Journal

25th February, 2011
I once thought that eating raw foods was the ideal. That perception has changed. The ideal is to eat fully ripe and freshly picked fruit and veggies. I once thought that eating raw foods was easy. That perception has changed too. Eating cooked is easy. One can walk to an isle full of packages and stuff their fridge with all sorts, and cooking can disguise the lack of quality. I hunt for best quality, ripe and juicy fruit and veggies. My senses are choosy. But perhaps this is what the nature intended me to do. Hunt and earn my meal ha ha!

I do not feel sorry for myself when I can't get the fruit I love, because I know that such little misery fails in comparison to the real issues of the world. So I am grateful for what I have. I know I am extremely lucky.

I admit that this recent time has not been the most cheerful one for me. Someone I once knew very close has died recently. I felt as if some dark moments from the past boomeranged to me. Thinking of this, I realize instantly that I choose my path, and that what I choose is what I need to experience. I need those dark moments to be alive again. Grabbing guitar, playing some songs always helps. I know, this is not on the topic of food, but I thought giving it all some perspective is not such a waste of space. Afterall, the world is multi-dimensional and there are strong physical connections between the many various aspects of what exists. Health is not just about food.

Actually, I can say something on the topic here. I observed that fruit keeps me happy even when I am moody. So there. :)

11th March, 2011
I hope I am not the only academic in the world in whose office you can find whole melons sitting on the window seal. My office smells with fruit too. A fruity profesor. Do you like eating melons with a spoon? I do. I cut them in half and then spoon them out. So easy. A few days ago I was buying some watermelon and got asked, are you having a watermelon week? No, this is just for my lunch, I said.

Organic bananas have hit $12 a kilo. Luckily for me, I do not live off bananas, but off sweet juicy fruit (with other foods on top of it), as I have done for some years now. I used to depend on banana smoothies at the beginning of my fruity journey - they made me fill full and happy. I stil eat bananas, but far more sparingly compared to then. Juicy fruit is what hits the spot for me these days. This is what my body prefers. I feel my best and perform my best on these sweet and hydrating delights.

I ask myself sometimes, what would I do if I could not afford the fruit anymore? The answer that I am finding is surprisingly calm. Do the best you can in the circumstances you are. My feelings about these issues are more mature than they once were. I consume food, but I am not consumed by it.

Dear reader, if you ever feel that you struggle on your raw food journey, please remember this: life is a wonderful gift and you are beautiful. The journey unfolds just as it needs too unfold.

I have started swimming again and I love it. I missed my swimming and it feels good to be back at it. I report happily that my body has not forgot it, and I have not lost my ability to do what I used to do - 1km a few times a week. Bellydancing is getting more enjoyable each year, as my body learns to move the ways it has never moved before. Similarly to piano playing, the body moves are recorded in my subconsciousness and I no longer need to think about them. They happen without me engaging my mind at all, and in this way the dance becomes what it is meant to be, a dance meditation...

I am not finding any time at all to prepare the articles for this website. All my time is use up by research. I work late nights, I work on the public holidays, but I do not complain, as I love maths.

20th March, 2011
I decided I will let my personal experiences stay private from now on. I am going to limit myself to writing articles, when and if I find time to do so.

I decided that I am still not ready to define myself as a hygienist, or a raw vegan, or a fruitarian. I feel I have a lot to think about yet. I will come back perhaps when I gain some clarity about these things. I need some time for achieving that. No, I have not stopped eating fruit. My decision has more to do with where I want to go from there.

I also feel that I've given enough space to a small part of my life, and it's time for me to go to explore other places. I mean, who cares about the diet of some mathematician. You know, life is full of wonders and I am running out of time to experience them all. Those who derive income from this lifestyle, put a lot of time into advertising their beliefs. I have been sharing mine for free, because I believe in sharing. But it is time for me take sabbatical!

