INTERVIEW WITH VIKTORAS KULVINSKAS circa 1993-94 M: There are some people who used to do a lot of drugs -- a lot of different kinds of drugs, maybe for many years -- and now they are off of drugs, and they still have trouble from getting spacey sometimes. And there's another guy who just called me this morning. He went to a party the other night, hasn't done drugs for years, but was unknowingly given "Alice B. Toklas" brownies. He's got a job interview to go into in two days where they may check his urine, and he's also feeling very spacey. And so both of these people, what they are really wanting to know, "Are there foods or herbs or process that I can do to help get drugs out of my system?" Viktoras: Okay. Goldenseal is the one that has been traditionally used by those who have had that experience. But take as an example a person who might have done let's say marijuana for years and then they quit and they do a cleansing program. This is actually a real example. Six months later -- you know, he's been doing raw foods, wheatgrass, blue-green algae and things like that -- and he ends up being tested a particular day. It showed up that he had levels equivalent to having smoked 12 reefers. M: Wow. Viktoras: So you don't know what your body is going to unload. To give you an example of myself, about 15 years ago before I started with the raw food I was then 28 and I guess about 10 years prior to that I had quite a bit of medication which was what you might term "consciousness modifying" -- codeine, morphine, who knows what all. They just felt good. And then I was at Hippocrates for over a year, maybe a year and a half. My partner did reflexology on me, and for about half an hour I was going through the drugs. The whole experience was being relived. So you have it in your fat. Usually that's the place that you have long-term storage. Caffeine leaves you pretty quickly; nicotine is in the fat, so it doesn't leave that quickly; marijuana, you've got to get rid of the fat out of your system really to dissolve that out of your body where it has been stored. In other words, cleansing, to really clear it out you really need to do some long-term fasting to get rid of it. Talking about the drugs showing up in people's urine, overall excretion, and the way they feel, other people have reported wonderful results with using a product called Super Blue-Green Algae. It's known for getting rid of all kinds of drugs, including chemicals, heavy minerals, and even asbestos. It's just amazing. I mean we have had people who, after three weeks of doing blue- green algae all of a sudden have a skin breakout, they go to dermatologists, the skin was examined and it turned out to be asbestos leaving through the skin. M: How would you compare live wheatgrass juice with algae, Super Blue-Green Algae? Viktoras: Well, they are like two different foods. M: But wouldn't you say that their action is somewhat similar? Viktoras: On some levels, it is, and both have their own advantages. I don't see any negatives about them. It's just a matter of how you use them. I use both of them, and I find that the blue-green algae has a very different effect from the usage of wheatgrass. The wheatgrass is more of a healing tool, more mellowing, whereas the blue-green algae is much more energizing, increases creativity, increases performances, makes you more assertive, moves you right out of depression. Any of these. With wheatgrass, you coul end up feeling pretty darn lous especially a toxic person taking it; whereas a person who has already gone through cleansing and working with live foods, well, it makes them feel more mellow, whereas the blue-green algae makes them more dynamic. M: Interesting, interesting! Viktoras: Like with weight-lifting, Super Blue-Green Algae improves my performance and I feel it improves any scholastic work I do, or when I'm giving a lecture I definitely would not take wheatgrass before a lecture, but I will take a teaspoon or two or blue-green algae, and it makes such a dramatic difference. M: It seemed like I remembered you saying a long time ago that you like to take the Omega algae for weight-lifting. Is that right? [Note: The company which sells Super Blue-Green Algae) offers the algae in a basic form called "Alpha Sun" and a finely sifted form called "Omega Sun." It is not available in retail stores, but through independent distributors -- 90 percent of which have signed up a distributors solely to purchase the algae and other products for their personal use.] Viktoras: Well, I use more of the Alpha. The Alpha is for the body, whereas the Omega is