raw food & cheese etc.

[billb]

Unfortunately I live in the Boston area and it is illegal to purchase raw milk from a store or share. You are only allowed to drive to a farm and buy it directly but I don't own a car. We have a lot of farmers markets but it is illegal for them to sell raw milk to people. Does anyone know if you can have it shipped? I am especially interested in raw goats milk to make homemade kefir and yogurt.

[Mandrake]

Check out the research of Price and Pottenger, and also material from raw paleodieters.

Ayurveda has lot's of praise for ghee, buttermilk, curd and milk and their beneficial effects on many ailments.

 

Some populations don't have the genetics for milk, as many East Asians. On the other hand, there are populations that live on large parts raw milk (some on mainly raw milk and meat) and have excellent health.

 

From what I've heard, sometimes people who are allergic to pasteurized milk are able to consume raw milk without reactions.

 

The "baby-argument" is based on premises I don't agree on. The reasons babies are not allowed to go on drinking milk is because of new babies coming, because adults need more nutrition and that those adults will get babies on their own, and because other sources of nutrition are needed for the original production of milk.

 

Nutrition is individual, and maybe milk does not suit you. But remember that there is a huge difference between raw milk from cattle living on pastures, and ultra heat treated milk from cattle that are fed an unnatural diet.

 

M

[Taomeow]

Some populations don't have the genetics for milk, as many East Asians. On the other hand, there are populations that live on large parts raw milk (some on mainly raw milk and meat) and have excellent health.

 

It's not genetics, contrary to what scientists used to believe, it's exposure. Turns out our enzyme-producing systems are trainable and the traits acquired are transmitted to the offspring -- second generation only. If a food of a particular kind that requires specialized enzymes to be metabolized is not consumed, the body shuts down the production of digestive enzymes in charge of metabolizing it, and if a child is born to a parent who uses no dairy, she will inherit the shut-down. So will her own children, who will inherit it from her directly if she keeps having no exposure to this particular type of food. However, if she starts getting such exposure, her offspring will only have inherited partial shut-down, and their offspring will be born with unblocked enzymatic production for this food. I.e. the trait of East Asians being unable to digest dairy disappears in the third post-exposure generation. And of course Mongolians, while being genetically indistinguishable from their neighbors across the border, and having consumed dairy for many generations unlike their neighbors across the border, don't know that East Asians are supposed to be genetically unable to.

 

This interesting mechanism of enzymatic systems turning on and off in response to exposure explains many phenomena people observe when they go on this or that funky diet, lose the ability to digest a normal food, and then when they try and discover it makes them feel bad, draw the conclusion that they've become superhealthy and supersensitive and therefore what they can no longer process was "bad" to begin with. However, in many cases all it takes to get back the enzymes and digest the food without any problems is gradual small-portion reintroduction of the item, and within days the body gets a clue. Enzymatic systems do not work for nothing -- no exposure, no enzymes, we don't waste valuable resources on complex metabolic pathways (which enzymatic ones are) which we don't use. This is worth remembering for someone who's been a vegetarian for a while, e.g., or raw foodist, or alternatively, never ate anything raw that in our culture is not usually eaten raw. My acupuncturist, who's Chinese, used to disapprove of my sushi habit -- "how can anyone eat raw fish?.. Humans who eat raw fish are at risk of being..." -- "...Japanese?" I suggested.

[Mandrake]

Interesting, thank you for this information TaoMew.

I know that epigenetics allow for this.

Furthermore, there are some catalogued genes that appeared in the nordic populations 6000 years ago, which is what I based my assumptions on, together with what we usually here about East Asians and milk.

 

Thanks again.

 

Mandrake

 

It's not genetics, contrary to what scientists used to believe, it's exposure. Turns out our enzyme-producing systems are trainable and the traits acquired are transmitted to the offspring -- second generation only. If a food of a particular kind that requires specialized enzymes to be metabolized is not consumed, the body shuts down the production of digestive enzymes in charge of metabolizing it, and if a child is born to a parent who uses no dairy, she will inherit the shut-down. So will her own children, who will inherit it from her directly if she keeps having no exposure to this particular type of food. However, if she starts getting such exposure, her offspring will only have inherited partial shut-down, and their offspring will be born with unblocked enzymatic production for this food. I.e. the trait of East Asians being unable to digest dairy disappears in the third post-exposure generation. And of course Mongolians, while being genetically indistinguishable from their neighbors across the border, and having consumed dairy for many generations unlike their neighbors across the border, don't know that East Asians are supposed to be genetically unable to.

