Consequences

3. Consequences

A high-protein diet plus overeating plus bad food combinations plus cooked foods plus animal fats, all cooked, of course, will always result in poor digestion, absorption, transportation, and assimilation. Such practices will result in excessive mucus, thickening of blood vessels and of the fluids, derangement of the lymph and blood fluids as, for example, an increase in viscosity (thickening), formation of plaques in the blood and concretions (accumulations of precipitated overload, as of uric acid, for example anywhere they may be dumped to get them out of the way, as in a joint); plus a host of other annoying and dangerous symptoms of systemic poisoning. All such derangements tend to alter homeostasis within the body.

We are not by design fat eaters, as we have said. The human body will meet most of its fat needs by synthesizing its own body fat from the sugars supplied by fruits. Remember that fat is composed of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Fruits contain exactly these same elements only in a different arrangement. The human body has the ability by means of catalytic enzymatic action to disorganize the sugars of fruits and then rearrange the released elements into the kind of fat which will suit its own specific needs at the moment. Fat taken as either an oil or as a solid fat presents problems at all levels and especially when it has been cooked. This kind of fat really just passes on through the stomach because that organ just can’t process it. Fat is even very difficult for the intestines to manage, it is difficult to absorb and once it arrives at the liver, fat becomes a major concern to that organ, too.

Consider, in contrast, the sugar trip: almost no digestion required in either the mouth or stomach (it is all pre-digested and in a travelling molecular formulation), it is quickly absorbed because the molecular structure just fits into the membranous passage mechanisms and it passes easily through the cells lining the alimentary canal, it is greeted cheerfully by the liver which rejoices in a 90 percent gain of energy after fully discounting the energy loss of digestion, appropriation and assimilation and the transportation, and so proceeds happily to convert the sugars into glycogen for storage or to make the glucose available for the maintenance of body temperature and energy; and, if required, to restructure the primary elements into body fat. Thus, uncooked sugar-rich fruits are welcomed by the body while fats, cooked and uncooked, yield few, if any benefits to the organic domain.

3.1 Cooking, the Teeth, the Mouth, and a Forever-Young Face!

There are two main considerations here, namely: the effect of heat upon the enamel of the teeth and secondly, the effect of poor mastication on the mouth and facial muscles.

The enamel on the teeth is a species or organic crystallization. It is by far the hardest substance in the human body, made by a precise magnesium-calcium arrangement. However, this crystallized material can be rudely cracked with hairline invisible fractures in the process of masticating very hot foods. These hairline fractures in time develop into dental caries. This may well be a significant cause of the high incidence of dental caries in this country, in excess of 98 percent even in children and almost 100 percent among adults, few of whom retain their full quota of teeth after the age of fifty, with many wearing dentures. Diminished health inevitably follows after the loss of teeth.

As to the second effect evidenced by poor mastication: cooking food encourages a person to masticate his food too little, to swallow it too fast, and to eat too much, all effects which have serious implications with regard not only to the health of the digestive apparatus because it is not well exercised and/or properly cleansed, but also to the general health of the entire body due to improper nourishment; but also to the health of the teeth.

When raw foods are eaten and eaten in their natural state (that is, unchopped, unshredded, and so on), the teeth are required to perform their full function and, as they regularly and dutifully perform, they are strengthened, just like any other exercised tissue, organ, or part. If they are not used properly, the teeth will weaken just as any other unexercised tissue, organ or part will weaken. Graham (Sylvester Graham, “Lectures”) makes note, of the fact that if we become accustomed to masticating food only on one side of the mouth and do not make use of the teeth on the other side, within a very few years the unused teeth will begin to decay and the gums will become tender and, in time, a certain number of the unused teeth will be lost, while the teeth on the other side where chewing is performed consistently will remain sound.

Uncooked food, in contrast to cooked food, requires thorough mastication, especially when it is eaten without drinking any liquid during the mastication process (as it should be). Eating raw foods helps to cleanse the teeth and will tend to maintain a high level of dental health; but, not only sound dental health, but also the health of the mouth itself because full mastication of raw foods requires vigorous muscular exercise of all parts of the mouth including the tongue and all lymphatic tissues.

