins: Whether using enemas, colonics, or the colema board is necessary or even helpful during detoxification is a controversial subject among natural health proponents. Both treatments involve the large intestine but never the small intestine. Dr. Vetrano and Victoria BidWell are quick to point out: "On raw foods, which require far, far less energy to process than SAD foods, the energy efficiency is much, much higher. Although it can never be scientifically proven, probably about 50% is extracted for non-nutritive, bodily use. See my Chapter 4 teachings: 'LIVE FOOD: IT'S ALL ABOUT ENERGY!' Raw foods in general require very little digestive energy. In fact, T.C. Fry correctly promoted fruits as 'pre-digested,' since all they need are thorough chewing, then swallowing and traveling through the tubing to the villi before absorption takes place. Vegetables and sprouts require a little more energy. Nuts and seeds a little more yet."

Victoria cautions: "Enemas and colonics involve introducing water or other liquids into the colon to forcefully loosen up and flush out 2 kinds of matter: transit feces and surface debris resulting from recent wrong eating of toxic, fiberless foods. These water treatments, as far as they reach, may loosen up and flood out virtually all of the transit fecal matter and much loose-surface colon debris. But contrary to popular belief, these treatments are totally ineffective in loosening toxins which have been stored in colon tissues. The flushing water cannot effectively reach into any earlier-staged or latter-staged diseased tissues that are characteristic of ulcerative colitis, diverticular pouches, polyps, tumors, and other colon pathologies."

Susan continues: Enemas employ the comparatively weak force of gravity. Enema flushing reaches only into the anal canal, rectum, and descending colon. This treatment can easily be performed at home by filling an enema bottle with about 2 quarts of warm water and by permitting the elevated contents of the bag to trickle into the body. The water can be spiked with wheatgrass juice or coffee to stimulate/irritate surface bowel nerve endings.

The liquid is held in the body by muscular contraction for a period of time and then expelled into the toilet. By contrast, colonics employ water pressure provided by a sophisticated, costly machine. The colonic flushing reaches much further. It goes not only into the anal canal, rectum, and descending colon lumens, but travels through the transverse and ascending lumens, as well. A treatment typically involves many repetitions using up to 5 gallons of water in total during sessions lasting typically 60 minutes. This treatment is performed by trained, licensed colonic therapists or by hospital nurses. The therapist controls the water pressure according to comfort level and sometimes massages the client's or patient's abdomen.

A third treatment intermediate between an enema and a colonic involves a colema board. Like the enema bag, the colema board treatment can be done at home; and the fluid reaches only as far as the descending colon. Like the colonic, the person may lie down while the entire bowel is filled, flushed, and refilled many times, although the force is considerably less than with the colonic machinery.

Among the 3, the choice for those who can afford it is almost always the colonic. Many people enjoy the relaxed atmosphere of lying back and letting someone else take control of the process while listening to pleasant, soothing background music. I have had many a colonic therapist tell me that clients unwind to such a degree that they confide their greatest joys, pains, and secrets, just as when going to a counselor or hairdresser!

Victoria BidWell contrasts "the do-nothing intelligently" stance of Natural Hygiene care with hydrotherapies and other forcing measures, in general: "The rationale in rejecting all treatments is that the body will naturally cleanse and heal itself in its own sweet time and in the sequence it deems wisest as the Nerve Energy reserves fill up. All we need do is provide the conditions for health and remove the causes of disease. The order and timeliness of all cleansing and healing is built into our genetic code and governed in their expression by how strict we get with The 10 Energy Enhancers.

"Forcing measures are self-defeating. They first stimulate and then enervate the body, rendering them relatively inefficient. Furthermore, they deplete the very Nerve Energy reserves the body desperately needs filled up in order to conduct its natural detoxing, chemistry balancing, and healing processes. This stimulation/Enervation variation of The Fatigue Factor inherent in all therapies thus renders colonics and enemas not just harmless, but potentially dangerous."

A young Herbert Shelton closely monitored the recovery progress of numerous patients at Lindlahr College's healing facility where he apprenticed while earning his doctor's credentials. He observed that those who received the fewest treatments and therapies, that is, the least number of colonics, enemas, sweat baths, cold showers, and other such enervating interventions fared the best. They recovered more quickly and thoroughly from their ailments compared to those who underwent hydrotherapy and other treatments.

Further dangers exist with the enema, colonic, and colema board habit. Their continued use while fasting may upset the body's electrolyte balance and deplete its enzyme reserves by flushing out bowel contents and thus preventing the recycling of electrolytically balanced water. Persons with the binge/purge eating disorder often become addicted to purging through their bowels and have messed up their electrolyte balance to a dangerous degree. Yet another danger is that the colon may become lazy as peristaltic activity is checked in expectation of further, forced evacuations. This results in an addictive habituation to the use of mechanical evacuation aids, as well as laxatives, and to a mildly euphoric high with each purge - a high that is addicting in itself. Ironically, overuse of enemas, colonics, and the colema board may thus lead to chronic constipation - one of the very conditions these treatments are designed to eliminate!

Many alternative practitioners see advantages in colonics. My personal opinion is expressed in this question: "Even though these gadgets are not natural, why not take advantage of technology designed to assist us in detoxifying our bodies as quickly as possible?" In many cases, they may be useful if not overused into abuse.

How Colon Pathologies Develop

By Victoria BidWell with Susan Schenck

Susan points out: "Some alternativists deem enemas and colonics necessary in cases of severe constipation or other pathology when the body has not had time to adapt to The 10 Energy Enhancers to achieve natural excretion of the bowels." I know that even Natural Hygiene doctors have, in rare cases, used enemas and colonic therapy with patients experiencing excruciating pain when the "do-nothing" approach had failed to bring timely results. Neither Dr. Shelton nor Dr. Vetrano, however, ever resorted to these therapies.

After years or even decades of toxic eating habits, the processed food eater may accumulate a thick, mucoid, intestinal plaque build-up on the large intestine's outer surfaces that face the lumen. Bowel impaction can result. Build-up and bowel impaction both have been observed by colonic therapists, physiologists, postmortem examiners, and autopsy pathologists. Their years of observations are documented with highly disturbing photographs and X-rays as diseased tissues and impacted waste filled the bowel lumens.

The body constantly works to keep such build-ups and obstructions from happening at all. But if Nerve Energy reserves are low compared to the toxic load continually imposed by the energy-squandering individual, new layers of plaque inevitably build up within the various tissues that come in contact with the bowel lumen. The large intestine and arteries have a particular affinity for such build-up, although the substances attracted and stored differ. The arteries accumulate cholesterol and other fats. The colon stores primarily uneliminated food waste, mucus, and putrefactive bacteria. If one genetically predisposed to bowel problems makes worse his genetics by eating a toxic diet, then intestinal pathology inevitably will result over time. One or more of the following can develop: flatulence, odor, diarrhea, constipation, colitis, ulcerative colitis, spastic colon, diverticulosis, polyps, tumors, cancer, mild discomfort, "pain as bad as child-birthing contractions," and other conditions and combinations thereof - all of which start with an irritable bowel.

Some bowel disorders are merely embarrassing or annoying. Others bring life-threatening pathologies with accompanying fear, pain, and misery. I have heard Health Seekers who come to me and describe their conditions. They share variations of the lament: "I would rather be dead than live like this!" X-rays in life and autopsies in death have shown grossly mis-shapen colons that were very painful to evacuate through and live with. They are most often impacted with blackened, stiff, and/or oily, gooey gunk. How sad to see these results of cooked food addiction: starches and sugars fermented, oils gone rancid, proteins putrefied - all congealed over time, some nearly rock-like petrified! "Eat, Drink, and Be Merry!" - it can kill.

Autopsies have revealed that in certain cases, the normal 2 and 1/2" - 3" diameter colon tube has been distended to 6" or more! These diseased bowels have taken on winding, fallen, convoluted shapes. They are weighted down with pounds of toxic build-up. They no longer take the healthy and relatively straight courses and sharp right angles of the colon's ascending, transverse, and descending sections. And now, among the living, medical doctors can use modern technology to put a tiny camera into the colon lumen and take color pictures of the outer colon surfaces! With pathology well into the latter stages of disease, these pictures are gruesome and horrifying! My latest guest at Our Hygiene Homestead in The Woods in February, 2010, arrived with such pictures: where only pink, healthy tissues should have been found throughout, several areas of black and blue and purple and oozing and pus-filled, open sores had developed, with diverticular pouches and polyps circled. Such pictures ought to bring any Health Seeker still seduced by and intoxicated on The Standard American Diet to her knees and crying out like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol: "Is it too late? Do I still have time to change? Does this early death have to be my fate?"