 

This interesting mechanism of enzymatic systems turning on and off in response to exposure explains many phenomena people observe when they go on this or that funky diet, lose the ability to digest a normal food, and then when they try and discover it makes them feel bad, draw the conclusion that they've become superhealthy and supersensitive and therefore what they can no longer process was "bad" to begin with. However, in many cases all it takes to get back the enzymes and digest the food without any problems is gradual small-portion reintroduction of the item, and within days the body gets a clue. Enzymatic systems do not work for nothing -- no exposure, no enzymes, we don't waste valuable resources on complex metabolic pathways (which enzymatic ones are) which we don't use. This is worth remembering for someone who's been a vegetarian for a while, e.g., or raw foodist, or alternatively, never ate anything raw that in our culture is not usually eaten raw. My acupuncturist, who's Chinese, used to disapprove of my sushi habit -- "how can anyone eat raw fish?.. Humans who eat raw fish are at risk of being..." -- "...Japanese?" I suggested.

[alexandrov]

This interesting mechanism of enzymatic systems turning on and off in response to exposure explains many phenomena people observe when they go on this or that funky diet, lose the ability to digest a normal food, and then when they try and discover it makes them feel bad, draw the conclusion that they've become superhealthy and supersensitive and therefore what they can no longer process was "bad" to begin with. However, in many cases all it takes to get back the enzymes and digest the food without any problems is gradual small-portion reintroduction of the item, and within days the body gets a clue. Enzymatic systems do not work for nothing -- no exposure, no enzymes, we don't waste valuable resources on complex metabolic pathways (which enzymatic ones are) which we don't use. This is worth remembering for someone who's been a vegetarian for a while, e.g., or raw foodist, or alternatively, never ate anything raw that in our culture is not usually eaten raw.

 

 

yes i think this is very true from people I have seen

[Christoph]

Raw locally obtained dairy is radically different than what is available in the store.Pasteurized dairy made me very ill for many years,I shunned all of it for a long time until I tried the raw stuff and its amazing.

[Guest tao4joe]

Well, let's see if we can rescue it a bit.

 

One of the hidden dietary perils in modern Western diets is the frequent absence or near-absence of fermented foods (of the kind not killed by canning). These are a major contributor to health due to beneficial bacterial cultures that in a healthy digestive tract are abundant enough to account for about 2 lb of weight. They produce certain vitamins in the gut not really available from other sources (e.g. vitamin K, a major player in vascular health, among other things) and do half the work digesting our foods for us and making sure we get what we eat broken down to bioavailable bits and pieces. They can become extinct after a course of antibiotics, or very poorly represented if no fermented foods are consumed regularly.

 

Fermented dairy products are the only ones worth eating these days, and they are far from perfect (not because of the junk science that denounces them on the basis of we're not baby calves and so on -- with this logic we would have to conclude India, Pakistan, all of the Middle East, etc., are populated exclusively by baby calves, billions of them -- and have been for all of their recorded history, since there's no recorded history of these parts of the world not consuming dairy at any time in their existence -- on a daily basis whoever could afford it, or as often as they could for everyone else),

 

but because of the horrible things done to modern dairy that make it into what it's naturally not. However, if it is organic AND fermented, half the battle is won -- it is predigested by the critters in the process of fermentation and made bioavailable for humans this way (unless it is "fat-free" or "low fat" -- nothing can make a human body metabolize these properly, because high levels of calcium present in dairy only become bioavailable to the body in the presence of fat and fat-soluble vitamins, otherwise it turns into building blocks for kidney stones and never makes it to the bones or anywhere else it might be needed).

 

So... cheese. The story of cheese, an ancient staple of Indo-European but not East Asian cultures, is the story of a simple, nutritious, healthy product, very useful in situations where growth is desirable (due to polyamines it is particularly rich in, which are growth facilitators -- and the reason behind Ayurvedic, traditional European, etc., medicinal uses -- primarily for children who are not growing well, are skinny, lag behind in physical or mental development, are prone to illness and weakness, and for adults convalescing from an illness or suffering from any number of digestive problems, which are often alleviated by this mild, easy-to-assimilate food). Of course if the cows were molested, so is the milk and so is the cheese; but otherwise, if it's just cheese, from a healthy non-factory-farmed animal's milk and with no harmful additives, it's quite wonderful.

