Pressed with their individual limitations, people often ask my opinion on how important striving for a 100% raw regimen really is. I have two slightly different recommendations for two main kinds of eaters-compulsive eaters and normal eaters. I recommend that people try to fit themselves into one of these two types according to the following description: A compulsive eater is a person who eats more than he or she needs or wants to, not in response to signs from their stomach inciting hunger, but rather for other reasons.
A normal eater is a person who eats when he or she is hungry and stops when full.1 If you think that you fall in between these two categories, place yourself in the group you feel closest to.
I believe that only "normal eaters" can manage to stay on a raw diet combined with small portions of cooked foods without sliding into a predominantly cooked-food diet. I would like to clarify that I don"t recommend that; I only share my observation that "normal eaters" would get minimal harm from eating some cooked food because they are capable of controlling their food intake.
For compulsive eaters I strongly recommend a 100% raw-food diet simply because it would be considerably easier for them to maintain. I have observed scores of compulsive eaters attempting to stay on the combination of 80% raw and 20% cooked food. I have witnessed these poor people yo-yoing all the time from 80% raw to 80% cooked, never settling on any particular plan, always feeling guilty and worrying about their health. At the same time I have observed countless instances when, after adopting an all-raw diet, compulsive eaters were able to successfully maintain healthy eating patterns, avoid overeating, and keep breaks between meals instead of continuously grazing and snacking. Most raw foods do not possess exceedingly stimulating taste, in contrast to many cooked dishes. I have encountered some people in my life who were able to consume several large portions of pizza in one meal, but I never met anybody who could eat several large salads. Even in cases when overeating of raw products occurs, it is considerably less harmful than overeating cooked foods. Being a compulsive eater myself, I used to envy normal eaters and often felt helpless over my cravings. Staying on a 100% raw-food diet has greatly improved my eating pattern and totally transformed my entire life.
Often people ask me how 1% of cooked food in one"s diet can be so harmful. I believe that when we allow 1% we leave the door open to indulge when we desire. According to AA, we tend to overeat at the times when we feel hungry, angry, lonely, tired, or depressed. Giving up the last 1% of cooked food in the diet is closing the door on cooked food altogether. When we close the door on cooked food, we close the door on temptation.
On 99% raw food, we stay vulnerable to temptation and allow ourselves what we want, when we want it. I have met many people who spent a great deal of effort to achieve the 99% raw-food level only to return to completely cooked food months later. This tiny 1% may continue to lead us back to cooked food. I consider that going "cold turkey" is much easier. Yes, one might have to suffer through the first couple of months because every temptation will create suffering. But after two months, life becomes easier.
From discussions with lots of raw-fooders I have concluded that not all cooked dishes are equally strong in triggering unnatural appet.i.te. One should definitely stay away from all stimulating and mouth-watering cooked dishes, as well as favorite snacks. Regardless of the amount ingested, such foods could induce a powerful urge to eat more. I have watched some persons coming off a raw-food diet as a result of just one tiny bite of a cooked delicacy, after successfully staying raw for many months or even years.
At the same time, I don"t want anyone to become paranoid about occasionally ingesting insignificant amounts of cooked products, especially if they are not a.s.sociated with any "nostalgic" memories. For example, a few drops of pasteurized vanilla extract in one"s dessert, a sheet of toasted nori, a spoonful of miso, or a pinch of nutritional yeast are not likely to stimulate one"s appet.i.te for cooked food; the body can easily handle such small occasional cooked ingredients. It is similar to a situation when an alcoholic who has quit drinking can still safely consume fried fish in a wine sauce or a slice of cake with b.u.t.terscotch-flavored cream.
I believe that adopting a 100% raw-food diet is a matter of everyone"s personal preference. I have several close friends and relatives for whom I know adopting a raw-food diet would be next to impossible. They would have to compromise too many of their daily values. From time to time I have presented them with nice vegan books and even steamers to encourage lighter cooking. I have noticed that they use these books and steamers and do benefit from better eating. At the same time, my friends know that if they ever wanted to make further changes in their lifestyle, I would be there to help them.