Black mucoid and tar-like plaque has been deposited so thick onto the outer colon walls that sometimes only a pencil-thick hole in the lumen is left for waste transit! Think of the strain it must take to force a bowel movement through such a small hole! If you go for a colonic, your therapist will be able to show you classic photos of this disgusting and pitiable situation, either on wall charts or in textbooks.

Susan continues: Upon autopsy, actor John Wayne, a real "meat and potatoes man," was rumored to have held 35 - 40 pounds of fecal matter in his colon. This may just be an urban legend. But it is easy to believe. Cooked fooders, especially eaters of cooked meat, do indeed risk impacted and diseased colons.

An average, healthy colon weighs only 5 - 10 pounds when empty. Most Americans on the SAD are estimated to be carrying around 15 - 20 pounds of unhealthy colon weight. Two situations most often motivate a person to take a fast to empty his large intestine or to detoxify while on raw foods and/or to go through a series of colonics. One is the presence of toxic build-up, partially created by the unfriendly bacteria homesteading. The other is the presence of miserable disease symptoms. Some swear by colonics in the initial stages of elimination of toxins. Their goals are to loosen up and flush out any loose, toxic material as speedily as possible and to minimize auto-intoxication resulting from possible absorption of even the most minute amount of this undesirable material.

Some people who choose variations of the SAD take colonics regularly. They know their low-fiber and highly intoxicating diet keeps their colons polluted. These colonic regulars reason that treatments will help. If you opt for enemas/colonics because you are still eating cooked foods, be sure to replace lost, healthy intestinal flora by taking probiotic supplements. Dr. Vetrano notes: "The natural flora will repopulate naturally while on raw foods. And the USANA supplement is an insurance policy for such repopulation." Victoria ends this section.

To guests at Our Hygiene Homestead in The Woods, I delight in showing a 1990s' Hollywood satire of the year 'round life at one of the most successful and renowned turn-of-the-century health retreats in America! It is a wonderful last evening event, after all the guests have gone through with me, and makes my program look like, as one guest put it, "a piece of cake." Early 1900s' American natural health educator Dr. Harvey Kellogg at his Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan first popularized the SAD colon phenomenon by warning the world: "Death begins in the colon!" His treatments, satirized, are hilarious! This raucous glimpse into life at "The Sans" can be seen in The Road to Wellville movie. The emphasis on keeping the colon clean is vividly portrayed in this trip to Dr. Kellogg's fancy health retreat for the rich and famous! The viewer, however, must get past a few sexy scenes in order to enjoy the several subplots and to thoroughly "get it."

The Detoxified & Purified - "BODY, MIND & SPIRIT!"

Victoria BidWell Brings into the Concrete Our Live Food Factor Subtitle!

Christian evangelists and television personalities Elmer and Lee Bueno built a Mexican-American ministry in the 1980s and '90s based on the promise of detoxification and healing. They taught The Garden of Eden Diet with the biblical prescription of Genesis 1:29 and often reminded their students: "There were no cook stoves in The Garden of Eden!" They called their organization "Born Again Body!" This name not only celebrates being born again in spirit. It praises the feeling of complete purification and rejuvenation of the body, as well! Lee lays out the possibility of achieving a born again body in Fast Your Way to Health. Initially, Lee and I agreed when I went to rewrite/ edit her manuscript, it would be a co-author project. Later, I allowed her to buy my name off the front cover. During the project, I listed 20 signs of a detoxified, purified body, mind, and spirit via fasting and/or raw fooding. The first 17 are a compilation from Dr. Shelton's work. The last 3 are from my oft-noted experiences as a Christian practicing The 10 Energy Enhancers.

• Bright pink tongue
• Sweet breath & fresh, clean-tasting tongue
• Normalized temperature
• Normalized pulse rate & blood pressure
• Soft skin, free of Irritation, Inflammation & other abnormalities
• Return of normal saliva flow
• Clear, light, odorless urine flow
• Odorless excreta
• Normal pink color under fingernails
• Increased rapidity with which blood flows back into the skin when forced out by applied pressure
• Disappearance of unpleasant body odor
• Return of genuine hunger
• Disappearance of any acute symptoms of disease, if any were present
• At least arrest, if not partial to near-complete reversal of chronic, degenerative symptoms, if the faster entered the fast with such symptoms & soon enough
• Bright, clear, sparkling eyes
• Renewed strength & vigor
• Sharp memory & use of mental faculties, in general
• Loss of inertia/laziness & a distinct, unmistakable quickening of the flesh to move forward in useful & unselfish projects while fulfilling God's plan for one's life!
• Heightened appreciation for God & gratitude for all creation: nature, animals, the flora, the waters, the air and skies, human beings, the planet & the cosmos!
• Feeling of mild to high joy & "the peace that passes all understanding."

The Limbic System & The Retracing Factor - Explained!

By Victoria BidWell

The limbic system of the brain is located deep within the cerebral cortex. The limbic system is a fist-sized mass of neurons some call the "reptilian brain" because its electrical activity bypasses neurons associated with rational thought and is primitive in quality and reactive and instinctive in function. The limbic system is also called the "emotional brain." It plays a key role in memory. It works in concert with multiple areas of the 2 cerebral hemispheres to give us the gamut of emotions: highs and lows and everything in between. Among other triggers, limbic activity bypasses the conscious mind when stimulated by tastes and smells. Other environmental triggers, such as sights and sounds and touch, can also come into play. But taste and smell are the most powerful, the most compelling, and the most seductive.

When food or drug memories are at play, the limbic system can conjure up the past and inspire cravings so vivid that they can be experienced as absolutely beyond rational control! Our American court system even respects this phenomenon by creating a "crimes-of-passion" category whereby the lawbreaker is given a less severe sentence than the cold-blooded criminal with premeditated intent to do harm to another. Once the limbic system is so stimulated, this is when people obsess over thoughts and act out what they call "irresistible compulsions." Their lives are out of control. Physiological science and neuroanatomy provide keys that can give us law-abiding citizens control over our daily lives and that can likewise give those potential crimes-of-passion offenders hope over their obsessions and compulsions.

During detoxification, poisons are being eliminated that have actually been built into the body's own cellular structures as a result of ingesting addictive foods and/or drugs. These retained toxins leave the cells, go into the circulatory pathways and travel through the body in the process of reaching their various eliminative channels. The brain can be stimulated by these released poisons. When this stimulation of the nervous impulses, especially via highly pleasurable memories experienced through the tastebuds and olfactory nerves, reach the limbic area of the brain - WATCH OUT! Wildly concrete images of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell can be conjured up! And equally provocative accompanying memories and obsessions/compulsions can be evoked! Substance abuse of recreational drugs and addiction to prescription drugs both employ this same limbic pathway as do toxic food cravings. The desire to re-eat the toxic foods, therefore, can be just as irresistible as the desire to re-live the drug experiences! In Natural Hygiene teachings, this phenomenon of re-living a taste or a smell, a drug experience, an ache or a pain, a memory, or even an obsession/compulsion during detoxification and healing is formally termed "retracing." It occurs among detoxers with regularity. If not educated as to what is happening, these detoxers may feel helpless and hopeless as they give in to the confusing and overpowering urges for the very chains from which they are about to free themselves! They must understand the science of physiology and brain function behind the helpless feelings. They must work with their bodies, minds, emotions, and spirits in order to claim that freedom. Understanding this Retracing Factor demystifies the compulsion, gets rid of confusion, and allows the person to consciously override these addictive urges. The good news is, that with this understanding, most times we can just count slowly and deliberately from 1 to 15. Or we can count from 1 to 100, if that's what it takes to carry us well past the urge to indulge. Or we can just offer little prayers or say to ourselves: "This too shall pass." We can direct our attention to some mindless task, demanding chore, or pleasurable activity to move us through and well past the cravings. This is employing behavioral modification techniques at their best. For the behavior modification practices I have found most useful for Health Seekers, see Appendix F. Susan continues: In the next chapter, Victoria BidWell continues taking the lead. With Dr. Vetrano and me to back Victoria up, we will examine the scientific practice of fasting and when to fast as an aid to detoxification and healing of body, mind, and spirit. This is a new chapter in our 2nd Edition of The Live Food Factor.

"DEER" HEALTH SEEKERS 'ROUND OUR WORLD!

I have deleted a few sections of this chapter written by Susan that are way off The Natural Hygiene Track and only serve to distract. In the following are all my Back to Basics Teachings: a few written by Susan & edited by myself but most presented exclusively by me & edited by Dr. Vetrano. My teachings are all in bold-face. The Natural Hygiene Fast & The Juice Diet are our focus: for these are exactly & correctly what you will get at Our Hygiene Homestead in The Woods from The Wilderness Woman in The Cascade Mountains of Washington State, U.S.A.

MY HYGIENIZED CHAPTER 15 of The Live Food Factor

The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast & The Juice Diet

Susan and Victoria begin: Going on a fast = blocking out a period of time to be used by denying oneself something. "To fast" commonly means "to abstain from something, usually food and/or drink." People fast for different reasons: to cleanse the body and improve health, to lose weight, to break addictions, to increase spiritual or mental awareness, or to take a social or political stand.

