A big part of staying Raw, especially when you’re transitioning, is to keep your meals interesting, varied and exciting. True, there’s a raw food substitute for any cooked meal, but it takes time and guidance to learn to replicate your old favorites and “comfort foods.”

Now you can get a new recipe every day at
http://rawlivingfoods.typepad.com/1/recipes/

Thanks to raw chefs like Dr. Cher Till, Jan Jensen and many others, I have raw recipes scheduled well into next year!

Another good resource for Raw Food Recipes is my 180 page transitional raw foods recipe book, now available at http://WigmoreDiet.com/

Stay Rawsome!

Jim Carey

P.S. Submit your Raw Recipe by email: drjim@chidiet.com

Dr. John McDougall’s speech to MDs at a conference, continued.

Chapter 8: A pill for every problem

I used to work at St. Helena Hospital. I was there for 16 years and it was a very good experience. I have very fond memories of it but one of the reasons that caused me to leave I’d like to share with you. I don’t go to these conferences. I don’t go. It’s an insult to my intelligence to have a drug rep sit and lecture me. But, I was at the hospital a few years back and I saw the title of a lecture. It was called “Diabetes is caused by fat, not sugar.”

So I gathered all of my staff together and we went down to the lunch room and we walked in and my first clue that there was a problem was the Pfizer rep is sitting in the back of the room. Well anyway, I sat down and listened for a whole hour to the presentation, and listened to the man tell me how to properly take care of a diabetic. And I counted the list of drugs he said I needed to use.

To care for a diabetic, I needed several types of oral medication, maybe some insulin. I needed to put them on a cholesterol lowering drug. I needed to put them on some calcium channel blockers, some ACE inhibitors. You always gotta be on ACE inhibitors to protect those kidneys, he said. And it went on and on and on and finally, I had a list of 20 drugs that a well-treated diabetic should be on.

And he made it sound really good because he gave it a sexy term, he called it polypharmacology. I waited until the end of the presentation and I raised my hand and said, “Hey, doctor, the title of your lecture is called ‘Diabetes is caused by fat, not sugar.’ Did I miss something? You didn’t mention diet once in the entire hour.”

He said “I gotcha here, didn’t I?”

And I said, “Yeah, you got me here but a lot of the drugs you mentioned, they kill diabetics. Like sulfonylureas, and calcium channel blockers.”

Around that time one of my mentors, John Hodkins, jumped up and apologized for my behavior, in a very politically correct way, might I mention. He was very good about it. He said, “This is Dr. McDougall, he writes health food books, you know, you’ll have to excuse him.”

Anyway, so I made a few other comments, and John (he’s a good friend, still is a good friend) and I were walking out of the room together. I looked over at John and said, “You know our colleagues don’t really believe that’s the way you treat a diabetic, do they?”

He said, “Yes, we do.” At that moment, I decided I didn’t want to be associated with my colleagues anymore because that’s not the way you take care of a diabetic, or any patient.

I mean, think about the patients you take care of. They’re not on one drug. They’re on a bag full of drugs. They’re on something for blood pressure like Norvasc, calcium channel blockers, which are very deadly. They increase the risk of dying of heart disease, cancer, breast cancer, suicide and bleeding. Blood sugar medication, cholesterol lowering medications, some for uric acid like Zyloprim. Homocysteine, that’s a good one, a folic acid.

We just saw two large reports that showed it increased the risk of heart disease and death by about 30%. Triglycerides like Lopid, you no longer put patients on Aspirin that you can buy 50 for a penny, do you? No, you’ve got to put them on a $4 aspirin called Plavix, which increases the risk of stroke and other problems.

But believe me, they paid for studies to make sure that we do those things. Something for your body fat like Orlistat, headaches like Darvoset, body aches, indigestion. Give them some antacid, they’re all on antacids, right?

Then, their constipation: put them on Miralax, something for diarrhea.

Then, they stink so bad from all the meat they eat so you have to put them on deodorants.

I forgot one prerogative; if they keep on complaining, and they keep coming back because you know you’re supposed to cure them as a doctor, when they complain so much you’re just sick and tired of listening to them, what do you do? Put them on an anti-depressant, right?

Drug Therapy: He showed a slide of a man, before and after, with a bag of drugs in his hand. I want to introduce you to a patient; this is somebody I’ve known for awhile. This man, he knew he had some problems, so he decided to go to the doctor and he was diagnosed with high blood pressure, type-2 diabetes, hyper cholesterolemia, hypertriglyceridemia, gout, mild kidney failure, overweight, mild osteoarthritis, constipation, and depression.

I’m not exaggerating, this is true. So, he went to the doctor for 2 years, paid the monthly office visit, paid thousands of dollars for medication, followed the advice strictly for 2 years and what I want to show you now is a picture of him 2 years later. He still has high blood pressure, type-2 diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, hypertriglyceridemia, gout, mild kidney failure, overweight, mild osteoarthritis, constipation and depression.

Ok, here’s the trick question. What do you see different about this man? Nothing. He’s just as fat and sick as he was two years before. Now I ask you about your friends, your relatives, your patients. You tell me what happened when they underwent good medical care. Nothing. They’re still fat and sick and now they’re carrying around a bag full of drugs, and that is it. And, if you’re a doctor, you must believe you are doing some good, because you cannot see it.

Treatment of Heart Disease: Surgery: OK, let’s talk about some of the real serious problems going on in medicine. Let’s talk about the treatment of heart disease with surgery.

Can’t work. Doesn’t work. Studies show it doesn’t work.

We’re talking about the angioplasty business and they do a million of those a year in this country. We’re talking about bypass, which they only do 400,000 a year in this country. Combined, it’s a $100,000 billion a year business and 80% of a hospital’s income comes from heart disease.

Now, there have been some studies to look at the benefits of surgery compared to medical therapy. There have been three major studies done; they were all done before 1990. There will be no further studies done. They have already looked at the situation and expressed the results and it doesn’t work.

The vast majority of people, 90% +, survive no longer with surgical therapy than they do with medical therapy.

You say, “What about the exceptions, like the ‘widow maker,” left main coronary artery disease?” CASS study says they don’t live any longer.

What about left main equivalents, when all main vessels are blocked up? Well, CASS study says they don’t live any longer with surgery than medical therapy.

The CASS study, the most recent one done, says it doesn’t matter what the anatomy looks like. Doesn’t matter if it’s left main, doesn’t matter how many vessels are diseased. What matters is what has happened to the left ventricle. What they did was they played the game, and they set the rules. They saw that those people with left ventricle damage expressed by a rejection fraction 50% or less, have an 18% increased survival over 10 years. And, they brag about it.

Bypasses have been done since 1968 and angioplasty has been done since 1978, but there is not a single study showing that angioplasty prolongs lives. Not a single study. They do a million a year, and they get away with it. Can’t possibly work.

A recent article – I encourage you to read it, you can find it online, it was July 18, 2005 in Business Week magazine. The title of the article is “Is Heart Surgery Worth It?” It’s a review for the treatment of heart surgery. It’s basically the review I wrote in 1985 for heart surgery: “Does it work?” In fact, one of the key people who were interviewed in this article, a Dr. Hadler, who is a professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says “bypass surgery should have been relegated to the archives 15 years ago. I’d say 20 years ago. Read it. I hand this out to my patients. It’s a great review. It’s well written. Uncontested. It’s the truth.

Now, why can’t bypass surgery and angioplasty work? It’s because they don’t treat the killing part of the disease. The killing part of the disease is not the large blockages, the killing part of the disease is the tiny, fat-filled plaques that are volatile and bust and cause a blood clot to form. That’s why we call heart attacks coronary artery thrombosis, because essentially all of them are caused by this mechanism. It’s the little tiny pimples in the inside of the artery that burst like the pimples on a teenager’s face, and as a result the products of injury are released and the blood clots, and that’s why you have the acute coronary syndrome. That’s why. Bypass surgery doesn’t tweak those. Bypass surgery treats the big blockages that are filled with scar tissue and calcium which may be causing chest pain, but they’re solid as a rock.

