the following is a copy of an article recently published in the SF-LiFE
newsletter; it is a second review of the excellent newsletter "Health
& Beyond", put out by Chet Day.  I hope you find the material interesting.
This article appeared in the latest issue of the SF-LiFE newsletter, received
by members at the end of January 1997.

Side note: The SF-LiFE newsletter is 8-10 pages, comes out monthly. It has
a variety of articles in it - I am a major contributor to the newsletter, but
not the only one.

Tom Billings
[log in to unmask]
*****ATTACHMENT: SF-LiFE NEWSLETTER ARTICLE*****

More Highlights from Chet Day's "Health & Beyond" Newsletter

SF-LiFE has subscribed to the newsletter "Health & Beyond" (H&B), which is put
out by Chet Day. An article describing Chet's excellent newsletter was in an
earlier issue of the SF-LiFE newsletter. I was so impressed with H&B that I
borrowed some more back issues from the SF-LiFE library (said back issues were
donated by a generous member), and wanted to share more of the interesting and
very provocative information found in H&B.

February 1995. Part 1 of the interview with noted hygienist, Dr. Ralph Cinque.
Dr. Cinque advocates eating some cooked food, and is critical of fruitarianism;
these are controversial positions in the Natural Hygiene movement. A few
excerpts follow, with explanatory information in brackets []:
"There are no raw food societies and there are no fruitarian societies. Period.
That's significant to me. Don't tell me that something is healthful until
generations of people have done it successfully."
"What really is the case against cooking? It is essentially that it is unnatural
...That argument is irrelevant because naturalism is not, and never has been,
an absolute value for human beings...modifying nature is what humans do in order
to survive."
"I agree with [Dr.] Stanley [Bass] that a fruitarian diet does produce
deficiencies, and I have seen this in my own practice...I have seen growth
failure in children on fruitarian diets, and I have seen profound weakness and
feebleness in babies born of fruitarian mothers. I am no fan of Arnold Ehret
[author of books on fruitarianism]. He was the ultimate extremist..."
Dr. Cinque also discusses enemas and the "morbid" practice of testing your urine
pH. [Side remark: I have seen healthy, and sick/weak fruitarian children - from
the same fruitarian mother! The sick child had serious B-vitamin deficiencies,
and was actually hospitalized for treatment.]

January 1994. Interview with Anthony and Deborah Boyar, who operate "A Taste for
Life", a raw food educational service, in Southern California. Their interview
touches on many interesting points. In response to a question on cooked foods,
Deborah makes a comment that has a much broader scope, as it reflects on the
tendency towards dogmatism in the raw foods movement: "I really am tired of the
whole dogmatic approach of trying to conform a living being into an idea or
philosophy rather than working with that living being to find out what's the
right thing for it to do. I have suffered myself and I've seen other people
suffer from trying to be too rigid and too idealistic..."  Those of us who can
see the danger of zealotry will surely agree with Deborah here. What is right
for one person might be wrong for another, in the area of diet/health.

May 1995. Interview with Rev. Brother David Owen, the head of the Essene Church
of Christ. This issue provides an excellent summary of the Essene principles,
with some historical background also. The basic premise of the Church is that
Jesus was an Essene, a Jewish sect that followed a raw/living foods diet. Rev.
Owen makes the important observation that raw foods are a step in a process, not
the end of a process:
"The progress of spiritual nutrition is an ongoing, progressive ascension into
ever less-dense, ever more-light, ever less-violent forms of vegetarian diet...
Angels eat no physical food; they live on subtle, etheric energies. And I tell
you truly, it is the destiny of human beings to evolve into angelic beings of
light. Basic vegetarianism is the first step. Raw foods are NOT the last step."
[capitalization mine, for emphasis].

