the following is part of the 1997 SF-LiFE "Health & Rejuvenation Expo"
newsletter/program guide (the Expo was held on June 1, 1997).

Because I am a member of only two e-mail lists (raw-food and veg-raw), I
must specify that this particular article can NOT be crossposted to any
other list, without my express permission.

Please see the "Introduction to EXPO Posts" for further details.

Tom Billings
[log in to unmask]
=========begin newsletter article=================================
MOTIVATION, EXPECTATIONS, AND HONESTY IN RAW AND LIVING FOOD DIETS
Opinion by: Tom Billings

The following material may be controversial. Please regard this entire
article as opinion.

Over the years in raw foods, I have slowly come to the conclusion that
certain factors are important in determining your total experience with
the diet. Three important factors are motivation, expectations, and honesty. This
article briefly addresses these topics.

I. Motivation

You should have a positive (or neutral) motivation for your diet. Examples
of positive motivations for a raw/living foods diet would be:
* if you are healthy, to enhance and maintain your health
* if you are ill, as part of a healing program
* you feel it should be part of your spiritual path
* you think it is the right/best thing to do for the earth.
Examples of neutral motivations would include:
* your parents taught you to eat that way (rare for raw fooders)
* it is your cultural eating pattern (of limited relevance to raw fooders).

You should avoid having a negative motivation for your diet. A partial
list of common negative motivations include:
* fear of mucus  (ridiculous, but common in raw circles)
* fear/hatred of cooked foods, and those who consume cooked foods.
* fear/hatred of aging, weight gain, etc.

Note that the 3 common negative motivations above are expressions of
fear and/or hatred. These are clearly not healthy emotions. If they
form the philosophical basis for your diet, then when you engage in
physical eating, you are also mentally "eating" fear and/or hatred. In
the long run, a mental "diet" of fear and/or hatred will surely poison
your mind and spirit. Meanwhile, a diet of mucus-forming/cooked food,
if taken in a positive spirit, will only harm your body. It is much
easier to detoxify the body, than the mind/spirit!

Other problems with fear and hatred: if fear is strong enough, the raw
foods diet can turn into an eating disorder (similar to anorexia); if
hatred is strong enough, one can become a hostile, intolerant bigot/zealot.

The negative motivation of fear/hatred of cooked foods, and those who
consume them, has gained some popularity recently, and deserves special
comment. The idea that the world's problems are due to consumption of
cooked foods is not only ridiculous, but intellectually dishonest as well.
Countries do not go to war over cooked foods, people do not kill or rape
each other because of cooked foods. In contrast, this writer has personally
been the target of real hostility from supposedly "compassionate" raw
vegan/fruitarian zealots. Clearly, cooked food consumers do not have a
monopoly on hatred and personal attacks!

Also, promoting fear/hatred of people because they are cooked food
consumers is no different, in principle, from promoting fear/hatred of
other people because of their race or sexual preference. Most raw fooders
I know would never support a blatantly racist or homophobic campaign to
promote raw foods, yet some raw fooders do support the promotional use of
fear/hatred of cooked foods and those who consume them. Some of the excuses
I hear in support of such zealotry are:
1) the hate is fake/it's a marketing approach - hatred is not a legitimate
       marketing tool! All hatred is real, when it hurts people.
2) it works/it brings people into raw foods - the ends do not justify the
       means.  This will hurt the raw movement in the long run. Clearly,
       fear and hate are very powerful motivators: look at Nazi Germany
       to see the effect and ultimate results of a cult of fear and hate.

To close this section: have a positive (or neutral) motivation and
attitude, regarding your choice of diet - whether raw/cooked, veg or non-veg.

II. Expectations

What do you expect from your diet? Do you think it will bring you "perfect"
health, or will make your body "perfect"? If so, can you objectively define
and measure what makes health (or the body) "perfect"? The reality is that
we cannot even define or measure "perfect" health (or body); these are
effectively "unknown ideals".

Assuming you have or adopt a "clean" diet, say one that is predominantly
raw, what can you expect?  Here's what you should NOT expect: to be free
of disease, to be physically immortal, that it will cure any/all disorders
you now have, or that it will make you "perfect" in any way.

Raw food diets are well known for their healing effects. However, healing
is wherever you find it, so you might find the raw diet helps, or maybe it
won't help. Of course, no diet can make you immortal, and no diet is
guaranteed to give you longevity. A raw food diet does not make you immune
to disease, as disease is a major cause of death in wild animals eating a
natural, raw diet.
Perfectionism in the diet may promote low self-esteem, or the opposite: ego.

So, my take on realistic expectations for a raw diet is that it may enhance
your health, and/or be helpful in finding healing, provided you take care
of the other factors in your life that impact health: stress, exercise,
breathing, reducing environmental (home) toxins, take care of the mind and
spirit, and so on. Of course, there are no guarantees in life. Raw diets
are on a try-and-see if it works for you basis.

The major effect of expectations on success in raw diets is that if you
start such a diet with unrealistic expectations, then the diet will not
meet your expectations. When that happens, you may get discouraged and stop
the diet before you realize any noticeable benefits.

III. Honesty

Whatever our diet is, we should be honest about it, and about the
assumptions that are at its basis. Honesty here has many levels. First,
if you are 100% raw, be honest about it. If you eat some cooked food,
be honest about it.  However, don't say your diet is 100% raw fruit when
you are secretly binge eating candy because you are addicted to sugar!
The first level of honesty is being honest with others regarding your
diet. (Note: some famous raw food authors do not meet this standard).

The second level of honesty is being honest with yourself regarding your
diet and lifestyle. Do your diet and lifestyle really work for you? Are
you caught up in eating disorder behavior patterns? Do you have severe
cravings?  If the diet works for you, great. If not, try to find solutions.
One approach, if raw veganism does not work for you, is to try some of the
following: diversify your diet; eat cooked food; use supplements (like
dried barley grass); use raw dairy; or consider instinctive eating if you
have no philosophical objections to it.

The third level of honesty is being honest - and open - about the
assumptions that underlie your diet. This is a very sore point for many
raw vegans (you might be attacked by hostile zealots for merely raising
questions in this area).  For example, it is dubious at best to claim
that fruitarianism (or veganism) is our "natural" diet when many large
apes are omnivores (or folivores), and the fossil record says otherwise.
[See the Ward Nicholson interview, in the "Health & Beyond" newsletter,
10,12/96 and 1/97, for discussion of this.] It is dubious to claim that
cooking makes all minerals inorganic (nonsense!), or that wheatgrass
juice is toxic. (Many additional examples could be cited here.)

So, I strongly encourage you to actively question the assumptions that
form the basis for raw foods diets and veganism. You might be surprised
to find that many of the "facts" of rawism are incorrect! When you find
that an assumption is incorrect, the appropriate action is to drop it
from your belief set (basis).  Good luck with your diet and lifestyle!