In fact, to add insult to injury, the day after a bypass surgery or a heart attack, what do we do for the patient? We serve them the same foods that brought them there in the first place. Here you have this teaching moment. The doctor walks in and the patient looks at the doctor with frightened eyes and says, “I’d eat cardboard not to come back here, what should I do?”

“I don’t know, but you better eat that cheeseburger. You need the protein to heal your wound.” And, at every coronary unit, they serve them the same foods that brought them there in the first place. They started them on drugs as soon as they had a heart attack. Of course that doesn’t work, but how about doing something really radical like feeding them a healthy diet after they had a heart attack? That might be novel!

So, you have a situation where what they’re bypassing is non-lethal disease. What they’re doing angioplasty on is non-lethal disease. It’s not the part that kills. The part that kills is the little pimple next to the big plaque that pops and causes the blood to clot. It really needs to be clear that that’s the problem.

And, of course, when you go in there with your angioplasty catheter, what do you do? You blow up the balloon, you cut with a laser or a knife and what do you do? You create products of injury, and the consequence is the blood clots. So, in 40-50% of the people treated, their artery completely closes down in five months.

Of course, now we have stints, right? So, now it’s only 20% due to self-proliferation. There are other problems with that, but enough said.

Treatment of Heart Disease: Diet and Lifestyle: (slide of cleared arteries) OK, now this is a reversal of disease. This is not concrete in a person’s arteries. Cholesterol and fat, they go into the plaques, they create the inflammation. When you change your diet, what happens is you change the equation so more cholesterol and fat come out of the plaque. The surface tension is decreased, you’re less likely to pop the pimple, burst the volatile plaque. You bathe the plaque with clearer blood, healthier blood, so it stabilizes the membranes.

The other thing you do once you eat a healthy diet is you remove the strongest clotting factors people come in contact with. That’s animal fat. Animal fat makes the platelets very adhesive, makes the clotting factors very aggressive, particularly clotting factor 7.

So, you just set them up for a clot by feeding the rich American diet. As soon as you change their diet, I’m talking hours after you change their diet, they realize the benefits. The risk reduction is there. So, diet and lifestyle, they reduce the major risk factors for heart disease, like cholesterol and triglycerides, high blood pressure, obesity, insulin resistance.

Going back to Dr. Dean Ornish, he said, “According to the PET scans, 99% of the patients stopped or reversed the progression of coronary heart disease.”

When we understand that this is a diet and lifestyle artery disease, we get to treat a whole bunch of problems; it’s not just the heart arteries. There are all kinds of different arteries over the body that are compromised by atherosclerosis. The arteries; they either supply insufficient amounts of blood or they close down and as a result they cause common diseases.

For example, you close the arteries to the eye and you get ocular degeneration. You close the arteries to the ears and people go deaf, they get tinnitus and vertigo. Close the arteries to the brain; you get a stroke, to the heart; you get heart attacks. You close the arteries that feed the aorta and you have an aneurism. Close the arteries to the bowel, you got bowel infarction, you close the arteries to the spine and you get back pain, you get degenerative disk disease.

I mean, the clue to us should be degenerative. I mean, that’s the clue to what causes this. It’s degenerative. It’s not like someone picks up a VW or a piano and their disk ruptures. It’s like they turn or take a step and the degenerative disk pops. It’s a vascular problem. You close the arteries to the legs, they get intermittent claudication. You close them down really badly, you get gangrene. Now, a real motivator here is you close the arteries to the penis, you become impotent.

Cancer - I’d like to talk about cancer for a couple of minutes. Prevention by screening and treatment of common cancers with medications, radiation and/or surgery cannot possibly work. If you understand the natural history, just like you understand the natural history of coronary artery disease, you understand why it can’t work. If you understand the natural history of cancer then you understand why present therapies and screenings cannot work. It’s impossible.

Now, I have to qualify before I go on here, that there are some real important exceptions. And that is, when we find pre-cancerous changes, that means before cancer, I believe we can make a difference when it comes to screening. For example, when we do PAP smears, and I do recommend PAP smears every 3-5 years up until the age of 50. Colon polyps, those are pre-cancerous lesions, I think if we take those out, we can reduce the risk of colon cancer.

It’s interesting. My son is at Ohio State University first year medical school. He called me, very upset, because he went to a lecture on preventing colon cancer. He said, ”Dad, that whole lecture, they didn’t mention diet once. All they talked about was colonoscopies.” But the title of the lecture was “preventing colon cancer.”

I said, “Get used to it, kid.” Leukoplakia in the mouth and skin changes, you can catch melanoma early enough, I think so. But you see, these are superficial changes prior to them turning into cancer. You can make a difference.

I also want to point out that we have treatments for cancers that do work. These are cancers like childhood cancers and testicular cancer, lymphomas and leukemia. We do have treatments that we should be very proud of.

Ok, you have those qualifications firmly in mind for the rest of the discussion. John C. Bailar from the National Cancer Insitutute wrote a very important landmark paper which made a lot of people upset in 1997 in the new England Journal of Medicine. He said,”The risk of dying from cancer has increased by 6% from 1970 to 1994.

The war against cancer is far from over. Observed changes in mortality due to cancer primarily reflect changing incidence or early detection. The effect of new treatments for cancer on mortality has been largely disappointing. The most promising approach to control of cancer is a national commitment to prevention with a concomitant to rebalancing of focus and funding research,” which, of course, hasn’t happened.

Here are a couple of my heroes. Charles Wright is one of the most famous epidemiologists in the world, and C. Barber Mueller is the father of breast cancer surgery. I have known him for many years. I had a television show called “McDougall, M.D.” that we did about six years ago and it still plays worldwide.

I had them on the show and we talked about a lead article published in the British Lancet in 1995 that looked at various studies. There are actually six or eight, depending on how you divide them, of mammography breast cancer screenings. They looked at all those studies and said, “The benefit achieved is marginal, the harm caused is substantial, the costs incurred are enormous. We suggest that public funding of breast cancer screening at any age group is non-justifiable.”

Yeah, this is heresy, but that’s what they said. And no one contested it in the letters to the editor. I still recommended mammography is 1995. I recommended it for women between the ages of 50 and 68. Not below 50 because it’s notorious for being a failure, and not after 68 because you don’t live long enough. It’s something that was detected to show any benefits. But I would still tell a woman that “You know you ought to get a mammogram” or if she asked, I’d tell her “there’s some evidence that there’s some benefit.”

And, I took that stand until Lancet came out with an article in 2000, and then they came out with their final report in 2001. The Cochrane Group is a group of Nordic scientists who are known for the evaluations of drugs and treatments without bias.

The couple of researchers wrote in the Lancet of 2001, “In 2000, we reported that there was no reliable evidence that screening for breast cancer reduced mortality. As we discuss here, a Cochrane review has not confirmed and strengthened our previous findings. The review also shows that breast cancer mortality is a misleading outcome measure and finally, we use date supplemental to those in the Cochrane review to show that screening leads to more aggressive treatment.” Well, that made a lot of people mad.

About a breast self-examination? I mean, who could think that breast self examination could bother anybody and it would be something you would avoid recommending.

But the Canadian task force on preventive medicine looked at the issue in 2001. They said, “There are two randomized controlled trials, a quasi-randomized trial, and large cohort study and several case-controlled trials, and they have failed to show a benefit for regular performance of breast self-examination or breast self-examination education, compared with no breast self-examination. In contrast, there is good evidence of harm from breast self-examination instruction, including significant increases in the number of physician visits for the evaluation of benign breast lesions and a significantly high rates of benign biopsies.”

So, what did they tell us to do for our patients? They told us not to recommend breast self examination.

They said it’s because there is a fair evidence of no benefit and good evidence of harm. There is fair evidence to recommend that routine teaching of breast self-examination be excluded from the periodic health examinations of women in this age group and so on and so on and so on. Can you imagine that?

