Poorly planned vegetarian diets may be low in vitamin B12, calcium, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D, iron, zinc, riboflavin (vitamin B2), and iodine, and poorly planned vegan diets may have particularly low intakes of vitamin B12 and calcium. Nonetheless, well-balanced vegetarian and vegan diets can meet all these nutrient requirements and are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence.

Protein

The typical vegetarian gets adequate protein as long as caloric intake is adequate and a variety of foods is eaten.

Vegetarian diets tend to be lower in protein than non-vegetarian diets but typically meet or exceed daily protein intake recommendations, which is believed to be beneficial.

Combining proteins

Despite a widespread belief that vegetarians must eat grains and beans within a few hours of each other in order to make a ‘complete’ protein which contains all 9 “essential amino acids”, this has never been substantiated by research. The protein-combining theory was brought to popular attention in Frances Moore Lappé’s 1971 bestseller ”Diet for a Small Planet”. In later editions of the book, as early as 1981, Lappé withdrew her contention that protein ‘combining’ is necessary.

Iron

In several studies, vegans and other vegetarians were not found to suffer from iron-deficiency more than non-vegetarians. However, while one study agreed that iron-deficiency anemia is not more common among vegetarians

The recommended iron intake for vegetarians is 1.8 times that of nonvegetarians, due to the fact that plants, dairy, and eggs contain only non-heme iron, and this is absorbed less efficiently than heme iron. Although a lower ”percentage” of non-heme iron is absorbed, greater ”amounts” of non-heme iron are concentrated in many non-meat sources of iron (than the amount of iron per serving in meats), and therefore, cereals, eggs, nuts, seeds, and legumes (including soy foods, peas, beans, chickpeas, and lentils) are significant sources of iron, and a well-planned vegetarian diet should not lead to iron deficiency, but fruitarianism and raw foods diets should not be pursued for infants or children. Meat, fish, and poultry (not dairy or eggs) are the only sources of heme iron; intake of heme iron may be associated with colon cancer. Non-heme iron is more sensitive to both inhibitors and enhancers of iron absorption. Vitamin C is an iron absorption enhancer. The main inhibitors for most people are phytates (e.g. legumes and grains), but other inhibitors include tannins (tea, wine), calcium and polyphenols.

Iron is an integral part of many proteins and enzymes which maintain good health. In humans, iron is an essential component of proteins involved in red blood cells’ oxygen transport. Iron also helps regulate cell growth and differentiation.

Zinc

Western vegetarians and vegans have not been found to suffer from overt zinc deficiencies any more than meat-eaters. However, phytates in many whole-grains and fiber in many foods may interfere with zinc absorption and marginal zinc intake has poorly understood effects. Vegetarians may need more than the US RDA (15& mg) of zinc daily if their diet is high in phytates.

Major plant sources of zinc include cooked dried beans, sea vegetables, fortified cereals, soyfoods, nuts, peas, and seeds.

Vitamin B12

Vitamin B12 deficiency is potentially extremely serious, leading to pernicious anemia, nerve degeneration and irreversible neurological damage.

Lacto-ovo vegetarians may get vitamin B12 from eggs and dairy products; for some this is adequate but some may remain B12-deficient. The world’s largest group of professional dietitians says the form of vitamin B12 sourced from animal-products is protein-bound and not as easily digested, especially as people age, and therefore recommends B12 supplementation for everyone over the age of 50. Pregnant and lactating vegetarians (and breastfed infants if the mother’s diet is not supplemented) should also use supplements, whether pills, injections, or B12-fortified foods, if they don’t get adequate B12 from animal-products like eggs or dairy.

Evidence suggests that vegetarians and vegans who are not taking vitamin B12 supplements do not consume sufficient servings of B12 and often have abnormally low blood concentrations of vitamin B12. This is because, unless fortified, plant foods do not contain reliable amounts of active vitamin B12.

It is essential, therefore, that vegetarians consume adequate amounts of dietary supplements or foods that have been fortified with B12 (such as nutritional yeast or other yeast extracts, vegetable stock, veggie burger mixes, textured vegetable protein, soy milks, vegetable and sunflower margarines, and breakfast cereals). B12 that is to be used in these supplements is typically grown from vegan sources (such as bacteria). Another bacterial source happens to be that plants and edible fungi (like mushrooms) on farms or in the wild may absorb vitamin B12 from bacteria in soil, but since modern pesticides kill most B12 in the soil (including on organic farms to some degree, as the pesticides spread, via hydrology, from non-organic farms to organic ones), the B12 in these plants is not considered a reliable dietary source, whereas B12 supplements from bacteria grown under ”controlled” conditions ”are” considered reliable amounts of B12. There is a patent for a cultivating vitamin B12 from plants.

Nori (seaweed) contains B12 very abundantly. However, while the one included in Nori is effective it does not contain reliable or significant amounts of ”active” B12; instead, seaweeds tend to be high in ”inactive” B12 which actually may inhibit uptake of ”active” B12.

Omega-3 fatty acids

Vegetarian diets can be low in omega-3 fatty acids (O3FA). Major vegetarian sources of O3FA include walnuts, flaxseeds and flaxseed oil, olive oil, canola (rapeseed) oil, and avocado. However, diets lacking fish, eggs, or generous amounts of sea vegetables (seaweed) generally lack a direct source of long-chain O3FA such as eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Vegetarian diets may also have a high ratio of O6FA to O3FA, which inhibits the conversion of short-chain fatty acids such as alpha-Linolenic acid (ALA), found in most vegetarian O3FA sources, to EPA and DHA. Short-term supplemental ALA has been shown to increase EPA levels but not DHA levels, suggesting poor conversion of the intermediary EPA to DHA. DHA supplements derived from DHA-rich microalgae are available, and the human body can also convert DHA to EPA.

While there is no scientific consensus on the role of omega-3 fatty acids, they may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease, lower triglycerides, stabilize mood and help prevent depression, help reduce symptoms of ADD, reduce joint pain and other rheumatoid problems, and reduce the risk of dementia in older age. While there is little evidence of adverse health or cognitive effects due to DHA deficiency in adult vegetarians or vegans, fetal and breast milk levels remain a concern. EPA and DHA supplementation has been shown to reduce platelet aggregation in vegetarians, but a direct link to cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, which is already lower for vegetarians, has yet to be determined.

Vitamin D

The human body can synthesize vitamin D when skin is exposed to ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Vegans who do not eat foods or pills fortified with synthetic vitamin D and with little exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet radiation (e.g., those who don’t expose their extremities for at least 15-30 minutes per day or those living at latitudes close to the poles) are vulnerable to Vitamin D deficiencies.

Vitamin D acts as a hormone, sending a message to the intestines to increase the absorption of calcium and phosphorus, which produces strong bones. Vitamin D also works in concert with a number of other vitamins, minerals, and hormones to promote bone mineralization. Research also suggests that vitamin D may help maintain a healthy immune system and help regulate cell growth and differentiation.

