youtu.be — Nice way to spend some time with your kids, and get a workout! Fun, fitness, fruits, come join us at the raw fruit festival in Spain, 12 to 16 of September 2012. Stay young! More infos and online registration on http://festival.811-friendly.net

thegaychickwiththeblog.blogspot.com — My blog.

scienceblogs.com — In most texts and sources that I've read, the germ theory of disease is stated something like, "Many diseases are caused by microorganisms." We could argue whether viruses count as microorganisms, but for purposes of the germ theory they do. (Most biologists do not consider viruses to be true living organisms, because they consist of nothing more than genetic material wrapped in a protein coat and lack the ability to reproduce without infecting the cell of an organism.) Now, let's take a look at the latest germ theory denialist idiocy I've come across. The first one, not surprisingly, I found on NaturalNews.com. Surprisingly, it was not written by Mike Adams, but rather by someone named Paul Fassa, who proclaims You have been lied to about germs. It should have been called "You are about to be lied to about germs." First, though, since this article wasn't by the usual science-hating loon Mike Adams, I was curious just who Paul Fassa is. I had never heard of him before. It didn't take long to find Fassa's Twitter account and then from there his blog Health Maven, which bills itself as an "escape from the medical mafia matrix." Interesting. Why does it appear that any time I come across a germ theory denialist like Fassa, he's someone who uses terms like "medical mafia matrix"? I don't know, but such people also tend to write introductory paragraphs like this: We have been taught to fear germs, pathogens, viruses, and bacteria that invade us from out there. This is the Pasteur model of disease contagion. This creates a dependency on Big Pharma to protect us from invading microbes, each having one form (monomorphic) and creating one specific disease. Pasteur`s model of disease won over rival Claude Bernard`s more accurate argument of the inner terrain. Pasteur`s declaration, though serving the coffers of Big Pharma, creates more questions: How come some get a disease that`s going around and others don`t? How do all these new bugs come out of nowhere to haunt us? Why do vaccines and antibiotics ultimately fail and create super bugs? These questions are answered by understanding the inner terrain and pleomorphism. Note how Fassa first misrepresents the Pasteur model of disease. This is common among germ theory denialists, in my experience. They tend to assume that germ theory states that pathogenic microbes are 100% infectious and always cause disease. Consequently, when people are exposed to pathogenic microbes and don't become ill, people like Fassa point to that as evidence that germ theory is invalid. After all, the germ didn't cause disease, at least in this one case! That must mean that all of germ theory is wrong! Concrete thinking, thy name is Fassa (and other germ theory denialists.) It's rather odd that even most teenagers can understand that catching an infectious disease is dependent not just on the microbe but each person's resistance to that microbe. This is the same thing that mystifies HIV/AIDS denialists, who seem to view the observation that most exposures to HIV do not result in AIDS as some sort of devastating indictment of the hypothesis that HIV causes AIDS. Add to that a long asymptomatic period and highly variable rates of progression, and HIV/AIDS denialists, who are--let's face it--really nothing more than a subtype of germ theory denialists who deny vehemently that one particular germ causes disease have all the doubt they need. But I digress. Also notice Fassa's early and immediate invocation of the pharma shill gambit. If there's another thing about germ theory denialism, it's that those who cling to it tend to be extremely distrustful of big pharma. I realize that in many cases big pharma deserves a lot of mistrust; its record in many areas demands it. What distinguishes many of these germ theory denialists is that they take healthy skepticism and take it to a pathological extreme. They also seem to think that the reason that antibiotics ultimately fail is because germ theory is invalid, which reveals an incredible ignorance of how antibiotics work. Helloooo! Evolution? Ever heard of it? Bacteria are incredibly good at evolving under the selective pressure of antibiotics. That's what creates superbugs, that and our tendency to overuse antibiotics. But what is the "inner terrain" and pleomorphism? This is where we find the "intellectual" basis of rejection of germ theory. As is the case with many alt-med beliefs, this basis harkens back to "ancient" knowledge (or at least 150 year old knowledge). It harkens back to Antoine Béchamp, who did indeed postulate nearly the exact opposite of what Pasteur did: that microorganisms were not the cause of disease but rather the consequence of disease, that injured or diseased tissues produced them and that it was the health of the organism that mattered, not the microorganisms. Basically, Béchamp's