I recently came across Chet's article "Natural Health Gurus And
Animal Foods." I found the article excellent and I am posting it
here with Chet's blessing.

Peter

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By Chet Day

http://www.chetday.com

Long-time readers of my work know I've been recommending a
predominantly plant-based diet along with a judicious use of
clean animal foods since January of 1999, when I began to
realize that restrictive vegan diets, though helpful to many in
the short-term, eventually lead to deficiencies and problems in
the long term for many people.

Interestingly enough, most of the health writers who have guru
status in the natural health movement pretty much agree that a
moderate use of animal foods is a sensible and healthful thing
to do. Let's look at a few of these writers and what they really
wrote, shall we?

JOHN TILDEN

Dr. John Tilden of Denver was a mentor and health hero of Dr.
Herbert Shelton, the naturopath who popularized Natural Hygiene
(a strict vegan and raw food diet). Tilden, however, was not a
vegetarian or strict vegan, and he told his patients that animal
foods were a necessary part of the human diet.

I like Tilden's work because, unlike many health gurus, he
speaks from the altar of common sense rather than the pulpit of
egotism.

Writing about meat, Tilden says, "Those who labor should not
eat meat oftener than once a day, and bread, potatoes, or other
decidedly starchy foods once or twice a day. Those of sedentary
habits should not eat meat oftener than once every other day, or
moderate every day when the temperature is ten above zero or
lower.

"When it is possible, meat should always be accompanied with a
large plate of raw vegetable salad or a dish of slaw, and cooked
non-starchy vegetables." -- from "Food: Its Influence as a
Factor in Disease and Health," page 50.

In general, Tilden recommended having a piece of meat the size
of a silver dollar. He stressed a moderate and balanced approach
to life, and that's one of the things I like and admire about him.

Unlike the strict vegan Herbert Shelton, who spent the last ten
years of his life bedridden and suffering the agonies of an
undiagnosed disease that resembled Parkinson's, Dr. Tilden lived
and worked healthfully well into his 90's before he passed away.

When people tell me, "Shelton died of overwork. His raw vegan
diet of fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds was not the culprit,"
I like to point out that Dr. Tilden, Shelton's mentor, worked
just as hard as Shelton, if not harder, and didn't end up an
invalid for his last decade.

The main life-style difference I've been able to unearth
regarding Shelton and Tilden lies with the fact that Tilden
ate animal foods and Shelton didn't.

NORMAN WALKER

A strong advocate of fresh vegetable juice and regular colonics
and enemas, Norman Walker stressed a predominantly raw plant-
based dietary. Sensible man that he was, however, Walker also
encouraged the eating of moderate amounts of goat's milk, pure
cream, Swiss cheese, and cottage cheese.

Had Walker only gone a little further by recognizing the
necessity of animal fats for the proper assimilation and use of
fat-soluble vitamins and other factors, his program may well
have become the answer to the disease problems of millions, as
well as a long-term diet that maintained superior health.

Let's look at a couple of passages from two of Norman Walker's
books:

"The addition of some raw goat's milk or a little pure raw
cream to the carrot juice gives it a somewhat exotic flavor and
often serves to relieve the monotony when a reaction or distress
many have a tendency to turn us against the plain juice. It is
pertinent to remark that cream is a fat, pure and simple, while
milk is definitely a concentrated protein food..." -- from Fresh
Vegetable and Fruit Juices, page 35

and

"While milk is a concentrated protein, cream is a fat purely
and simply, and its digestion is entirely different. While of
course it still is somewhat mucus-forming, it is nevertheless a
fairly good fat, provided it is used in limited quantities.

"The stronger the cheese, the greater is its acid-forming
effect on the body, and the more mucus-forming it is. Cottage
cheese (preferably the home-made kind) is probably the least
mucus-forming, while the seasoned Swiss cheese, the kind that is
made in huge round pieces about 3 feet across, and 8 or 10
inches thick, with large holes all through it, is the next
best." --  from "Diet and Salad," page 43

Like many natural health writers, Walker said goat's milk was
an excellent choice for nursing babies, as well as a worthy food
for adults.

So why is that a few contemporary health gurus preach that
oat's milk is fine for babies, but not fine for anyone else? If
animal products are poison to adults then surely they must be
even worse poison for the sensitive and pure systems of babies.
If goat's milk is the next best thing to mother's milk, how can
it hurt adults?

I'm glad Norman Walker recognized the value of having some
animal food in the diet. That would perhaps explain why he lived
as long as he did, though of course his age at his death remains
questionable.

PAUL BRAGG

From the accounts I've read, Paul Bragg died a robust and
healthy man in his 90's in a swimming accident in Hawaii.

I've always appreciated Bragg's work because of his emphasis on
two things: exercise and listening to one's body. Bragg listened
to his body and, as he writes on page 78 of his book, "The
Miracle of Fasting," has a lot to teach us:

"Over the years of following a program of fasting, and with a
diet containing an abundance of raw fruit and raw vegetables, my
body has become so keen that it practically tells me what to eat
at every meal. Over the years on this diet, my body has lost the
desire for meat and fish, and my diet is composed of raw fruits
and vegetables, cooked fruit, and cooked vegetables with nuts,
nut-butters, seeds, raw wheat germ, Brewer's yeast, and legumes.