Iodine

One study reported a “potential danger of [iodine] deficiency disorders due to strict forms of vegetarian nutrition, especially when fruits and vegetables grown in soils with low [iodine] levels are ingested.” Iodine, however, is usually supplied by iodized salt and other sources in first world countries. Other significant sources of iodine include sea vegetables (seaweed) and bread made with dough conditioners.

Riboflavin

According to the American Dietetic Association, “Some studies have shown vegans to have lower intakes of riboflavin, compared with nonvegetarians; however, clinical riboflavin deficiency has not been observed.”

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Vegetarian nutrition, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Judaic, Christian, and Muslim traditions (Abrahamic religions) all have , which includes references to a diet similar to fruitarianism (see Genesis 1:29, 9:2-4; Isaiah 11:6-9). However, only minorities within these populations actually practice and advocate such strict diets, since the same book of the Bible, Genesis, later gives permission to Noah (and presumably his descendants) to consume animal flesh due to an emergency lack of food situation.

Judaism

Rabbinical Judaism discourages ascetic practices in general, and encourages one to enjoy the bounty of this world in a proper fashion. With respect to food, this teaching may be summarized by the Talmudic statement, “Man will have to account for everything he saw but did not eat.” (This refers to permissible or kosher foods only, not to forbidden animal species such as pork.) On the other hand, the Talmud discourages indulgence and states that it is preferable that one’s diet consist mostly of non-meat products. To Jewish vegetarians wishing to remain consistent with this teaching, vegetarianism is not a form of self-deprivation, because the vegetarian does not desire to eat meat and believes it is healthier not to eat meat.

Several passages in the Old Testament encourages eating animal flesh such as Genesis 9:3 which states “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you.”

Genesis 1:29 states “And God said: Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree that has seed-yielding fruit—to you it shall be for food.” According to some classical Jewish Bible commentators this means that God’s original plan was for mankind to be vegetarian, and that God only later gave permission for man to eat meat because of man’s weak nature.· As the ideal images of the Torah are vegetarian, it is natural to similarly see the laws of kashrut as actually designed to wean us away from meat eating towards the vegetarian ideal. The rituals of kashrut remind us of the magnitude of what we do each time we kill a living being. Other commentators argue that people may eat animals because God gave Adam and Eve dominion over them.

Generally speaking, Judaism has not promoted vegetarianism. However, some prominent rabbis have promoted vegetarian lifestyle, among them David Cohen (known as “Ha-Nazir”), and Chief Rabbi of Israel Shlomo Goren. Rabbi Isaac ha-Levi Herzog said:

:”Jews will move increasingly to vegetarianism out of their own deepening knowledge of what their tradition commands… A whole galaxy of central rabbinic and spiritual leaders…has been affirming vegetarianism as the ultimate meaning of Jewish moral teaching.”

:”Man ideally should not eat meat, for to eat meat a life must be taken, an animal must be put to death.”

Rabbi Milgrom regards the commandment against blood as a law that permits man to “indulge in his lust for meat and not be brutalized in the process.”

Some Orthodox authorities have ruled that it is forbidden for an individual to become a vegetarian if they do so because they believe in animal rights; however, they have ruled that vegetarianism is allowed for pragmatic reasons (if kosher meat is expensive or hard to come by in their area), health concerns, or for reasons of personal taste (if someone finds meat unpalatable). Some believe that halakha encourages the eating of meat at the Sabbath and Festival meals, thus some Orthodox Jews who are otherwise vegetarian will nevertheless consume meat at these meals.

There are several arguments from Judaism used by Jewish vegetarians.

For the Jewish vegetarian there are three main components which prove vegetarianism to be an ethical mitzvah: tsar baalei haim, pikuah nefesh and bal tashchit. Tsaar Baalei Haim is the injunction not to cause ‘pain to living creatures’. Pikkuah Nefesh is not only the regard for human life which is in immediate danger. Bal Tashchit is the law which prohibits waste. Another argument is that, since Adam and Eve were not allowed to eat meat and that, according to some opinions, in the Messianic era, the whole world will be vegetarian, not eating meat is something that brings the world closer to that ideal. In his booklet summarizing many of Rav Kook’s teachings, Joseph Green, a 20th-century South African Jewish vegetarian writer, concludes that Jewish religious ethical vegetarians are pioneers of the messianic era; they are leading lives that make the coming of the Messiah more likely. The Jewish tradition asserts that one way to speed the coming of the Messiah is to start practicing the ways that will prevail in the messianic time. A second one is that the laws of shechita are meant to prevent the suffering of animals and today, with factory farming and high-speed, mechanized slaughterhouses, even kosher slaughterhouses are considered by some authorities not to fulfill enough of the requirements to render the meat kosher. A third one is that the Sages only mandated eating an olive’s bulk of meat during festivals, but even then, this was because in Talmudic times, meat was considered essential for one’s diet.

Sacrifices were used as an excuse to eat meat, and later denounced.

:* Hosea 8:13

::”They offer sacrifices to me because they are those who eat the meat, but Hashem does not accept their sacrifices, for He is mindful of their sin and remembers their wickedness”

:* Hosea 6:6

::”For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”

:*Jeremiah 7:22-23

::22 ”For when I brought your forefathers out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices,” 23 ”but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you.”

:*Isaiah 66:3

::”But whoever sacrifices a bull is like one who kills a man, and whoever offers a lamb, like one who breaks a dog’s neck and whoever makes a grain offering is like one who presents pig’s blood, and whoever burns memorial incense, like one who worships an idol. They have chosen their own ways, and their souls delight in their abominations;”

In Israel there is one vegetarian moshav (village), called Amirim. Its vegetarianism is based on general principles of health and ethics and not on the Jewish religion.

Christianity

Several Christian monastic groups, including the Desert Fathers, Trappists, Benedictines and Carthusians, and also Christian esoteric groups, such as the Rosicrucian Fellowship, have encouraged vegetarianism. Some Christian groups, such as Seventh-day Adventists, the Christian Vegetarian Association and Christian anarchists, take a literal interpretation of the Biblical prophecies of universal vegetarianism and encourage vegetarianism as a preferred, though not required, lifestyle. However, most evangelical groups are unaware of the existence of any such prophecies, and point instead to the explicit prophecies of temple sacrifices in the Messianic Kingdom, e.g. where peace offerings and freewill offerings will be offered, and where it states that such offerings are eaten. Some Christian vegetarians argue that Jesus himself was a vegetarian. There is one argument that Jesus was an Essene (vegetarian inhabitants of the Dead Sea community at Qumran). The present academic consensus is that Jesus was not an Essene. There is no historical record of Jesus’ precise attitudes to animals, but there is a strand in his ethical teaching about the primacy of mercy to the weak, the powerless and the oppressed, which Walters and Portmess argue can also refer to captive animals. St. Augustine and Saint David became vegetarians for ascetic reasons, not necessarily because of a religious edict to that effect. In the 19th century, members of the Bible Christian sect established the first vegetarian groups in England and the United States.

