Lianhe Zaobao Article About Raw Foods

@Source

Date: 5 February 2006

Newspaper: 联合早报 (Lianhe Zaobao), Singapore.

Original Chinese article sections:

For More Life, Eat Raw Foods

Youth Eats Raw Meat Diet

Original Chinese text written by Ding Lee Yong.
Translated from Chinese to English by Kian.

Modern man is paying greater attention to healthy living. Some people choose to exercise, some people use health care products, while others change dietary habits in a bid to improve one’s physical health. Some local people have attempted the Primal Diet which originated from the U.S. in recent years. The diet advocates consumption of unprocessed and raw foods, including fish, meat, vegetables and more, so as to preserve the food’s natural goodness and allow the body to better absorb nutrients for improved health.

Seven years ago, 25-year-old Kian, despite his youth, suffered from chronic fatigue. Other than being mentally tired, his physical energy was also lower than before. In addition, a persistent cough also troubled him. Many such signs showed him that his health was going down hill, with the possibility of premature aging. Kian, who had never been particularly health conscious, felt that these signs were a “red alert warning” of things to come, and he felt worried.

"I would pant heavily just climbing the stairs at home, frequently have insomnia, and didn’t have much energy during the day. I thought, if my health is so bad when I am only 20 years old, how would I be when I’m 30, 40 or 50?"

Like many Singaporeans, Kian liked eating all kinds of tasty foods, such as fried noodles, chicken rice, and wild exotic cuisine. Kian felt that other than stress from work, diet must have played a major role in his declining health. Thus he decided to look for answers to health via foods.

Kian is a self-employed information science and technology consultant, and the majority of his work time is spent at home, allowing him to access the Internet and do his own research in finding solutions for optimal health and vitality.

He tried the most common purported dietary health solutions: vegetarianism as well as fruitarianism. Vegetarians do not eat meat, and mainly eat vegetables and gluten-derived foods; fruitarians eat mainly fruits and drink fruit juices. "Initially, I felt digestion improved and my body felt lighter. However, this improved situation only lasted a month or so. After that, my weight dropped, and my body felt cold and listless, and my skin turned yellowish.”

By chance, Kian found a diet via the Internet called the Primal Diet which he had never heard of before. Primal dieters do not eat anything cooked or processed, including rice, bread and any processed sauces, and they eat a variety of meats such as beef, chicken, and fish, except for pork. Eggs, raw milk, raw butter and raw cream also form the bulk of the diet. In addition, they avoid eating fiber as the fiber supposedly damages the body’s ability to digest meat properly. However, they take in vitamins and minerals from vegetables in the form of green juices.

He said, "This sounded very inconceivable to me, because I have never heard of anyone promoting consumption of raw meat. In order to prove that this diet does not work, I decided to give it a try."

Unexpectedly, his trial created “astonishing results.” He said, "That very evening was my deepest and most restful sleep in more than 20 years. The next morning, I felt very rested and my energy level was high throughout the day.”

"Initially, there was some trepidation, especially when first consuming raw cream, I felt a little put off as the taste was different. But once I had gotten used to it, and experienced the positive effects, I believe that this diet definitely is supportive of health and is not dangerous.”

3 years ago, Kian also invited the Primal Diet founder Aajonus Vonderplanitz to Singapore to give a talk on nutrition and share his personal experiences, and about 40 people attended the event. "As far as I know, I am first local to practice this diet 100% while there are 6-7 other people doing it partially. They can only manage to go on a partially raw diet probably due to social requirements such as work, and can only manage to fit in one raw meal a day."

But doesn’t uncooked meat carry the danger of bacterial infection? Kian believes that food in its natural state without processing or additives, and possessing an abundance of enzymes, are the most natural and health-giving for the human body. Under normal circumstances, the body is able to automatically heal from all diseases.

Activation of the Body’s Detoxification Process

He said, "Other than feeling more energy, I also felt the body’s detoxification process starting up. After I had been on the diet for a month, pus-filled sores opened up on my lower legs. It did not feel painful, but slightly uncomfortable as it made my pants damp.”

This "non-ordinary" detoxification process lasted one and a half years, and Kian wore long pants during this period to cover up the sores. Otherwise, he did not feel any ill symptoms, and in fact, he felt that his energy levels were getting better. “Friends told me that I look healthy. In fact, I also feel that my health was slowly improving day by day. My persistent cough has resolved itself, and I no longer feel tired. In the past 4 years, I have practically not seen a doctor."