Treatment: Little or no survival benefits: OK, we went over the treatments and looked at the survival benefits for various treatments.

We generally come down to these conclusions: For solid tumors, surgery provides no survival benefit.

Radiation provides no survival benefit. Oh, you can tell there may be a couple of exceptions, but the bulk of the literature shows this.

Hormone manipulation shows some for breast and prostate cancer, and that’s things like removing the ovaries or taking out the testicles, giving anti-estrogen treatments, and maybe even chemotherapy works by knocking out the ovaries. That’s my guess. With chemotherapy, the benefits are a little and the harms are substantial.

Let me explain why this is true. Once you know the mechanism underlying cancer, it’s all obvious why screening can’t work and nor can treatment: let’s talk about the mechanism of cancer growth.

Cells live in a neighborly manner. They are not allowed to divide anytime they want, if they divided any time they wanted under their own free will, we’d become misshapen masses in a matter of days. So, cells are allowed to divide under certain circumstances like if there’s a stimulus for growth from a brain signal, or hormone signal, that they’re allowed to grow.

If a cell gets injured, like we get a laceration; the cells next to that injury can proliferate and grow, and repair the injury. That’s fair, that’s what’s allowed to be done. We have these regulatory mechanisms to make sure this works correctly and properly so we stay in the form that we are.

Well cells get injured by things like radiation, products of cigarette smoke combustion and various toxins in our environment. As a consequence of injury, when it’s serious, most cells die.

Sometimes cells get injured, not bad enough to die, but bad enough to stop being neighborly. Then they start dividing at their own free will. That’s of course, the transition from normal to cancer. One cell always leads the way in the breast or prostate. One cell always leads the way. So, let’s take that cell.

Slide on doubling: The first cell begins, and the doubling time on average is 100 days for a solid tumor, be it breast, colon, prostate or lung. It’s every 100 days. So, 100 days later you have two cancer cells. Three and a half months later, you have four.

Now you’ve had cancer for a year and you’ve got 8-12 cancer cells lurking in a breast that contains 100 billion cells per breast, and a prostate that contains 100 billion cells, of course, obviously undetectable. Divisions continue, you go to 16, 32, 64.

You’ve had cancer for less than a year and you have less than 100 cells in your tumor mass. You couldn’t possibly find it. These are early stages, and if it’s truly cancer, then it starts to metastasize, and the tissues that go to it have a similar doubling rate as the original tumor.

No one dies of breast cancer or prostate cancer; they die of metastases in the lungs, bone, brain, etc. Well the divisions continue and finally you reach a tumor mass, after six years on average that contains a million cells the size of a period on a piece of paper, a lead tip. It’s undetectable by any current means. Yet, it has been growing for six years, it has amassed one million cells, if it’s truly cancer it has spread over 90% of the time and probably 100% of the time. It it’s truly cancer.

Lots of things that we treat that we tell the patient it’s cancer, it’s really not cancer. Anyway, so the divisions continue and finally you get to a detectable tumor mass, its one billion cells in size it’s a centimeter, it’s the size of the eraser of a pencil. At this size, the tumor is now able to increase the PSA level.

Prostate specific antigen increases only after the mass is a centimeter in size. In other words, it’s been growing an average of 10 years and contains one billion cells. It’s the size that you can feel on a digital rectal examination or breast self-examination. You may pick up a tumor mass 2-6 years earlier on mammography, but the truth is: because of the types of tumor masses that are picked up on mammography, the average length of doubling is about 14 years before you find them.

Two-thirds of the disease has occurred without the knowledge of the patients or the doctor. It has already expressed itself. Every oncologist and every doctor should know that. That’s the natural history of this disease. So how in the world are you going to treat a disease that has already expressed itself with local treatment like surgery and radiation? It’s impossible. That’s why they don’t survive any longer. It’d be nice if we had chemotherapy agents that work, it really would be.

But, by and large, the chemotherapy agents are ineffective and I gave you some exceptions and they are very toxic. Of course, that’s why chemotherapy is so popular. Everybody realizes its natural history, and local therapy doesn’t treat systemic disease. It couldn’t possibly do it. It’ll never work. But, we continue to do it.

You know, even after these kinds of realizations and even after the effort to change from a radical to a more conservative therapy in terms of prostate cancer and breast cancer, still these days, 65% of women are getting mastectomies. We had laws of informed consent in 18 states as long ago as 30 years, and yet 65% of women are getting mastectomies. By the way, this doubling time is on average every 100 days. But some women double their tumors every 24 days; some women double their tumors every 850 days.

I believe you can change that doubling time with a change in diet.

I published the first scientific study on the dietary treatment of breast cancer in 1982. Since then, there have been about 20 studies published in our best medical journals on the dietary treatment of breast cancer and other cancers. Everything says you can slow that doubling time. So, our goal should be to slow the doubling time, so that instead of a woman dying in 3 years, she dies in 12 years. Or maybe our goal should be to have all our patients with prostate and breast cancer die of their disease when they’re 95. We’re certainly not accomplishing that with present methods.

Next: Diet and Lifestyle Benefits

[Emphasis added.]

Peace and Love Be With You,

Flora

Directions for making Veggiekraut

Buy 3 heads of organic cabbage: 2 purple and 1 green.

Take off and set aside at least 3 large unblemished outside leaves and same them to cover the kraut mash later.

Juice the cabbage.

Mix the juice and pulp together, if you don’t have a homogenizer like a Champion, and pack it into a scrupulously clean ceramic crock. I use crock pot inserts.

Make sure that the top of the mash is not more than 1″ from the top of the crock lip.

Cover with 1 layer of cabbage leaves, with the curl ‘up.’ You may have to remove the stalky center part to allow the leaves to lie down flat.

Put a ceramic or glass saucer on top of the layer of cabbage leaves that is slightly smaller than the inside diameter of the crock pot and gently work it under the curly ends of the leaves around the edge of the pot.

Put a glass sun tea jar full of rocks or water on top of the little saucer/plate, and place the crock on top of a clean water heater or next to a water heater for 3 days. If you have none, just put it in a place where it can ‘make’ quietly with no drafts, but air.

3 days later, decant the veggikraut into glass jars. Save the leaves to cover the top of the jars.

Do not cap the jars.

Don’t put a spoon in the jar that has been in your mouth.

You may add dill seed, cardamom seed, or anise spices if you wish for seasoning. Use as much as you want to add to the Energy Soup.

Please, no salt.

This contains all of the B-complex vitamins and so much more.

After you get to a point that you are well or have reached your goal in your program, let me know and I’ll let you in on the most delicious ‘perfect bite’ recipe using this kraut that I know of. And, I’d be happy to share it with you but it is not blended.

We all need to be using only blended and juiced foods right now to maximize our cell regeneration, generation, and elimination of toxins.

Peace and Love Be With You,

Flora

Thanks, Jim! I have placed your website (chiDiet.com) in my new up-coming book and recommended your newsletter as my favorite.

Keep up the good work!

Love,
Victoria Boutenko

——————————–

<blush>

Thank you,

Jim Carey

RawDoctors.com has put together a two CD set about the body-mind connection and healing, material created with Dr. Bruce Lipton. Over the last few days I’ve been listening to the CDs again while driving. I want to let you know that I REALLY think they’re great.

It’s good to be reminded of these things on a regular basis.

Over at chiDietVideos.com we’re running the CD set at a special price, but there’s only a few days left to get your set!

Here’s the link – The Secret Ingredient of Optimal Health:
http://chidietvideos.com/the-secret-ingredient.html

Jim Carey

As always, right after the Holidays is a great time to change behavior patterns and to begin new lives. NOW is the time to start planning for those changes.

Whether you’re looking at the raw diet because of your health challenges, or because you’re looking to take your healthy diet to a new level, this is the time of the year to start!

Studies have shown that it’s best to change multiple behavior patterns at the same time. In other words, if you decide to quit smoking, get more exercise, and begin a raw foods lifestyle – all at the same time – you’ll be more successful than if you try to accomplish them individually or sequentially.