Love,

Gosia

June, 2011
Clarity it is. I do not feel the urge to define myself as any particular dietary denomination. In fact, not to define myself is what I see as the most appropriate action for now. Sure, I do observe my body's preferences, likes and disliskes, and yes, I do desire to follow these, for the sake of my physical comfort. However, I do not feel the need to label myself, in the same way as I do not feel the need to judge others for their choices. I feel that the action of labelling is strongly associated with the action of judging, and judging is what I would prefer to avoid. I perceive it as a drain on the energy and an obstacle to evolving. Furthermore, I think that complete self-acceptance leads to that grounded state in which one feels no need for the outward focus, that self-proving of our self by disproving others.

My continuing absence from the forums where judging, categorizing, and competing occurs, has given me the opportunity to contemplate in peace. Perhaps judging is an essential part of the reality. Perhaps we need it to see through the bottled-bs-selling plagiarists who wrap up convoluted nonsense in the aura of pseudo-spirituality in order to make the buck. The mind has the ability to transform the nonsense into something that appears to make sense, and so it does so, out of the utter shock, instead of admitting that the emperor is naked indeed. The pseudo-magic that exploits the urges born as the result of un-met needs, can re-program the matrix of beliefs and, in turn, obscure the ability to see. So perhaps we need judging, so that we can leave the blissful place of ignorance. Or, perhaps we need pseudo-gurus, to fill the void, so that we can exist in that bliss, without the unbearable pain, until we are ready to cut the cord of dependence, if ever. Whatever the case, thankfully I feel no need for either alternative for myself.

Who is a raw vegan anyway? Is there such thing as a 100% raw vegan? Can a person who injects their veins with non-off-the-tree supplements, be termed a raw vegan? Or a person whose chest contains non-vegan implants, a vegan? Can a person who believes in ethical veganism but has carnivorous pets, be called a vegan? Can a person whose existence depends on the society built on the exploitation of animals, ever be a vegan? If, since the exploitation of animals to some indirect extent may be unavoidable, vegan is defined as the minimization of it, can we show rigorously (mathematically) that one's actions actually achieve it? How much aware are we of the impact of our every action to be able to tract them numerically? Should we perhaps relax the definition to include "according to one's own understanding", and if we do so, don't we all live the best we can, according to our perceptions? And why, amongst the vegans, there is so much outward focus on what others do, and so much outward judging? Is the judging and competition some mechanism to further oneself in the quest for the domination? Does this work? Can beautiful and inspiring people attract others effortlessly in the same way the the Sun attracts the living through its warmth and glow? Or, just as in politics, is it advantegous to use various tactics in order to be more visible and get on top of whatever pinnacle one is after? Incindentally, my personal observations suggest that the most impact I have ever had on anyone's interest in fruity diet was not through being verbal about it and advertizing it, but simply by being myself. My friend who I met after many years told me that I did not need to say anything to convince her, it was enough for her just to see me.

What does it mean to be 100% something? What is the error of such estimate, and if there is an error, even the slightest, does it make sense to use the '100% anything' term? When do we start the counting, at birth or whenever we choose? If someone says they went raw vegan ten years ago, but ate honey, non-raw dried fruit and nuts since then, have they been raw vegan for 10 years? Can we ever verify anyone's claims? Can the competition for the raw vegan longevity inspire people to manipulate the numbers to create a more perfect image of who they are? Why, despite all those various discussions on the topic who holds the torch of the correct raw vegan diet, we have not seen a faultless raw vegan guru as yet? Do we need a perfect guru who fakes it a little to inspire us and change our life for better? Is the need for an infallible guru born out of our insecurity to be who we are? What if a raw vegan guru is seen eating a bagel? Will this shatter our need for perfectionism? Can we derive the inspiration from less-than-perfect people? Where does the inspiration really originate?

Contemplating on these questions leaves me no doubt that getting obsessed about the labels is not what I am interested in. In fact, I am quite keen to openly defy them. I would love to explore some interesting topics however, and I invite you to join me for a journey.