While many fast for the wonderful feeling of lightness and freedom it brings, most people fast because they want to get well. If, however, the prospect of fasting doesn't sound particularly appealing, just be reassured that genuine hunger generally disappears in a few days. Usually by the third day, the physiological call for food is gone, although cravings and desire for food as entertainment may persist for some people.

Your body can cleanse and heal itself more rapidly while fasting or juice dieting, (often incorrectly referred to as "juice fasting") than while eating whole foods. Since the body doesn't have to spend so much energy digesting foods and eliminating their residues, it can focus on revitalizing, expelling stored toxins, and repairing damaged cells.

Fasting on Water-Only Versus Juice Dieting

By Victoria BidWell with Dr. Vetrano

Natural Hygiene teachers hold that fasting on water-only is the only way to fast correctly, and they consider it superior to juicing in most situations for most Health Seekers. Note: Natural Hygiene teachers consider "juice fasting" to be a misleading misnomer that should be correctly termed "juice dieting."

For the speedy elimination of toxins and healing, Dr. Vetrano explains the superiority of fasting on water-only compared to juice dieting: "Since the body has the opportunity to revitalize and then cleanse and heal itself during The Natural Hygiene Fast, the less interference it has, the better. That is, the less dietary ingestion, the better - whether that ingestion be in juice or whole food form. The body does not need to waste its precious Nerve Energy and stored reserves to handle glasses or even quarts of juice every day. Perhaps the greatest detriment to the juice diet in comparison to The Natural Hygiene Fast is that the juice diet does not force the body to rely solely upon its reserves for nutrients. Instead of forcing the body to break down its tissues - especially the unhealthy, morbid tissues - for the vitamins, minerals, energy reserves, and proteins it needs, many of these nutrients are supplied by the juices daily. Furthermore, when juice dieting, the metabolism does not slow down nearly as much as it does when abstaining from all whole or juiced food and taking in only water. Therefore, the more metabolically active, physiological/nutritional situation set up by juice dieting causes a greater depletion of the body's protein stores than fasting on water-alone. And thus, the body is far less challenged to break down its unhealthy, morbid tissues: the very reason the person is going on a juice diet to make happen in the first place!"

There is no need to stop and review all the other alternativists who claim that juice dieting is superior to The Natural Hygiene Fast for revitalization, detoxification, chemistry balancing, and healing. They all have their own theories and have many reasons for preferring the juice diet to fasting on water-only. Suffice it to say that many alternative health care professionals and educators outside Natural Hygiene prefer the juice diet to The Natural Hygiene Fast. One reason they never give, however, is that the juice diet is less care and worry for them - as practitioners! This is because there are few if any healing crises on juices and far fewer patients/clients complaining of their boredom and physical discomfort, if not misery, on juices! All the better for the practitioner, who seldom spends more than a few minutes, one-on-one with any given patient or client daily, anyway. But it is not "all the better" for the Health Seeker. Read on to understand why!

In response to the alternativists who favor the juice diet, Dr. Vetrano and I make this formal statement while addressing the debate issue: "Which is better? The Natural Hygiene Fast or the Juice Diet?"

Think about it! The whole idea of fasting on water-only to get well is to inspire the body to live off its own reserve nutrients exclusively, healthy and unhealthy both. The whole idea is to set up this scenario! Fasting on water-only is the most favorable set up for complete healing to take place in as short a time as possible. If an ill person takes juices, however, he is living partially on juice nutrients; and thus, the auspicious water-only set up for exclusivity and for most expeditious healing is fully sabotaged! The possibility of inspiring the body to break down unhealthy tissues until they are completely autolyzed and the ill person is completely well is therefore far, far less likely to occur and certainly less speedily so on a juice diet!

Ill-informed doctors consider an acidic condition pathological while fasting on water-only and want to correct it by giving the sick person raw juices. The alternativists' fear of the body's biochemistry turning acid during a water-only fast is also completely incorrect. Yes, it is true that when fasting on water-only, the toxic body is more acidic. But that is perfectly normal and as it should be! Stored wastes and poisons are all acidic. As they leave their storage sites for elimination, the body will be perfectly and correctly acidic! But it will normalize its chemistry to alkaline in its own sweet time - and without any juices whatsoever!

Of course! Healing crises do occur less often on juices! But a healing crisis is called a "healing crisis" because that is when healing occurs most efficiently and rapidly! And that happens most thoroughly and expeditiously on water-only! Is this not exactly what the sick person wants? Complete and rapid healing? Besides, in some cases, full healing cannot even take place while taking in nutrients; and for these Health Seekers, a fast on water-only is the only route to take to inspire complete bodily healing.

When taking nutrients, the juice dieter's metabolism is not slowed down significantly, even if resting a great deal. If the juice dieter is active, it is not slowed down much at all. But the faster on water-only goes into a unique, physiological state of deep and complete rest; and metabolism is slowed down dramatically. In comparison, the juice dieter's needs for protein are much higher than those of the faster on water only. With anything over just a few days, therefore, the juice dieter is potentially creating a serious protein deficiency. With fruit and veggie juices, Health Seekers are getting the full spectrum of minerals for some detoxification and healing; but they are not getting enough protein. Nutrition becomes lop-sided. With the fast on water-only, nutrient-conserving in general and protein-conservation in particular take place. This is the ideal set-up for complete healing. This is... The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast!

An Overview of Fasting & Freedom from Addictions

By Susan Schenck with Victoria BidWell

For many persons without hard-core eating disorders, the cellular memory of and cravings for coffee, drugs, and cooked food are either virtually erased or greatly diminished after a fast of several days or longer. Victoria BidWell is an expert on the obsessive/compulsive eating disordered. She points out the exception to this post-fast phenomenon of losing interest in SAD cooked foods: "The depths of a person's addiction to cooked SAD food is often not revealed until he or she takes a fast and then starts on all-live foods. Then the addictions surface - sometimes with a vengeance! The new raw fooder may find himself or herself, much to his or her despair, hopelessly hooked on cooked. One of my clients spent thousands of dollars going to an Australian retreat because the Natural Hygiene doctor there advertised that fasting would get rid of all food cravings. She naively believed the ad. When that did not happen for her, she was shocked! The truth is: most hard-core, SAD food addicts will still struggle, even after taking a fast or juice diet. They will have to put out behavior modification and visualization and affirmation energy. They may need to get on-going counseling and/or God to get free from their SAD food addiction. At the root of their problem is a self-image that needs radical changing from hopeless and unhappy to believing in new possibilities, choosing to do right, and wanting high joy as a way of life! Certainly, going all-raw, practicing The 10 Energy Enhancers, and taking a fast is the best route to help these far-gone addicts regain hope, get control of their lives, and get happy."

Paul Bragg writes of a woman he supervised on a fast. She had been doing 4 packs of smokes and drinking a fifth of whiskey a day! She was also a heavy drinker of colas and coffee. Her nerves were so shaky that her hand trembled while writing. She suffered from insomnia, blurred vision, pasty and flabby skin tone, and thoughts of suicide. When Bragg put her on a fast, he allowed her to smoke a little and drink small amounts of alcohol and coffee. But on the third morning of the fast, these poisons began to nauseate her. Any time she began to drink alcohol, tea, or coffee, she would vomit. For the next 7 days of the fast, she had no desire for these poisons. Bragg put her on a raw diet another 10 days, then on a fast for another 10. After that, her skin tone renewed to perfection. She was happy and carefree, and she was free from addictions! Bragg reports: "She became one of the best writers in the Hollywood TV and movie world. Her income doubled and tripled. Her personal magnetism increased, and she attracted a handsome, wholesome man for a husband" (The Miracle of Fasting, pp. 110 - 111). Through his experience in supervising fasts, Paul Bragg proved repeatedly that anyone with addictions can find the answer in fasting. When the body becomes clean, it will no longer tolerate poisons without taking action to expel them.

German Professor Arnold Ehret maintained: "If an alcoholic were to be made to fast for a few days or eat nothing but fruit, he would soon lose his taste for beer and wine. This proves that the entire civilized mass of foods from beefsteak to seemingly harmless oatmeals creates a desire for these detestable antidotes: alcohol, coffee, tea, tobacco. Why? Because overeating makes man lazy. And consequently, he has to pep himself up with stimulants" (Rational Fasting, pp. 40-41). And Joseph Sarelli declared that he was freed from an addiction to 4 packs a day of cigarettes after a 27-day fast (Naturally, The Hygienic Way, August, 1984).