In the Book of Genesis by the Garden of Eden, there is no description of suffering, exploitation, or violence at all. People and animals may have been vegetarians, since reads: “God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the Earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food’.” Immediately after the world in this state, God describes it as “very good.” This is the only time in the narrative that God calls creation “very good” instead of merely “good”—and this immediately follows God’s command with regard to vegetarianism.

However, it has been argued that the anthropocentric viewpoint of the Bible encourages human exploitation of animals and meat eating. has been interpreted to condemn vegetarianism. The Bible says: “..And God said, Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness: and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” In addition, states “God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”. In : “And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.” Continuing into , the Bible says: “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”

In St. Paul may explicitly discourage vegetarianism, since he writes “For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs.”

Non-vegetarian Christians sometimes cite : “And there went forth a wind from the LORD, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day’s journey on this side, and as it were a day’s journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth. And the people stood up all that day, and all that night, and all the next day, and they gathered the quails: he that gathered least gathered ten homers: and they spread them all abroad for themselves round about the camp.” But the next verse says, “And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague.”

On a more practical level, Eastern Christianity generally recommends temporary veganism as part of fasting during the Great Lent (although shellfish and other non-vertebrate products are generally considered acceptable during this time); vegan fasting is particularly common in the Oriental Orthodox Churches, such as the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, which generally fasts 210 days out of the year.

Islam

Islam explicitly prohibits eating of some kinds of meat, especially pork. However, one of the most important Islamic celebrations, ”Eid ul-Adha”, involves animal sacrifices. Muslims who can afford to do so sacrifice their best domestic animals (usually sheep, but also camels, cows, and goats). According to the Quran a large portion of the meat has to be given towards the poor and hungry, and every effort is to be made to see that no impoverished Muslim is left without sacrificial food during days of feast like Eid-ul-Adha. Since these practices are justified by Koran, advocacy of vegetarianism by implying that God ordained diet to be immoral could be seen as contrary to Islam. Certain Islamic orders are mainly vegetarian; many Sufis maintain a vegetarian diet.

Rastafari

Rastafarians generally follow a diet called “I-tal”, which eschews the eating of food that has been artificially preserved, flavoured, or chemically altered in any way. Many Rastafarians consider it to also forbid the eating of meat.

Bahá’í Faith

While there are no dietary restrictions in the Bahá’í Faith, `Abdu’l-Bahá, the son of the founder of the religion, noted that a vegetarian diet consisting of fruits and grains was desirable, except for people with a weak constitution or those that are sick. He stated that there are no requirements that Bahá’ís become vegetarian, but that a future society would gradually become vegetarian. `Abdu’l-Bahá also stated that killing animals was somewhat contrary to compassion. While Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith stated that a purely vegetarian diet would be preferable since it avoided killing animals, both he and the Universal House of Justice, the governing body of the Bahá’ís have stated that these teachings do not constitute a Bahá’í practice and that Bahá’ís can choose to eat whatever they wish, but to be respectful of others beliefs.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Vegetarianism and religion, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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There are a number of types of vegetarianism, which exclude or include various foods.

*Ovo-lacto vegetarianism includes animal products such as eggs, milk, and honey.

*Lacto vegetarianism includes milk but not eggs.

*Ovo vegetarianism includes eggs but not milk.

*Veganism excludes all animal flesh and animal products, including milk, honey, eggs.

*Raw veganism includes only fresh and uncooked fruit, nuts, seeds, and vegetables.

*Fruitarianism permits only fruit, nuts, seeds, and other plant matter that can be gathered without harming the plant.

*Su vegetarianism (such as in Buddhism), excludes all animal products as well as vegetables in the allium family (which have the characteristic aroma of onion and garlic): onion, garlic, scallions, leeks, or shallots.

*Macrobiotic diets consist mostly of whole grains and beans.

Strict vegetarians also avoid products that may use animal ingredients not included in their labels or which use animal products in their manufacturing e.g. cheeses that use animal rennet (enzymes from animal stomach lining), gelatin (from animal skin, bones, and connective tissue), some sugars that are whitened with bone char (e.g. cane sugar, but not beet sugar) and alcohol clarified with gelatin or crushed shellfish and sturgeon.

Individuals may describe themselves as “vegetarian” while practicing a semi-vegetarian diet. In other cases, they may simply describe themselves as “flexitarians”. These diets may be followed by those who reduce animal flesh consumed as a way of transitioning to a vegetarian diet or for health, environmental, or other reasons. The term “semi-vegetarian” is contested by most vegetarian groups, which state that vegetarians must exclude all animal flesh. Semi-vegetarian diets include pescetarianism, which includes fish and sometimes other seafood; pollotarianism, which includes poultry; and macrobiotic diets consisting mostly of whole grains and beans, but at times may include fish.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Vegetarianism, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Raw foodism can include any diet of primarily unheated food, or food warmed to a temperature less than to . The most popular raw food diet is a raw vegan diet, but other forms may include animal products and/or meat. Raw foodists can be divided between those that advocate raw veganism or vegetarianism, those that advocate a raw omnivorous diet, and those that advocate a 100% raw animal foods diet.

Raw veganism

A raw vegan diet consists of unprocessed, raw plant foods that have not been heated above . Raw vegans believe that foods cooked above this temperature have lost much of their nutritional value and are less healthy or even harmful to the body. Typical foods include fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds and sprouted grains and legumes.

Some raw vegans can be subdivided into fruitarians, juicearians, or sproutarians. Fruitarians eat primarily or exclusively fruits and nuts. Juicearians process their raw plant foods into juice. Sproutarians adhere to a diet consisting mainly of sprouted seeds.

Personal claims have been made following a raw vegan diet, including weight loss, more energy, clear skin, improved insulin tolerance.

Raw vegetarianism

Raw vegetarianism is a diet that excludes meat, (including game and slaughter byproducts like gelatin), fish (including shellfish and other sea animals) and poultry, but allows dairy and eggs. Common foods include fruit, vegetables, sprouts, nuts, seeds, grains, legumes, dairy, eggs and honey. There are several variants of this diet.

Raw animal food diets

Included in raw animal food diets are an

Those who eat a raw omnivorous diet usually choose to obtain their meats from free-range and grass-fed sources. This greatly diminishes the risk of harmful bacteria. A study by Cornell University has determined that grass-fed animals have far fewer ”E. coli” (about 1/300th) than their grain fed counterparts. Also in the same study, the amount of ”E. coli” they do have is much less likely to survive our first line defense against infection, gastric acid.

Grass-fed meat also contains more nutrients, such as vitamins, minerals, and omega-3 fatty acids, than grain-finished meat. Other studies show that ”E. coli” O157:H7, ”Campylobacter”, ”Salmonella”, and other pathogens have been repeatedly isolated from both grass-fed and grain-fed livestock, and there are conflicting results regarding whether the levels of pathogens are higher, lower, or the same when animals are fed grass- or grain-based diets.

