>A few days ago, Eric Lambart wrote that he has been totally raw vegan for 21
>years.

>As a newbie, i want to ask you, Eric, what kind of diet you follow, what
>advice would you give others in this regard, what things do you consider
>important to make it work for so long.

Buenos dias, Axel,

Ric (Eric) here.

Sorry to be late getting back to you, but haven't had much time at the
computer for a few days.

Up till the wee hours this morning at the fabulous Raw Fooders' Party
thrown in Jamul, California by the three authors of Nature's First Law.
What a blast!  Well over 100 enthusiasts joined in the festivities.  Roe
Gallo, and her three beautiful raw food lady friends came down from San
Francisco and our own inimitable Ombohdi arrived from his Santa Cruz site.
David Karas (who owns this raw food list) and friends were there from the
San Fernando area near Los Angeles.  We even had an all raw German family
(Uhl, the father, being the nephew of the well known eighty year old German
Raw Fooder, Helmut), with four robustly healthy looking young children,
join the occasion. It was a festive and fascinating collection of all kinds
of different enthusiasts...with the common thread obviously being their
belief in the liberating power of natural (raw, of course) food.  Too bad
more of this List's members couldn't have joined the party.

Don't know how many of you know Roe Gallo, have read her book ("Body
Ecology"), or know about her own experience as a purist fruitarian, but I
was really impressed.  She honestly looks a good twenty years younger than
she really is, is beautiful, has great looking REAL teeth (as well as a
gorgeous figure) of her own, and avoids those veggies, so many of us love,
like the plague...and this has been going on for about 22 years...one more
year than my session on all raw has endured.

So, Axel, it would seem there is probably not just one narrow healthy path
to follow...as long as it's raw (and that's the LAW!), and that will surely
be music to the ears of you instinctos.

While Roe avoids veggies, I don't.  Although I've been a pretty close to a
pure fruitarian for a few extended periods, it's never lasted more than 6
months or so at any one time, my taste for and belief in the benefits of
veggies (for me) drawing me back to the green stuff.  I do admit to higher
levels of consistent energy while on all fruit, but still not convinced
it's O.K. for me to drop the vegetables altogether.  All in all, my average
percentage breakdown between fruit and veggies as about 2/3 fruit and 1/3
veggies (and including some sporadic gulping down of seeds and nuts).

It's taken quite a few years for me to settle down to only two meals a day,
but have been in that mode for maybe two years or more, now.  The day
always begins (preferably after a few hours up and about...not just after
arising) with fruit, of course, but I try to end it with a veggie dinner,
but still often opt for fruit instead.  Preferably the fruit is whole, but
often will cheat and throw it in the blender with some juice when in a
rush, but nevertheless, still discipline myself to at least eat it out of a
bowl, rather than drink it from a glass...(idea being to let my digestive
and salivary juices rise to the occasion a bit better than would be the
case if I guzzled it all down in a few swigs from a glass).

In the evening it's most often veggies eaten as a salad, or whole.  If
there's company at hand, will then usually get fancy, making pates or other
fancier gourmet type concoctions with the veggies.  Naturally this is
simply my overtly blatant attempt to entice non-veggies and cooked fooders
over to our side of the pasture.

Because of an early history of pancreatic disfunction (hypoglycemia),
before cleaning up my disastrously "normal" eating habits, I find it useful
in the mornings, especially if the fruits are very sweet varieties, to
incorporate some almonds, preferably soaked, but usually not (often too
lazy to bother).  Find that this sort of buffers all the sugar taken in,
causing it to digest more slowly or be tempered by the additional proteins
of the nuts.

You asked for my usual or average routine, so that's it.  Almost
disgustingly simple, but have found it significantly liberating.

This doesn't mean I don't drift from the routine at all, because I often do
in certain social settings.  When attending local raw food pot lucks, often
try the various contributions by those creative souls who join the party,
but have too often gone home with an upset digestive tract...finding it
necessary to fast on just distilled water for a day or so following the
digression.

I just don't want to discourage these "newbies" to the movement by
rejecting their raw creations because their combinations give me digestive
discomforts.