An Overview of Spiritual Benefits of Fasting

By Susan Schenck with Victoria BidWell

Susan with Victoria continue: Spiritual benefits from fasting are well known in nearly every religion, though religious ritual fasts are sometimes very brief (a day or even less). Early Native American Indians fasted while going on a vision quest and taking passage into manhood. Muslims fast from sunrise until sundown every day during their holy month of Ramadan (not even drinking water, despite living in the desert). Fasting is also practiced in Judaism and Christianity. The Holy Bible mentions fasting 74 times. Moses, David, Elijah, Jesus, and others mentioned in The Holy Bible fasted for as long as 40 days and 40 nights, a length commonly referred to as... "The Master's Fast." And during The Golden Age of Greece, the great philosopher Pythagoras required his disciples to fast for 40 days and 40 nights before being initiated into the mysteries of spiritual teachings. Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle also required their students to take fasts. They believed that only through fasting could the mind be purified enough to understand the deepest teachings of life's greatest mysteries.

After Gandhi led the passive resistance movement of the Indians against British imperialism and an independent India was established, internal strife between Pakistan and Muslim Indians broke out. Gandhi hoped citizens on both sides would respect his love for a free India and his efforts to make the dream come true. He further capitalized on the people's inability to distinguish between fasting and starvation! Gandhi thus conducted long, personal protest fasts to inspire members of the 2 factions to restore peace in the new India. His refusal to eat unto what appeared to be starvation was so effective and so well-publicized that the fighting stopped. Gandhi, however, knew exactly how long he could safely fast, as Dr. Shelton had provided Gandhi with Natural Hygiene counsel and a copy of Fasting and Sunbathing: Volume III of The Hygienic System. Gandhi's fasts popularized social and political fasting. It is practiced to this day by protestors.

Susan continues: Many raw food teachers have also remarked on spiritual powers improving with fasting. Arnold Ehret considered fasting the master key to mental and spiritual evolution. It was said of Dick Gregory that after extensive juice dieting, he lost not only weight but also his anger. He claimed that as fasting cleanses the body, poisons are thrown off, releasing hatred and other sick emotions.

Victoria BidWell explains why some Christians experience a spiritual high when fasting: "During a fast, the flesh is neither fed nor satisfied with lustful longings for food. The faster draws closer to God and can better listen to the Holy Spirit. I recall deep into my long fast at Dr. Scott's on one warm spring day. I walked barefoot out onto the huge lawn that overlooked roadways and lay down to rest. I sank down into the deep, cool grass. Suddenly, I felt the whole property being lifted up into the cumulous clouds. The non-stop sounds of busy traffic went completely silent. Then, the proverbial 'peace that passes all understanding' flowed through me - bringing love, joy, and gratitude into every cell of my body."

An Overview of Fasting & Mental Health Benefits

By Susan Schenck

According to Dr. Shelton, mental powers such as memory, attention, and association are improved during fasting. Imagination is at its best. This is because increased blood flow and Nerve Energy used to process food are freed up for use elsewhere in the body. He explains: "Large amounts of blood and nervous energies have to be sent to the digestive organs to digest a meal. If these energies are not required there, they may be drawn upon by the brain in thinking" (Fasting and Sunbathing: Volume III of The Hygienic System, p. 67).

Brain tissues also excrete toxins during fasting. In fact, many times, Dr. Shelton saw mental health during a fast improve greatly among his patients. Depression and pessimism lifted. "Insanity is frequently overcome while fasting, and practically all cases are improved by the fast" (p. 68).

Dr. Yuri Nikolayev of the Moscow Psychiatric Institute and Alan Cott, M.D., have even had great success in treating mental illness, including schizophrenia! Also, Michael Bobier reports that he had been obsessed with and almost suicidal over a woman who broke up with him for another man. By his 20th day of a fast on water-only, Michael was not only free from his jealousy, but even felt compassion for her and her new companion because they were on a cooked diet and drank alcohol (Living Nutrition, Vol. 19, 2007, p. 59). Stephen Buhner sheds some light into how the mind is affected by fasting. When the intake of carbohydrates is low enough, the body is forced to use fat stores for fuel. This change is called "ketosis." "When in full ketosis, the mind simply works somewhat differently. Thinking can be just as acute; but it tends to be slower, more reflective, more studied, and deeper, and aside from thoughts of food or ending the fast, less inclined to dwell on future plans" (The Fasting Path, p. 76).

The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast

By Victoria BidWell & Edited by Dr. Vetrano

I now assist Health Seekers wanting to fast at my school named "Our Hygiene Homestead in The Woods" located in Concrete, Washington. I consult with Dr. Vetrano and Drs. Tosca and Greg Haag and Dr. Zarin Azar when guests need a doctors' help. In the following, I share highlights of my experiences and knowledge about The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast.

I had the great education and pleasure of spending at least 6 years of my life, all tolled, at most of the many Natural Hygiene schools, institutes, and vacation spots during the 1970s and through into the 1990s. In my travels, I met, worked for, and/or studied with most of the most renowned names and lesser knowns of those times. These 3 decades spanned "the great heyday of Natural Hygiene and fasting" that T.C. Fry's publications, especially his Healthful Living Magazine, inspired among his 36,000 subscribers. At most of these places, the facilities were filled and overflowing with 3-month long waiting lists. It was a grand era!

My longest fast on water-only was in 1992 for 36 days. Dr. Scott gave me a spot in a shared room with 2 other women, in gratitude for my efforts to further Natural Hygiene teachings and help Health Seekers. At Dr. Scott's Natural Health Institute, I fasted and then followed up with 2 weeks on lettuce and watermelon and another 18 days of fasting on water-only and another 10 days of refeeding. Most of the healing benefits in body, mind, emotions, and spirit that I harvested then have lasted to this day. I would surely have died of physical exhaustion from overwork and not enough Rest & Sleep if Dr. Scott had not helped me.

Humans and animals alike have practiced fasting for thousands of years and for many reasons. Yet, we never see advertisements for fasting on water-only on television. And medical doctors argue vehemently against fasting in the media and to their patients who bring up the subject. If the idea of fasting sounds too radical and tempts you to give up your conventional paradigm to alternative paradigm shift, just know that no one is forcing you to take a fast. The slower method with The 10 Energy Enhancers also gets good results.

Remember: IT'S ALL ABOUT ENERGY! And: DISEASE IS AN ENERGY CRISIS IN A TOXIC BODY! Keep in mind that the high rate of disease arrest and partial or complete recovery among Health Seekers who undertake a fast is backed up by The Natural, Physiological Laws of Life.

As previously stated, physiologists estimate that at least 75% of the energy the body uses on a daily basis for persons eating conventional SAD foods goes not for body heat and muscular movement, not for mental/emotional work, not for reproduction or cellular replacement, not for detoxifiying and healing, as you might think. Instead it goes for these supremely energy-expensive, metabolic tasks: digesting food in the mouth, stomach, and intestines; moving ingested food through the alimentary canal from beginning to end via peristalsis; absorbing chyle from the small intestine into the blood stream; circulating absorbed nutrients through the liver for initial cleansing; moving nutrients to the cells; assimilating nutrients into the cells; converting nutrients into energy to be made available to the body; and eliminating toxic by-products and metabolic waste from foods.

These dietary-related processes feed the 75 trillion cells of the human body and remove the food wastes. These many food-handling processes - and not the combination of body heat, muscular contraction, mental/emotional activities, and building new tissues and removing worn-out tissue debris take up an estimated 75% of a person's energy generated during Rest & Sleep! That leaves only 25% of a person's Nerve Energy generated during Rest & Sleep for non-dietary tasks and life-as-desired responsibilities and pursuits. This estimate, however, is much higher for persons on clean-burning live-food diets! That is, it is probably more like 50% of energy generated during Rest & Sleep, for Natural Hygienists, is available for the activities that make life meaningful, purposeful, and productive. FUN!

So, why fast? It's so simple. Abstaining from all food intake and resting from virtually all physical activity and mental, emotional, and sensory excitation while taking in water-only frees up the body from all of the nutritive/digestive/eliminative demands for energy and provides the body with an extended period of complete Rest on many levels. Nerve Energy is generated and Nerve Energy reserves filled while the body subsists on its nutritive reserves, including unhealthy, morbid tissues! But this restored energy is not used on processing food. It is used for autolysis of unhealthy tissues, for cleansing and making fluid and cellular upgrades and tissue repairs as needed while balancing body chemistry, all to the greatest extent possible.

To repeat: medical intervention may sometimes be absolutely necessary during a critical accident emergency or for an 11th hour disease crisis. Barring these cases, however, and always whenever the Health Seeker takes the holistic course of action in acute disease, and in most cases of chronic disease, this natural process of providing a sick person a time-out period for fasting on water-only and cooperating in every way possible with the body's design gets better results and faster results than any other known method.