March 1994 and April 1994. Interview with Dr. Stanley Bass, who has practiced
Natural Hygiene for nearly 50 years. Dr. Bass was a fruitarian for several
years, but is now quite critical of that diet. He is an expert on fasting, and
is the author of the book, "Discovery of the Ultimate Diet", which was discussed
in the previous SF-LiFE newsletter article.  Below are some provocative excerpts
from the interview with Dr. Bass, with supplemental comments.
"...speaking of fasting, I have personally fasted more than any living human
being, including Dick Gregory. I've done maybe over 2000 days in my life...
Something peculiar happens to fasters.  When they break a fast the appetite gets
ravenous for about 7-10 days, depending on the length of the fast. It's very,
very difficult to control yourself then, and you wind up overeating and
bingeing"

"...The problem with fasting is that it leads to extremes. Like the pendulum of
a clock, the further you swing one way, the further you swing the other way...I
wound up living a seesaw existence of fasting and over-eating, fasting and over-
eating. This is the danger of fasting." Dr. Bass then discusses the psychology
of fasting, and recommends: "...Rather than depending on the fast to change your
lifestyle, develop the habit of good lifestyle...then when you fast you'll do
the right thing afterwards..."

Side remark: I have mentioned this aspect of fasting - that it can promote a
psychological sense of deprivation, leading to over-eating. This is the first
time I have ever seen the issue openly discussed by a hygienist, as the usual
response of fasting advocates is to ignore this serious problem!

On to fruitarianism - Dr. Bass believes that fruits, fruit acids demineralize
the body:
"Oh, people say fruits are alkaline...If you examine the end point of fruits in
the urine and in the bowels and stool, you get an alkaline ash, but what about
the acid in the fruit?...It [your body] gets the bases to neutralize the acids
in the fruit from your own body and it pulls the minerals out of your skeleton
and tissues to neutralize it. So it is dangerous to overeat of fruits,
especially citrus...vegetables are more important than fruit. Gorillas will eat
55-65 pounds of food, and that's about 97% vegetables and only 3% fruit. [sour
fruit, not sweet]... When I told T.C. Fry about the book I read about this lady
who lived with the gorillas and who was killed years later [Diane Fossey], I
quoted the part from the book and sent it to him where it said gorillas lived on
3% fruit and 97% vegetation. He wrote back and told me the gorillas were
perverted. And these were mountain gorillas in Africa. So it just goes to show
you can rationalize anything you want..."

Side remark, not from H&B: The remarks of Mr. Fry shows the difference in
definition of the word natural: an intellectually honest definition is that
natural = what really happens in nature, whereas many raw fooders use the
definition natural = according to the pre-conceptions and biases of certain
"experts". The first definition can be confirmed by direct observation, the
second is simply someone's delusions.

Dr. Bass then discussed his experiments with feeding mice a fruitarian diet.
He believes that the high sugar levels of fruit can upset the body metabolism,
and fruitarianism can cause deficiencies as the diet is unbalanced. Dr. Bass
makes the frank observation, one that will upset some readers:
"Unfortunately, a lot of these people who write books on a fruitarian diet
do not follow a 100% fruitarian diet. They are cheating and they won't admit it.
They don't realize they're being impelled by their own bodies to cheat, if you
want to call it cheating, because the body's rebelling against that lifestyle
and they're  forced to cheat. So, rather than admit to what they see as their
own personal weakness, they think it's their own weakness that's causing them to
fail, they become hypocritical and start lying to themselves and other people."

Side remark, not from H&B: as a former long-time fruitarian, I must be honest
and agree with Dr. Bass. Many former fruitarians agree with Dr. Bass, many
current fruitarians [presumably] do not. Consider and decide for yourself
who/what to believe.

I hope the above is an interesting sample of the thought-provoking information
found in H&B. I encourage you to read H&B, and to think about the assumptions
that underlie your raw food practice. In this world, information is power -
use it to find what is right, what is best, for you.  H&B is an excellent source
of information on diet and health, and I give it my highest recommendation.

Tom Billings

***Followup note, not in the newsletter article. Re: fruitarian child
hospitalized for B vitamin deficiency. Her brother, with similar diet, was
fairly healthy. Two factors: 1) according to the Physicians, the Mother
exhausted her store of B-12 giving birth to the first child, 2) the first
child was frequently cared for by friends, who, without permission from the
parents, gave that child - the healthy one - cow's milk. I was told this by the
friends who gave the child milk. Thought some would find this info of interest.
Tom Billings