While the diet may be based on that of our ancestors’, daily life and work has to go on as usual. Kian tries to eat in as much as possible, but if he is with friends, he goes to Japanese restaurants for their fresh raw fish (sashimi) and raw beef.

Kian said that it is normal to dine on raw food in a Japanese restaurant, and it would not draw curious looks from others. However, to eat fresh beef, one can only order that in an authentic or high-class Japanese restaurant. Smiling, he said, "Being on the Primal Diet does not mean that we are like wild primitives and devour any raw food. It must be food suitable for consumption, such as live oysters, freshwater mussels, Kobe beef and so on. As such, my expenses on food on this diet are higher than the average person’s by about 50%."

To Kian, diet, like religion, is a person’s individual choice. Thus he does not “preach” this diet or try to influence others in their dietary habits. “I’m aware of this diet’s benefits, but do not insist that others have to be like me. Only if people take the initiative to find out more, will I explain to them.”

Kian also said that while he does not conceal the fact that he eats raw food, he is unwilling to have his full name and identity in print as he does not want to let his relatives know. "The older generation finds it hard to understand or accept this kind of dietary habit, so it is not necessary to let them know."

"Starting out, my family and friends were either worried or curious. But with time, my visible improvements in health are the best proof, and they felt relieved."

In spite of all this, Kian is also frank in saying that eating raw vegetables and meat has a lesser variety of tastes, but given that this leads to health, he is willing to continue walking the path.

"Cooked food delicacies, despite their stimulating taste and aroma, are no longer attractive to me. I enjoy eating raw foods because it is food in its most natural state, and also of most benefit to the body. The benefits of this diet are too many, so I will not give it up."

Experts are unable to confirm the healing properties of the diet

For a long time, people have held the belief that food must be cooked so as to kill parasites and microbes. Will a “non-traditional” diet like the Primal Diet cause any bodily harm? Two interviewed nutritionists have differing views. However, they are not able to determine whether it indeed has healing properties.

During the interview, Alexandra hospital nutrition expert and director Huang Hui pointed out that the Primal Diet is not fundamentally different from the diet of carnivorous animals, as many animals like lions and tigers eat raw meat. She believes that provided the food is fresh, it will not be unduly dangerous.

"Basically, if food is fresh, it does not have any pathogenic bacteria, and will not have any obvious risk. The purpose of cooking is to ensure the elimination of pathogenic bacteria using high temperatures."

She also pointed out that cooking of food is a culture formed from the evolution of human civilization, and that cooking is helpful in breaking down the composition of food, and helps the body to digest and absorb nutrients. "Don’t forget that other than eating and sleeping, wild animals do not do much else. Man has a routine of daily work and rest, and if some choose to spend more time on food, that is an individual’s choice."

On the other hand, the Singapore National University’s Confucian school of Idealist Philosophy’s Chemistry department’s (Food Science and Technology) Vice-Professor David Popovich does not encourage that people eat raw meat, and emphasized that this is dangerous and runs counter to public health and hygiene policy.

He said, "Raw meats, unpasteurized milk and some vegetables like buds class have E.coli O157:H7, a toxigenic cause of serious disease or death. This type of germ may survive in the healthy animal's intestines, and infect other parts of the animal during meat preparation and butchering.”

As for whether the Primal Diet has any medicinal properties, the nutritional experts have their doubts. Huang Hui said, "People may believe in benefits of 'good germs' in raw meat, like lowering of toxins in the body… But nobody has conclusively demonstrated how our stomach responds to raw meat, and how raw meat digests in the stomach and so on."

Huang Hui also pointed out that the Primal Diet is different from detoxification diets. Detoxification diets are short-term and are limited to fruits and vegetables, and do not include eating raw meat.

David Popovich indicated that although he has not heard of this diet or any related science and experiments related to it, he believes that eating raw vegetables and fruits is safer than raw meat.

“What I’m concerned of is that people who choose to follow this diet may neglect proper food handling, such as suitable refrigeration temperatures, cooking time, temperature, and so on. I’m worried that people can possibly suffer from food-borne diseases which may offset any positive benefits they may get.”

Primal Diet founded by an American nutritionist

Raw Animal Foods (RAF) diets like the Primal Diet have many followers in the U.S., one of them being the Australian movie star Mel Gibson. However, the declared medicinal effects of the diet have raised certain disputes, which have not yet been resolved.

