Raw Foods: How Important is it to Eat Raw?

Below is a discussion between Tony and I about the importance of raw foods within the context of the Mucusless Diet Healing System. I started working with Tony in January 2013 and this is one of our earliest dialogues.

How Important are Raw Foods?

Wrote on March 31, 2013 by Tony

How important is eating raw? I’m at the point where I feel that it is an option for me, as far as eating raw fruits and green leaf veggies. Is that something that would be beneficial on the mucusless path? Without looking at it only as a raw foods path, but as a part of the mucusless diet? I can eat mucusless, but about 3 times a month I eat something that makes me feel horrible. I feel I am walking the barbed wire fence you refer to in Spira Speaks, and I want to get off and get onto the fully mucusless side.

I am going to go raw mucusless for April and just test the waters, see how I feel. I think my biggest difficulty is not having social support in the thing, so it’s like I need these affirmations of detox to keep certain people from trying to push up on me about it. I really want to cut out restaurants all together.

Also, did you see the post about the raw foodist whose eyes drastically changed?

-Tony

 

Raw Foods: A Mucusless Perspective

Wrote on March 31, 2013 by Prof. Spira

How Important is it to eat all raw foods?

Thanks to Arnold Ehret, I come to the raw foods paradigm from a mucus-free perspective. Because of this, I find some of the standard practices and ideologies of raw-foodism to be problematic. My challenge to any self-identifying raw foodist is to be both mucusless and raw indefinitely.

From a Mucusless Diet Healing System perspective, you would really not need to address this question, as the totality of the transition includes raw and cooked foods, with raw mucusless foods being at the top of the mountain.

Fat/starch-free fruits and mucus-free salads can make up a standard raw mucusless diet. Yet, within the mucusless diet it is okay to gradually transition toward being more an more raw over years, yet a higher concern is placed on removing mucus-forming foods. Many raw-foodists have become dependent on a handful of mucus-forming raw foods, including nuts, seeds, avocados, certain dehydrated items, etc. (See my article on why avocados are mucus-forming HERE).

When I suggest that these folks may need to eventually get off of these raw mucus-forming items to get to higher levels, some of them react almost like a disgruntled meat-eater being confronted with the prospect of becoming vegan.

But overall, true ‘raw-foodism’ is but another step in the many steps toward a mucus-free lifestyle. If you are going to use raw-foods as a step, then I would certainly recommend being raw and mucusless for periods of time instead of getting used to being raw while eating foods that are not optimal for the long-term mucus-free path.

But, being raw and mucusless is no simple task, and is much harder than many raw foods aficionados think. For many, physiologically speaking, raw and mucusless is basically a level of “fasting,” or restricted diet.

 

For more on the relationship that raw foods have with the Mucusless Diet, see these articles: Ehret on Raw Foods, Art of Transition, How long was Ehret Raw?

The Diversity of Transition

For people that understand fasting and the transition diet, or need the deeper levels to heal chronic illness, I do suggest more intensive fasting, fruit eating, and herbal recommendations and protocols. Although, I only talk about some of those things in private consultations when I feel it is necessary for the healing of the person I’m working with.

But the concept of transition is still predominant in my approach to working with the aforementioned levels. Since I often work with people who have been raw-foodists for a period of time, I find that most of them need to take a step back and hit the RESET BUTTON, and deal with mucus-free cooked menus to help get off of mucus-forming raw-foods (See my list of recommended foods to see vegetables that become mucus-free when cooked properly). Sometimes you must take a step back to take a leap forward.

Also, I work with people coming from the S.A.D. (Standard American Diet) who would have no interest beginning at a raw foods level, but are willing to try filling mucus-free or mucuslean menus. If I would have been introduced to raw foods before the Mucusless Diet, I don’t think I would have been attracted to it.

Ehret’s transitional methodology made so much sense to me, and it is what really convinced me that this path would work where others had failed. In many cases, even certain processed vegan foods can be used to get off of the worst mucus-forming foods. Over the years, I have went back to such things from time to time, but as my body becomes cleaner it becomes so much harder to eat such things.

This is as it should be. There is no judgement or rule that if you eat such things you aren’t a part of the mucusless diet HEALING SYSTEM. If you have the intention to become mucusless, and you act accordingly, everything you do becomes part of the TRANSITION.

Also, I’ve seen too many cases where raw-foodists have even fallen all the way back to meat eating in a matter of days during a crazy relapse period. They felt and thought they were MUCH MORE ADVANCED physiologically than they were and they did not have the transitional tools that could have helped them when their relapse occurred.

A good transition and physical transformation would have helped them avoid such pit-falls and allowed for more long-term success. And, most of the “raw foods gurus” transitioned to what ever level of diet they are at now. But, because cooked foods are totally vilified within the community, they often do not look at their journey as a long-term transition, and disregard what they did to get themselves to raw levels.

“Raw till 4” as a Camouflaged Mucusless Transition Diet

Another example of a “camouflaged transition diet” is the new approach of “Raw-till 4,” where people eat raw until the evening and then eat certain cooked foods. It came out of the 80-10-10 diet, which is one of the most popular raw-foods approaches.

I basically did a “raw-till 4” kind of approach for years as a Mucusless Diet practitioner. It is essentially one of the standard levels of eating discussed by Arnold Ehret:

• no breakfast plan (fresh fruit juice if desired)
• raw fruit for lunch
• a vegetable meal for dinner consisting of a raw combination salad with optional cooked mucus-free vegetables (like squash, steamed broccoli/collard greens, etc., and/or a mucus-lean item if cravings for mucus are bad (See the Mucusless Diet Healing System for details).
• However, no use of rice or avocados, which is common among some raw-till 4 practitioners.

Of course, this is just a snap shot of a plateau. I did eat some processed vegan foods in the early days when needed. And as I became cleaner, I learned how to safely fast and cleanse on a deeper level. Both, the eating of processed vegan foods to transition, or deep fasting, is not considered useful to some of the chief proponents of the raw-till 4 concept.

Ultimately, it is an excuse to take a step back to cooked foods because transition is necessary. Nothing wrong with taking a step back, but why frame it this way? From my perspective, we should call it what it is: “the transition diet.” And you know that I do not want to hold anyone back or slow people down from achieving their goals.

If someone is able to be raw and mucus-free for a year or two, I support them. I’ll be their greatest fan. But, there is no need to criticize people that do need to transition slower toward higher levels of mucuslessness.

Let those who have been raw and totally mucus-free for many years cast the first criticism at someone transitioning with cooked, mucus-free foods.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fasting and Fruit Diet to Heal Chronic Illness

For fasting individuals trying to heal chronic illnesses with raw fruits and juices, the intensity of detox can always be raised and lowered when necessary. But, it is not good to go too far forward too fast only to fall all the way back. Raw fruit fasting can feel euphoric, but when deeply embedded toxic wastes emerge, things can get rough.

This processes commonly results in relapses (see Overcoming Addiction to Mucus-forming Foods). It makes no sense to do a two month raw fruit fast only to go back to meat, or get stuck eating 6 avocados a day. Push yourself as hard and as far as you wish too, but always ‘be prepared’ for possible falls and relapses later on down the road.

I’m not saying you have to always eat cooked foods, but I’m saying you would be wise to study Ehret’s methods so that if (and when) the day comes that you need to back up, you know how to eat transitionally. If anything, I’d say put your focus on eliminating the true foundation of human illness which is mucus-forming foods.

 

Peace, Love, and Breath!

 

Check out the New Annotated, Revised, and Edited Edition of the Mucusless Diet Healing System from Amazon.