Indeed, this period of The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast provides time for the body to bring about the closest thing to a "healing miracle" possible! It puts Ponce de Leon's virtual, never-found Fountain of Youth within grasp of Health Seekers! Fasting also provides a time-out period from cooked food addiction. When only small amounts of fresh, raw foods and juices are taken to break the fast, they are enjoyed and welcomed by the Health Seeker with a relish indescribable! The 10,000 tastebuds have gone cold turkey for the duration of the fast. The mind, emotions, body - and especially its tastebuds - are ready and poised for this new, superlative nutrition shift to live foods and the other 9 Energy Enhancers - like never before!

"Fasting" & "Starvation" - Defined

The idea and practice of going without food for an extended period of time is considered by adherents and proponents of The Medical Mentality at Its Worst to be the most unconventional, fanatical, and dangerous of all alternative health care practices. This is because these uninformed medical doctors and their followers have mistakenly confused fasting-for-health with starving-to-death. They do not understand that The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast, properly conducted and supervised or assisted, provides a period of time for the most rapid and most complete elimination of toxins and healing ever made possible for the human body! They have a lot to learn and need a crash course on The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast! To rightfully educate those misinformed and to get it really straight ourselves, as well, we must start with 3 sets of basic definitions and distinctions.

First, the term "fasting" comes from an Old English verb that meant "to make firm or fixed," while "starvation" comes from an Old English verb that meant "to die." Interestingly enough, these Anglo Saxon derivatives with their archaic meanings hold true even today and will help us remember the distinctions between the 2 practices. When a person fasts, he firmly withholds food, fixed in his resolve not to eat. When a person starves, however, he withholds food until nutritional reserves are exhausted and until the body begins to feed upon its essential tissues - until he dies.

When misunderstood by those with The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst, fasting conjures up images of Nazi concentration camp victims, waiting to die! No wonder the uneducated are horrified at the idea and practice of fasting! This horror is compounded by 2 facts. First, the alternativists, who by conventional definition are to be mistrusted by the medical doctors, have largely taken over the practice of fasting as their domain and area of expertise. And second, fasting is wholeheartedly condemned by virtually all medical doctors. By the end of this chapter, however, you will be so well-informed on the idea, practice, and benefits of The Natural Hygiene Fast, that you will see it for the blessing it has been in the past for others and can be in the future for you. "This fasting knowledge will put you among the elite Natural Hygiene intelligentsia!" Dr. David Scott once proclaimed to me.

What "The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast" Is & Is Not

The second set of distinctions to make clear to the uninformed is to define just what "The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast" is and is not. Following are 7 parameters. As a Natural Hygiene health educator, let me emphasize here, that these 7 parameters are directed strictly to The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast as practiced and popularized by Dr. Herbert M. Shelton and Dr. Vetrano and Drs. Tosca and Greg Haag while supervising over 40,000 fasters combined. Now, here are the 7 parameters, in a nutshell, that distinguish The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast from both other alternativists' versions of fasting and from the dreadful practice of starvation. (The term "Correct" is applied to all 7 parameters.)

1. The Natural Hygiene Fast occurs only with complete abstinence from all food-nutrients in any form while the body safely lives on its totally adequate reserves and while taking distilled water-only according to thirst. (I encourage fasters to take in 6 - 8 glasses of water a day to avoid dehydration.) Starvation, by contrast, may occur even while taking in insufficient and nutrition-deficient amounts of food or may occur in the absence of food over extended time.
2. Once underway and in a matter of 1 day or 2 or 3 days, The Natural Hygiene Faster almost always experiences a distinct lack of hunger. During starvation, by contrast, the individual almost always experiences a continued and compelling sense of hunger.
3. The Natural Hygiene Fast represents a peaceful period of complete rest, willingly entered into and always marked by a genuine calm once the faster cooperates with his body. Starvation, by contrast, represents a tortuous period of turmoil for a person that is forced upon his body by his own will or by someone else's and is always marked by extreme distress.
4. The Natural Hygiene Fast is always undertaken for beneficent reasons: mental, emotional, spiritual, and/or health-related. Starvation, by contrast, is most often undertaken for social, spiritual, political agendas and/or coercions, or because of a forced chance happenstance.
5. The Natural Hygiene Fast is properly prepared for and properly supervised by a trained practitioner who daily monitors the faster's vital signs, eliminations, and subjective experiences. Assistance to take oneself on a fast is sometimes all a Health Seeker who is not deep into chronic, degenerative disease needs. During starvation, by contrast, a person is never properly supervised or assisted.
6. The Natural Hygiene Fast represents a process of the body utilizing its nutritional reserves and autolyzing morbid tissues during food abstinence. "Autolysis" is a key noun in fasting literature. The verb is "autolyze." The word element "auto-" means "self" and "-lysis" means "digesting. " And during fasting, the body is very busy doing just that: autolyzing or digesting select tissues of self! As soon as Nerve Energy is regenerated, the body eagerly autolyzes excess body fat and morbid tissues, such as tumors and cholesterol deposits in arteries. And so, because of the healing that comes about, "autolysis" is an exciting word to add to our health-seeking vocabularies! Starvation, by contrast, represents a process of the body, exhausted of its nutritional reserves, slowly breaking down vital, life-sustaining tissues.
7. The Natural Hygiene Fast is always followed by a period of assisted refeeding and a feeling of increased well-being and improved health. Starvation, by contrast, is always followed by learning to live with irreversible tissue damage if one survives, and if not, by death.

"The Natural Hygiene Fast" Versus "The Juice Diet"

The third set of definitions needed follow. The phrase "to go on a fast" has been misunderstood. To use the phrase correctly, when a person "goes on a fast," he is abstaining from one or more items, as defined by the preceding noun-qualifier. Thus, a "water faster" refers to a person who is taking in everything and anything but water. The "juice faster" refers to a person who is taking in everything and anything but juice. Once these distinctions are correctly understood, a person who is taking in only water and fasting from everything else is correctly said "to be fasting on water-only." Among the Natural Hygiene intelligentsia, when we speak of taking a fast, it is a fast on water-only. Likewise, when taking in juices-only, the novice incorrectly says that the person is "fasting on juices." But since taking juices, or food nutrients in any form, for that matter, is actually eating as far as the digestive system is concerned, the person educated in the finer points of Natural Hygiene lexicon correctly states: "The person taking in juices is on a juice diet."

"The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast" is defined strictly: "a water-only and complete rest endeavor." Note this distinction: the body does not differentiate between metabolizing juices and whole foods. Either way, the body is eating, digesting, absorbing, assimilating food nutrients, and eliminating their waste. To drink juices is the same as to eat, as far as the body's metabolic processes go. Juices, being devoid of fiber, simply require less energy to process. Being on juices-only, therefore, is not properly termed "juice fasting." Rather, being on juices-only is properly defined as "fasting from whole foods" and "juice dieting," both.

Following are 12 distinctions between The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast on water-only and the juice diet of 8-ounce glasses of raw juices-only, 3 - 4 times a day or more as needed. These distinctions have been numbered to indicate their correct, chronological order.

1. During the fast on water-only, eating and digestion halt. But during juicing, eating continues with the nutrients simply in a liquid form.
2. During the fast on water-only, hunger is absent after 1 - 3 days, more or less. But during juicing, hunger continues until the call for food every second becomes compelling - and sometimes excruciatingly so.
3. During the fast on water-only, the revitalization, cleansing, body chemistry balancing, and repair are an estimated 3 - 5 times greater or even more than during juicing.
4. During the fast on water-only, sodium-chloride is rapidly eliminated the first 2 - 3 days. But during juicing, the sodium-chloride elimination is far less dramatic, if even noticeable.
5. During the fast on water-only, weight loss is an estimated 3 - 5 times greater or more than during juicing.
6. During the fast on water-only, nutritional balance is maintained. But during juicing, one or more nutritional imbalances can occur within days or weeks.
7. During the fast on water-only, much physiological rest is secured. But during juicing, the physiological rest secured is more than when eating solid foods but much, much less than when fasting.
8. To be on the safe side, the longer fast on water-only of 7 - 10 days and more requires a retreat setting and supervision or assistance. But a period of time spent juicing, in virtually all cases, does not.
9. During a fast on water-only, energy levels drop which necessitates complete bed rest. But during juicing, energy levels normally allow modest activity and even a modest workload, as long as rest breaks are taken.
10. After a fast on water-only, an equal number of days feeding are required to regain full strength. But after a juice diet, far fewer days are required to regain full strength because so little strength was ever lost.
11. The fast on water-only is not necessarily superior to juice dieting. The 2 physiological modes of Correct Natural Hygiene care are employed for different reasons and in different cases to achieve different results.
12. It should be noted that in certain, rare disease situations, the Health Seeker cannot get well on juices only and will need a longer fast on water-only or a series of short fasts before health is recovered.