The problem at these events for my particular metabolism is found in the
exotic combinations that appear on the food tables.  Yesterday, Nava
Galbavy, whose parents own a local raw food restaurant (based on Ann
Wigmore's philosophy of Living Foods)in Del Mar, California, asked me to
try her new raw pizza recipe.  Knowing I might regret the deviation, again,
I didn't want to let her down, so warfed it down with gusto.  It was
absolutely delicious, but had plenty of onion, garlic, raw seed cheese, and
the base was of sprouted and dehydrated buckwheat and rye, along with the
other usual fresh dehydrated veggie toppings.  This morning I've got a
horrible taste in my mouth, which was all too acidic when I awoke this
morning.

Well, Axel, just a brief sketch of my routine, with a sampling of some of
the side roads.  I think it will be something you'll have to experiment
with for yourself.  I have encountered many alleged fruitarians over the
years, have seen many with very ugly teeth problems, so have tended to
ascribe to the thesis that an all fruit dietary in this modern day and age
of over hybridized fruits, might be injurious...and then I encounter people
like Roe Gallo, who is the epitome of health and natural beauty, who uses
ONLY fruit in her diet of 22 years.

Obviously there exists a great diversity among our individual metabolic
configurations, and this surely must have a lot to do with why some people
seem to thrive for a long, long time, on a raw diet with certain foods that
just don't seem to work for others.  I think we need to study these issues
in a more scientific way, but who's got the money to help reduce the
inordinately large bevy of anecdotal inputs upon which we tend to depend in
favor of more objectively controlled studies?  The chances of obtaining
large corporate sponsorship for such research is hardly encouraging...and
it would never likely be offered without strings attached, and then there
are also all the other conflict-of-interest dynamics, too.

Meantime, however, things aren't at all gloomy, since it is more than
obvious to those of us who've persevered at this all raw routine, that "Raw
is Law;" whether one is vegan, vegetarian, or instincto; the main thing we
need to do to support and obtain superior health, is to reject any cooking
of one's food.  It sounds so radical to hear the three musketeers claim it,
but there's certainly far more hard science to support their allegation
that, "Cooked food is poison" than otherwise!

I learned to be vegan from the experience of raising my kids all raw.  They
loved animals, it was as instinctive with them as for the hundreds of other
younger children I've observed over many, many years...and the idea of
killing these wondrous fellow creatures for food, especially if one knows
it's not NECESSARY for achieving good health, made me rethink my cultural
habit of consuming animal products.

When my studies, even in AMA libraries, convinced me that their was no
scientifically sound information to support the "need" for animal tissues
and products in a healthy dietary, I listened to the voices of my children
and quit causing our fellow creatures to suffer for the sake of our taste
buds just because I found it a convenient rationalization to believe in the
mythologies of our western cultures about our "need" for animal derived foods.

The many anthropological observations that have been made over the ages
made me believe we just aren't equipped with the special equipment birth
righted to carnivorous critters.  Having seen the slaughter industries
first hand and up close, was also quite convincing.  I had even, for two
brief periods of my life, been directly and indirectly involved in the
cattle raising business, so know all too well that perspective.  If I could
it all over again, I would extricate that cattle experience from my work
history altogether.  You live in a country as well known for its high beef
production and consumption as the United States, so I wish you good fortune
in bucking that heavy tide of public opinion that insists that animal flesh
consumption is a requisite of good health.

Don't know what else to add at this juncture, but hope that this message
gives you one more person's experiences to put into your  portfolio of
considerations.

Again, Axel, I suspect that this sort of question is very personal,
therefore I think you'll have to continue to experiment and study.  With so
much more information available (and so readily via the internet) than I
was blessed to have when I made the switch to all raw, it shouldn't take
you too long to target more closely on the ideal dietary for your own
physiological, psychological and ethical needs.  Keep in mind, too, that at
various junctures in your evolution you may find it appropriate to change
and vary your traditional or habitual raw routine...more or less shift your
gears to meet the changing challenges in your journey, just as we need to
shift gears when driving through the mountains.

Keep at it, don't get too discouraged and quit, especially when you go
through cleansing experiences.  I'm not sticking my neck out when I predict
that you'll never regret the decision you've apparently made to change to
the truly liberating dietary found only by getting in harmony with nature,
by switching to honestly natural...raw foodism.

Saludos y abrazos,

Ric Lambart
San Diego, California, USA