Examples of raw animal food diets include the Primal Diet, Anopsology (otherwise known as “Instinctive Eating” or “Instincto”), and the Raw, Paleolithic diet (“otherwise known as the “Raw Meat Diet”).

The Primal Diet, is a diet consisting of fatty meats, organ meats, dairy, honey, minimal fruit and vegetable juices and coconut cream, all raw. The founder of the Primal Diet is Aajonus Vonderplanitz. Vonderplanitz has estimated that there are 20,000 followers of his raw-meat-heavy Primal Diet in North America, alone. Books by Vonderplanitz include “The Recipe for Living Without Disease” and “We Want To Live”.

There are also those who follow the “Raw Meat Diet”, otherwise known as the “Raw, Paleolithic Diet”, which is a raw version of the (cooked) Paleolithic Diet, incorporating large amounts of raw animal foods such as raw meats/organ-meats, raw seafood, raw eggs, and some raw plant-foods, but usually avoiding non-Paleo foods such as raw dairy, grains and legumes.

A number of traditional aboriginal diets consisted of large quantities of raw meats, organ meats, and berries, including the traditional diet of the Nenet tribe of Siberia and the Inuit people.

Food preparation

Many foods in raw food diets are simple to prepare, such as fruits, salads, meat, and dairy. Other foods can require considerable advanced planning to prepare for eating. Rice and some other grains, for example, require sprouting or overnight soaking to become digestible. Many raw foodists believe it is best to soak nuts and seeds before eating them, to activate their enzymes, and deactivate enzyme inhibitors. The amount of soak time varies for all nuts and seeds.

According to some cookbook authors, preparation of ”gourmet” raw food recipes usually calls for a blender, food processor, juicer, and dehydrator. Depending on the recipe, some food (such as crackers, breads and cookies) may need to be dehydrated. These processes, which produce foods with the taste and texture of cooked food, are lengthy. Some raw foodists dispense with these recipes, feeling that there is no need to emulate the other nonraw diets or increase sales of kitchen appliances.

Freezing food is acceptable, even though freezing lowers enzyme activity. This view is only held by some raw-foodists, with many raw-foodists actually viewing freezing as harmful, though not as unhealthy as cooking.

Several raw food preparation books have been published including ”Everyday Raw” and ”Entertaining in the Raw” by Matthew Kenney (Gibbs Smith 2009), “Everyday Raw Desserts” by Matthew Kenney (Gibbs Smith 2010), ”Raw: The Uncook Book: New Vegetarian Food for Life” by Juliano Brotman and Erika Lenkert (Regan Books, 1999), ”Raw” by Charlie Trotter, Roxanne Klein, Jason Smith, and Tim Turner (Ten Speed Press, 2003), ”Raw Food/Real World: 100 Recipes to Get the Glow” by Matthew Kenney and Sarma Melngailis (William Morrow, 2005), ”RAWvolution: Gourmet Living Cuisine” by Matt Amsden (William Morrow, 2006).

Avoiding poisoning

As the consumption of raw foods gains popularity, some potentially unsafe foods have re-entered the diets of humans. However, the following list includes many foods which are rarely promoted by the educated proponents of raw foodism, especially beans or legumes.

* Buckwheat greens are toxic when raw, particularly if juiced or eaten in large quantities by fair-skinned individuals. The chemical component fagopyrin is known to cause severe photosensitivity and other dermatological complaints.

* Kidney beans, including sprouts, are toxic when raw, due to the chemical phytohaemagglutinin.

* Alfalfa sprouts contain the toxin canavanine.

* Some types of raw cassava or cassava flour can be toxic.

* Raw eggs contain avidin, a vitamin B7 or biotin inhibitor, which can cause “egg white injury”. As many as 24 egg whites would have to be eaten to inactivate biotin. Avidin is denatured by heat.

* Raw seeds of the genus ”Lathyrus” (peas), can cause lathyrism.

* Raw ”Brassica” species can contain glucosinolate.

* Several seeds contain poison, such as apricot kernels, which contain the toxin amygdalin. See Seed#Poison_and_food_safety

* Raw parsnips contain furanocoumarin.

* Raw foods, particularly raw meat, may contain harmful bacteria and their associated bacterial toxins. Other parasites and viruses may also be present, such as ”Toxoplasma”, ”Trichinella”, or rotavirus, which may cause serious foodborne illnesses.

* Raw milk may contain ”Mycobacterium bovis” (which can cause non-pulmonary tuberculosis) and ”Brucella” bacteria that cause undulant fever and spontaneous abortion.

* Raw sweet potato, cabbage, cauliflower, turnips, rutabaga, canola oil, cassava, pinenuts, mustard, millet, soybeans and peanuts contain small amounts of goitrogens which can interfere with iodine metabolism and worsen hypothyroidism.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Raw foodism, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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She claimed to have been born in Italy in 1854, the daughter of King Ludwig I of Bavaria and his notorious mistress, the dancer Lola Montez, and that she was raised by foster parents from a young age. However, it seems that she was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1849. She seems to have been married many times, and used the names Princess Editha Lola Montez, Edith Solomon, Della Ann O’Sullivan, Ann O’Delia Diss Debar (or Dis De Bar), Vera Ava, Madame Messout or McGoon, or Swami Viva Ananda.

She seems to become involved with Victoria Claflin and Tennessee Claflin, popular exponents of spiritualism in the 1860s and 1870s, and was a disciple of Madame Blavatsky. She claimed to be the wife of West Virginia statesman Joseph H. Diss Debar, and produced “spirit paintings” by Old Masters. She was prosecuted several times for fraud. She was convicted of fraud after persuading elderly lawyer Luther Marsh to give her his townhouse in New York’s Madison Avenue, and sentenced to 6 months imprisonment in June 1888. She was imprisoned for two years in Illinois for another fraud, under the name Vera P Ava; and as Editha Loleta Jackson, she was expelled from New Orleans in May 1899 as a swindler; and she was imprisoned for 30 days later that month.

She married Frank Jackson Dutton in Louisiana in 1899, calling herself Princess Editha Lolita. The couple went to England in the 1890s, calling themselves “Swami Laura Horos” and “Theodore Horos”. They set up a “Purity League” at the Theocratic Unity Temple, near Regent’s Park in Lo

She spent some time in South Africa, calling herself Helena Horos of the College of Occult Sciences, and ran a fruitarian colony in Florida. She was in Cincinnati in 1909, under the name Vera Ava, but her later whereabouts are unknown.