I used to think that humans could form their eating patterns throughout their entire lifetime. In my research I came upon studies about childhood imprinting. I was amazed to learn that "Flavors in mother"s milk begin to shape a baby"s later food preferences."2 However, the most powerful imprint about food preferences for life that humans receive comes at the specific time of being weaned off mother"s milk. This time is called the "sensitive period" or "critical period"3 and lasts for two to three months during which a profoundly strong imprint is formed in every child"s mind based on what the child is eating, along with watching the dining processes of other people around them, especially their mother. This imprint is practically irreversible: "A critical period ... is very short in duration, and the effects of specific events during this period are ... lifelong, and relatively immune to erasure by subsequent events."4 That is how food preferences are shaped to make us vegetarians, meat-and-potato persons, or any other kind of eater. We can become normal or compulsive eaters based on the variety of food we are exposed to during our sensitive periods. I find it fascinating that a short period of sixty to ninety days shapes eating behaviors for one"s entire life. The imprint mechanism is a truly sensible way of protecting us from extinction, by making sure that the child inherits the most vital knowledge-what to eat-from the most caring person in the world-mother. How unfortunate it is that modern humans have stepped away from natural ways of living. By doing so, we have perverted nature"s most brilliant law and have turned the advantages of lifelong healthy eating into a frustrating spell of everlasting compulsive over-consumption.
Rooted in infancy, destructive eating patterns severely undermine many people"s quality of life. According to statistics, there are already 58 million Americans who are overweight5 and these numbers are constantly growing. The scientific studies about imprinting clearly point out that it is almost impossible to overturn already existing obesity. We can see many instances where compulsive eaters desperately try to change their eating patterns. Some of them turn to such drastic solutions as undergoing gastric bypa.s.s surgery, an extreme measure that limits how much food a person can digest by stapling shut most of the stomach and cutting off ten inches of small intestine. However, nature proves to be stronger than human will power. Even after having their stomach stapled, many patients slide from the strict diet recommended by their doctors, start overeating, and regain all their weight back within five years.6 In other words, the imprint from childhood keeps fighting for its legacy till the end. Meanwhile, a great number of people have been able to recover from obesity using a raw-food regimen and other natural ways of healing. For example, my friend Angela Stokes lost 160 pounds. She recuperated from morbid obesity by adopting a raw-food diet with an emphasis on greens.7 I think that generally, obesity is much easier to prevent than to reverse. When the water is running from the faucet onto the floor, shall we keep collecting the water with a sponge from the floorboards or close the spigot? Instead of putting all our efforts into reversing already existing obesity, let us focus on helping our children develop imprints of healthy eating. Let us pay attention to the quality and quant.i.ty of food we serve our babies, particularly during their "sensitive periods." And for the sake of shaping healthy eating patterns in our children, let us be ever mindful of the food they observe in our hands.
Chapter 14.
THE ADDICTIVENESS OF.
COMMON FOODS.
"Forget love-I"d rather fall in chocolate!"
-Attributed to Sandra J. d.y.k.es.
I consider a cooked-food dependency to be the cruelest of all addictions because it stems from the most desirable and even sacred foods of all humans. Bread, milk, meat, sugar, and salt are probably the most addictive of all common foods. Ironically, that is why these foods have been used for millennia and have become an essential part of human life and culture. Throughout history, whenever humans discovered an addictive substance, they never voluntarily stopped using it; furthermore, its consumption progressively continued spreading among more people. That is why all addictive matter, be it tobacco, cannabis, chocolate, or other, once discovered by one person in one country, eventually makes its way to the rest of the world. As a result, today we know of so many addictive substances that altogether they kill thousands of people and present immense social problems. We have acc.u.mulated so many foods with addictive properties that our eating choices are largely ruled by the amount of pleasure we derive from food as opposed to nutrition.
