Axel, >mark, thanks for your input, really. but: i was all raw vegan one >hundred percent for almost three years and my symptoms did not go away. >more and more the last weeks i am feeling that my body is DESPERATELY >trying to tell me to give up the raw vegan way. for example, when i eat >heavy cooked food, i am less thirsty, i pee less. can you understand or >explain this? i can not. if i eat say, avo with greens and dulse at >night, usually i would be thirsty during the night. but check this >out: if i eat super deadly you-name-it, pasta, cheese with honey, etc, >i am LESS THIRSTY, and usually do not wake up during the night to pee >and drink water. can you see this? do you think i have the slightest >idea about this? no way!! i do not have a clue. As I understand it, salt causes our bodies to retain water. If you are eating pasta and cheese, which are generally loaded with salt, maybe this is causing your body to retain water and feel less need to pee. >and the vitality i have when i eat basically dairy i do not have it >when all raw vegan, regardless of sunshine, exercise, etc. so there is >simply something my body needs super desperately from either cooked >plant food or animal food. I will probably get flamed for bringing up the much-maligned Arnold Ehret, but I am reminded of his formula: V (vitality) equals P (power) minus O (obstruction). He said that "vitality does not depend immediately, directly and primarily from food or from a right diet. If you eat too much of the best foods, especially in a body full of wastes and poisons, it is impossible for them to enter into your blood stream in a clean state and become 'efficiency-giving' vital substances. They are mixed with and poisoned by mucus and auto-toxemias and actually lower vitality --they increase 'O' instead of 'P.' You now see and you may realize very deeply that it is worthless to figure food values with the intention of increasing 'P' or 'V' as long as the body is full of 'O.' "The problem is solved by my system, consisting of periodical minor fastings, alternating with cleansing, *not nourishing", mucus-less and mucus-poor menus. Not as wrongly done with the idea that 'V' is directly increased in a sick person thru feeding clean food. Remove 'O' thru intelligent, personally prescribed menus. 'P' increases automatically after a fast thru its unobstructed function. You can now realize how wrong and insufficient it is for people to think that all there is to the 'Mucus-less Diet' is knowing the right foods!" Is your lack of vitality because you have not removed enough 'O'? Or is there really something nutritious in junk food after all? I have less experience with this diet than you, so I certainly have no idea how long it takes to get the toxins out. I am a total wimp when it comes to fasting. For all I know, it may take longer to detoxify my body than I have years left. If so, maybe it is pointless to even worry about diet at all. But as I said, there is something about it that makes intuitive sense to me. The healing of cancers and other diseases that takes place on this diet must tell us that something good is happening. Maybe you know Ehret by heart for, all I know, but I feel compelled to quote his next paragraph: "Here, then, is the cause why so many 'fasting,' 'fruit-diet,' etc., 'cures' fail. THE INEXPERIENCED LAYMAN ALWAYS COMES TO THE DEATH POINT. In other words, he removes 'O' too rapidly, too much at once and feels 'fine' for awhile, the dissolving process goes deeper -- 'O' increases --he feels terribly weak, falls back on wrong diet, and thru this wrong diet stops the elimination of more obstructions, feels well again, blames the good food for his weakness and sees the wrong food as the food of vital efficiency. he loses his faith and tells you in all sincerity, 'I have tried it, but it is wrong.' He blames the system, entirely ignorant regarding it, when he alone is to blame." Mark [log in to unmask]