A biography is included in the 1938 book ”Beware Familiar Spirits” by American magician John Mulholland’s (reprinted in 1975).[http://books.google.com/books?id=CLcd0_Q8svMC&pg=PP1&ots=-GShDm0z0M&dq=%22beware+familiar+spirits%22&sig=Ugss6WszF4_YlAp1YjfUAPRH1I4]

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Swami Laura Horos, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Honiball was one of a series of later 20th century writers who wrote about fruitarianism, raw nutrition, fasting and detoxification. She produced a series of 12 books in Afrikaans and English, about the fruit diet. She is featured in the book ”Stellenbosch Writers” by Rosemarie Breuer. She is also cited in

”Raw Knowledge: Enhancing The Powers of the Mind, Body and Soul”, by health author, Paul Nison. In 2002, Morris Krok, republished her book ”I Live On Fruit”. The high fruit, low fat and all raw diet, which Honiball promoted has been referred to in the writings of health authors including Anne Osborne, Brian Clements Ph.D, Dr. Douglas Graham, and Viktoras Kulvinskas. She received an honorary certificate from the Orange Girl High School in 2006.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Essie Honiball, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Truth

Gandhi dedicated his life to the wider purpose of discovering truth, or ”Satya”. He tried to achieve this by learning from his own mistakes and conducting experiments on himself. He called his autobiography ”The Story of My Experiments with Truth”.

Gandhi stated that the most important battle to fight was overcoming his own demons, fears, and insecurities. Gandhi summarised his beliefs first when he said “God is Truth”. He would later change this statement to “Truth is God”. Thus, ”Satya” (Truth) in Gandhi’s philosophy is “God”.

Nonviolence

Although Mahatama Gandhi was not the originator of the principle of non-violence, he was the first to apply it in the political field on a huge scale. The concept of nonviolence (”ahimsa”) and nonresistance has a long history in Indian religious thought and has had many revivals in Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Jewish and Christian contexts. Gandhi explains his philosophy and way of life in his autobiography ”The Story of My Experiments with Truth”. He was quoted as saying:

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall& — think of it, always.”

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?

“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

“There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for.”

In applying these principles, Gandhi did not balk from taking them to their most logical extremes in envisioning a world where even government, police and armies were nonviolent. The quotations below are from the book “For Pacifists.”

The science of war leads one to dictatorship, pure and simple. The science of non-violence alone can lead one to pure democracy…Power based on love is thousand times more effective and permanent than power derived from fear of punishment….It is a blasphemy to say non-violence can be practiced only by individuals and never by nations which are composed of individuals…The nearest approach to purest anarchy would be a democracy based on non-violence…A society organized and run on the basis of complete non-violence would be the purest anarchy

I have conceded that even in a non-violent state a police force may be necessary…Police ranks will be composed of believers in non-violence. The people will instinctively render them every help and through mutual cooperation they will easily deal with the ever decreasing disturbances…Violent quarrels between labor and capital and strikes will be few and far between in a non-violent state because the influence of the non-violent majority will be great as to respect the principle elements in society. Similarly, there will be no room for communal disturbances….

A non-violent army acts unlike armed men, as well in times of peace as in times of disturbances. Theirs will be the duty of bringing warring communities together, carrying peace propaganda, engaging in activities that would bring and keep them in touch with every single person in their parish or division. Such an army should be ready to cope with any emergency, and in order to still the frenzy of mobs should risk their lives in numbers sufficient for that purpose. …Satyagraha (truth-force) brigades can be organized in every village and every block of buildings in the cities. [If the non-violent society is attacked from without] there are two ways open to non-violence. To yield possession, but non-cooperate with the aggressor…prefer death to submission. The second way would be non-violent resistance by the people who have been trained in the non-violent way…The unexpected spectacle of endless rows upon rows of men and women simply dying rather than surrender to the will of an aggressor must ultimately melt him and his soldiery…A nation or group which has made non-violence its final policy cannot be subjected to slavery even by the atom bomb…. The level of non-violence in that nation, if that even happily comes to pass, will naturally have risen so high as to command universal respect.

In accordance with these views, in 1940, when invasion of the British Isles by Nazi Germany looked imminent, Gandhi offered the following advice to the British people (”Non-Violence in Peace and War”):

“I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions…If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them.”

In a post-war interview in 1946, he offered a view at an even further extreme:

“Hitler,” Gandhi said, “killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs… It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany… As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.”

However, Gandhi realised that this level of nonviolence required incredible faith and courage, which he realised not everyone possessed. He therefore advised that everyone need not keep to nonviolence, especially if it were used as a cover for cowardice:

“Gandhi guarded against attracting to his ”satyagraha” movement those who feared to take up arms or felt themselves incapable of resistance. ‘I do believe,’ he wrote, ‘that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.’”

“At every meeting I repeated the warning that unless they felt that in non-violence they had come into possession of a force infinitely superior to the one they had and in the use of which they were adept, they should have nothing to do with non-violence and resume the arms they possessed before. It must never be said of the Khudai Khidmatgars that once so brave, they had become or been made cowards under Badshah Khan’s influence. Their bravery consisted not in being good marksmen but in defying death and being ever ready to bare their breasts to the bullets.”

Gandhi also came under some political fire for his criticism of those who attempted to achieve independence through more violent means. His refusal to protest against the hanging of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Udham Singh and Rajguru were sources of condemnation among some parties.

Of this criticism, Gandhi stated, “There was a time when people listened to me because I showed them how to give fight to the British without arms when they had no arms…but today I am told that my non-violence can be of no avail against the [Hindu–Moslem riots] and, therefore, people should arm themselves for self-defense.”

Winston Churchill said that it was “nauseating” to see Gandhi, “a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well-known in the Middle East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal palace. .. to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor”.

He continued this argument in a number of articles reprinted in Homer Jack’s ”The Gandhi Reader: A Sourcebook of His Life and Writings”. In the first, “Zionism and Anti-Semitism,” written in 1938, Gandhi commented upon the 1930s persecution of the Jews in Germany within the context of Satyagraha. He offered non-violence as a method of combating the difficulties Jews faced in Germany, stating,

If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest Gentile German might, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment. And for doing this I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance, but would have confidence that in the end the rest were bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy…the calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the God-fearing, death has no terror.

Gandhi was highly criticised for these statements and responded in the article “Questions on the Jews” with “Friends have sent me two newspaper cuttings criticising my appeal to the Jews. The two critics suggest that in presenting non-violence to the Jews as a remedy against the wrong done to them, I have suggested nothing new…what I have pleaded for is renunciation of violence of the heart and consequent active exercise of the force generated by the great renunciation.

Gandhi’s statements regarding Jews facing the impending Holocaust have attracted criticism from a number of commentators. Martin Buber wrote a sharply critical open letter to Gandhi on 24 February 1939. Buber asserted that the comparison between British treatment of Indian subjects and Nazi treatment of Jews was inappropriate; moreover, he noted that when Indians were the victims of persecution, Gandhi had, on occasion, supported the use of force.