idea, known as the pleomorphic theory of disease, stated that bacteria change form (i.e., demonstrate pleomorphism) in response to disease, not as a cause of disease. In other words, they arise from tissues during disease states; they do not invade from the external world. Béchamp further proposed that bacteria arose from structures that he called microzymas, which to him referred to a class of enzymes. Béchamp postulated that microzymas are normally present in tissues and that their effects depended upon the cellular terrain. Ultimately, Pasteur's theory won out over that of Béchamp, based on evidence, but Béchamp was influential at the time. Given the science and technology of the time, Béchamp's hypothesis was not entirely unreasonable. It was, however, superseded by Pasteur's germ theory of disease and Koch's later work that resulted in Koch's postulates. What needs to be remembered is that not only did Béchamp's hypothesis fail to be confirmed by scientific evidence, but his idea lacked the explanatory and predictive power of Pasteur's theory. Fassa is sort of correct about one thing, though. Béchamp's idea was basically something like this: The inner terrain includes our immune system, organ tissues, and blood cells. Those who stepped out of line from Pasteur`s dogma asserted that the inner terrain was more vital for remaining disease free than searching for new antibiotics and vaccines to kill bacteria and viruses. As an analogy, flies don`t create garbage. But garbage attracts flies that breed maggots to create even more flies. Removing garbage is more effective than spraying toxic chemicals, which endanger human and animal life, around the house. Similarly, adding toxins to humans is not as effective as cleaning out the inner terrain. As I said, there's a grain of truth there, namely that the condition of the body and a person's immune system does matter. Specifically, it is true that the condition of the "terrain" (the body) does matter when it comes to infectious disease. Debilitated people do not resist the invasion of microorganisms as well as strong, healthy people. Of course, another thing to remember is that the "terrain" can facilitate the harmful effect of microorganisms in unexpected ways. For example, certain strains of the flu (as in 1918 and H1N1) are more virulent in the young because the young mount a more vigorous immune response. However, latter day Béchamp worshipers fetishize this idea to the point of claiming that the "inner terrain" is all that matters and that bacteria and viruses are manifestations, not causes, of disease. It goes beyond that, though. According to Béchamp, it's said: Blood is alive. It is not a liquid, but a mobile tissue (Béchamp was the first to describe blood thus). The things in our blood are alive. And one thing modern medicine does not accept is that something like a bacterium can change into a yeast that can turn into a fungus that can turn into a mold. We've talked about this in previous newsletters; it is called pleomorphism. Pleo meaning many and morph meaning form or body. This is, of course, complete nonsense. Bacteria cannot change into yeast or vice-versa, while yeasts are organisms in the kingdom Fungi. Dimorphic fungi can exist as a mold/hyphal/filamentous form or as yeast, but this fact does not invalidate the germ theory of disease. Indeed, some of these fungi are pathogens, such as Blastomyces dermatitidis, Histoplasma capsulatum, and Sporothrix schenckii. The misunderstanding of microbiology required to accept the rejection of germ theory in favor of Béchamp's ideas is staggering. Yet they remain very influential. Not among scientists, of course. Science moved on a long time ago. Rather, they remain influential among cranks. By Orac

discovermagazine.com — Thus passed the bulk of three years. Milton found that most of the time the howlers ate leaves and fruit in almost equal measure, but when seasonal fruits were in short supply, the animals filled up on leaves. Howler monkeys were finicky, though. They ate only tender, young leaves, and only the tips at that....They appear to use a collective information pool to locate their foods. They’ll just set off in a straight line right to it....The howlers conducted these expeditions over 75 acres, searching out as many as 25 species of plants daily. Some, like the Ceiba pentandra tree, were edible for only a few hours a year; others were available more often. Unerringly, the howlers tracked them down. The ranges of various howler troops overlapped, so Milton would occasionally come upon a tree filled with monkeys, with other groups in adjoining trees politely waiting their turn at the table. All of which suggested that the animals had an extraordinary collective memory, an unfailing sense of direction, refined social manners, and a built-in barometer of what foods were good for them.This aggregate intelligence allows infant howlers to mature quickly. After 12 to 14 months, howler mothers don’t want to see their babies again, Milton says. The babies soon declare independence and rely on the group for support.Still, despite the obvious group intelligence, the monkeys individually