Are you prepared to explore the truth as is? My preference, in any debate, is to 'sit on the fence' and be open to exploring. Such non-standard behaviour can be confusing to those who cannot understand that it is possible to debate something while not being anti-something, as well as resulting in me getting slaps from both sides of the fence. For example, I have experienced a sizeable amount of defensiveness from those who declare themselves as raw vegans, and my writings focusing on the scientific accuracy have been censored by those unprepared to accept the fallacy of some of their claims. I do not intend to challenge or support anyone's agenda. Rather, I have a desire to explore the 'burning' topics in a deep manner, as I would like to understand the source of tendencies that I observe in my body. I am not prepared to support claims that defy the logic for the sake of supporting a popular view, rather, I am interested in a genuine exploration. There is a lot of questionable stuff written on the topic of raw veganism/fruitarianism that does not hold together too well. Equally, there is a lot of written anti raw vegan stuff that makes no sense either. So, where is the truth? Let's have a look at the topics with the focus on understanding, not 'proving'. With the little time I have left for personal hobbies, I would love to spend some of it exploring these topics and make the best of my time and skills. I have no comments pages on my website, but if you would like to contribute, feel welcome to do so in my Guestbook.

What is a standard human diet? Is this some constant dietary pattern that a human body would prefer at all times? Is the human body a constant?

According to "Modern makeover" in New Scientist, 19 March 2011, thousands years of civilizations have resculplted the human body. A gene that allows humans to digest milk after infancy, has spread several thousands years ago with the invention of dairy herding. Our thigh bones have lost about 15% of strength in the last 4 thousand years. Thickening of the skull on the inside, above the eyes, that is thought to be caused by the exposure to estrogene, is 50% more common in women now than a hundred years ago. Changes have been observed in human arteries and fingerprints. Spina bifida occulta, a disease milder than spina bifida, which affects verterbrae in the sacral region, is believed to have become more common. "There is less bone everywhere in the body". Is this a welcome adaptation to the changing environment? Or is this a degeneration as the result of our poor diet and lifestyle?

What is a healthy diet? Is raw veganism an over the top extreme, a backlash to the widespread junk food diet? Or could this possibly be the return to our roots, the natural human diet, the prerequisite for health, as raw vegans seem to claim? How do we define the extreme? Could the current human lifestyle be termed extreme?

According to "Junkie food" in New Scientist, 4 September 2010, there exists compelling evidence that high in (processed) sugar, fat and salt junk foods can alter the brain chemistry in the same way as highly addictive drugs such as cocaine and heroin. "Junk foods switch on biological mechanisms that are just as hard to fight as recreational drugs". Many food products are designed for "high hedonic value" that induce people to eat more. According to the National Health Survey 2007-2008 in Australia, 42.1% of adult males and 30.9% of adult females are overweight, 25.6% of males and 24% of females are obese. According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2003–2006 and 2007–2008, over two-thirds of adults in the United States are overweight or obese, and over one-third are obese. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the world. What do we see when we enter any large supermarket? What is the percentage of mind-altering,processed junk foods in there, and what is the percentage of raw fruit and veggies? What do we see in an average shopping trolley? What percentage of people we see on any day could we term a glowing picture of health and fitness?

What about the so-called "balanced diet"? Why do people who think eat a balanced diet, get sick? Why getting flu or cold at certain times during the year seem to be a standard, while, from what I observed on myself and many other people I met, these very diseases somehow seem not to be able to get hold of a person whose diet consists of mainly raw fruit and veggies? What other diseases could be avoided by a simple change of diet?