However – “the secret to success is having a plan.”

It’s not enough just to say to yourself, “I’m going raw.” That will work for a while – a few days, perhaps a few weeks – but unless you have tons of willpower, very shortly you’ll find yourself going back to your old habit patterns and comfort foods.

That’s why a plan is important. Let’s consider a plan for going raw:

10 Steps to Going and Staying Raw

1. Assemble the tools you need. A blender – any cheap, used blender – an inexpensive dehydrator, some jars for sprouting, and a variety of raw recipes are the minimum requirements.

2. Assemble your list of suppliers. Where are you going to buy your food? Are you going be mostly organic? You’ll also need to find a supply of sprouting seeds – at least some alfalfa, clover, sunflower and wheatgrass (hard red winter wheat). The wider the variety the better.

3. Read your instructions. Do you know how to sprout, and how to run a dehydrator?

4. Plan what you’re going to do. If you decide you’d like to make angel-hair pasta from zucchini, for example, you might find having a spiral slicing machine handy. This might put you back to step 1.

5. Set a starting date and create your support mechanism. Having a support group is the greatest. Check meetup.com for raw groups in your area. If you don’t know any rawbies in your area, find a raw chat group or two for support.

Share with them what you plan to do, and the date you’re going to start. You’ll find yourself more successful this way, than if you “go raw secretly.” Secret quitting doesn’t work.

While I’m constantly reminding people that we don’t have to justify our lifestyle choices to anyone, sometimes we can’t avoid it. This video I made about Dispelling the Raw Food Myths will help you deal with the standard objections you’re going to hear: http://www.chidiet.com/blog/free-stuff/dispelling-raw-food-myths.htm

6. Don’t forget that you’re going to need to stay inspired as you go raw. Build a collection of books, videos, and CDs before you start so that you’ll have lots of material when you go raw. This will help maintain your momentum. Otherwise you might find yourself running out of steam before you get to the top of the hill.

I find that videos motivate me the most. Instead of watching the news or a movie at night, I’ll pop in a video on raw foods and watch it, instead. chiVideos.com is a good source for these, and if you have high-speed internet you can watch raw videos online at websites like YouTube.com/chidiet.

7. Research shows that it takes 21 days for a new behavior to become a habit; if we move to a new house and now have to turn right instead of left when we leave work, it’ll be 21 days before it seems natural to turn right when head for home.

In dealing with addictions the transitional period is longer. Yes, cooked foods are an addiction. Thus, we need to deal with them as such.

Victoria Boutenko has a good book on this subject – 12 Steps to Raw Foods. Her website is RawFamily.com and the book is on Amazon.com, too. Her book covers the subject in detail, but here are her 12 Steps to Raw Food:

Step 1  – I admit that I have lost control of my addiction to cooked
food and my eating is becoming unmanageable.

Step 2  – I believe that live vegan food is the most natural diet for a
human being.

Step 3  – I shall gain necessary skills, learn basic raw recipes and
obtain equipment to prepare live food.

Step 4  – I shall live in harmony with people who eat cooked food.

Step 5  – I shall stay away from temptations.

Step 6  – I shall create a support group.

Step 7  – I shall find alternative activities or hobbies.

Step 8  – I shall let my higher self lead my life.

Step 9  – I shall make a searching and fearless inventory of the real
reasons for seeking comfort and pleasure from cooked
foods.

Step 10 – I shall let my intuition help me.

Step 11 – Through clarity I will gain happiness.

Step 12 – I shall provide support to other raw fooders.

8. Part of changing your diet and lifestyle is detoxifying the body. Not as a one-time detox, but instead, we should be constantly detoxing. That’s where Dr. Ann Wigmore’s program comes in. She taught much more than a diet. In her books and videos she lays out the procedures for a continuous healthy detox, including the foods we eat, how we combine them, the usage of colonics or enemas, the uses of wheatgrass juice, and more.

The basics are laid out in her book, Why Suffer? How I Overcame Illness and Pain Naturally. While it’s out-of-print, used copies can usually be found on Amazon.com for a few dollars.

Other great books of Dr. Ann’s are Be Your Own Doctor and Rebuild Your Health, both available at Amazon.com.

9. Be aware, not discouraged. You’re going to backslide at times, and it’s normal. Don’t feel like you’ve “failed” if you happen to go out for pizza or a hamburger. Instead, think about how well you’ve been doing, how much better you’re eating than you used to, and how much better you’re feeling since you started going raw.

10. Experiment, experiment, experiment. Knowing that I have addictions to comfort foods, I found new comfort foods. For me that’s fresh blueberries, raspberries, and raw vegan pizza, made with flax crust in the dehydrator. It’s a recipe I’ve included in my book. Victoria’s Step 9, above, has helped me a lot, too.

Overwhelmed? I would be, too, if it weren’t for the teachings of Dr. Ann.

Sometimes I get off the raw path when traveling the country, visiting family and friends. But when I get home I head to the market, stock up on good raw, organic fruits and veggies, then pull out my Dr. Ann Wigmore Raw Living Foods Home Study Program and get back to it.

I’m feeling better, more energetic, happier and de-stressed than I did in my old cooked-food life. MUCH better. My warning is when I felt the arthritis coming back in my knees – that’s my personal sign that I’m not eating right.

Here’s good news: There’s a new Home Study Program. Bigger and better than ever, it’s designed to lead you by the hand from raw-curious to fully raw and healthy.

The program even includes one-on-one consulting by phone and email with long-time Dr. Ann Wigmore Instructors, people that have been doing this MUCH longer than me, and know a lot about it.

This is the most complete collection and comprehensive overview of Dr. Ann’s Raw Living Foods Lifestyle available, designed to get you started, keep you on track, and support you when you backslide. It includes:

The 300+ page 13 Step Raw Living Foods Success Guide
The 180 page Raw Living Foods Recipe Book
Grassy Roots – Back to the Roots of Healthy Eating - 14 episode Raw Food TV show on DVD
40 videos on DVD by Dr. Ann and her Institute Instructors
1 hour of free Raw Coaching  – 2 sessions of 30 minutes
Free email consulting with Dr. Flora van Orden III, Dr. Ann’s long-time assistant
What’s in Your Lunch Bucket? Eat Light – Be Bright, by Jan Jensen, a handbook for active working women
Delicious Raw Food Recipes, by Emily Rutherford of RawFoodRestaurantGuide.com
Menu planners, discount coupons for hands-on programs and much more

I do this to help others attain a healthier lifestyle, and can find no better way to start people on the path to healthy living than this program.

While I totally support and encourage people to take a hands-on program at a Dr. Ann Institute, the Home Study Program is much more detailed.

You’d have to spend months at a hands-on program to absorb this much information. Plus, you have it at home for continual reference and inspiration

I’m really excited about this because, over the years, I’ve received hundreds of thank you letters and success stories from people who have benefited from the Raw Living Foods Home Study Program, and this is the best one I’ve assembled yet!

Here’s the link: http://chiDiet.com

Sincerely Yours,

Jim Carey

PS: Even if you’re not 100% raw, how much better are you doing today than when you were on the SAD?

PPS: “[Because of their diets] nine men in ten are suicides.” – Ben Franklin

Everybody says that the best way to learn about the Raw Living Foods Diet and Lifestyle is with the Dr. Ann Wigmore Raw Living Foods Home Study Program.

They also say it’s big and expensive.

That’s why I jumped at the chance to do a TV series about the Dr. Ann Wigmore program. We called it Grassy Roots – Back to the Roots of Health Eating.

In 14 episodes I covered all of the basics of Dr. Ann’s teachings. Also, in each show, we did a quick-and-simple recipe or two, and discussed things like sprouting in the kitchen, composting and organic gardening.

Now it’s available on DVD, along with The 13 Step Guide to Raw Foods and my 180 page Transitional Raw Recipe book, all in a special package deal.