"This is what my body seems to thrive on, but as I said, I
don't like the word 'Never,' because there are times when my
body tells me to eat a piece of meat or a piece of fish, or to
have some natural cheese or a few fertile eggs. In other words,
my body has developed an instinct for the selection of foods."

Well, my experience since 1993 has been that the serious health
seeker's body will develop this same keen instinct for eating
the right foods.

Instead of letting some ego-driven health guru tell you his/her
system is the only system, why not listen to the voice that
really knows what's right for your body, the voice within, the
voice of desires for foods that speaks clearly once you learn to
listen to it.

LESTER ROLOFF

Christian evangelist and natural health teacher Lester Roloff
helped many people regain their health. He did it by encouraging
them to use fresh vegetable juice as well as a moderate,
predominantly plant-based diet that included moderate amounts of
animal foods.

I liked Roloff's health teachings when I first read them
because he recognized the body's need for a balanced diet, and
he ate and told people to eat some animal foods like eggs and
cottage cheese in moderate amounts. Let's go directly to one of
his two fine pamphlets on health, where he wrote:

"For meat, eat fish, fowl, wild game, avocado, egg yolks, nuts,
cheese, and cottage cheese, sunflower seed, and a minimum of
other meats. Drink a lot of juices, always unsweetened, forty-
five minutes to an hour before the meal, or a couple of hours
after the meal." -- from "Food, Fasting, and Faith"

You can read the full version of this excellent pamphlet online
by setting your browser to

http://roloff.org/Publications/VirtualBooks/fff/fffindex.htm

Like so many others, Lester Roloff cured his own chronic health
problems by going on a healthy diet that was predominantly
uncooked and plant-based. But, to his credit, he also recognized
the importance of including moderate servings of animal foods
for lasting health.

Unfortunately, Lester Roloff died in a plane crash, so we don't
have his personal long-term testimony of health, but given the
fact that he did include some animal foods in his diet, I'm
confident he would still be with us today, free of blood
pressure problems, free of shaking hands, free of memory lapses,
free of deep and permature facial wrinkles, and free of any of
the other ailments so common in those who stubbornly stick with
strict vegan diets for too many years.

HARVEY DIAMOND

Let's turn now to Harvey Diamond, the co-author of the best-
selling "Fit for Life" books, who, in his most recent book,
rejects veganism as well as vegetarianism.

An H&B Weekly reader shared with me a section of a Harvey
Diamond interview in the July/August issue of Mind and Muscle
Power.

One question asks: "Assuming that today, we have a new
generation of organic meats, chickens and eggs, and assuming
that when I cook, I find a way to trim all the fat, is it still
so bad?"

Diamond: "Oh, no. I don't know what has given you that
impression. I make it very clear in the book ("Fit for Life: A
New Beginning") I myself am not a vegetarian any longer. I eat
meat, chicken, fish and eggs. I eat everything. But it is as you
say, I seek out pasture-grazed animals. I don't just put
anything into my body. I try to find the very best, the very
finest, the very cleanest. And, most importantly I don't eat it
with the frequency that I did in my younger years, which is what
I feel made me sick in the first place. I generally have meat,
chicken or fish maybe two or three times a week. Sometimes more.
But basically it's on an every-other-day basis."

I respect Harvey Diamond for publicly reversing his earlier
vegetarian, Natural Hygiene position and for acknowledging the
long-term limitations of vegan and vegetarian programs. By
sharing his changed position with others, Diamond joins the
ranks of honorable health heroes, former vegetarians like Upton
Sinclair who realized a diet devoid of all animal foods did not
lead to long-term health and energy.

See http://beyondveg.com for similar stories of vegans and
vegetarians whose health programs eventually failed for
them.

CONCLUSION

Popular health writer Gary Null, I've been told, has also
recently added fish to his dietary. And do keep in mind that Max
Gerson, the originator of the famed Gerson Institute program,
used liver extracts. After detox, Gerson added cottage cheese
and other products derived from animal sources at one point or
another in his protocol. His daughter, Charlotte, keeper of the
Gerson flame, has a host of animal-derived substances in the
current version of the Gerson program, for which in-patients now
pay $4900 a week. Check out the details at

http://gerson.org/getstarted/getstarted5b.htm

Isn't it unfortunate that some natural health gurus quote other
health writers as promoting a restrictive vegan diet without
bothering to tell you that these same writers have always
recommended, or have come to allow, a moderate use of animal
products?

It's unfortunate, but massive egos will stoop low enough to
sacrifice the health of expectant mothers and babies and
children, as well as the long-term health of loyal followers,
rather than adjust to the moderate stance taken by the very
gurus they cite as their own sources for restrictive veganism
that will probably lead to serious deficiencies, disease, and
accelerated aging.

Sadly, many deficiency problems remain undetected until
irreparable damage has been done.

And for those who base their health decisions on the Bible...
yes, Genesis 1:29 ("Behold, I have given you every herb-bearing
seed... to you it shall be fore meat") held true for Eden, but
humans were driven from the Garden, so it makes scriptural sense
to adhere to Genesis 9:3 when God says, "Every moving thing that
liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I
given you all things." My understanding of this text is that God
meant for us to eat from both the animal and vegetable kingdoms.

In closing, as usual, I urge you to not take any single health
writer's word as gospel. Instead, seek out original sources and
determine the truth for yourself.

It's your life and your health.

You must take sole responsibility.