Dear Maynard,

You said:
> When I became a vegetarian while in the Harvard Divinity School,

I am quite taken aback by this.  How is it that a person who has
studied
theology, and at Harvard no less, could be so mean spirited and angry?
I
could understand if that someone were just starting out at school -
but
how is it that a person could spend all that time studying love,
forgiveness, mercy, grace, charity, goodness, the uplifting of the
human
spirit  --  and then come out of it after all those years still filled
with sour, acidic, hateful vitriolic meaness? I don't understand.

>    I migrated through lacto-lacto-ism (eating lots of ice cream)
>    towards veganism, and then towards raw foods and natural hygiene.
>    I lost lots of weight on that diet and had lots of energy --
>    which may have contributed to weight loss.

Of course you have educated yourself by reading articles (and
following =
links) from beyondveg.com .....  so you know that in the short term a
=
diet of raw vegan foods will make a person lose weight - and - =
particularly if it is high in sugars - like a fruit-heavy diet would
be =
- gives a feeling of energy....

The problem is most often long-term adherence to such a diet, as you =
know.

    I noticed that many Christian vegetarians whom I had met
    had discovered natural hygiene, and there were even some
    groups (by mail) for such folks.  I felt that such vegans may
    have seen hygiene as a divine gift, since it had health benefits,

I am assuming, Maynard, that since you were educated at Harvard, you
are
intelligent enough to have grasped by now that food and religion - or
food and superstition - or food and ritual - food and zealotry - food
as
a symbol of adherence to a set of beliefs  --  is very much a pillar
of
human tradition, and as such is alive and well in our time.  So it is
nothing new "under the sun" that the people you knew who stumbled upon
NH would somehow reach the conclusion that this was a divine blessing
and gift upon which they had stumbled....

>   or that they had discovered this method as consistent with
>   their Biblical responsibilities (or training or teaching) to
>   care for our bodies.

This is how the zealotry aspect comes into play  --  and it always
does, =
when people discover a diet they think has special powers to heal....

> Then I became involved in local vegetarian groups and began
> to follow their mores.  Yow!  Oy ve!  Yikes!  Weight gain.

My guess is that this had less to do with the cooked-versus-raw =
difference between your diets, and more to do with the abundance of =
breads, grains, muffins, sweets, and other grain products, oils, and =
fattening foods  --  that are so often a part of vegetarian diets.  I
=
think it's probably misguided to assume it was the non-raw-ness of the
=
foods that would account for your weight gain.

Liza