more stimulating for the cerebral functions, the mental. M: Do you tend to take it just before a workout? Viktoras: Yeah. Yeah, I take it before and after a workout. That way you don't have post-workout fatigue. M: How much do you usually take? Or do you find that it's highly individual? Viktoras: I take probably a teaspoon to 2 teaspoons before a workout, and I'll drink a lot of fluids during the workout, and about an hour and a half or two hours later -- which is about how long the workout takes -- then I'll take another teaspoon or more. M: Back to this guy's question, who took the brownies. Viktoras: What was in the brownies? M: It must have been marijuana. And he's a choco-holic, and he ate a lot of brownies. He's still feeling very spaced out from it. They didn't tell him until after he ate the brownies. Viktoras: Well, I would suggest start off with one capsule of Goldenseal, and if you don't see any reactions from it then maybe three hours later take two capsules, and then if that seems to be alright, take three capsules-- M: And, reaction, he'd be able to tell by a clearer head? Viktoras: Yeah. And my feeling is that he's having just as much a reaction from the brownies as he is from the psychedelic. M: That's a good point. Viktoras: Because I mean brownies can be psychedelic in itself. M: Yeah, yeah. I'm starting to discover more of that sort of thing myself. I ate some soy products yesterday, the "meatless meats." And boy, did that ever do something weird to my consciousness. Viktoras: Yeah. Whenever ne eats cooked f especially if one-- M: Oh, I didn't cook it. I ate it raw, but it was full of chemicals and things. Viktoras: What kind of product? M: It was the meatless meats that come in the freezer section. Viktoras: There are studies that have been done with these meatless meat products -- and this was done in-house. They found it to be as carcinogenic as pork. M: Oh, I believe it, just from eating some of it and how I felt. Viktoras: I was discussing it with one of the people on the staff, 15 or 20 years ago. I said, "How come you guys are still selling it?" "Well," he says. M: It makes money. Viktoras: That's right. They are very hard to digest, even with enzyme supplementation. M: It's not really something I want to have a part of my diet, but I'm in the situation of my husband eats a very high meat and white bread diet, and I get tempted by it, and I thought well, if I ever feel like just taking a little bite, I'd rather take a little bite of a non-animal poison than an animal poison. Viktoras: Yeah. You're better off using the tempeh burgers, or the tempeh products. They do go through aspergillus pre-digestive action so that they're much easier for the body to handle. But then analogs are all disastrous as far as I'm concerned. M: What does the word "analog" mean? Viktoras: It basically means man-made protein that goes through a chemical weaving. M: Right. Can I ask you one other question? A few years ago you had said, "People think I'm a raw foodist, but I'm not," and then Theodore told me a couple months ago that you have decided to go on raw foods. Viktoras: Yeah. That's pretty much it. See, like macrobiotics, they centralize their diet on a certain nutritional component which for them is rice, okay? Well, I centralize my diet, Yukta and I, around a mixture of grains and seeds so that about 60 percent -- if not higher -- of our diet is just a seed mixture, sprouted for 2-3 days: rye, oat, wheat, barley, wild rice, and then sesame, sunflower, and pumpkin seeds. We use that quite a bit. About 10- 15 percent of our diet is a seaweed mixture. The other part would be some soaked almonds, bananas, and some vegetables. A couple of days ago we ate a whole bunch of inorganic fruit, and both of us were psychedelic. M: Are both of you pretty much keeping a pretty low percentage on the fruit? Viktoras: Yeah. M: Purposely, for macrobiotic type reasons? Viktoras: Good fruit is just not available. Otherwise we might eat it two times a day. . . . I hope I have been helpful. M: Oh, very much. It's a delight to talk to you. Thank you. **** "Balance your diet, and then forget it. Once in awhile it isgood to break your diet. If you have raving for some od that isn't particularly good for you, don't be finicky; eat it. But don't make a practice of it, and thus let it become a habit. So many people are all the time fussing about their food. What is the use of having a body that you have to fuss about all the time? Your body should be your servant; don't allow yourself to become its slave." -- Paramahansa Yogananda, _The Divine Romance_