didn’t seem particularly smart to Milton. They were relatively dull and placid - and unobservant. I ate lunch for months in full view of dozens of howlers, and not one ever seemed to realize that I was eating, much less that what I was eating might be something they would enjoy, too, she says. You could make noises and slurp and carry on - whatever cognitive processes are required to identify the act of eating, they don’t seem to use them.But spider monkeys did. I saw them all the time when I was studying howlers, says Milton. They’d go roaring by like greased lightning. Spider monkeys are the same size as howlers, and the two animals share parts of each other’s ranges on Barro Colorado. But there the similarities end. Whereas howlers travel through the canopy on all fours, spiders swing along like Tarzan. Unlike the placid howlers, spiders are playful and mischievous. They’re terrible teases, says Milton. And they’re mean little devils. They remind me of people, she confides with a laugh. Although not specifically any of my close friends.Spider monkeys had no trouble recognizing Milton’s lunch. ‘Food!’ they’d shout. ‘Let’s see if we can get it!’ They’d swing down toward you; they’d threaten you. They know what a banana is. They have a keen idea of what a peanut butter sandwich is. You simply cannot eat in front of them.Intrigued, Milton decided she’d add spider monkeys to her observations. She thought it might be interesting to compare how the two species evolved from a common ancestor. But while the comparatively sedate howlers were a researcher’s dream, dealing with the spider monkeys was something else again. They were too fast for me, says Milton. So I hired a young man to work with me. He would run through the forest as fast as he could, following the monkeys, and I would come behind. We communicated by calls. ‘Whooooo!’ Like that. The sound really carries through the forest.When the barnstorming spider monkeys found food, they’d finally screech to a stop, allowing Milton to catch up. They’d just stuff themselves. Then they’d lie around and take naps.Unlike the howlers, Milton discovered, the spider monkeys almost exclusively ate fruit, which often made up 90 percent of their diet. Even when fruit was out of season or in short supply, it constituted over half their food. But ripe fruit is even harder to find than tender leaves. To get enough, the 18 spider monkeys on the island would resort to splitting up and trying their luck on their own. During most of the year the distribution patterns of their foods are such that if they went around in a big group, there wouldn’t be enough at any one site to feed everyone, says Milton. So they’d spend almost the whole day foraging in small subunits or by themselves. Then around twilight they’d begin to call and coalesce, and then they’d spend the night together.As a result of this extended exploring, the spiders’ territory was huge, some 750 acres, ten times that of the howler monkeys. And that’s a conservative estimate, says Milton. Two thousand acres might be right. If the howlers displayed impressive feats of memory and direction by finding young leaves, the spider monkeys’ long-distance forays after fruit were astounding. Within an enormous area they had to remember at least 100 species of fruit and where to find thousands of fruit-bearing trees. They had to remember when each fruit was ripe, how best to approach the site, and how best to return home. If a howler forgot a food source or a travel route, the others were there to take up the slack. The spiders, though, had to fend for themselves.And they had to know how to stay in touch. Howler monkeys tended to be quiet, communicating through subtle clucks and rattles in the throat, except at daybreak, when their eerie howls declared. ...Spider monkeys, on the other hand, were conspicuously noisy. They’d yelp and cry, whinnying like horses, barking like dogs - sometimes for hours at a time. ...And in contrast to the howlers’ community messages, spider monkeys believed in individual expression. Spider monkey vocalizations are generally individualistic. ...All that variety and independence requires lots of training. As a result, infant spider monkeys mature slowly. They are nursed and carried by their mothers for two years, and they continue to associate almost exclusively with her until they’re about three or three and a half years old. ...Why were the two monkeys so dissimilar? Milton wondered about the differences in their diets. Howler monkeys ate mainly leaves, sometimes exclusively leaves, a low-quality source of nutrition. Leaves are plentiful and relatively high in protein, but they’re low in energy-rich carbohydrates. They also consist of some 60 percent indigestible fiber and sometimes contain toxic chemicals. How in the world did howlers get enough energy from this unpromising diet? And why did they stick to it even during seasons when there was plenty of ripe fruit in the forest?Fruits are loaded with easily digested carbohydrates and are relatively low in fiber - they’re high-quality, nutritious food. They mean instant energy. On the other hand, fruits provide little