This is a special arrangement, and when they’re sold out, that’s it.

Learn more and get your copy today at http://GrassyRoots.com.

I’m sure you’ll love it – but if you don’t, I’ll be happy to take it back, no questions asked.

Jim Carey

PS: When family and friends want to debate your lifestyle choice, don’t! It’s a lot easier to share what you’re doing, and why, by sitting down and watching these videos together, then having an informed discussion.

Again, that link is http://GrassyRoots.com

As always, right after the Holidays is a great time to change behavior patterns and to begin new lives. NOW is the time to start planning for those changes.

Whether you’re looking at the raw diet because of your health challenges, or because you’re looking to take your healthy diet to a new level, this is the time of the year to start!

Studies have shown that it’s best to change multiple behavior patterns at the same time. In other words, if you decide to quit smoking, get more exercise, and begin a raw foods lifestyle – all at the same time – you’ll be more successful than if you try to accomplish them individually or sequentially.

However – “the secret to success is having a plan.”

It’s not enough just to say to yourself, “I’m going raw.” That will work for a while – a few days, perhaps a few weeks – but unless you have tons of willpower, very shortly you’ll find yourself going back to your old habit patterns and comfort foods.

That’s why a plan is important. Let’s consider a plan for going raw:

10 Steps to Going and Staying Raw

1. Assemble the tools you need. A blender – any cheap, used blender – an inexpensive dehydrator, some jars for sprouting, and a variety of raw recipes are the minimum requirements.

2. Assemble your list of suppliers. Where are you going to buy your food? Are you going be mostly organic? You’ll also need to find a supply of sprouting seeds – at least some alfalfa, clover, sunflower and wheatgrass (hard red winter wheat). The wider the variety the better.

3. Read your instructions. Do you know how to sprout, and how to run a dehydrator?

4. Plan what you’re going to do. If you decide you’d like to make angel-hair pasta from zucchini, for example, you might find having a spiral slicing machine handy. This might put you back to step 1.

5. Set a starting date and create your support mechanism. Having a support group is the greatest. Check meetup.com for raw groups in your area. If you don’t know any rawbies in your area, find a raw chat group or two for support.

Share with them what you plan to do, and the date you’re going to start. You’ll find yourself more successful this way, than if you “go raw secretly.” Secret quitting doesn’t work.

While I’m constantly reminding people that we don’t have to justify our lifestyle choices to anyone, sometimes we can’t avoid it. This video I made about Dispelling the Raw Food Myths will help you deal with the standard objections you’re going to hear: http://www.chidiet.com/blog/free-stuff/dispelling-raw-food-myths.htm

6. Don’t forget that you’re going to need to stay inspired as you go raw. Build a collection of books, videos, and CDs before you start so that you’ll have lots of material when you go raw. This will help maintain your momentum. Otherwise you might find yourself running out of steam before you get to the top of the hill.

I find that videos motivate me the most. Instead of watching the news or a movie at night, I’ll pop in a video on raw foods and watch it, instead. chiVideos.com is a good source for these, and if you have high-speed internet you can watch raw videos online at websites like YouTube.com/chidiet.

7. Research shows that it takes 21 days for a new behavior to become a habit; if we move to a new house and now have to turn right instead of left when we leave work, it’ll be 21 days before it seems natural to turn right when head for home.

In dealing with addictions the transitional period is longer. Yes, cooked foods are an addiction. Thus, we need to deal with them as such.

Victoria Boutenko has a good book on this subject – 12 Steps to Raw Foods. Her website is RawFamily.com and the book is on Amazon.com, too. Her book covers the subject in detail, but here are her 12 Steps to Raw Food:

Step 1  – I admit that I have lost control of my addiction to cooked
food and my eating is becoming unmanageable.

Step 2  – I believe that live vegan food is the most natural diet for a
human being.

Step 3  – I shall gain necessary skills, learn basic raw recipes and
obtain equipment to prepare live food.

Step 4  – I shall live in harmony with people who eat cooked food.

Step 5  – I shall stay away from temptations.

Step 6  – I shall create a support group.

Step 7  – I shall find alternative activities or hobbies.

Step 8  – I shall let my higher self lead my life.

Step 9  – I shall make a searching and fearless inventory of the real
reasons for seeking comfort and pleasure from cooked
foods.

Step 10 – I shall let my intuition help me.

Step 11 – Through clarity I will gain happiness.

Step 12 – I shall provide support to other raw fooders.

8. Part of changing your diet and lifestyle is detoxifying the body. Not as a one-time detox, but instead, we should be constantly detoxing. That’s where Dr. Ann Wigmore’s program comes in. She taught much more than a diet. In her books and videos she lays out the procedures for a continuous healthy detox, including the foods we eat, how we combine them, the usage of colonics or enemas, the uses of wheatgrass juice, and more.

The basics are laid out in her book, Why Suffer? How I Overcame Illness and Pain Naturally. While it’s out-of-print, used copies can usually be found on Amazon.com for a few dollars.

Other great books of Dr. Ann’s are Be Your Own Doctor and Rebuild Your Health, both available at Amazon.com.

9. Be aware, not discouraged. You’re going to backslide at times, and it’s normal. Don’t feel like you’ve “failed” if you happen to go out for pizza or a hamburger. Instead, think about how well you’ve been doing, how much better you’re eating than you used to, and how much better you’re feeling since you started going raw.

10. Experiment, experiment, experiment. Knowing that I have addictions to comfort foods, I found new comfort foods. For me that’s fresh blueberries, raspberries, and raw vegan pizza, made with flax crust in the dehydrator. It’s a recipe I’ve included in my book. Victoria’s Step 9, above, has helped me a lot, too.

Overwhelmed? I would be, too, if it weren’t for the teachings of Dr. Ann.

Sometimes I get off the raw path when traveling the country, visiting family and friends. But when I get home I head to the market, stock up on good raw, organic fruits and veggies, then pull out my Dr. Ann Wigmore Raw Living Foods Home Study Program and get back to it.

I’m feeling better, more energetic, happier and de-stressed than I did in my old cooked-food life. MUCH better. My warning is when I felt the arthritis coming back in my knees – that’s my personal sign that I’m not eating right.

Here’s good news: There’s a new Home Study Program. Bigger and better than ever, it’s designed to lead you by the hand from raw-curious to fully raw and healthy.

The program even includes one-on-one consulting by phone and email with long-time Dr. Ann Wigmore Instructors, people that have been doing this MUCH longer than me, and know a lot about it.

This is the most complete collection and comprehensive overview of Dr. Ann’s Raw Living Foods Lifestyle available, designed to get you started, keep you on track, and support you when you backslide. It includes:

The 300+ page 13 Step Raw Living Foods Success Guide
The 180 page Raw Living Foods Recipe Book
Grassy Roots – Back to the Roots of Healthy Eating - 14 episode Raw Food TV show on DVD
40 videos on DVD by Dr. Ann and her Institute Instructors
1 hour of free Raw Coaching  – 2 sessions of 30 minutes
Free email consulting with Dr. Flora van Orden III, Dr. Ann’s long-time assistant
What’s in Your Lunch Bucket? Eat Light – Be Bright, by Jan Jensen, a handbook for active working women
Delicious Raw Food Recipes, by Emily Rutherford of RawFoodRestaurantGuide.com
Menu planners, discount coupons for hands-on programs and much more

I do this to help others attain a healthier lifestyle, and can find no better way to start people on the path to healthy living than this program.

While I totally support and encourage people to take a hands-on program at a Dr. Ann Institute, the Home Study Program is much more detailed.

You’d have to spend months at a hands-on program to absorb this much information. Plus, you have it at home for continual reference and inspiration

I’m really excited about this because, over the years, I’ve received hundreds of thank you letters and success stories from people who have benefited from the Raw Living Foods Home Study Program, and this is the best one I’ve assembled yet!

Here’s the link: http://chiDiet.com

Sincerely Yours,

Jim Carey

PS: Even if you’re not 100% raw, how much better are you doing today than when you were on the SAD?