Gandhi commented upon the 1930s persecution of the Jews in Germany within the context of Satyagraha. In the November 1938 article on the Nazi persecution of the Jews quoted above, he offered non-violence as a solution:

The German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history. The tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have gone. And he is doing it with religious zeal. For he is propounding a new religion of exclusive and militant nationalism in the name of which any inhumanity becomes an act of humanity to be rewarded here and hereafter. The crime of an obviously mad but intrepid youth is being visited upon his whole race with unbelievable ferocity. If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified. But I do not believe in any war. A discussion of the pros and cons of such a war is therefore outside my horizon or province. But if there can be no war against Germany, even for such a crime as is being committed against the Jews, surely there can be no alliance with Germany. How can there be alliance between a nation which claims to stand for justice and democracy and one which is the declared enemy of both?”

Vegetarianism

As a young child, Gandhi experimented with meat-eating. This was due partially to his inherent curiosity as well as his rather persuasive peer and friend Sheikh Mehtab. The idea of vegetarianism is deeply ingrained in Hindu and Jain traditions in India, and, in his native land of Gujarat, most Hindus are vegetarian and so are almost all Jains. The Gandhi family was no exception. Before leaving for his studies in London, Gandhi made a promise to his mother, Putlibai and his uncle, Becharji Swami that he would abstain from eating meat, taking alcohol, and engaging in promiscuity. He held fast to his promise and gained more than a diet: he gained a basis for his life-long philosophies. As Gandhi grew into adulthood, he became a strict vegetarian. He wrote the book ”The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism” and several articles on the subject, some of which were published in the London Vegetarian Society’s publication, ”The Vegetarian”. During this period, the young Gandhi became inspired by many great minds and was befriended by the chairman of the London Vegetarian Society, Dr. Josiah Oldfield.

Having also read and admired the work of Henry Stephens Salt, the young Mohandas met and often corresponded with the vegetarian campaigner. Gandhi spent much time advocating vegetarianism during and after his time in London. To Gandhi, a vegetarian diet would not only satisfy the requirements of the body, it would also serve an economic purpose as meat was, and still is, generally more expensive than grains, vegetables, and fruits. Also, many Indians of the time struggled with low income, thus vegetarianism was seen not only as a spiritual practice but also a practical one. He abstained from eating for long periods, using fasting as a form of political protest. He refused to eat until his death or his demands were met. Gandhi noted in his autobiography that vegetarianism was the beginning of his deep commitment to Brahmacharya; without total control of the palate, his success in Bramacharya would likely falter.

Gandhi also experimented with fruitarianism, stating in his autobiography, “I decided to live on a pure fruit diet, and that too composed of the cheapest fruit possible … Raw groundnuts, bananas, dates, lemons and olive oil composed our usual diet.” However, late in life he broke his discipline and started taking goat’s milk on the advice of his doctor. This lapse of discipline bothered him to his dying day, and he wrote, “The memory of this action even now rankles my breast and fills me with remorse, and I am constantly thinking how to give up goat’s milk.” He never took dairy products obtained from cows because of his view initially that milk is not the natural diet of man, disgust for cow blowing, and, specifically, because of a vow to his late mother.

Brahmacharya

When Gandhi was 16 his father became very ill. Being very devoted to his parents, he attended to his father at all times during his illness. However, one night, Gandhi’s uncle came to relieve Gandhi for a while. He retired to his bedroom where carnal desires overcame him and he made love to his wife. Shortly afterward a servant came to report that Gandhi’s father had just died. Gandhi felt tremendous guilt and never could forgive himself. He came to refer to this event as “double shame.” The incident had significant influence in Gandhi becoming celibate at the age of 36, while still married.

This decision was deeply influenced by the philosophy of Brahmacharya& — spiritual and practical purity& — largely associated with celibacy and asceticism. Gandhi saw Brahmacharya as a means of becoming close with God and as a primary foundation for self realisation. In his autobiography he tells of his battle against lustful urges and fits of jealousy with his childhood bride, Kasturba. He felt it his personal obligation to remain celibate so that he could learn to love, rather than lust. For Gandhi, Brahmacharya meant “control of the senses in thought, word and deed.”.

Towards the end of his life, it became public knowledge that Gandhi had been sharing his bed for a number of years with young women. He explained that he did this for bodily warmth at night and termed his actions as “nature cure”. Later in his life he started experimenting with brahmacharya in order to test his self control. His letter to Birla in April, 1945 referring to ‘women or girls who have been naked with me’ indicates that several women were part of his experiments. He wrote five editorials in ”Harijan” discussing the practice of brahmacharya.

As part of these experiments, he initially slept with his women associates in the same room but at a distance. Afterwards he started to lie in the same bed with his women disciples and later took to sleeping naked alongside them. According to Gandhi active-celibacy meant perfect self control in the presence of opposite sex. Gandhi conducted his experiments with a number of women such as Abha, the sixteen year old wife of his grandnephew Kanu Gandhi. Gandhi acknowledged “that this experiment is very dangerous indeed”, but thought “that it was capable of yielding great results”. His nineteen year old grandniece, Manu Gandhi, too was part of his experiments. Gandhi had earlier written to her father, Jaisukhlal Gandhi, that Manu had started to share his bed so that he may “correct her sleeping posture”. Gandhi saw himself as a mother to these women and would refer to Abha and Manu as “my walking sticks”.

Gandhi called Sarladevi, a married woman with children and a devout follower, his “spiritual wife”. He later said that he had come close to having sexual relations with her. He had told a correspondent in March, 1945 that “sleeping together came with my taking up of bramhacharya or even before that”; he said he had experimented with his wife “but that was not enough”. Gandhi felt satisfied with his experiments and wrote to Manu that “I have successfully practiced the eleven vows taken by me. This is the culmination of my striving for last thirty six years. In this yajna I got a glimpse of the ideal truth and purity for which I have been striving”.

Gandhi had to take criticism for his experiments by many of his followers and opponents. His stenographer, R. P. Parasuram, resigned when he saw Gandhi sleeping naked with Manu. Gandhi insisted that he never felt aroused while he slept beside her, or with Sushila or Abha. “I am sorry” Gandhi said to Parasuram, “you are at liberty to leave me today.” Nirmal Kumar Bose, leading anthropologist and close associate of Gandhi, parted company with him in April, 1947 post Gandhi’s tour of Noakhali, where some sort of altercation had taken place between Gandhi and Sushila Nayar in his bedroom at midnight that caused Gandhi to slap his forehead. Bose said, “there was no immorality on part of Gandhi. Moreover Gandhi tried to conquer the feeling of sex by consciously endeavouring to convert himself into a mother of those who were under his case, whether men or women”. This maternal emphasis has also been pointed out by Dattatreya Balkrishna Kalelkar, a revolutionary turned disciple of Gandhi.

Simplicity

Gandhi earnestly believed that a person involved in public service should lead a simple life. He first displayed this principle when he gave up wearing western-style clothing, which he associated with wealth and success. When he returned to India he renounced the western lifestyle he lead in South Africa, where he had enjoyed a successful legal practice.