 

East Asians, in the meantime, pickle, ferment, and otherwise preserve with beneficial critters everything that moves or doesn't move, eat it pretty much on a daily basis, and that's where they get their share of beneficial bacterial cultures. I used to buy something almost every day from a particular vendor in Xi'an who was selling homemade, un-canned, fermented goodies -- dozens of varieties of vegetables, but not only -- and that's how I got by on no cheese in China.

 

I happily concur. Love euro hard goat cheese and wine.

[suninmyeyes]

 

This interesting mechanism of enzymatic systems turning on and off in response to exposure explains many phenomena people observe when they go on this or that funky diet, lose the ability to digest a normal food, and then when they try and discover it makes them feel bad, draw the conclusion that they've become superhealthy and supersensitive and therefore what they can no longer process was "bad" to begin with. However, in many cases all it takes to get back the enzymes and digest the food without any problems is gradual small-portion reintroduction of the item, and within days the body gets a clue. Enzymatic systems do not work for nothing -- no exposure, no enzymes, we don't waste valuable resources on complex metabolic pathways (which enzymatic ones are) which we don't use. This is worth remembering for someone who's been a vegetarian for a while, e.g., or raw foodist, or alternatively, never ate anything raw that in our culture is not usually eaten raw. My acupuncturist, who's Chinese, used to disapprove of my sushi habit -- "how can anyone eat raw fish?.. Humans who eat raw fish are at risk of being..." -- "...Japanese?" I suggested.

 

Hello Tao Meow,

I have just read your post and the highlighted italics are something I have been trying to figure out and am open to suggestions ..

Regarding the bit in italics.In theory your theory would work,but in practise and personal expirience I would change "in many cases..to in few cases..."

Ive tried getting back to cooked in past (I eat raw vegan)in every way ,slowly as if one would try to introduce a baby to normal food.And after 2 weeks I hit the wall where I cant stand the toxicity cooked food produces in my body.

It may sound like pure nonsense but that is how it is .There are all symptoms of poisoning.Very painful ones too.

Oh ,and about people becoming superhealthy,well it has possibility to be true,I am certanly on that road.As one is less prone to illness(such as colds ,viral infections etc),body heals faster ,stamina and vigour is incredible.And even my purley physical strenght is actually bewildering me ,since I know my usual limitations.

 

I am not suggesting here that cooked food is bad or unhealthy or poisounus for everyone ,nor am I dissing it or suggesting raw food should take over the world-Just making sure to clarify this.

 

 

But will share interesting and maybe not so popular(well at least interesting to me,I hope someone else too)personal findings that cooked food is an addiction wearing a disguise of necesetty nowadays(maybe not true for Eskimos,Tibetans or people living in extreme conditions ,people in severe lack of food -which included me too during the war as a kid growing up..).

 

Cooked food is to be enjoyed of course,but the role in conditioning it plays is HUGE one.Almost unacceptable,very deeply rooted in the fabric of society.In many spheres and levels of life.

 

For whatever this was worth,

Auntie Sun

Edited December 10, 2010 by suninmyeyes

[Taomeow]

Hello Tao Meow,

I have just read your post and the highlighted italics are something I have been trying to figure out and am open to suggestions ..

Regarding the bit in italics.In theory your theory would work,but in practise and personal expirience I would change "in many cases..to in few cases..."

Ive tried getting back to cooked in past (I eat raw vegan)in every way ,slowly as if one would try to introduce a baby to normal food.And after 2 weeks I hit the wall where I cant stand the toxicity cooked food produces in my body.

It may sound like pure nonsense but that is how it is .There are all symptoms of poisoning.Very painful ones too.

Oh ,and about people becoming superhealthy,well it has possibility to be true,I am certanly on that road.As one is less prone to illness(such as colds ,viral infections etc),body heals faster ,stamina and vigour is incredible.And even my purley physical strenght is actually bewildering me ,since I know my usual limitations.

 

I am not suggesting here that cooked food is bad or unhealthy or poisounus for everyone ,nor am I dissing it or suggesting raw food should take over the world-Just making sure to clarify this.