The founder is from the U.S. and his name is Aajonus Vonderplanitz. He is currently about 60 years old, and he is a nutritionist by occupation. In 1997, he published a book "We Want To Live", narrating his long battle with disease and ill-health, how he eventually discovered the Primal Diet, and his road to full recovery from disease.

Aajonus wrote in his book that the Primal Diet is able to heal illnesses like cancer, and that he has a success rate of 90%, but such healing will need a long period of time to be effective.

From young, he has had many illnesses. He contracted serious autism, suffered from peritonitis at age 10, diabetes, angina pectoris, and more. At 19, he had gastric ulcers, and after the surgery aggravation of the disease led him to accept chemotherapy, which created other illnesses, and he finally contracted leukemia, bone cancer and 8 other kinds of incurable diseases.

Then, he started drinking raw carrot juice, discovered his condition changing for the better, and started to live on raw vegetables and fruits for some period of time. However, he suffered a relapse at age 29, causing him to thoroughly lose all fighting spirit for survival, and he chose to go into the wilderness and commit suicide by fasting to death.

To speed up the process, he ate a wild rabbit (fasting to death would take about 60 days), thinking that he would die from bacterial infection. But not only did he not die, his condition took a turn for the better.

Thus, he started to hunt like the primitive man, eating uncooked wild birds, rattlesnakes, and so on, and work on farms for raw milk, eggs, and chicken meat. After several months, he felt his body getting stronger, and his energy levels high.

After Aajonus returned to Los Angeles in the U.S., he continued to add raw meat such as beef, mutton, seafood and organic domesticated fowl to his diet. He was hired by a health shop as its nutritionist, and helped other people to use the Primal Diet to heal themselves back to good health.

Aajonus’s letter to the editor and writer

Date: 14 February 2006

Hi, Ding Lee Yong and editor,

I appreciated your article and that you allowed several sides to speak. However, do you think that it would have been more accurate if we had read the opinions of people who had some access to science of raw vs. cooked food reactions on animals, including humans? The opinions of Mr. Popovich were scientifically confusing, useless and irresponsible. It is a shame and disgrace to humanity and science that such empirically unproved rhetoric about pathogens is disseminated to the public daily. E.coli 0157:H7 has been found in only unhealthy animals fed processed feeds, antibiotics, dewormers, hormones and other chemicals.

Rather than properly, scientifically investigate, most "educated" individuals ignore that I, once a deathly ill individual, and thousands of people have been eating raw meat daily for up to three decades without bacterial or parasitical disease. They ignore that our health has dramatically improved and diseases disappeared. They ignore that French and Germans have been eating a form of raw steak tartar for hundreds of years; that Italians have been eating raw meat Carpaccio for about a hundred years; that Austrians have been eating raw meat dishes for a thousand years; that Romanians have been eating raw lamb for at least a thousand years; that Japanese have been eating raw fish and raw beef for thousands of years; and that several African tribes, who have no degenerative disease, have been eating almost exclusively raw meat and raw dairy without refrigeration and our ridiculously bacteria phobic hygiene for thousands of years.

None of us has suffered any bacterial food epidemic. On the contrary, all bacterial food epidemics that science (not health department surveys), proved had occurred from cooked food, especially pasteurized dairy products. I cited some of the major epidemics in USA in my book The Recipe For Living Without Disease (2002). Drs. Francis Pottenger and Edward Howell proved in animals experiments that animals fed cooked foods developed all of the disease that man suffers with untimely deaths, and those that ate completely raw were disease-free until their timely deaths. Since all life has lived in harmony and/or symbiotically with bacteria for millions of years, we should be careful to be chemical-free rather than bacterial-free. Pollution is causing our diseases, not so called microbe pathogens. Most chemicals are pathogenic, including chemical byproducts produced by cooking. It has been scientifically proved many times that acrylamides are a by-product of cooking and that they are carcinogenic from decades of accumulation in the body. At this time in science, there are thirty-two scientifically identified toxins produced by cooking, listed in my recipe book. It is time for truth about food and preparation to be told in the midst of all of the blur of packaged food commercials and media parroting unscientific rhetoric. Thank you for offering the subject to the world's precious Asian culture.

Respectfully,

dr. aajonus vonderplanitz, ph.d. nutrition