With the rapid development of new technologies, scientists have become aware of progressively more new particles in different products, including a number of addictive substances in some common foods such as sugar. Sweets taste good because eating them literally makes us feel good-sweets induce pleasurable sensations in the body. "Research indicates that sweet receptors in the mouth are coupled to brain areas that release endogenous opiates-those natural morphine-like chemicals that induce a sense of pleasure and well-being. The taste of sweet in itself is enough to activate pleasure centers in the brain."1 That is why most people like to consume foods that contain sugar, such as chocolate, candy, ice cream, cola, cake, and others. White sugar (or sucrose) is an unnatural molecule completely devoid of any nutritional value. At the same time, white sugar has concentrated energy and is often referred to as a source of "empty calories." Over time, ingestion of large amounts of refined sugar can lead to a "nutrient debt" wherein a person has sufficient energy to fuel the body but lacks other essential nutrients. This can result in undernourishment even in overweight persons.
In addition to eating white sugar, most people consume sucrose from cooked starchy vegetables. "In the process of cooking sweet potatoes ... nearly all of the starch present becomes converted into sugar. Thus our concept of the sweet potato as a starchy food should be revised, since when consumed by man it really is sugary rather than starchy."2 Starchy vegetables such as potatoes, squash, carrots, broccoli, and others in a cooked form add even more sugar to our diet.
White bread, cereal, pasta, and other foods made from white flour also contain a lot of sucrose.3 Bearing in mind that these three sources of sugar const.i.tute the most popular fragment of the typical human diet, our consumption of sucrose is extraordinarily high, especially considering that human consumption of table sugar alone increased 4.2 times in the last hundred years.4 The human body tries to cope with such an enormous consumption of sugar by increasing its insulin production just after eating begins.5 The continuous overeating of sugar inevitably leads to the condition known as hypoglycemia, when we constantly have increased levels of insulin present in our bloodstream keeping our body ready for sugar consumption at any time. Having additional insulin pumped into the blood causes abnormally low levels of blood sugar. Hypoglycemia is dangerous for the brain, which constantly needs an adequate supply of glucose. People who have hypoglycemia continuously feel the urge to eat sweets in order to level the blood sugar. Attempts to stop eating after consuming a relatively small amount usually fail due to the voracious appet.i.te caused by this insulin-produced hypoglycemic state, thus making a binge almost inevitable. As you can see, consuming sugar in the form of sucrose inevitably leads to a dependency on sugar.
However, the body cannot function without any sugar at all. Simple sugars from fruit and honey are very easily digested and provide energy along with valuable nutrients. Ingestion of these natural sugars does not trigger the hyperglycemic response in the body.
Recently my daughter Valya and I conducted some interesting research. We decided to investigate what foods people crave in response to stress. We interviewed sixty people with specially made questionnaires. The majority (52 out of 60) of the partic.i.p.ants reported that they crave sweets in stressful situations. However, I was more interested in the additional, unexpected information we received from our experiment. We discovered that there is a strong correlation between how people were brought up and their methods of coping with stress: The partic.i.p.ants in our research who were reared on a mainstream diet admitted strong cravings for cakes, pies, cookies, candy, and other potentially hazardous sugary foods.
People who were brought up on a vegetarian diet craved raisins, dates, and other dried fruits along with some light vegetarian desserts such as vegan whole grain m.u.f.fins and licorice sticks.
A small number of our partic.i.p.ants grew up on a raw-food diet. I was thrilled to hear that in moments of distress, these people craved sweet fruits, such as grapes, figs, and bananas.
This investigation reminded me of the great role that childhood education plays in the development of our lifelong food preferences. My own sweetest childhood memories are always blended with pictures of eating with my family. When we look at certain food, the desire to eat it stems from our recollections of previous experiences with this food. Enjoyable memories may reinforce undesirable cravings with the longing to re-live pleasant moments once more. For example, at times when I see advertis.e.m.e.nts for pancakes, I remember my childhood and how pleasant it was to wake up on Sunday mornings to the smell of mamma"s freshly made pancakes covered with melting b.u.t.ter. I cherish these memories, but every time they pa.s.s through my mind I experience momentary pain. I briefly feel the conflict between the subconscious urge to revive the sweet moments from the past and the notion that I won"t have pancakes again because I have been eating solely raw food for many years now. It amazes me how many strong emotions can be triggered by the mere thought of food. I asked my daughter if any of her happiest childhood memories were tied to food. With a smile, she began recalling how we picked delicious grapes together in Michigan, and how the California persimmons were so yummy that even our ba.s.set hound Dashka ate so many that it was difficult for her to move, and the taste of our first durian fruit, and so on. Clearly, even though humans are programmed to crave sweets in response to stress, the sweets don"t have to be made with white sugar. Fresh fruits are perfect fuel, packed with nutrients, and they don"t have any negative consequences.