 

 

But will share interesting and maybe not so popular(well at least interesting to me,I hope someone else too)personal findings that cooked food is an addiction wearing a disguise of necesetty nowadays(maybe not true for Eskimos,Tibetans or people living in extreme conditions ,people in severe lack of food -which included me too during the war as a kid growing up..).

 

Cooked food is to be enjoyed of course,but the role in conditioning it plays is HUGE one.Almost unacceptable,very deeply rooted in the fabric of society.In many spheres and levels of life.

 

For whatever this was worth,

Auntie Sun

 

Hi Auntie Sun,

 

well, individual cases can be funky, ranging from metabolically idiosyncratic (e.g. my mother can't digest raw food at all -- never could after a course of antibiotics forty years ago, despite years of assorted treatments) to psychosomatic (if you believe a food is "poison" it will in all likelihood behave as such -- the effect is known as "nocebo," "I will harm" as opposed to "placebo," "I will help.") Then there's adaptation mechanisms that are strong in some people and weak in others -- the ability to adjust to new factors -- dietary, climatic, etc.. Some people handle low levels of sunlight exposure while others get SAD. Some people experience jet lag for a day while others, for a month or more. Some people benefit from raw foods -- particularly those whose bodies are very "hot" in TCM terms are in this category -- while others are harmed by them -- the ones whose systems are very "cold." You gave me reasons to believe this scenario may be behind your experience. In all likelihood you are dealing with "heat" or "toxic heat" in the body, a condition specifically calling for cooling, raw, yin, etc., dietary interventions.

 

I think it's wonderful you figured it out empirically and got on the diet that works well for you, but the danger of this being extrapolated to others is that others may be in a completely different or even opposite situation. Or a more complex situation, e.g. different "climate zones" in different parts of the body -- hot on top, cold on the bottom, or vice versa. But generally speaking, thriving on raw foods is a symptom of internal heat in TCM, and failing to thrive on cooked foods, ditto. Infectious diseases which seem to miraculously go away, many kinds of skin rashes, difficulty concentrating, etc. -- these are all "hot" disorders, so predictably they are alleviated by "cooling off" the system. But someone whose system is "cold" to begin with will run into problems on such a diet... and if ideology is involved, will attribute the chronic diarrhea to "cleansing," fatigue to "detox," mental sluggishness to "peaceful mind," a decreased sex drive to "preservation," and so on. Ideology is the enemy of nutrition and the breeding ground for placebo and nocebo effects that mask the effects one is NOT looking for... e.g., the effects of eating "cold" on one's emotionality, ever heard of a "cold heart?" -- it starts out in the stomach. I'm not saying "everyone" will have this effect, much less you personally (in fact, maybe you are one of those people who should always eat like that, I dunno -- theoretically it is feasible), but I've known raw foodists (many, a whole hive, in LA) who had two things in common all of them -- the chronic runs, and the blank stare in response to things like love, compassion, enduring friendships, all those "intangibles" a warm heart generates spontaneously...

[suninmyeyes]

Tao Meow,

Interesting read.

So why are some peoples bodies hot in terms of TCM and others cold?What is it that detrmines it?

Are some people born that way and some become that way as the age,illness,accidents?Or?

I am not very familiar with TCM.

First person on raw food I have met was one old Nath yogi living in a cave for most of his adult life ,eating raw roots and fruits only and having a blanket as the only item of clothing.A very interesting person,would love to see him again.

I thought that his dietary choice was a bit extreme at that time ,and definetly not for me.You see how life flows her own way,incredible.

Second raw person ive met on raw did display some of the blank stare issues you have mentioned.Not sure why though.Thats all raw fodists I have ever met.

But I have met tons of SAD and could tell you same about them ,minus the runs.lol

 

These things can be difficult to figure out,sometimes there are behaviour patterns so well hidden and mistaken for ones own identity..It is like getting to root cause of what makes me me.

[Taomeow]

Tao Meow,

Interesting read.

So why are some peoples bodies hot in terms of TCM and others cold?What is it that detrmines it?

Are some people born that way and some become that way as the age,illness,accidents?Or?

I am not very familiar with TCM.

First person on raw food I have met was one old Nath yogi living in a cave for most of his adult life ,eating raw roots and fruits only and having a blanket as the only item of clothing.A very interesting person,would love to see him again.