According to Ling WH, Hanninen O., "Shifting from a conventional diet to an uncooked vegan diet reversibly alters fecal hydrolytic activities in humans", J Nutr 1992 Apr;122(4):924-30, "uncooked extreme vegan diet causes a decrease in bacterial enzymes and certain toxic products that have been implicated in colon cancer risk". In particular, the activity of fecal urease significantly decreased (by 66%) as did cholylglycine hydrolase (55%), beta-glucuronidase (33%) and beta-glucosidase (40%) within 1 wk of beginning the vegan diet in a control group.

Further, McDonald TA, Holland NT, Skibola C, et al., in "Hypothesis: Phenol and hydroquinone derived mainly from diet and gastrointestinal flora activity are causal factors in leukemia", LEUKEMIA, Volume: 15, Issue: 1, Pages: 10-20, 2001, hypothesize that the sources of phenol and hydroquinone and associated adducts from direct dietary ingestion, catabolism of tyrosine and other substrates by gut bacteria, ingestion of arbutin-containing foods, cigarette smoking, and the use of some over-the-counter medicines, play a causal role in producing some forms of de novo leukemia in the general population. "This hypothesis is consistent with recent epidemiological findings associating leukemia with diets rich in meat and protein, the use of antibiotics (which change gastrointestinal flora make-up), lack of breastfeeding, and low activity of NAD(P)H quinone oxidoreductase which detoxifies quinones derived from phenol and hydroquinone and protects against benzene hematotoxicity."

More recently, Schepers E, Glorieux G, Vanholder R, "The Gut: The Forgotten Organ in Uremia?", BLOOD PURIFICATION Volume: 29 Issue: 2, Pages: 130-136, 2010, say that "Many of the toxins generated or introduced into the body via the intestine (advanced glycation end products, indoles, phenols) play an active role in vascular damage".

It's time to point out that references are not proofs, but merely reports of some empirical evidence, flavoured by the interpretations of the authors who offer possible models to explain the data. One could quote forever various scientific articles, debate them and even select those that suit a particular view. So, I would like to think about some commonsense ideas that may explain the issue. In this case, the fact that considerably larger amounts of toxins would get produced inside the body due to cooked food than the raw food diet, is rather intuitively obvious since, as it is well-known, the passage time for the raw fruit and veggies is only hours, compared to days for the cooked foods, particularly the animal products. There exists some interesting visual evidence of the impact of the diet on our colon, see the following video from Japan which clearly shows the visible physical damage to the inside of the body through the diet. I think that it is a nice illustration of the ideas in the articles I quoted above. It is rather clear to me that the notion that the diet has a major impact on our health, is not some fairytale, but a sensible idea supported by some very compelling evidence.

What about veganism though? Is veganism human natural diet? Is it advantegous to human health or can it be potentially damaging? How much flexibility do we have in choosing our optimal diet? Can humans eat anything they like and enjoy the optimal health?

to be continued and edited yet

A little interlude, an interesting discussion I read on facebook (ahh, the wonders of the computer age), which in some way relates to my comments above: A Question to Veg-s

and my contribution to it:
"Good questions, Lena. I've been wondering about these very issues for some time. I understand that people have good intentions, as always, and their goals are to spread the positive ideas, such as raw veganism as a pathway to great health with a simultaneous minimization of suffering of the animals. It seems to me that sometimes people may have different views on whether and how to maximize one's global impact. For example, from the analysis of the advertising industry and business studies, and by observing some successful, in purely monetary sense, 'raw food business gurus' (which I do not mean as equivalent to individuals who understand how to achieve optimal health), as well as some historical figures who influenced the masses, we can learn that often not-so-ethical tactics may increase one's impact. And so some raw vegans may think that maximizing the impact is what they should focus on, with whatever means, such as sexy images (people get easily impressed by the imaging), sounding infallible (people like 'experts'), attacking those with opposing views (just as in politics), or even "stretching the truth". Whatever gets the followers in as high numbers as possible. But does this work? Another question one might ask, just as you did, is, what about the larger picture? What is it that we would really want from this 'raw vegan' movement?"

Which leads to me asking the following:
Define VEGAN