protein. So, Milton wondered, how did spider monkeys get enough protein? And why, when fruits were scarce, didn’t they fill up on leaves, as howlers did? Why did they go to such extremes to find fruits?Milton began finding some answers to these questions in 1977, when she returned to Barro Colorado after completing her doctoral thesis. She soon conducted an experiment measuring how long it took the monkeys to process their food. I needed to look at internal features of the monkeys, she says. I thought that perhaps the structure of their guts or efficiency of their digestion might be influencing their behavior.She trapped howler and spider monkeys, confined them in pens, and fed them food in which she had concealed tiny plastic markers. I used a type of thin plastic material that I cut with very fine manicure scissors into little colored plastic worms, she explains. When the monkeys excreted the remains of their food, out came the markers. Milton could therefore measure the time it took any one meal to pass through a monkey’s digestive tract. The results were dramatic: howlers took 20 hours to digest their food, five times as long as spiders. ...When Milton came upon monkeys that had died in the forest, she took them back to the research station, dissected them, and measured their gastrointestinal tracts. She then confirmed her figures against published material on differential gut measurements in various primates. She found that the colons of howlers were considerably wider and longer than those of spider monkeys. Food had to travel much farther and remained much longer in howler guts, and the monkeys had room for much more bulk. As a result, bacteria had a chance to ferment masses of fibrous leaves in the monkeys’ colons, producing energy-rich fatty acids. Milton eventually found that howlers receive more than 30 percent of their daily energy from such fatty acids.... Spiders were far less efficient at extracting energy from the fiber in their diet - but they didn’t have to be efficient. They ate easily digestible fruits. By moving a steady stream of fruit through their gastrointestinal tracts every day, they obtained all the carbohydrates they needed and some of the protein. The rest came from supplements of young, tender leaves.It was a striking example of evolutionary adaptation. Each monkey’s physiology fit its particular diet. Spider monkeys couldn’t get away with eating a howler diet of mostly leaves. With their smallish guts, they’d never keep enough bulk around long enough for fermentation to provide energy. And howlers wouldn’t manage for long if they used the spider monkey tactic of eating fruit - their slow digestive tracts couldn’t process nearly enough of it. Besides, it took smarts to track down sufficient fruit, and Milton thought it unlikely that the howlers were up to the job. Nor was the howler diet of leaves up to the job of fueling the amount of brainpower necessary. The brain, a big, hungry organ, requires a disproportionate amount of energy, and leaves just don’t provide enough....The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense that if you have a high-energy diet and widely distributed foods, you’re going to need a certain amount of ability to locate those foods. ...A scientist named Daniel Quirling had published extensive statistics about the sizes of primate brains. Spider monkey brains, he had determined, weigh twice those of howlers, 107 grams compared with 50.4. No wonder spiders are smarter....Compared with the howlers, spider monkeys were brighter and more lively. They matured more slowly and had more to learn; they made more ruckus, with a greater variety of vocalizations; they ate widely dispersed, high-energy foods that were harder to find--and their brains were twice as large. Why?As far as Milton was concerned, diet was the key to these discrepancies. Eating fruits fueled the evolution of the spider monkeys’ large brains. Says Milton, It would have been a feedback process in which some slight change in the monkeys’ foraging behavior conferred a benefit, which in turn permitted a modest improvement in the quality of their diet, which led to an excess of energy. Over generations, the monkeys that spent the energy on making their brain slightly bigger and more complex had an evolutionary advantage. Their improved brain allowed for more helpful changes in their behavior, and so on.Milton realized that if such a scenario was correct, similar differences in brain size should show up in other primates with similar differences in diet - monkeys and apes that eat fruits should have larger brains than their leaf-eating counterparts. Sure enough, when Milton checked the literature, she found the pattern held true. For example, of the three great apes, lively, quick chimpanzees, our closest animal relatives, have a bigger brain for their body size than do the slower, more placid gorillas and orangutans. Chimps take some 94 percent of their diet from plants, largely in the form of ripe fruits. Gorillas and orangutans eat 99 percent plant foods, but mainly lower-quality leaves, pith, even bark. Diet had to be the key to their disparate evolution.