The 5 Kinds of Rest Taken on The Natural Hygiene Fast

Item (3) above is crucial to The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast. It needs further emphasis for the Health Seeker who is mildly interested in further study. And item (3) is also what distinguishes The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast from other alternativists' forms of fasting. During The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast, the faster must, by definition, secure complete rest. She must not be going on hikes and swims, driving around, spending hours on a computer, or seeking other such distractions and entertainments. Doing so is not fasting: it is just not eating! The Natural Hygiene Faster is a complete rester. Her sole focus is to revitalize her nervous system, and that only occurs during Rest & Sleep. The revitalization, however, can be accelerated while resting or sleeping - and fasting! Remember: "IT'S ALL ABOUT ENERGY!" And during The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast, the Health Seeker increases energy by securing rest on these 5 levels.

1. REST FROM PHYSICAL ACTIVITY: The faster makes as few demands on her musculoskeletal system as possible and takes as much bed rest as possible. She goes to bed to rest, relax, and/or sleep. Or she lounges around during a minimum of her waking hours. She secures as much physical rest as possible, interspersing her day with naps and then retiring very early. A leisurely walk or brief period of mild stretching may be allowed for all but the very weak fasters.
2. REST FROM PHYSIOLOGICAL DUTIES OF PROCESSING FOOD: During a fast, the tremendously energy-expensive processes of digestion, absorption, assimilation, and elimination of food is brought to an end with the processing of the last meal. To repeat, physiologists speculate that 75% of our Nerve Energy is spent on the daily processing of food. During fasting, however, the entire gastro-intestinal tract rests! The basic metabolic activity is at a healthful, restful minimum. The energy normally used to process food while eating is thus freed up to repair, restore, and renew the body, mind, emotions, and spirit. Deep, physiological rest is secured during fasting for most of the body. But some organs/systems work overtime carrying out the many eliminating and healing activities. The more toxic the Health Seeker, the more energy is needed to carry out these activities - thus, the importance of securing physiological rest.
3. REST FROM SENSORY INPUT: During a fast, the Health Seeker retreats from the sensual and sensorial onslaught of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell that makes up the excitations and fabric of daily life. The faster should use her eyes, ears, and other sensory systems as little as possible and stay in a quiet place to secure a rest and respite for all the senses.
4. REST FROM EMOTIONALISM: Ideally, the faster retreats to a Natural Hygiene school and sanctuary setting, away from all the emotional input and output of daily life. A quiet setting is one of the foremost considerations! Experts estimate that upwards of 90% of all illness has a stress-related factor. Therefore, this emotional rest is truly beneficial for minimizing psychosomatically induced symptoms.
5. REST FROM MENTAL ACTIVITY: The faster puts away concerns and projects that demand mental efforts and concentration or that present distractions. The brain is the center for all mental activity. It is also the housing for Nerve Energy regeneration. In order for the revitalization that brings health and energy, the brain and entire nervous system need this mental time-out period of rest, sleep, and fasting.

Obviously, the properly assisted or supervised Natural Hygiene faster is not watching television, not on the phone, not at the computer, not reading, not at hobbies, not taking regular exercise, not exchanging recipes with other fasters all day and night, not conducting business affairs, and not engaging in endless conversations or carrying on long-distance romances or differences-of-opinion feuds with family or friends, or engaging in legal battles! Ideally, the Health Seeker is securing deep, complete rest on all 5 of these levels and taking part in any of the above activities minimally or only because of emergencies.

Believe me: I know! To so abstain is very hard for the thrill-seeker! Even the Health Seeker who is more relaxed and not a stimulant junkie can get very fidgety. But your knowing just what a "correctly supervised/assisted fast" is now can help you prepare mentally and emotionally for a fast you may decide to undertake later. It is best to get your affairs in order before checking out from daily routines. You want to be able to let go and to enjoy complete rest with a brain flat-lined into peacefulness and pleasantries!

MAJOR CONSIDERATIONS IN PICKING A FACILITY CONDUCIVE TO COMPLETE REST: If at all possible, avoid all The 10 Energy Robbers. (See page 17.) Especially avoid the following: Uncleanliness to befoul and demoralize you, Impure Air to pollute you with every breath you take, sheer curtains that let light in to keep you from Rest & Sleep, noise pollution of cities and sirens to disturb your Rest & Sleep, Wrong Temperatures with high humidity to distress you, hospital-type settings with unnatural environs to keep you out of touch with your healing mind and body and to disrupt your Emotional Balance, 3 or more persons in one bedroom to disrupt your Emotional Balance, grumpy or otherwise inappropriate staff persons offering Toxic Relationships to disconcert you. (As you can see: "I been there, done that!" in my health retreat hopping days! The worst was when I fell prey, in my weakened state, to a young, immoral, sexual predator intern back in the day. But that is another story!) And finally - exorbitant rates to drain you.

How to Break The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast

Dr. Scott once warned me: "You can undo all the good of a long fast in just a few days by doing all the wrong things." To end the fast on the right track is absolutely essential. All Natural Hygiene doctors typically select fresh, raw fruit or fruit juices in small amounts and times a day for breaking a fast. After a few days of whole fruit on this frequent feeding schedule, larger amounts and more variety of fruit and the 3 meals a day are served. Raw vegetables, nuts and seeds, as well as avocado, are typically added after a few days or a week.

Except for special situations, and with Drs. Shelton and Vetrano and Drs. Tosca and Greg Haag behind me, I start Health Seekers with the following break-fast schedule:

DAY 1: A variety of whole melons 6 times a day: 4 ounces starting at 8:00 A.M. and every 2 hours until 6:00 P.M. (If it had been a long fast, 2 days of this schedule are used.)

DAY 2: Same as Day 1: Only serving 8 ounces of fruit each time

DAY 3: 3 meals of 12 ounces total and serving the following: tomatoes, cucumber, celery, lettuce, and red bell pepper

DAY 4: Same as Day 3, only serving meals of 16 ounces total

DAY 5 and on: Regular meals with veggies, nuts and seeds as well as fruit are given, as served

in The Health Seekers' YearBook's "Chapter Nine: The Year in Live-Food Menus."

Melons are the preferred break-fast fruit! They are the very easiest to digest, since most are 96% - 98% water. Dr. Scott not only breaks virtually all fasts at his Institute with watermelon, he also serves watermelon with lettuce for all breakfasts for virtually all patients! The low sugar content of the watermelon does not set up too much excitement for the post-faster's tastebuds and does not entice him to drink or eat beyond genuine hunger. Other juicy fruits are also favorites used by other practitioners: oranges, sweet grapefruit, and grapes, for examples. All break-fasters are encouraged to take many minutes to drink their juices or eat their meals. If breaking your fast on juices, a teaspoon at a time or slow-sipping with a straw is ideal. It takes as much as 10 - 20 minutes to get the digestive system reactivated after a fast. Likewise, eating the whole food slowly will get the live food connoisseur off to the best start.

I remember Dr. Vetrano breaking my very first fast of 17 days on a 4" square piece of heavenly watermelon! I took 20 minutes to eat. And it knocked me out! Full of energy when I sat down to eat the little block of red melon, I immediately passed out into a 2-hour deep sleep and then became exhausted throughout the day after each 4" square. I was so impressed. This was proof of how the body uses so much energy for the digestive/eliminative processes! Some fasters have gone through hell during some point in their fasts. Now, breaking those fasts can be a heavenly delight of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell! Dr. Vetrano and I have always taught Health Seekers to learn to "eat sensationally." A better time never presents itself to do so than upon the break-fast!

Questionable Candidates for The Natural Hygiene Fast

Most people in acute and chronic disease are prime candidates for fasting to get well. Dr. Vetrano and I must caution Health Seekers who, for whatever reason, are not prime candidates for The Natural Hygiene Fast not to undertake one. Although each Health Seeker's condition is different, it is questionable whether certain patients should fast on water-only, even under the best of monitoring/assisting. Certainly, these questionable fasting candidates should never fast on their own. Self-conducted, extreme fasts outside the boundaries of proper supervision/assistance can be extremely dangerous! And since proper care observing The 10 Energy Enhancers, including refeeding and exercise schedules, are crucial to getting well, the following Health Seekers in their special situations need guidance with these post-fast activities, as well.

Dr. Vetrano next presents her list of those who are questionable candidates for the Natural Hygiene fast, prepared for The Health Seekers' YearBook. She points out: "Every case is unique, and whether or not an individual should fast is up to the doctor to decide. Without question, if a Health Seeker is on this list and the doctor recommends a fast, the patient must be closely supervised from beginning to end."