Whatever disturbs the function and causes a general irritability of the nervous system will lessen not only the health of the teeth, but also the health of the entire mouth. Insufficient mastication over the years gradually brings about a diminution of secretive ability. Saliva production falters as does enzyme production with a resulting lessening in the ability to process carbohydrates in the initial first stages so important to their complete digestion. If food is cooked to the soft, pulpy stage and is then consumed hot, tartar begins to build up on the teeth. The gums soon become soft, losing their tonus. The mucous membranes and muscle tissues of the mouth remain poorly exercised because all cooked food is so easily swallowed and people are deceived into thinking it is ready for the stomach, if they think about it at all. This imperfect mastication and insalivation obviously creates chemical and physical problems for the stomach and, indeed for the entire alimentary canal.

Muscles that are not well and consistently exercised become flaccid, limp and, if not exercised at all for a sufficiently long period of time, even atrophied. Many people today have wrinkled faces largely because they eat of so much devitalized cooked foods which they swallow so easily after insufficient mastication. Thus, they rarely, if ever, sufficiently exercise these facial muscles. About the only exercise they get is when the individual speaks and even then, the exercise is very limited and for too short a time to be of much benefit.

But, to the contrary, watch a true Life Scientist at his meals. He chews and chews and chews while all the while the saliva pours out, the teeth are cleansed and the gums, membranes and facial muscles participate fully and, in the doing, retain their elasticity and tonus, remaining forever young and wrinkle-free. Life Scientists do not require creams or lotions for facial plasticity nor face lifts to give the illusion of youth.

3.2 Overeating

Eating cooked emasculated foods leads to overeating simply because a large quantity must be consumed to satisfy the system’s overall nutritive requirements even though this is rarely accomplished in all particulars. Consequently most people who eat of cooked food are actually burdening their stomachs and other organs with three or four times more food than would be required to supply the same amount, if not more, of nutritive factors if uncooked foods were eaten and these in a more appropriable form. It is our belief that this one fact alone serves to drain the vital force reserves as the years go by because the mere quantity of food consumed requires energy and reserves for a time-consuming and more difficult digestion to take place, energy which might better be conserved and held in reserve for an extension of the life span. It is little wonder that drained energy reserves cause man’s vitality to decline noticeably at forty and that only a handful of those persons who began life are still around at 70 when they should be perfectly capable of living heartily and in health probably far in excess of 100 years.

As Life Scientists we need to be aware of the fact that the usual food intake is not an index to the normal needs of the body, but rather to “the morbid cravings of a perverted appetite. The quantity of food consumed…is by no means a safe indication of the physiological requirements of the body…Civilized man lives to eat instead of eating to live…until after years of overindulgence, they find themselves in the grip of chronic disease.

Almost all students of this subject are in agreement that man has always had a tendency to overeat and that this tendency is, beyond all question, decidedly the greatest source of disease and suffering and untimely death to man. Even if we eat wholly of uncooked natural food, we must guard continually against this tendency. Countless numbers of experiments have proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that eating a minimum of food to satisfy systemic needs is a life-extender while eating in excess is a life and health destroyer.

Even if we eat wholly of uncooked natural food, we must guard continually against this common tendency, but obviously the danger is vastly augmented when an individual overeats on damaged food, food that has been cooked, its vital elements altered. Then, we break down, wear out and prematurely age all our organs and systems; our muscles stiffen, our bones become brittle and we begin to look curved, bent, wrinkled and old.

3.3 But I Like To Eat Some Cooked Food!

Well, we tell our clients, “It’s your choice!” We know that a high degree of heat applied to food for any length of time will greatly reduce its nutritive value. There is no argument here. We must decide if we will settle for less when optimum is best.

Not all of the value of food will be destroyed especially at lower temperatures. If cooking is done in a restrained fashion at lower temperatures and for only a brief period of time, so that the organic salts and other nutrients are not totally destroyed, there will then be no great harm in eating some cooked foods occasionally, but let us be fully aware of the fact that when we do eat cooked food we will not be eating ideally nor will be providing optimum nutrient values to ourselves. We must remember that the quality of our body depends on the quality of the food we eat and upon how we eat it and, very importantly, on our restraint in eating.

Almost all artificial food preparation methods create a situation wherein we have a superabundance of one constituent or another, or else some are absent altogether or are present in too insufficient a quantity. The living organism always abhors an imbalance and reacts adversely to it, most often in the form of some diseased state in an effort to protect the integrity (the life) of the individual. Only uncooked plants, perfectly fresh and unspoiled, can provide the correct balance of known and unknown food factors to maintain perfect health. All wisdom dictates that eating any amount of cooked food represents a fool’s paradise.