Gandhi dressed to be accepted by the poorest person in India, advocating the use of homespun cloth (”khadi”). He and his followers adopted the practice of weaving their own clothes from thread they themselves spun on a charkha, and encouraged others to do so. While Indian workers were often idle due to unemployment, they had often bought their clothing from industrial manufacturers owned by British interests. The Swadeshi Movement held that if Indians made their own clothes, it would deal an economic blow to the British establishment in India. Gandhian simplicity was a sign and expression of ”swadeshi” principles. Consequently, the ”charkha” was later incorporated into the flag of the Indian National Congress. He subsequently wore a dhoti for the rest of his life to express the simplicity of his life.

The practice of giving up unnecessary expenditure, embracing a simple lifestyle and washing his own clothes, Gandhi called “reducing himself to zero”. On one occasion he returned the gifts bestowed to him from the Natals for his diligent service to the community.

Gandhi spent one day of each week in silence. He believed that abstaining from speaking brought him inner peace and made him a better listener. This influence was drawn from the Hindu principles of ”mauna” (Sanskrit:& — silence) and ”shanti” (Sanskrit:& — peace). On such days he communicated with others by writing on paper. For three and a half years, from the age of 37, Gandhi refused to read newspapers, claiming that the tumultuous state of world affairs caused him more confusion than his own inner unrest.

After reading John Ruskin’s ”Unto This Last”, he decided to change his lifestyle and create a commune called ”Phoenix Settlement”.

Faith

Gandhi was born a Hindu and practised Hinduism all his life, deriving most of his principles from Hinduism. As a common Hindu, he believed all religions to be equal, and rejected all efforts to convert him to a different faith. He was an avid theologian and read extensively about all major religions. He had the following to say about Hinduism:

Gandhi wrote a commentary on the ”Bhagavad Gita” in Gujarati. The Gujarati manuscript was translated into English by Mahadev Desai, who provided an additional introduction and commentary. It was published with a Foreword by Gandhi in 1946.

Gandhi believed that at the core of every religion was truth and love (compassion, nonviolence and the Golden Rule). He also questioned what he saw as hypocrisy, malpractices, and dogma in all religions, including his own, and he was a tireless advocate for social reform in religion. Some of his comments on various religions are:

Later in his life, when he was asked whether he was a Hindu, he replied, “Yes I am. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew.”

In spite of their deep reverence to each other, Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore engaged in protracted debates more than once. These debates exemplify the philosophical differences between the two most famous Indians at the time. On 15 January 1934, an earthquake hit Bihar and caused extensive damage and loss of life. Gandhi maintained this was because of the sin committed by upper caste Hindus by not letting untouchables in their temples (Gandhi was committed to the cause of improving the fate of untouchables, referring to them as Harijans, people of Krishna). Tagore vehemently opposed Gandhi’s stance, maintaining that an earthquake can only be caused by natural forces, not moral reasons, however repugnant the practice of untouchability may be.

Gandhi took a keen interest in theosophy. He empathised with theosophy’s message of “universal brotherhood and consequent toleration”, as he put it in 1926.

Swaraj

Gandhi was a self-described philosophical anarchist, and his vision of India meant India without an underlying government. He once said that “the ideally nonviolent state would be an ordered anarchy.” While political systems are largely hierarchical, with each layer of authority from the individual to the central government have increasing levels of authority over the layer below, Gandhi believed that society should be the exact opposite, where nothing is done without the consent of anyone, down to the individual. His idea was that true self-rule in a country means that every person rules his or herself and that there is no state which enforces laws upon the people. This would be achieved over time with nonviolent conflict mediation, as power is divested from layers of hierarchical authorities, ultimately to the individual, which would come to embody the ethic of nonviolence. Rather than a system where rights are enforced by a higher authority, people are self-governed by mutual responsibilities. On returning from South Africa, when Gandhi received a letter asking for his participation in writing a world charter for human rights, he responded saying, “in my experience, it is far more important to have a charter for human duties.” A free India for him meant the existence of thousands of self sufficient small communities (an idea possibly from Tolstoy) who rule themselves without hindering others. It did not mean merely transferring a British established administrative structure into Indian hands which he said was just ”making Hindustan into Englistan”. He wanted to ultimately dissolve the Congress Party after independence and establish a system of direct democracy in India, having no faith in the British styled parliamentary system.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Early diet ideas

Johnny Lovewisdom originally promoted a strict fruit diet but later changed it to the “Vitarian” diet with vegetables, raw yoghurt, clabber, kefir and avocado. Experimenting with many diets throughout his life, including a diet of papaya leaf salads with clabber, which he claimed healed an avascular tumor, he also promoted “Modern Live Juice Therapy”, breatharianism (the idea that humans do not need food or water and can live on “spiritual energy” alone.), aquarianism (water fasting), heliovorism (solarism), and a number of other unusual “lifestyle” diets. He suffered from paralysis, poor eyesight and neurological problems, as a result of working as a farm laborer in the pesticide contaminated orchards of California.

Emigration

In 1938, he made plans to emigrate to South America to avoid being conscripted as a soldier in World War 2. A U.S. newspaper article reported in 1944 how in 1940 a group of young Americans including John Wierlo, Marian Windish, James Windish, Dick Windish, and Fred Windish, set out from Quito in 1940, to found a nature colony in the equatorial forest depths. The article, which was to be titled ”Father Of The New Age”, depicted Lovewisdom as the biological father of the new age and race, however the reporter changed the title to ”Danger In Paradise” even though Lovewisdom wanted nothing to do with his counterparts’ scheme.

After a business partnership with George R. Clements selling crop land, Walter Siegmeister went to Ecuador in 1941 to meet Lovewisdom, where they spoke of plans for a paradisian utopia and a super-race in the Ecuadorean jungle. Lovewisdom later stated that he had no intention of creating a super-race, only a ”Propitiatory Shelter For The Apocalyptic Camp of the Saints”

Later life

In the 1960s, Lovewisdom lived as a hermit in the mountain crater lake, Quilotoa, in Ecuador, which he felt would shield residents from nuclear fallout. This was further documented in Lovewisdom’s book ”Ecstatic Recreation Thru Paradisiacal Living” where he invited ‘paradisians’, to build a ‘camp of saints’ in Quilotoa. Lovewisdom believed that the thin air at high altitudes would allow him to develop clairvoyance and “drink alcohol like water without getting drunk.”

An article about Vilcabamba – an ‘island of immunity’ from cardiovascular disease, in Reader’s Digest ignited Dr. Lovewisdom’s interest, besides its abundant fruit varieties, so he moved there from Otavalo in the north of Ecuador. Dr. David Davies of University College London, and Dr. Alexander Leaf of Harvard University, both gerontologists, visited Lovewisdom due to his many articles on the longevity of the Vilcabamban people. Lovewisdom became a consultant for them, on the centenarians.