I thought that his dietary choice was a bit extreme at that time ,and definetly not for me.You see how life flows her own way,incredible.

Second raw person ive met on raw did display some of the blank stare issues you have mentioned.Not sure why though.Thats all raw fodists I have ever met.

But I have met tons of SAD and could tell you same about them ,minus the runs.lol

 

These things can be difficult to figure out,sometimes there are behaviour patterns so well hidden and mistaken for ones own identity..It is like getting to root cause of what makes me me.

 

Yup -- your last sentence, bingo!

 

What makes people hot or cold -- right again, we can be born this way or we can be skewed this way by assorted factors, or both. "Born this way" relates primarily to the interactions of the Five Phases -- e.g. I was born with plenty of Fire qi phase in my chart, I've seen many charts that have none, I will always be different from the latter, it will start manifesting right away (all my childhood illnesses were "fire" -- I ran huge fevers in response to being taken outside for a walk -- in Siberia! -- with no discernible medical cause, and a very clear astrological one...) Then, um, in the US, e.g., people who are born "cold" are at the further mercy of the cultural habit of keeping all foods in the refrigerator at all times (elsewhere people shop for fresh perishables on a daily basis instead, but our foods are mostly built to last -- if kept cold -- or rot if not), of iced drinks with ice cubes floating in them (a TCM practitioner's worst nightmare... steadily building cold in the lower body, freezing one's "cooking fire!" -- whatever you eat after such a drink, you won't be able to metabolize properly...), of all kinds of crazy ways that arise when a tradition has been demolished and commercial interests came to dictate what's good and what's hip and what's "cool" to consume. "Cool" my ass.

 

So someone who can benefit from "cooling off" and someone who will be harmed by it are placed in the same boat, culturally. Then popular fads come into the picture -- people who don't eat right from the start begin having problems, looking for solutions, but since the problem is not identified properly (i.e. individually and competently), the solutions are usually -- in most cases -- way off. In some cases, however, one can get lucky and it will so happen that the latest fad just happens to be this particular individual's Rx for health. Moreover, people are born "lucky" or "unlucky" to begin with -- and the "lucky" ones are more likely to keep being "lucky," and vice versa. Most "unlucky" ones can be massively helped if they know exactly what to do about it... just like you said, if they have figured out "the root cause of what makes me me." Helped, or self-helped, as the case may be... but "know thyself" is the prerequisite.

 

Interesting about the yogi... well, if he was on a Fire practice path, that would warm him up enough for other factors (food, climate) to be not only possible but necessary to keep cold for the overall balance. Makes sense.

[Mandrake]

Wow, this topic is ending up with loads of useful information!

 

TaoMew: In the context of what you just said, what steps would you recommend for people who want to find their optimal diets?

 

Regarding this:

 

"but I've known raw foodists (many, a whole hive, in LA) who had two things in common all of them -- the chronic runs, and the blank stare in response to things like love, compassion, enduring friendships, all those "intangibles" a warm heart generates spontaneously..."

 

This shows that there are a lot of issues that are due to deficiencies in diet - but that are attributed to different causes. Very tricky. You've also mentioned ability to concentrate. So there are a lot of mental conditions caused by an inoptimal diet, conditions that clearly are detrimental to meditators.

 

So how does one go about finding out one's constitution? What imbalances does surplus of the different elements cause?

 

Thanks!

Mandrake

[suninmyeyes]

Tao Meow,

Now that I have read your posts it is becoming appereant that I too always had fire illnesses as a kid and do have a lot of fire too.

Even my friend astrologer did chart (western one,dont know if there is big difference with chinese one)for me and said that I have only fire and air ,no earth at all and only one water element.Again dont know much about astrology,but lots of fire in there.

How interesting that you mention "clear astrological reasons"for your illness as a kid,this kind of looking at things allows so much "space to move" .Becouse we are so not one dimensional beings,that is why I have mentioned in one recent thread that science only has always been way too rigid view of life for me.

 

And that yogi might of been on fire path,a lot of them are.Those Nath yogis can have a lot of siddhis after most of the life cultivating in silence as hermits.

[Sunya]

no responses to my post on kefir eh? I guess i'm the only one who loves fermented sour milk. mmm