PPS: “[Because of their diets] nine men in ten are suicides.” – Ben Franklin

A big part of staying Raw, especially when you’re transitioning, is to keep your meals interesting, varied and exciting. True, there’s a raw food substitute for any cooked meal, but it takes time and guidance to learn to replicate your old favorites and “comfort foods.”

Now you can get a new recipe every day at
http://rawlivingfoods.typepad.com/1/recipes/

Thanks to raw chefs like Dr. Cher Till, Jan Jensen and many others, I have raw recipes scheduled well into next year!

Another good resource for Raw Food Recipes is my 180 page transitional raw foods recipe book, now available at http://WigmoreDiet.com/

Stay Rawsome!

Jim Carey

P.S. Submit your Raw Recipe by email: drjim@chidiet.com

by Dr. James Carey, PhD (applied microcomputer technologies)

For 23 years I lived in Key West, Florida, and built several computer companies. In ’97 I sold off the business, apartments, office building, house, and most of the stuff I’d accumulated. By January ’99 I was 48 years old, free and financially liquid.

I took a year or so off and toured the United States, traveled 60,000 miles, first with an Airstream trailer, and later with a Bluebird motorcoach.

I also spent the time overcoming my addiction to cigarettes, something I’d been dependent upon since I was 14 years old.

By Spring of 2000 I was rested, collected, and tobacco-free. I’d relocated to rural Georgia, adopted a dog, and started building a house with my own hands. I also weighed 260 lbs. I’d been watching my weight creep up over the years, from my college weight of 165 to around 220 by ’99.

I considered myself healthy because at 45 I could still shinny up a 30 ft. sailboat mast and repair the masthead while holding on with my legs. But a year of sitting behind the steering wheel substituting junk food and rich meals for the cigarettes I was trying to give up really put the weight on me. Now I was almost 50 and single-handedly building a house.

I considered myself to be in good shape, I was active and pain-free, but I sure was getting big.

Jim at 260 lbs.

Jim at 170 lbs.

So… January, 2001. New Year’s Resolution – go on a diet. I read about health and nutrition, then put myself on a 1700 calorie-a-day vegetarian diet. I walked at least three miles a day, five times a week.

In four months I lost 20 lbs., bringing my weight down to 240. I kept counting calories in my little notebook, I kept walking 15 miles or more a week, and by Summer – still 240 lbs.!

I could not lose any more weight. Frustrating. If I went off my diet for a weekend in Savannah I’d gain 5 lbs. in two days, then take a week – or more – to get rid of it.

Back to the Internet for more research. I read about people who had been on one diet or another, but after initial improvements their health deteriorated and they were facing new health challenges because of the inadequacies of the dietary regime they’d adopted.

The deeper I dug, the more one program stood out. The Raw Living Foods lifestyle, taught by Dr. Ann Wigmore. It was old knowledge going back thousands of years, and she was the most famous of modern advocates. What impressed me most were:

1) Testimonies by people that have lived the lifestyle for 20, 30 and 40 years, and are thriving on it.

2) What does the founder look like today, or what did they die of? Dr. Ann died of smoke inhalation while fighting a fire, at 84. She was fit and healthy.

3) Other raw fooders have died as a result of sports accidents in their 80′s and 90′s, not of disease or medications. All maintained an active lifestyle up until their passing over.

4) Dr. Wigmore’s Raw Living Foods Lifestyle combines raw living food, internal cleansing, body detoxification and plant-based supplementation. All of the elements of good health rolled into one.

5) There are hands-on training centers where one can go and experience the program for an extended period of time, and not just try to sort it out from books or weekend seminars.

6) Most hands-on centers are reasonably priced – I’ve paid as much for one night at a nice hotel for what they charge for a week’s stay.

7) Dr. Ann Wigmore’s program is educational, not “do this blindly because I say so.” At the training centers they teach why the body isn’t healthy, and what you can do about it. As an engineer and scientist, I appreciate this.

The more I looked at it, the more the Raw Living Foods Lifestyle stood out as being the program that would work for me – or for anyone!

Synchronicity also came into play. An old friend. When I mentioned Dr. Ann Wigmore’s Raw Living Foods program she told me that she’d studied with Dr. Ann at Hippocrates Institute in Boston, and credited the lifestyle with changing her life.

August of ’01 found me at Creative Health Institute, near Union City, Michigan. On a trip to visit family I stopped in for a three-day visit. I was so impressed with the personal experiences of the graduating students that I went back to Georgia, closed up the farm, and returned to Michigan to attend the two-week program. I still weighed 240 lbs.

In my first two weeks at Creative Health I lost 20 lbs. I never went hungry, I never missed a meal, I never counted a calorie. Indeed, I usually had seconds.

At the end of the first month I was down to 210 lbs. When I headed back for Georgia for Christmas I weighed 200 lbs. I’d lost 40 lbs. without even working at it!

Why did the program work so dramatically for me?

I was toxic. Not only did the organic, unprocessed food that Creative Health served reduce and eliminate the toxins in my body, Dr. Ann’s program helped my body eliminate toxins that I’d been accumulating all of my life.

By eating processed foods, I’d been putting toxins into my body faster than my body could remove them. I learned that my body was storing these toxins in fat cells in order to protect me. Once I eliminated the toxins I was ingesting, my body was able to process the backlogged accumulation and dispose of it.

I also learned that I had a large amount of impacted fecal matter. Most people do. Enemas cleared out this backlog.

From ’01 to ’05 I spent three to six months of the year at Creative Health, helping out as a volunteer as I helped myself get healthier. I weigh 170 lbs. now.

The other reason I kept returning to Creative Health was the good feelings I felt when I saw others overcome their health challenges. I’ve seen people heal diabetes, obesity, arthritis, colitis, after-effects of chemotherapy, breast cancer, hepatitis, heavy metal poisoning, asthma, wounds that wouldn’t heal, PMS, migraine headaches… all forms of health challenges.

I’ve seen people stop smoking, painlessly, in just a few days. They didn’t even notice that they’d quit. Wish I knew that back in ’99.

I’ve watched people perk up, heal, and get happy. Like Chantel from Zimbabwe. She came to Creative Health with rheumatoid arthritis, which she’d had since she was 16. She was 26. Upon graduation from the two-week program Chantel said, “I stopped taking my medication after I was here three days. I’ve not had any pain in more than a week.”

With tears streaming down her cheeks, she added, “This is the best I have felt since I was 15 years old.”

Some time later Chantel sent me an email: “While I am only 75% raw after these two years, I am not taking medication, and my pain has not returned. I am happy to tell you that I am now married and three months pregnant. Your program made this possible. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

What do raw living foods do for me?

Helped me lose over 70 lbs.,

Gave me an energy level that’s like being 25 again (I even took up skydiving – at 52!).

Instead of sleeping 8-10 hours a night, I wake totally refreshed after only 4-6 hours of sleep.

My bowels are regular and move easily.

I’m happier – all the time. I have a more positive outlook on life. People say I “glow,” and I smile all the time.

My taste buds have changed, and my cravings for snacks, sweets and caffeine have disappeared.

Most of all, I find my life more satisfying and rewarding than it’s ever been before.

I try to help Creative Health in their mission. I’ve installed computers and a network, rewrote the website, taught classes, mowed the lawn, started a newsletter, served as Program Director, done public speaking, fixed toilets, painted, produced videos, answered the phones, stuffed envelopes, and told my story on TV and radio

When I was answering the phone at Creative Health I repeatedly heard people say, either:

1) I have the time to attend, but just can’t afford it, or

2) Affording it is no problem, but there’s no way I can take two weeks off.

For those reasons I created the Home Study Program. From a file cabinet with over three decades of research studies and student materials, and two decades worth of videotape, I spent my winters assembling the most comprehensive overview of the program I could.

I now administer the Raw Living Foods Home Study Program in order to help those who:

1) Can’t afford to attend a center,

2) Want to have a comprehensive overview of the program to take home with them, or

3) Need training materials to help them share their wonderful transformation with others.