Reincarnation

Lovewisdom believed himself to be the reincarnation of Ananda (the primary disciple of Buddha), Milarepa and John the Baptist . As the official successor to Kuthumi Lal Singh, Tashi Lama and Maha Chohan, he founded the International University of Natural Living at Vilcabamba, Ecuador in 1962 with its credo “”build paradise and eat the fruits thereof”” and correspondence school which issued the degree ‘Doctor of Vitalogical Science’ or D.Vit.Sci., and Ph.D in ‘Vitalogical Science and Agronomy’. He founded the “Pristine Order of Paradisian Perfection”, a religious order, which was registered with the Ecuadorean government, and later founded the International University of the Vitalogical Sciences.

Final years

The early 20th century nature cure movement inspired authors such as George R. Clements, Walter Siegmeister, Theos Bernard and Johnny Lovewisdom. Siegmeister told of his search for the safest place on Earth from radioactive fallout in order to build a paradise, an idea later developed by Lovewisdom in ”Handbook on Radioactive Nuclear Fallout”. Lovewisdom’s many beliefs were documented in Viktoras Kulvinskas’ ”Survival Into The 21st Century” in the 1970s, which sold over a million copies.

In 1998, near the end of his life, inspired by Spanish fruitarians who visited him, he returned to promoting a strict juicy fruitarian diet, which he called the “Vitarian Fruit-Salad Diet”, described in ”The Ascensional Science of Spiritualizing Fruitarian Dietetics” (1999). His low fat stance was also corroborated by Dr. Corwyn Samuel West of the International Academy of Lymphology , Dr. Douglas N. Graham who warned against high raw fat diets, Otto Carque and Arnold Ehret. Lovewisdom died in Quito, aged 81. His life-story is chronicled in the autobiography ”Maitreya: The New Age World Teacher”.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Johnny Lovewisdom, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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* Adaptogen

* Adenosine triphosphate

*Adrenal Exhaustion

* Advanced glycation endproduct

* Amino acid

* Appetite

* Artificial flavors

* Artificial sweeteners

* Avitaminosis

* Biosafety

* Blood sugar

* Body fat percentage

* Body Mass Index

* BCAA

* Branched chain amino acids

* Breakfast

* Calorie

* Calorie restriction

* Carbohydrate

** Simple carbohydrate

** Complex carbohydrate

* Carcinogen

* Cholesterol

* Chronic toxicity

* Codex Alimentarius

* Cognitive enhancer

* Complex carbohydrate

* Compulsive overeaters

* Daily value

* Dairy product

* Danger zone

* Deficiency disease

* Deep frying

* Detoxification

* Diabetes

* Diet

** Dietary fiber

** Dietary mineral

** Dietary supplement

** Dietetics

** Dieting

** Diet food

** Dietitian

** Healthy diet

* Digestion

* Digestive system

* Digestive tract

* Dinner

* Dose

* Drug

* DV

* Eating disorders

* ECA stack

* Empty calorie

* Energy drink

* Enzymes

* Ergogenic aids

* Essential

** Essential amino acid

** Essential fatty acid

** Essential mineral

** Essential nutrient

** Non-essential

** Vitamin

* EFA

* Essential fatty acids

* Fat soluble vitamins

* Fad diet

* Famine

* Fat

*

* Fiber, dietary

* Exercise

* Food

* Food additive

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* Food and cooking hygiene

* Food and Nutrition Service

* Food bank

* Foodborne illness

* Food craving

* Food energy

* Food faddism

* Food guide pyramid

* Food groups

* Food labelling Regulations

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* Food Standards Agency (UK)

* Food storage

* Food supplements

* Food technology

* Free radical

* Freezer burn

* French paradox

* Frozen food

* Fruit

* Functional food

* General Fitness Training

* Genetically modified food

* Glucose

* Glucose meter

* Glucose tolerance

* Glycemic Index

* Glycemic Load

* Glycogen

* Growth hormone

** Growth hormone releaser

* Health

* Healthy weight

* Herb

* High density lipoprotein cholesterol

* HDL

* Hypoglycemia

* Ideal weight

* Illnesses related to poor nutrition

* Incompatible Food Triad

* Inflammation

* Insulin

* Irradiation

* Isoflavones

* Kilojoule

* Lactoferrin

* Life extension

* Lipotropic nutrients

* Local food

* Meat

* Megadosing

* Megavitamin therapy

* Micronutrient

* Mineral

* Monounsaturated fat

* Multimineral

* Multinutrient

* Mutagen

* Nootropic

* Nutraceutical

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* Nutrient density

* Nutrigenomics

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* Nutritional facts label

* Nutritional genomics

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* Nutrition Labeling and Education Act

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* Obesity

* Optimal weight

* Organic acid

* Organic food

* Orthomolecular medicine

* Overweight

* Pasteurization

* Phytochemicals

* Phytonutrients

* Prenatal nutrition

* Preventive medicine

* Prohormone

* Prostaglandins

* Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA)

* Reference Daily Intake (RDI)

* Salad bar

* Saturated fat

* Seed

* Simple carbohydrate

* Somatotropin

* Snap freezing

* Spice

* Starch

* Sugar

* Sulfate

* Sulfite

* Supplement, dietary

* Sweetener

* Teratogen

* Thermogenics

* Toxicology

* Toxicity

* Toxins

* Trans fat / Trans-fatty acids

* Triglycerides

* Vacuum evaporation

* Vegetable

Diets and dieting

* Bodybuilding nutrition

** Bodybuilding supplement

* Calorie restriction

* Cognitive enhancement nutrition

* Dietary supplement

* Fruitarianism

* Life extension nutrition

* Low-carbohydrate diet

* Prenatal nutrition

* Raw food diet

* Sports nutrition

* Vegetarianism

* Weight loss

* Yo-yo dieting

Nutrition problems

* Avitaminosis (vitamin deficiency)

* Nutrition transition

Behavioral problems

* Eating disorders

** Binge eating

** Bulemia

* Overeating

Politics

* Fat tax

* Health claims on food labels

Organizations

* Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

* Food and Drugs Act

* USDA

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Outline of nutrition, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Other books published by Morris Krok and Essence of Health Publishers:

*Fast Way To Health – Frank Mccoy.

*Fruitarian Diet & Physical Rejuvenation – Otto Abramowski.

*Fruitarian System Of Healing – Otto Abramowski, 1976.

*Fruitarianism: Compassionate Way To Transform Health – Hannah Hurnard.

*Garden Of The Lord – Hannah Hurnard.

*Gardening Without Digging – Albert Guest, 1973.

*Hatha Yoga – Theos Bernard, 2001, ISBN 0958446016.

*Heaven Lies Within Us – Theos Bernard, 2002, ISBN 0958446113.

*I Live On Fruit – Essie Honiball, 2002.

*My Healing Secret.

*The Physiological Enigma of Woman: The Mystery Of Menstruation – Hilton Hotema.

*Prenatal Origin Of Genius – Raymond W. Bernard, Edited by Morris Krok, 1962.

*The Grape Cure – Joanna Brandt.

*Yoga Gave Me Superior Health (Heaven Lies Within Us) – Theos Bernard.

*Yoga System Of Health – Yogi Vithaldas.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Morris Krok, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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