ajcn.org — We combined data from 5 prospective studies to compare the death rates from common diseases of vegetarians with those of nonvegetarians with similar lifestyles. A summary of these results was reported previously; we report here more details of the findings. Data for 76172 men and women were available. Vegetarians were those who did not eat any meat or fish (n = 27808). Death rate ratios at ages 16–89 y were calculated by Poisson regression and all results were adjusted for age, sex, and smoking status. A random-effects model was used to calculate pooled estimates of effect for all studies combined. There were 8330 deaths after a mean of 10.6 y of follow-up. Mortality from ischemic heart disease was 24% lower in vegetarians than in nonvegetarians (death rate ratio: 0.76; 95% CI: 0.62, 0.94; P < 0.01). The lower mortality from ischemic heart disease among vegetarians was greater at younger ages and was restricted to those who had followed their current diet for >5 y. Further categorization of diets showed that, in comparison with regular meat eaters, mortality from ischemic heart disease was 20% lower in occasional meat eaters, 34% lower in people who ate fish but not meat, 34% lower in lactoovovegetarians, and 26% lower in vegans. There were no significant differences between vegetarians and nonvegetarians in mortality from cerebrovascular disease, stomach cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, or all other causes combined.

drgreger.org — Michael Greger, M.D., is a physician, author, and internationally recognized professional speaker on a number of important public health issues. Dr. Greger has lectured at the Conference on World Affairs, the National Institutes of Health, and the International Bird Flu Summit, among countless other symposia and institutions, and was invited as an expert witness in defense of Oprah Winfrey at the infamous "meat defamation" trial. Currently Dr. Greger proudly serves as the Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at the Humane Society of the United States. # Fall 2005    * -Ornish Takes on Cancer    * -Peppermint Oil for Irritable Bowel Syndrome    * -Arteries--Open Sesame!    * -Childhood Brain Tumors and Maternal Diet    * -Mad Cow Update    * -Bird Flu Update # Summer 2005    * -Making the Healthiest Food on Earth Even Healthier    * -Treating Springtime Allergies with Spirulina?    * -Figs Fight Fatigue    * -Heart Attacks, Side-Effects, or a Healthy Diet    * -Plant-Based Diets Beneficial in Pregnancy    * -Soy and Cancer: A Meta-Analysis    * -Dairy Diet Myth    * -ATTACK OF THE SUPERBUGS    * Chicken Out of Urinary Tract Infections    * Campylobacter Joins the Resistance    * The Hard-Boiled Truth: Salmonella and Eggs    * Don't Wash Your Meat    * Bacteria or Cancer # Spring 2005    * -Lifestyle Change Slows Breast Cancer Growth Within Days    * -Preventing Prostate Cancer with Guacamole?    * -Preventing Breast Cancer with Lentil Soup?    * -Maternal Seafood Consumption May Damage Child's Heart    * -Antioxidant Status of Vegetarians    * -Mothballs May Kill More Than Moths    * -Not all Fruits and Vegetables are Alike    * -Ovarian Cancer and Dairy # November/December 2004    * -AGEd Meat    * -Vegans Need to Eat More Greens, Beans, and Nuts    * -Raw versus Cooked Vegetables for Cancer Prevention    * -Meat, Cheese, Eggs, and Lymphoma    * -Berries to Prevent Metastases?    * -Cancer-Fighting Cranberries    * -Eggs and Ovarian Cancer # October 2004    * -AtkinsExposed.org    -- my rebuttal to the Atkins Corporation's legal threat # September 2004    * -Full-Fat Salad Dressings Healthier than Fat-Free    * -Prostate Cancer and Milk    * -Reversing Arteriosclerosis with Pomegranate Juice    * -Vegan Children: A Recent Review    * -Vegetarian Athletes: A Recent Review    * -Endometriosis and Diet    * -Live Paratuberculosis Bacteria Found in U.S. Milk # July/August 2004    * -Rocket Fuel in Milk    * -Broccoli and Breast Cancer    * -Antibiotics and Meat    * -Eggs and Death # June 2004    * -Full text of my book on the Atkins Diet # May 2004    * -Mercury Contamination in Fish    * -High Carb Diet for Safe Weight Loss without Hunger?    * -Insulin Sensitivity and Vegetarianism    * -Skim Milk Versus Soy Milk: Head to Head    * -Iron Status of Young Vegan Women # April 2004    * -Milk and Multiple Sclerosis    * -Macular Degeneration: Go Nuts for Your Eyes    * -Cinnamon: Spice Up Your Life # March 2004    * -Bowel Movement Frequency    * -Raw Vegetables More Protective than Cooked?    * -Eggs and Colorectal Cancer Mortality    * -Green Tea May Protect from Prostate Cancer    * -Girls, Fruits & Veggies and Skeletal Development    * -Eat the Peel? Antioxidant Power of Peels and Seeds # February 2004    * -Arsenic in Chicken    * -PCBs in Fish    * -Flax Seeds and the Stress Response    * -Greens May Prevent Colon Cancer # January 2004    * -Cow Cancer Virus    * -Mad Cow Disease # December 2003    * -Fish Consumption and Breast Cancer    * -Enlarged Prostate and Tomato Sauce?    * -Sore throat? Try Gargling with Green Tea    * -Prostate Cancer and Cranberries # November 2003    * -Soy Foods and Bone Health    * -Meat Molecule Builds Up in Human Tumors    * -Got Testicular Cancer? The Dairy Connection    * -Best to Keep Dead Birds Out of Your Kitchen    * -Long-term Multivitamin Use May Lower Colon Cancer Risk    * -Iodine Deficiency Reported in Vegetarians and Vegans    * -Raw versus Cooked: Which is More Natural? # October 2003    * -Biggest Study on Vegetarians in History Finally Published    * -Vegans Should "Consider" DHA Supplementation    * -Low Protein Intake May Also Harm Bones    * -Nuts Will Not Make You Fat # September 2003    * -Vegan Diets Deficient in Three Nutrients?    * Well, Meateaters are Deficient in Seven!    * -Take Some Greens for Your Blues?    * -Green Tea and Breast Cancer    * -Breakfast of (Slim) Champions    * -Animal Fat and Breast Cancer    * -Milk, Greens and Ovarian Cancer Survival    * -Animal Products and Stroke Risk

runningraw.com — What is the difference between Raw Food and Living Food? Although the definitions of raw vary, it is commonly held that for a food to be raw it must have not been heated over 118 degrees F. My personal belief is that foods begin to break down and lose nutritive value when subjected to temperatures over 100 degrees F. A living food may or may not be a raw food (it may have been cooked at one point), but it has been re-enlivened or populated with living cultures. Examples would be kombucha tea, miso, tempeh, kim chee and krauts, etc. What is a detox? Detox, short for detoxification, is the elimination of toxic substances from the body. What can I expect during my detox? The detox is a highly individual process. Everyone experiences it differently. For some there are no detox symptoms at all. My detox lasted 4 months. I was light-headed, nauseous, weak, tired, headaches, fever-like symptoms. It was not fun, but I came through the other side with a new body. Where do I get my protein? This is probably the most common question i get, and the answer is that I'm not really that concerned with protein intake. Yes, I do consume some protein in the few hemp seeds and nuts that I eat. The dark leafy greens and broccoli that I consume daily also contain protein, but all in all, I really don't consume that much protein. The human body breaks protein down into amino acids, so I cut out the middle man and eat foods that are rich in amino acids - ALL uncooked fruits and vegetables. How do I get enough calories? Actually, I consume much fewer calories than the average American... I'll be doing a caloric breakdown of a single day shortly... my guess is that my consumption falls short of 2000 calories. Raw food is a much more efficient fuel, whereas many of the calories consumed on a SAD diet are burned trying to break down the very food that's providing the energy, and to clean up the damage brought about by an unhealthy diet. Running Raw Diet How long have I been eating raw? I took the plunge into fantastic health on November 3rd of 2004. What do I eat on a daily basis? I don't really have a strict plan or routine when it comes to my daily consumption. I eat what feels good. On most mornings i'll start with a piece of fresh fruit or two (apple, bananas, orange, grapefruit, kiwi, peach, strawberries, etc...), then I'll have a Larabar sometime mid morning. Before my workouts I usually consume a banana and some young coconut water. After my workouts I'll have another piece or two of fresh fruit - within 15 minutes of completing my workout!!! Then when i get home I'll make a smoothie with fruit and greens (kale, lettuce, collard), a few dates and some dulse (for electrolytes). Mid evening I'll chomp on another Larabar, and then I'll make a massive salad at around 7pm... it's got tons of different greens, broccoli, red peppers, radishes, avocado, celery, snap peas, mushrooms and whatever else i can find to throw in there... every day is different... but this is somewhat normal for me, and gives me all the energy I need and more. Did I go vegetarian or vegan before going