When I began collecting scientific data on bread I experienced a big shock and even felt pain from discovering how addictive bread really is. I lived most of my life in Russia, where bread is considered a sacred food. One can never find a piece of bread lying on the ground or on the street in Russia, because it would be considered disrespectful to all those who suffered from the shortage of bread, as in Leningrad"s Blockade.* Traditionally, a sufficient supply of bread is one of the most important promises that the Russian government makes to its people. Throughout history, various breads have been a staple food for the majority of people. In the United States, November is designated National Bread Month, in recognition of the importance of this product. "More than 75 million Americans enjoy a piece of toast every day.... In fact, Americans like their toast so much that nearly 10% of adults surveyed indicated that they would rather eat toast in the morning than have s.e.x. More than half (52%) of respondents would choose toast over candy in the morning, and nearly 40% over chocolate."
Have you ever wondered why bread is so popular? It may be hard to believe, but scientific research demonstrates beyond any doubt that even raw wheat contains addictive substances: "A novel opioid peptide was isolated from ... wheat gluten. This peptide was named gluten exorphin C."7 "... peptides derived from wheat gluten proteins exhibit opioidlike activity in in vitro tests."8 "Gluten exorphins from wheat normally reach opiate receptors in the central nervous system and trigger their function."9 Scientists have measured the amount of opiates in wheat: "0.5 mg of the most active peptides were equivalent to 1nM (nanomole) of morphine."10 While 1 nM is only a trace amount of morphine, its quant.i.ty is still significant to the central nervous system. For example, 1 nM of morphine can be compared to the amount of opiates in our hormones such as endorphins that are synthesized by our body to combat pain or to create a feeling of pleasure and well-being. Let us also keep in mind that this amount of opiates was extracted from a very small amount of wheat.
In addition to being dependency-forming, opioid peptides from wheat also notably influence our hormonal functions: "... it has long been known that opioid peptides cause marked changes of pituitary hormone secretion in both animals and humans, via cla.s.sical opioid receptors."11 I now understand why bread has been such a popular survival food for people. Due to its high sugar content, even a small piece of bread can supply one with enough energy for many hours of work. At the same time, bread has a profound calming effect through its opium-like sedating action, thus bringing satisfaction to its consumers. In addition, opioid peptides penetrate the walls of the intestines and slow down the digestion, which results in our feeling of fullness. That is why people who are accustomed to the regular eating of bread have a hard time reaching satiety without it.
However, bread, especially its white varieties, is not a nutritious food. That is why a majority of breads on the market are enriched with synthetic vitamins and minerals. Truly nutritious products don"t have to be enriched. For example, I have never encountered an enriched mango or stalk of celery. Wheat contains no vitamin C, no vitamin B12, no vitamin A, and no beta-carotene.12 In countries where cereal grains comprise the bulk of the dietary intake, vitamin, mineral, and nutritional deficiencies are commonplace. Two of the major B-vitamin deficiency diseases (pellagra and beriberi) are almost exclusively a.s.sociated with the excessive consumption of cereal grains.13 In addition, I question the biological availability of most of the nutrients contained within raw grains after milling, processing, and baking.
Instead of cooking wheat and other grains, we should be sprouting them. Sprouts are living foods "enriched" by sunshine. Sprouted seeds are lower in fat than they were before germination, but have a much higher vitamin and mineral content. Most of my readers probably remember when the rumors of Y2K appeared in the late 1990s. While other people were stuffing their pantries with preserves of all kinds, my family bought only one product-a bag of organic wheat. I calculated that my family of four could have survived for approximately one year on this 50-pound bag if we consumed it in the form of sprouts.