• Those who are extremely thin & undernourished (These persons may go on short fasts of 1 - 3 days with definite benefit. And with doing right between fasts, these people may be restored to health.)
• Those who are in extreme weakness, depending on its cause(s)
• Those who are in extreme stages of chronic, degenerative disease
• Those who have some cancers, especially of the liver & pancreas
• Those with inactive kidneys accompanied by obesity
• Those with difficult breathing due to cardiovascular disease (Caution & supervision must be taken with any abnormal rhythms of the heart.)
• Those taking insulin (Insulin-dependent Health Seekers must be fasted under competent supervision. A fast provides time for the body to eliminate the toxins that impair normal function of tissues & organs & time for the pancreas to repair the beta cells so that metabolism of carbohydrate, fat & protein is normalized.)
• Those who are afraid to fast (They should not undergo a fast until they have well educated themselves & lost their fears.)
• Pregnant women (In a state of good health, they may safely fast 3 - 4 days.)

Dr. Vetrano and I conclude this crash course on the wonderful benefits of The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast with this primary caution: In cases of many acute and most chronic diseases, for the fullest rest and greatest healing to take place, a longer fast is almost always required, making the retreat setting and assistance or supervision essential. For any Health Seeker deciding to take a fast of significant length, therefore, proper assistance and/or supervision by a trained specialist is absolutely necessary. Fasting in either acute or chronic disease is a serious undertaking. Fasting is not a toy for playtime. Nor is it a time for novices and the ill-informed to monitor themselves and decide their own care. Most persons in relatively good health with no serious complaints can fast safely 7 - 10 days. But even with this general rule of thumb, in some rare cases, the less serious conditions in Health Seekers can develop into very serious situations once a short fast progresses into a longer fast and as cleansing and healing crises become intense and heretofore unknown disease symptoms in progress surface.

If you are in reasonably good health and intend to take yourself on The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast at Our Hygiene Homestead in The Woods with me as your assistant, as soon as your reservation is made, I send you a gift copy of Fasting for the Health of It: 100 Case Histories Selected from Over 200,000 Clinical Records to inspire you to best prepare for your great adventure! Dr. Shelton's most famous book Fasting Can Save Your Life recently came back into print. It is excellent.

Natural Hygiene Fasting Case Histories from Jean Oswald's & Dr. Shelton's Fasting for the Health of It: 100 Case Histories Selected from Over 200,000 Clinical Records

These 6 reports are real case studies from Dr. Shelton's and Dr. Scott's clinics, taken from the book Fasting for the Health of It: 100 Case Histories Selected from over 200,000 Clinical Records by Jean Oswald and Dr. Shelton. This book is terribly exciting! You can get it only from Victoria BidWell, who had stocked up on the last few cases of this now out-of-print book. Among the 100 Health Seekers whose conditions improved or who healed completely after fasting are case histories on the following acute and chronic diseases: abdominal tumors, alcoholism, bursitis, breast tumors, varicose veins, headaches, back pain, ovarian cyst, brain tumor, eczema, hemorrhoids, osteoarthritis, angina, glaucoma, Hodgkin's disease, spinal meningitis, overactive thyroid, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, ulcerative colitis, schizophrenia, appendicitis, lupus, anemia, snoring, breast tumors, drug addiction, and more. Susan summarizes 6 case histories.

Kidney Stones Passed with Fasting

(Therese, age 44, fasted under the supervision of Dr. Scott for 10 days in 1977 and 14 days in 1978.) After Therese's first fast, she returned to the same X-ray specialist who stated that 2 kidney stones were clearly visible on her X-rays. On her new pictures, no remnants of the stones remained; the stones had autolyzed and passed. In 1978, Therese and her "health nut" son, as she called him, returned to Dr. Scott's Natural Health Institute. Both fasted 2 weeks. Therese told me her improved health was worth the effort to overcome her former bad habits. She eats no dairy products, fried foods, or meat, and is still changing other dietary habits such as implementing proper food combining to prevent the formation of more kidney stones. "Rome wasn't built in a day," Therese explained to me.

Cataracts Gone with Fasting

(Helen, age 54, fasted 14 days in 1979 under the supervision of Dr. Scott.) Helen put away her honey, aspirin, and Darvon after the fourth day of her fast. She discovered there was no use trying to mix The Hygienic System with the drugging system: it was like trying to mix oil with water. Helen discovered that the fundamental principles of the 2 systems are the exact opposites of each other, just as their means of care are opposites. If she attempted to use both systems and relied upon drugs for part of her remedial resources, she would fail to make full use of Hygienic means. After Helen developed full confidence in Natural Hygiene, both in its power to preserve and restore health, she recovered. After fasting 12 days, her eyesight had improved tremendously. And the cataracts were gone. The eyes are just as much a part of the body as the skin, lungs, or heart. Helen had to change her former toxic habits to change the health of her eyes. "The disappearance of the cataracts seemed like a miracle!" Helen exclaimed to me.

After a Fast, Woman Finally Able to Carry a Fetus to Full Term

(Rachelle fasted under the supervision of Dr. Shelton for 10 days in 1932.) There are different reasons for sterility. Many Health Seekers respond favorably to the fast, others do not. In this particular case, Rachelle had 28 spontaneous abortions. After a 10-day fast and a 4-month diet of raw fruit and vegetables, she became pregnant and later gave birth to a healthy boy.

Insanity Lost after a Fast

(Mr. S.A., age 35, fasted 39 days under the supervision of Dr. Shelton in 1940.) Natural Hygiene care greatly improved Stan's mental condition. I have used fasting in cases of mental disease and have no doubt that fasting is distinctly beneficial. And I am convinced that when the insane person refuses food, this is an instinctive measure designed to assist the body in its reconstructive work. Many people have lost their abnormal mental conditions while fasting. All who have had extended experience with fasting have seen cases of insanity recover health while on the fast and many others make great improvement while fasting.

Parkinson's Tremor Gone after Several Fasts

(Monica, age 39, fasted 3 times under the supervision of Dr. Shelton: 30 days, 14 days, and later another 14 days in 1941.) The developments in this case are typical, with the exception that Monica completely recovered. Full recovery is not the general rule in cases of Parkinson's. The majority of fasters make sufficient progress to become useful again, but retain part of the existing tremor. Monica was at the Health School for 9 months and had previously suffered with Parkinson's disease for 6 years. After she had fasted 30 days, the tremor immediately reoccurred, but not as severely as before the fast. After the second fast, the tremors were less. After the third fast, the tremors were gone. For more than 10 years, I remained in contact with Monica. She has had no reoccurrence of the tremor.

Deafness, Impotence, Enlarged Prostate & Sinus Congestion Gone after Fasting

(Mr. A.B., age 70, fasted 42 days in 1960 under the supervision of Dr. Shelton.) On the 36th day of fasting, Art regained hearing in his deaf ear for the first time in 6 years. His prostate gland had shrunken to nearly normal size. After he fasted, he spent 3 weeks on a raw fruit and vegetable diet. He was no longer impotent, his sinus congestion was relieved, and the recovery of hearing was permanent.

I have conducted a number of fasts in people from 70 years to over 85 years of age, and I have found no reason to consider aged persons to be in a class by themselves. Adult animals of any species, including Homo Sapiens, can fast much longer than the young of the same species. Old people actually stand fasting best. Growing children stand it least, although they stand it well. People do not get too old to use fasting as a method for healing. The regenerating effects that come about during a fast are especially apparent in the old. So I do not hesitate to place old people upon a fast; but I watch them more closely than I do younger people, not because they do not stand fasting well, but because they are often possessed of hidden weaknesses that render it inadvisable to carry the fast to great length.

Fasting in Extreme Emaciation

Dr. Shelton related the story of one young man who was so emaciated that the medical and naturopathic doctors attending him for months while getting no results were at their wits' end. Dr. Shelton was called in for consultation as a last resort. To the astonishment of the doctors, Shelton recommended a fast, to which they reluctantly agreed. Following the young man's fast, his digestive capacity returned. He went on to achieve a complete recovery.

Study The Fight-or-Flight Response to Conquer Fear of Fasting

By Victoria BidWell

I am a student of Dr. Hans Selye's exciting, ground-breaking Fight-or-Flight work that laid the foundation for psychoneuroimmunology and for addressing and treating all psychosomatically induced disease. Now, all Health Seekers can be the beneficiaries of his science and teachings to conquer any harbored fears of fasting on water-only.

The Fight-or-Flight Response is initiated by a triggering event, at which moment the mind, emotions, spirit, and entire body undergo a sequence of events that end with exhaustion when taken to extremes. When the body goes into the alarm mode because something is perceived as terribly wrong or threatening and frightful or borderline fearful/exciting/ thrilling, every cell in the body is affected, mostly by the nervous and glandular and circulatory systems! In fact, all systems are readied for extreme action! The body mobilizes itself to fight the foe or to flee the situation so that the person can get back to life-as-normal as soon as possible. While in the Fight-or-Flight mode, a tremendous amount of energy is exerted. Some documented cases of an individual's dark-colored hair turning completely white within an hour have been documented! The body naturally seeks homeostasis and its calm mode of operating as soon as possible. But the individual can undergo great havoc and cause damage to mind, emotions, spirit, and body if the response is chronically activated, even at a lowgrade level. Following is the profile of The Fight-or-Flight Response.