raw? I was vegan for 6 years before I went raw. The last six months before I went raw I was eating a macrobiotic vegan diet. What is my pre-race regimen? As for a pre-race dinner... I eat no later than 6pm the night of a race... and that meal is almost entirely fruit - bananas, apples, mangoes, kiwis, strawberries... just no melon (they don't play well with other fruit). I might also have a little romaine lettuce. Make sure you are very hydrated the day before the race. The morning of the race, I wake up 3 hours before my start time and have a large all fruit breakfast. Half an hour later I go for a 3 to 5 minute run to get my metabolism going (all the top runners do this). Then I relax and make sure I'm getting lots of fluids... I'll drink at least 32 ounces of water or coconut water before the race... I stop drinking 30 minutes before the start. What supplements do I take? Actually, I don't take any. The point of the Running Raw Project is to prove that one can accomplish incredible feats of physical health and performance using inexpensive, easy to find, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. What superfoods do I take? My belief is that a raw lifestyle should be as sustainable and economically feasible as possible. Therefore, I keep to the foods that are commonplace in any supermarket anywhere in the country, and cost very little to purchase. The miracle of the raw diet is not in the foods you are consuming, it's in the foods you are NOT consuming. Your body is the miracle, you don't need expensive "superfoods" to have a super body. The Running Raw Project How did the project begin? The Running Raw Project came into existence on December 25th of 2005. I was at a Christmas party at my friend's house in Venice, CA. The topic of my recent entrance into the world of running had come up. As I described the changes that were happening to my body and the abnormal feats of endurance that I was capable of, someone said - "you should film this". That hadn't occured to me before. Had anyone ever done that? Was anyone documenting the physical changes that occur when one goes raw? Were people testing this diet and it's relation to physical performance? I looked around online and found not one reference to a Raw diet and athletic performance. This blew my mind. What I was experiencing was off the charts, was I the only one experiencing these physical improvements on this diet? I had to find out. Thus the journey began. What is the status of the documentary film? As of September of 2008, the documentary is on hold. Other aspects of the project have taken precedence. My hopes are that a new team will be assembled and a new and better film will be produced. Raw Food and Performance Coming Soon. Recipes My personal favorite organic smoothie recipe: 2 ripe bananas 6 large dates 3 large leaves of kale 2 tablespoons Nutiva hemp seeds 1 tablespoon flax seeds 1 tablespoon dulse flakes 1 dash cinnamon 2 cups filtered water Training What does my training regimen look like? It all depends on the type of event I'm training for and the time of year. Currently I'm running about 91 miles a week. Which is accomplished by two runs of 5 to 13 miles a day. I also incorporate leg strength and core strength routines 3 times a week. On Tuesdays I do two to four mountain ascents at just below race pace. Typically, the mountains run have between 900 to 1,500 foot vertical gain. Thursdays are reserved for speedwork on the track. The length and intensity of the intervals depends on the event that I'm training for. I compete in a race every weekend which serves as a tempo run. Each race is preceded by a 3 mile warmup and a minimum of a 3 mile warmdown. Did I start training right away when I went raw? I was raw for a year before I started to train. I don't think it's a good idea to be on a training regimen when you are starting a raw diet. The detox can be pretty intense, and the exercise can further the stress on your immune system. What is my resting heart rate? Resting heart rate is measured the moment you first wake up in the morning, or after a period of 20 minutes of no activity. Currently, my RHR is 38. Was I athletic before I went raw? I was a competitive Cross Country skier and track athlete in high school. I competed my freshman and part of my sophomore years in college, then "retired" at age 20. (Back To Top) Weight Loss Eating a raw or living foods diet is one of the most effective ways to safely lose weight and keep it off. It is not uncommon for people to lose 25 lbs or more their first month of going raw.