I’m finding it a great way to spend my retirement, and the second half of my life!

Jim Carey
Midville, Georgia
December, 2007

Psst…. It’s Dr. Jim Carey’s Birthday today. The Big 6-0.

Send him a greeting at drjim@chidiet.com.

Susan

Everybody says that the best way to learn about the Raw Living Foods Diet and Lifestyle is with the Dr. Ann Wigmore Raw Living Foods Home Study Program.

They also say it’s big and expensive.

That’s why I jumped at the chance to do a TV series about the Dr. Ann Wigmore program. We called it Grassy Roots – Back to the Roots of Health Eating.

In 14 episodes I covered all of the basics of Dr. Ann’s teachings. Also, in each show, we did a quick-and-simple recipe or two, and discussed things like sprouting in the kitchen, composting and organic gardening.

Now it’s available on DVD, along with The 13 Step Guide to Raw Foods and my 180 page Transitional Raw Recipe book, all in a special package deal.

This is a special arrangement, and when they’re sold out, that’s it.

Learn more and get your copy today at http://GrassyRoots.com.

I’m sure you’ll love it – but if you don’t, I’ll be happy to take it back, no questions asked.

Jim Carey

PS: When family and friends want to debate your lifestyle choice, don’t! It’s a lot easier to share what you’re doing, and why, by sitting down and watching these videos together, then having an informed discussion.

Again, that link is http://GrassyRoots.com

Feedback from the eggs…

Sent to me via email; original source unknown. If you know where these pix came from, please let me know.

Antidepressant drugs increase the risk of type 2 diabetes among those at high risk of the disease, a re-analysis of part of the large-scale Diabetes Prevention Program study found: http://www.mercola.com/2006/jun/29/dangerous_antidepressants_elevate_type_2_diabetes_risk.htm.

RawDoctors.com has put together a two CD set about the body-mind connection and healing, material created with Dr. Bruce Lipton. Over the last few days I’ve been listening to the CDs again while driving. I want to let you know that I REALLY think they’re great.

It’s good to be reminded of these things on a regular basis.

Over at chiDietVideos.com we’re running the CD set at a special price, but there’s only a few days left to get your set!

Here’s the link – The Secret Ingredient of Optimal Health:
http://chidietvideos.com/the-secret-ingredient.html

Jim Carey

If you’re a newcomer to the raw food way of life, it could turn out to be a daunting process, especially if your system is not used to the change. There are those who swear by the 80/10/10 diet that relies heavily on carbohydrates to provide fuel for your body, and others who denounce it with equal fervor.

Diet is a question of personal choice, and it’s wise to choose one that suits us and that we’re likely to stick to. So if you’re looking to go the raw food way, here’s what you need to know as newbie to this way of life:

•    It’s best to make gradual changes rather than quit cooked food cold turkey because this diet is not something that works wonders all of a sudden. Your body may find it difficult to adjust and you may be prone to spells of dizziness, mental and physical fatigue, headaches, drowsiness, emotional mood swings, and low concentration levels. So start out with one meal a day for a week, and then gradually increase the amount of raw food you eat as your system adjusts.
•    When you’re eating a mix of raw and cooked food, remember to eat cooked food that’s healthy so that you’re able to gain the maximum benefit out of this process. You must avoid food that has been heated beyond 115 F, processed, refined, or pasteurized.
•    The raw food diet takes time getting used to, so don’t worry if you find the going tough in the beginning. Ensure that you take adequate precautions to prevent medical complications, especially if you’re on medication and suffer from other medical conditions. If you’re really serious about changing to a raw food diet, you must persevere with it even when it seems hard to adjust. You will find it easier as the days go by.
•    Although it may seem like less work when you don’t have to cook food, you need to make a larger effort in making raw food edible by processing, dehydrating, soaking or fermenting. You also need to work on finding recipes to prevent boredom from stopping you from adhering to this way of life.
•    Raw food diets find favor with athletes, especially those who specialize in endurance and strength training. It seems to give them an edge when it comes to performance and achievement.

If you’re looking for good recipes to help you stick to your raw food diet and make your meals more interesting, you could try the ones listed in The Complete Book of Raw Food. The book, now in its second edition, has over 400 recipes from 55 chefs and is reputed to have the most widely available collection of raw food recipes. It also includes detailed information including preparation times, both advance and immediate. So go ahead, launch your entry into the world of raw food with this book for an ally, and feel the difference in your life.

This post was contributed by Katie Wilson, who writes about the top nursing colleges. She welcomes your feedback at KatieWilson06 at gmail.com

As always, right after the Holidays is a great time to change behavior patterns and to begin new lives. NOW is the time to start planning for those changes.

Whether you’re looking at the raw diet because of your health challenges, or because you’re looking to take your healthy diet to a new level, this is the time of the year to start!

Studies have shown that it’s best to change multiple behavior patterns at the same time. In other words, if you decide to quit smoking, get more exercise, and begin a raw foods lifestyle – all at the same time – you’ll be more successful than if you try to accomplish them individually or sequentially.

However – “the secret to success is having a plan.”

It’s not enough just to say to yourself, “I’m going raw.” That will work for a while – a few days, perhaps a few weeks – but unless you have tons of willpower, very shortly you’ll find yourself going back to your old habit patterns and comfort foods.

That’s why a plan is important. Let’s consider a plan for going raw:

10 Steps to Going and Staying Raw

1. Assemble the tools you need. A blender – any cheap, used blender – an inexpensive dehydrator, some jars for sprouting, and a variety of raw recipes are the minimum requirements.

2. Assemble your list of suppliers. Where are you going to buy your food? Are you going be mostly organic? You’ll also need to find a supply of sprouting seeds – at least some alfalfa, clover, sunflower and wheatgrass (hard red winter wheat). The wider the variety the better.

3. Read your instructions. Do you know how to sprout, and how to run a dehydrator?

4. Plan what you’re going to do. If you decide you’d like to make angel-hair pasta from zucchini, for example, you might find having a spiral slicing machine handy. This might put you back to step 1.

5. Set a starting date and create your support mechanism. Having a support group is the greatest. Check meetup.com for raw groups in your area. If you don’t know any rawbies in your area, find a raw chat group or two for support.

Share with them what you plan to do, and the date you’re going to start. You’ll find yourself more successful this way, than if you “go raw secretly.” Secret quitting doesn’t work.

While I’m constantly reminding people that we don’t have to justify our lifestyle choices to anyone, sometimes we can’t avoid it. This video I made about Dispelling the Raw Food Myths will help you deal with the standard objections you’re going to hear: http://www.chidiet.com/blog/free-stuff/dispelling-raw-food-myths.htm

6. Don’t forget that you’re going to need to stay inspired as you go raw. Build a collection of books, videos, and CDs before you start so that you’ll have lots of material when you go raw. This will help maintain your momentum. Otherwise you might find yourself running out of steam before you get to the top of the hill.

I find that videos motivate me the most. Instead of watching the news or a movie at night, I’ll pop in a video on raw foods and watch it, instead. chiVideos.com is a good source for these, and if you have high-speed internet you can watch raw videos online at websites like YouTube.com/chidiet.

7. Research shows that it takes 21 days for a new behavior to become a habit; if we move to a new house and now have to turn right instead of left when we leave work, it’ll be 21 days before it seems natural to turn right when head for home.

In dealing with addictions the transitional period is longer. Yes, cooked foods are an addiction. Thus, we need to deal with them as such.

Victoria Boutenko has a good book on this subject – 12 Steps to Raw Foods. Her website is RawFamily.com and the book is on Amazon.com, too. Her book covers the subject in detail, but here are her 12 Steps to Raw Food:

Step 1  – I admit that I have lost control of my addiction to cooked
food and my eating is becoming unmanageable.

Step 2  – I believe that live vegan food is the most natural diet for a
human being.