Skin vessels constrict, and goose bumps appear. Sweat glands pour out sweat. Secretion of digestive enzymes and insulin stops. Digestion halts. The mouth goes dry. Adrenaline and other stress hormones and neurotransmitters flood the body. Bowels and the urinary bladder relax, and their control is often lost. Blood flow to the heart and muscles increases. Voluntary muscles dilate to accommodate powerful action. Blood vessels to the brain constrict. Muscles in the brain constrict and cause headaches and fear for some and euphoria and fearlessness for others. Much more is going on in the body's 75,000,000,000,000 cells. But you get the idea: Emotional Balance and the capacity for rational thought for all who do not possess extreme self-mastery is lost to some degree or completely.

All of this heightened neurophysiology throws the person without safeguard coping mechanisms into a state of great fear or excitation! They start trembling, literally "like a leaf" and begin entertaining dreadful or dangerously thrilling thoughts. They can make very bad decisions. They can actually see things and hear things that are not there and then act upon them. They can get paranoid. If these fearful imaginings and very bad choices are allowed to play out and then are acted upon while in this unique, physiological state of alarm, the situation can be made much, much worse. This is why knowledge of how the body, mind, and emotions work during The Fight-or-Flight Response and use of self-control are so important. While considering to undertake a fast or when in any stressful situation, knowing yourself and practicing self-mastery are all-important. Keeping cool and maintaining Energy Enhancer #9: Emotional Balance could very well save your life or, at least, the natural, youthful color of your hair!

The Details of Drug Withdrawal

By Susan Schenck with Victoria BidWell & Dr. Vetrano

Susan continues: If you have been taking recreational, prescription, and/or over the counter drugs (Your body doesn't know the difference.), you could go into an intense drug withdrawal and a more dramatic elimination of toxins in general than would happen if you had never used these drugs - especially for a prolonged period of time. Medical doctors at their very best and who are well-trained and experienced in The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast never advise Health Seekers to fast while on drugs or immediately after quitting drugs and still going through withdrawal. This is where supervision/assistance is absolutely crucial for an easier time of it.

Dr. Vetrano cautions: "Natural Hygiene doctors cannot take people off meds. Natural Hygiene doctors must ask their clients to have their medical doctors tell them how to get off prescriptions. Only after several weeks of quitting medications should a fast be taken. With steroids, however, it is best to wait a year before fasting. This permits the adrenal glands to return to full function. A crisis could occur. And with too little cortisol, death could result unless the client took his steroids again at the onset of the crisis."

Legally, a medical doctor is the only primary health professional who can tell you to stop taking drugs or reduce your drug dosage. Holistic physicians, such as chiropractors, acupuncturists, homeopaths, and naturopaths, know how toxic these drugs are. But they cannot tell you to cease taking them at the risk of being taken to court for practicing medicine without a license and being sent off to jail. (For more on how the medical system works, see Appendix B.)

Therefore, Victoria BidWell and Dr. Vetrano and I cannot advise you to stop your prescription medications, either. For going through drug withdrawal once you have made your decision to go off meds, we do recommend consulting first with a holistic doctor or, better yet, a Natural Hygiene doctor or health educator trained in fasting supervision/assistance. As Victoria BidWell makes very clear: "While referring all who are deep into chronic degeneration to Dr. Scott and Dr. Goldhamer, I can assist virtually all other Health Seekers through The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast with whatever their needs!"

Our Final Fasting Farewells from Susan Schenck, Dr. Vetrano & Victoria BidWell

The time you set aside for undertaking The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast is a very special experience in your life that will move you way forward. It should be a complete rest for the mind, emotions, spirit, and body: rest from food and drink, drugs, emotional stress, mental tasks, excitement of the 5 senses, and all physical activity except moving about as needed. It's even best to stay in bed sleeping or with eyes closed 24/7, or as close to that as you can manage, for the duration of the entire fast. This permits the body to focus as much of its attention and energy on revitalizing, cleansing, and healing as is humanly possible.

What good does it do to detoxify and heal if you simply go out and re-intoxicate yourself? In our next chapter of The Live Food Factor, we will look at how to stay raw in a world that caters to cooked fooders. The answer begins in correctly identifying the doors of perception through which to pass. It all begins in the mind.

PROFILE OF THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST!

1. THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST & THE HEALTH SEEKER...are 1 in the same! They actually see high energy, a youthful appearance, emotional health, mental clarity, nurturing relationships, freedom from addiction & a long, rewarding life when casting eyes upon Live-Foods from The Ideal Diet. Likewise, THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST turned HEALTH SEEKER actually sees creepy, diseased personifications of Enervation, Toxemia, brain fog, emotional despair, toxic relationships, slavery to addiction, canes & wheelchairs & pain & misery & a shortened lifespan ended by an early grave when casting eyes upon The Suicide American Diet dead foods.
2. THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST... because of this vision, is committed to Live-Foods, to the best of his or her ever-improving ability. SAD foods give him or her the creeps! Moments of weakness may bring backsliding. But Live-Food commitment brings self-correction! There comes a time when we can't going back to dead food.
3. THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST... is not unhappy about turning away from dead foods & turning to The Live-Food Track. The Live-Food Enthusiast does not go about with an attitude or look on the face or in the body language that reads, "I'm deprived! I'm miserable because I cannot have cooked Suicide American Diet food!" With this mindset, The Live-Food Enthusiast experiences... "NOT PUNISHMENT! NOT DEPRIVATION! BUT LIBERATION & RELIEF & GRATITUDE & JOY - HIGH JOY!"
4. THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST... man or woman, never feels a need to ever be on the defensive about his or her Live-Food choices - nor does either feel a need to degrade the Suicide American Diet choices of their friends. Furthermore, they do not push The Ideal Diet on others: they just joyously enjoy their Live-Foods!
5. THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST... knows he or she has discovered "THE IDEAL WAY OF EATING" that is adding untold pleasures & riches to their lives. In this spirit, therefore, both feel privileged to have discovered the inestimable blessings of The Live-Food Diet. A blessedness & a specialness & an excitement for life & a glow of health & happiness - all go with THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST! Their giants go with them wherever they go!
6. THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST... does feel powerful urges, which come from the natural human inclination to share a good thing, to teach the many truths of Natural Hygiene as "The Superlative, Alternative Health Care System" to others who express an interest. The motto of Live Food Enthusiasts? "SHARE! SHARE! SHARE!"
7. THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST... feels so privileged & blessed, so healthy & happy, that her or his enthusiasm is not only apparent for all to see - it is actually contagious! When dining with others, consequently, this "HIGH JOY" causes others to take interest in what he or she is on: Natural Hygiene & The 10 Energy Enhancers! THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIASTS frequently find themselves sharing. They invite others to Live-Food picnics and dinners. They loan out &/or give out Natural Hygiene literature, especially recipe books. They prepare the tasty Live-Food beverages as a way of gently showing others how wonderful the Suicide American Diet beverage alternatives can be! They sponsor Live-Food lectures and support group meetings. They becomes teachers to those who ask what it is that is making him or her look so good and feel so energetic, so happy, so alive!
8. THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST, remember, is also a HEALTH SEEKER of the first order! He & she see The Ideal Diet as only part of a total, healthful living, 10-point program. Both are committed to a non-toxic lifestyle - in its totality - "THE 10 ENERGY ENHANCERS." Both turn away from all "THE 10 ENERGY ROBBERS." Both embrace all of Natural Hygiene, in striving for their highest health & energy & creativity potentials!
9. THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST... seeks health even in the middle of stumbling & falling, backstepping & backsliding, getting off The Right Track & ending up in SAD food! THE LIVE FOOD ENTHUSIAST is also a realist who understands that he or she is not perfect, that going off the raw foods happens & that doing so is part of the process of transitioning to all-raw or mostly all-raw foods. THE LIVE FOOD ENTHUSIAST never gives up & has learned to "COUNT IT ALL JOY" - being on the Live-Foods perfectly and falling off terribly, both. Forgiveness & self-correction are part of THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST mentality! Joyful forgiveness & self-correction!
10. THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIASTS - women, men, children - all value their own health & wellbeing. They are free from The Disease Industrialists' brainwashing. They are not set in the "self-destruct mode." Ultimately, THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIASTS, that is, THE HEALTH SEEKERS, are proud of their purposeful lives with far-reaching, love-one-another, Save-the-Planet goals. They see taking care of themselves as a means to best enable them to serve & to be of best use to all their brothers & sisters, to all forms of plant & animal life & to Our Great Planet Earth! Grateful, Joyful Stewards are what we are! AMEN!