Meat, poultry, and fish are another category of food that contains opioid peptides.14 Some time ago, when I ate animal foods on a regular basis, I remember grilled fish and barbequed meat being my favorites. When I looked through some of the latest scientific studies on meat, I was absolutely stunned by the research conducted by Professor Matsumoto of Kanazawa University of j.a.pan.15 In addition to opioid peptides, AGEs, and other toxins, grilled meat contains two other toxic substances: 2-amino-9H-pyrido[2,3-b]indole; 2-amino-3-methyl-9H-pyrido[2,3-b]indole.
These toxic particles (abbreviated "AC" and "MeAC") are normally present in cigarette smoke. Professor Matsumoto determined that grilled meat has much higher concentrations of these extremely addictive substances than cigarettes. According to this research, 1g of grilled beef contains 650.8 ng of AC and 63.5 ng of MeAC, which is the equivalent of approximately 8 cigarettes. The smoke condensate of one blended cigarette contained 79.7 ng of AC and 6.2 ng of MeAC. This means that the amount of addictive toxins in one rather small 100-gram serving of barbequed meat is equal to 800 cigarettes! It is no wonder grilled meat has been the most desired human delicacy since the beginning of cooking.
For the same reason, people tend to prefer roasted nuts over raw nuts, fried veggies over a salad, and toast over bread. We roast our cacao beans to make chocolate, and our coffee is also made of roasted beans. Some people enjoy the burning flavor of their espresso; others prefer latte, which essentially is an espresso with steamed milk added.
Milk is another product that is extremely addictive. All milk from different mammals, including human milk, naturally contains opioid peptides: "Human and bovine caseins in most species have been shown to contain, in their primary structure, peptides with opioid activity ... present in the milk of all species studied so far, and is the major component of human casein micelles. It accounts for 30% of the total protein, and 70% of the casein content."16 The presence of addictive components in milk naturally helps build a stronger physiological connection between a mother and a baby. Such a bond is vital for the survival of a little one because it ensures that the child or the newborn nursing animal will always want to consume the most nourishing food (milk), to sleep more, and to closely follow its mother during the most vulnerable period of its life. As soon as the baby can serve itself and doesn"t need to be constantly cared for by its mother, it gets weaned off mother"s milk. After being weaned from milk, most existing mammals never again consume milk from their own mother or from other animals. The human is the only specie in the world that continues consuming the milk of different animals, along with other milk products, throughout life.
Due to the presence of opiates in milk, people who continue to consume milk and dairy products develop a dependency on them, especially on the most concentrated forms of dairy products, such as cheese. Most varieties of cheese also contain another addictive ingredient, salt. I continuously hear from people that cheese is one of the hardest foods to give up.
I appreciate that milk has been a survival food for millions of people throughout centuries and that without milk many would have died. I can still name a village or two in the Russian forests where there are no roads and no stores. In such conditions people depend on a cow for staying alive through the long winters. Yet that doesn"t make milk the preferred nutritional choice for those who have access to more nutritious foods.
Most people add salt to every meal. While sodium is necessary for the proper transmission of impulses in every nerve in our body, and for muscle contraction, deficiency of sodium is difficult to achieve. Sodium salts are plentiful in the soil, and all plants grown in such soil are sufficient in sodium. No supplementation is necessary.
We should not worry about a deficiency of sodium, but rather become concerned about its excess. While the daily requirement for sodium is 50 mg, the average adult consumes 5,000 mg, a hundred times more than is needed.17 Love of salt is an addiction similar to addictions to alcohol, tobacco, sugar, and caffeine. I found from my own experience that quitting the consumption of salt is easier than limiting it. Please note that most store-bought foods already have salt added. Being unnatural, sodium chloride impairs the salt-sensitive taste buds on our tongue to such an extent that we cannot sense most of the natural flavors of food. When one decides to quit eating salt, it usually takes only two to three days of eating bland-tasting meals before plain food seems incredibly flavorful. That is why I love eating without salt. For the same reason I believe that taking salt out of one"s diet makes staying on a raw diet a lot easier.
Bread, sugar, meat, milk, and salt have been staples in the human diet for centuries, and we have become used to them. I recognize the fact that these products have played a big role in history. These foods, especially cereal grains, have enabled the survival of humans on this planet and have ultimately become responsible for the vast technological and industrial culture in which we live today. However, abundant scientific studies worldwide show us that there are better nutritional options available for humans.