Step 3  – I shall gain necessary skills, learn basic raw recipes and
obtain equipment to prepare live food.

Step 4  – I shall live in harmony with people who eat cooked food.

Step 5  – I shall stay away from temptations.

Step 6  – I shall create a support group.

Step 7  – I shall find alternative activities or hobbies.

Step 8  – I shall let my higher self lead my life.

Step 9  – I shall make a searching and fearless inventory of the real
reasons for seeking comfort and pleasure from cooked
foods.

Step 10 – I shall let my intuition help me.

Step 11 – Through clarity I will gain happiness.

Step 12 – I shall provide support to other raw fooders.

8. Part of changing your diet and lifestyle is detoxifying the body. Not as a one-time detox, but instead, we should be constantly detoxing. That’s where Dr. Ann Wigmore’s program comes in. She taught much more than a diet. In her books and videos she lays out the procedures for a continuous healthy detox, including the foods we eat, how we combine them, the usage of colonics or enemas, the uses of wheatgrass juice, and more.

The basics are laid out in her book, Why Suffer? How I Overcame Illness and Pain Naturally. While it’s out-of-print, used copies can usually be found on Amazon.com for a few dollars.

Other great books of Dr. Ann’s are Be Your Own Doctor and Rebuild Your Health, both available at Amazon.com.

9. Be aware, not discouraged. You’re going to backslide at times, and it’s normal. Don’t feel like you’ve “failed” if you happen to go out for pizza or a hamburger. Instead, think about how well you’ve been doing, how much better you’re eating than you used to, and how much better you’re feeling since you started going raw.

10. Experiment, experiment, experiment. Knowing that I have addictions to comfort foods, I found new comfort foods. For me that’s fresh blueberries, raspberries, and raw vegan pizza, made with flax crust in the dehydrator. It’s a recipe I’ve included in my book. Victoria’s Step 9, above, has helped me a lot, too.

Overwhelmed? I would be, too, if it weren’t for the teachings of Dr. Ann.

Sometimes I get off the raw path when traveling the country, visiting family and friends. But when I get home I head to the market, stock up on good raw, organic fruits and veggies, then pull out my Dr. Ann Wigmore Raw Living Foods Home Study Program and get back to it.

I’m feeling better, more energetic, happier and de-stressed than I did in my old cooked-food life. MUCH better. My warning is when I felt the arthritis coming back in my knees – that’s my personal sign that I’m not eating right.

Here’s good news: There’s a new Home Study Program. Bigger and better than ever, it’s designed to lead you by the hand from raw-curious to fully raw and healthy.

The program even includes one-on-one consulting by phone and email with long-time Dr. Ann Wigmore Instructors, people that have been doing this MUCH longer than me, and know a lot about it.

This is the most complete collection and comprehensive overview of Dr. Ann’s Raw Living Foods Lifestyle available, designed to get you started, keep you on track, and support you when you backslide. It includes:

The 300+ page 13 Step Raw Living Foods Success Guide
The 180 page Raw Living Foods Recipe Book
Grassy Roots – Back to the Roots of Healthy Eating - 14 episode Raw Food TV show on DVD
40 videos on DVD by Dr. Ann and her Institute Instructors
1 hour of free Raw Coaching  – 2 sessions of 30 minutes
Free email consulting with Dr. Flora van Orden III, Dr. Ann’s long-time assistant
What’s in Your Lunch Bucket? Eat Light – Be Bright, by Jan Jensen, a handbook for active working women
Delicious Raw Food Recipes, by Emily Rutherford of RawFoodRestaurantGuide.com
Menu planners, discount coupons for hands-on programs and much more

I do this to help others attain a healthier lifestyle, and can find no better way to start people on the path to healthy living than this program.

While I totally support and encourage people to take a hands-on program at a Dr. Ann Institute, the Home Study Program is much more detailed.

You’d have to spend months at a hands-on program to absorb this much information. Plus, you have it at home for continual reference and inspiration

I’m really excited about this because, over the years, I’ve received hundreds of thank you letters and success stories from people who have benefited from the Raw Living Foods Home Study Program, and this is the best one I’ve assembled yet!

Here’s the link: http://chiDiet.com

Sincerely Yours,

Jim Carey

PS: Even if you’re not 100% raw, how much better are you doing today than when you were on the SAD?

PPS: “[Because of their diets] nine men in ten are suicides.” – Ben Franklin

To replenish and sustain your proper alkaline and acid reserves, try to eat 80% of your foods from the alkaline list and 20% from the acid forming list of organic raw foods:

NOT RECOMMENDED:

Salt (all types), refined sugar, peanuts
Barley, rice (basmati, brown, white, etc).
Alcoholic beverages
Oats
Coffee, tobacco, vinegar, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise
These are not only acid-forming but cause excessive mucous: meat & eggs

Alkaline-Forming Activities

Physical:
Moderate sunshine, proper rest/sleep, deep breathing of fresh air
Fasting and under-eating, relaxation, soothing music, moderate exercise, adequate water intake

Emotional and Mental:
Laughter, releasing processes, self-esteem

Acid-Forming Activities

Physical:
Cooking and processing food, lack of rest/sleep, lack of oxygen, overeating (too much, too often), stress, noise, excessive or no exercise, dehydration

Emotional and mental:
Anger, denial, confusion, fear

Magnesium rich foods:
wheatgrass juice, dark greens, nuts, seeds, fruits, legumes, vegetables

Potassium rich foods:
cantaloupes, strawberries, green beans, brussels sprouts, bananas

Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina in their wonderful book, Becoming Raw indicate that when plant foods are juiced or blended, fermented or sprouted, cells are broken, releasing phytase.

All of these processes allow the release of bound calcium, iron, magnesium and zinc from these phytate-mineral complexes so that our bodies can easily extract and absorb the minerals when the food reaches the intestine.”

To replenish and sustain your proper alkaline and acid reserves, try to eat 80% of your foods from the alkaline list and 20% from the acid forming list of organic raw foods: We want you to consider adding your local alkaline foods to our list. Please let us know your favorites by leaving them as comments, below.

A wonderful naturopath in Hurricane, Utah shared how he walks through meadows and supermarkets and when he finds himself staring at a particular colored flower, fruit or vegetable, he realizes that his natural selection has picked something that he is deficient in.

The book Biological Transmutation, by the French genius Kirvran, teaches how our bones are made not from calcium (even though they have calcium in them) but from potassium, magnesium and silica-containing foods which pick up hydrogen, oxygen and carbon from free floating elements in our bodies and the combination of those turn into bone calcium.

We should not be taking TUMS, or calcium supplements in any form, but should just be restricting our protein intake to 2-3 ounces of those foods at a time, and if we just eat a variety with a plant based diet, we will get everything we need in a balanced order.

Peace and Love be with You,

Flora

[Please post your questions as Comments, below:]

For six wonderful years I’ve been sharing the message of Dr. Ann Wigmore and her associates with the world. I’ve shipped videos and books to 134 countries, and touched the lives of thousands of people.

But I can’t afford the legal fees that it’s costing me to keep these websites online.

So you have between now and midnight tonight, Wednesday, December 1st, to get any of the following:

1. Dr. Ann Wigmore’s Raw Living Foods Home Study Program: chiDiet.com
(The online version will still be available at RawLife.org)

2. My 14 episode TV show, Grassy Roots, on DVD, with manual and recipe book, also known as Home Study Lite: GrassyRoots.com

3. The Dr. Ann Wigmore Ten DVD Collection: WigmoreDiet.com

4. Inpidual Raw Food DVDs and CDs by Ann Wigmore, Victoria Boutenko, Dr. Flora, Paul Nison and many others: chiVideos.com

So if you’re planning to Go Raw for the New Year, or been putting off your desire for this great educational material, you better do it now.

If you want a healthier, happier, more fulfilling life, this is the way to do it, and today’s the day to start!

And remember – “Be Your Own Doctor” – Dr. Ann Wigmore

Stay Rawsome!

Jim Carey