In addition, there are millions of people in our world who are fortunate to have the availability of almost any food they like. I cannot find any reason for those people to continue consuming survival food. n.o.body needs to wear a raincoat on a sunny day.
*On September 8, 1941, a little over two months into the invasion of the Soviet Union, German troops surrounded Leningrad. Unable to take the city by direct a.s.sault, they set about starving it into submission. Before the siege was ended on January 27, 1944, as many as a million civilians had died from sh.e.l.ling, cold, and/or hunger. The Fascist blockade of Leningrad lasted nine hundred days but the city did not surrender.
Chapter 15.
LOOKING FOR COMFORT.
IN COOKED FOODS.
"All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast."
-John Gunther.
"There are four basic food groups: milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, and chocolate truffles."
-Unknown.
Addictive substances in cooked foods can trigger a physical dependency on these foods. However, physical dependency is only "the tip of the iceberg." The reliance on addictive foods is often rooted in people"s unaddressed needs on psychological and spiritual levels.
A psychological or mental dependency on cooked foods stems from having too much stress in combination with the habit of relaxing through eating.
We live in a stressful world. We experience stress everywhere-at school, at work, at home, in traffic, and even when we celebrate. Unfortunately, our parents and educators did not teach most of us how to handle stress properly. Instead, they taught us to eat when we experience stress: "Are you crying, baby? Here is a lollipop for you."
"Honey, don"t be sad, let"s have some ice cream."
"Life is so bitter, let us sweeten it with some chocolate."
"You are going through a rough time, you deserve a treat."
"You need to relax and eat something warm."
A connection between stress and eating is deeply ingrained in our psyches. In emotional situations, our digestive system automatically creates digestive juices, and we experience a strong need to eat something. We have even created many so-called "comfort foods." Apparently, our lives have become so stressful that we are more desperate for comfort than for nutrition.
At a local supermarket I looked through the thick food catalog and concluded that approximately 90% of all the products in the store belong to the category of comforting foods, while only about 10% are truly nutritious foods.
"Food" and "nutrition" are no longer synonyms. Consciously or subconsciously, most of us don"t eat for the sake of nutrition. For example, when admiring the fancy dishes on display at the deli department, are we saying to ourselves, "Oh, the pota.s.sium in that cheesecake is calling my name!" If we ate solely for nutritional purposes, we would never put into our mouths such harmful things as candy, chips, popcorn, or pizza. None of us is suffering from a pizza deficiency, but it is one of the most popular foods. Popcorn is not nutritious, but it gives us comfort when the movie is boring. Chips are overloaded with salt and saturated fat, but they help us stay awake while driving. It is the pleasure and comfort that we antic.i.p.ate from the food and rarely its nutrition.
According to WordNet (an online dictionary), "comforting" means "providing freedom from worry."1 While exploring which foods most people consider to fit the category of "providing freedom from worry," I found a list of the ten most popular comforting foods in the United Kingdom, published by BBC.2 As you can see, these are not very nutritious choices: chocolate cup of tea toast ice cream sausage, egg, chips, and beans sausage and mash.
soup.
fruit crumble pie.
sponge pudding.
rice pudding.
Eating in order to nourish our emotional needs, to calm stress, or to have a break from empty feelings has become almost normal. Many restaurants, retreats, and cookbooks promote their foods as "comforting." Yet the main purpose of eating is nutrition. Only the consumption of nutrient-rich food ensures optimal health. There can be no compromise. If we live in a stressful world, let us create techniques for handling stress that are different from eating comforting food.
I consider walking to be an effective natural way of handling stress. If you don"t like walking, you may practice other forms of exercise. I prefer walking because it is the most natural movement for all humans and is good both for the mind and the body. Walking relieves stress because it provides a way for the body to release tension and built-up frustration by raising the output of endorphins-one of the "feel good" chemicals in the brain. I notice that dog owners who walk their dogs daily are generally well-balanced people. When my friend lost his dog he kept walking every day out of habit as if he still had a dog. Therefore, walk your dog every day, even if you don"t have one.
All healthy children naturally want to walk or run when they are stressed. Parents often feel nervous when children run around or jump in our restricted environment. So we tie our children to strollers, car seats, and shopping carts for safety. And to control their stress we offer them treats.
When I was a child, my family was so poor that I owned only one dress, which was also my school dress. Nevertheless, my parents made sure we had enough bread, milk, eggs, cheese, meat, and even a chocolate cake once in a while. Eating was important and it certainly was pleasant. I remember always chewing something when I was reading a book or watching TV. This habit has stayed with me until now. Whenever I read or watch a movie my hands search for something to grab and my mouth waters. Sometimes I am able to suppress this craving, but often I eat an apple or chunks of vegetables.
I have been fortunate in my life to meet such rare people as my friends Vanessa and Jonathan, who don"t seem to have attachments to any foods. They told me that their mothers didn"t make food the center of their life. Jonathan"s mother would never call him to eat if he was busy playing. She figured that playing was more important for life than eating. As a result, his life is not centered on food. He tells me he can go for hours without thinking of food. Vanessa has little memory of how chocolate, salmon, white bread, or Coca Cola taste. She was raised on a vegan diet. Once in a while, at her friends" houses she was offered other food, but after trying it she preferred to wait till she got home because her mother"s healthy food tasted a lot better to her. Vanessa was amazed at how the opposite was true for her friends.
Most people cannot imagine living without delicious cooked meals. For this reason the beginning raw-fooders often look for dishes that closely remind them of the tastes of their favorite cooked dishes. Many raw recipes have names such as "un-burrito," "mock chocolate," "like-tuna sandwich," and so on. However, raw foods don"t have addictive substances in them and thus cannot "provide freedom from worry." That is why carob candy cannot completely satisfy our craving for chocolate. Even when we are able to achieve a wonderful taste with raw food, we still don"t get the result we were longing for, in terms of our emotional needs. There is only one circ.u.mstance in which raw food may give an enormous pleasure and satisfaction, and that is when we are truly hungry. Hence, for those who are used to grazing all day long, raw meals might not provide the sought-after comfort. That is why it is essential for everyone to find ways other than food to cope with stress, particularly when adopting a raw way of eating. I know too many people who successfully stayed on a raw-food regimen for a long time and then suddenly slipped off their diet, unable to handle pressure. Some of my friends admitted that sliding back to cooked food aggravated their stress even further because it caused a drop in their energy levels and made them overall less vibrant. On the other hand, applying stress-handling techniques might have helped them to live through their emotional catastrophes without sliding off their raw-food plans.
Chapter 16.
FEEDING INNER.
HUNGER.
"Happiness is the ability to feel endless beauty in every moment."
-Igor Boutenko.
We have already discussed the dependency on cooked foods on physical and psychological levels. Now I would like to talk about the level of addiction that is hardest to overcome-the spiritual level. How can we battle our deep spiritual emptiness?
Many of my students have told me that they often eat in an attempt to numb the unbearable empty feelings they experience. They also comment that trying to fill that emptiness and depression with food only deepens the hole further. I understand that the feelings of spiritual emptiness and depression have a lot in common. Below are some statistics on depression.
Depressive disorders affect approximately 18.8 million American adults or about 9.5% of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year.1 Everyone will at some time in their life be affected by depression-their own or someone else"s-according to Australian government statistics. (Depression statistics in Australia are comparable to those of the U.S. and U.K.)2 The rate of increase of depression among children is an astounding 23% per year.3 30% of women are depressed. Men"s figures were previously thought to be half that of women, but new estimates are higher.4 15% of depressed people will commit suicide.5 In 2002, 31,655 (approximately 11 per 100,000) people died by suicide in the U.S.6 Antidepressants work only as well (or less) than placebos.7, 8 As you can see, depression is one of the greatest problems of our time, claiming the lives of millions. Many professional psychiatrists consider that the optimal treatment for depression is fostering spiritual beliefs, developing a sense of purpose, and sharing those experiences with others.9, 10 Most of the existing 12-Step programs, such as AA, NA, and OA, are spiritual in their nature, and "if these programs are practiced as a way of life, can expel the obsession to use the substance of abuse and enable the sufferer to become happy and useful and whole."11 At least eleven thousand addiction treatment programs in the United States introduce their clients to some form of spirituality.12 The 12-Step programs lead an alcoholic or an addict to admit the problem, turn to a higher power (or "G.o.d, as we understand him"), make amends, pray, and meditate. Other programs offer alternative spiritualities, such as Yoga, Islam, or Native American religions. There are also programs that encourage members to follow their own religion.
The word "spiritual" originates from "spirit," which is equivalent to the Latin word spiritus, a breath. "Spirit" has the same meaning in Russian: "douh"-a "breath." Similarly, life enters the human body with a first breath and leaves the body with a last breath. According to Webster"s Dictionary, the word "spiritual" means "the quality or state of being."13 Therefore, spirituality is not just a belief because beliefs alone do not create a spiritual state of being, although beliefs may (and often do) lead to values through personal verification.
I trust that all humans are spiritual beings. When people don"t feel spirituality, they often develop feelings of the pointlessness of their mere existence. As a result, they develop low drive for life and become depressed. Certainly, a pill cannot rea.s.sure a person in his or her values of life. That is why developing spirituality, not pharmacology or will power, underlies a successful recovery from addiction.
Unfortunately, there are endless controversies surrounding faith-based treatment, from the conflict between science and spirituality, to the skepticism about the "New Age" brand of spirituality (which many of these programs encourage), to const.i.tutional issues over court-mandated partic.i.p.ation in allegedly religious treatment programs.14 If our goal is helping people end their suffering, we should be focusing on the results rather than the validity of one or the other belief. If we could expand on the idea of spirituality beyond the doctrinal and ritualistic form to a wider range of thought, it would enable many more people to embrace spirituality.
Even finding a spiritual foundation cannot guarantee that faith-based comfort will not fade away. I know firsthand that the feeling of spiritual emptiness can often come to those who already recognize the spirituality of the universe as a reality. I have heard from many friends that the hardest part for them was to remain connected to their spiritual beliefs, especially in situations where people observed some kind of injustice. I believe that all people in the world were initially kind, considerate persons. In his book The Brighter Side of Human Nature, Alfie Kohn draws from hundreds of compelling studies in psychology, sociology, economics, and biology to demonstrate convincingly that we are more caring than we give ourselves credit for, and that our generosity cannot be reduced to mere self-interest. Kohn, for example, points out how early in life we begin responding to others" distress, and that humans are the only animals who can choose to look at the world from another being"s perspective.15 I witness compa.s.sion of human nature whenever I visit the movie theater. Watching the depth of empathy that the audience develops towards the strangers on the screen reveals how sensitive we all are to the pain and joy of others. If the main character suffers, one may glance back at the audience to find a sea of sad and tearful faces, while during a happy film, the viewers often smile and leave in high spirits.
There is a lot of distraction happening in today"s world. When confronted by an avalanche of negative reports, we might begin to think that the world is unfair. Witnessing unfairness creates an a.s.sault on our emotions and our intellects. Disconnecting from our ideals, we may feel like orphans, starved for the nourishment of the soul. We then try eating some delicious, comforting food but it doesn"t help, as we continue to be spiritually undernourished.
At the same time, there is a higher justice, higher power, higher love, and higher beauty in the universe. It is reflected in every human being and in every piece of nature. Noticing these reflections of an invisible yet powerful spiritual realm always helps me restore my own strength, balance, and happiness. The message from the spiritual universe may arrive merely through someone"s warm glance, someone"s gentle touch, the kiss of a child, or the stunning cuteness of a puppy. Similar experiences remind us that material force is not the only power in the world. I cannot describe in words what exactly takes place when those moments happen. I only know that since I have learned to be more attentive to these little episodes in my life, I don"t fall into emotional lows and powerlessness anymore. Instead, I have gained my personal balance in which I feel connected to the core of my being and to the wisdom and power of spirituality. I know that all people have different names for these precious powers. I consider that a name is not as important as the true notion that all humans are spiritual beings.
Part 3.
HOW TO.