Nutrition/Immunology 101. Sticky please. - Page 6

[sunshinestarr]

Originally Posted by JaneS

I know we are doing minerals now, but just want to put this interesting info. up on Vitamin D before I forget. Deficiences are extremely common.

(I just love to talk fat soluble vitamins )



Testing and values for Vitamin D:
http://www.mercola.com/2002/feb/23/v...deficiency.htm

http://www.mercola.com/2002/feb/23/vitamin_d.htm

http://www.mercola.com/2003/dec/27/vitamin_d_quiz.htm

That's a great quiz!

[Planta]

Originally Posted by JaneS

Also nuts contain significant amounts of phytates as well and should be soaked just like grains.

We shouldn't forget an important point, which is to listen to our personal preferences in choosing food. The hypothesis is that, if we are in tune with our body, we can detect what is too toxic for our body - this can vary from person to person and even for the same person it can change in time. So, if a handful of raw nuts taste good and are enjoyable, then there are good chances our body can handle whatever anti-nutrients are present in them (discovered or yet hidden to science). Is a handful of raw grains attractive? If yes - great! If not, why go and modify it in many different ways to be able to eat it (and lots of it, not only a handful).
This is the reason I mentioned earlier that everything is toxic in nature.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Originally Posted by sunshinestarr

I just wanted to add this onto the (old) selenium discussion - for any of us pregnant ladies out there - I have read NOT to go over 40mcgs!! So be careful! I just bought a bottle today and they are 200mcgs.. So I'm going to have to figure something out.

Well, they dropped a nought off there.

Even all the medical articles I have state that conservatively the medical profession says the no toxicity is seen up to 4 HUNDRED micrograms...

However, if you look at the work Professor Ethan Taylor has written up on AIDS, herpes, influenza and hepatitis he says that 400 mcgs selenium causes all of these viruses to become totally dormant. They cannot function in tissue that has adequate selenium. And remember, that when it comes to "illness" the body will use far more of it.

At the library yesterday I found a medical study looking at children whose parents were passive smokers.

No surprise to find that their plasma selenium was far lower than normal, and that those who went on to get asthma had 50% less selenium than "ordinary" selenium deficient children.

Which makes sense, because the selenium is needed by the glutathione pathway to remove the heavy metal nickel, which comes from inhaled second hand cigarette smoke :

Why do people smoke? Why burn all that money simply to load yourself up with carcinogens that the glutathione pathway requires more selenium for, to try to chelate out?

Anyway... I discovered a lot more at the library yesterday and found it fascinating....

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

JaneS, if you want to talk fat soluble vitamins, go right ahead. Anyone can chime in here...

[jessicaSAR]

Originally Posted by Planta

We shouldn't forget an important point, which is to listen to our personal preferences in choosing food. The hypothesis is that, if we are in tune with our body, we can detect what is too toxic for our body - this can vary from person to person and even for the same person it can change in time. So, if a handful of raw nuts taste good and are enjoyable, then there are good chances our body can handle whatever anti-nutrients are present in them (discovered or yet hidden to science). Is a handful of raw grains attractive? If yes - great! If not, why go and modify it in many different ways to be able to eat it (and lots of it, not only a handful).
This is the reason I mentioned earlier that everything is toxic in nature.

I don't really understand how this would work with regard to things like sugar. Humans have evolved to have a taste for sweets. This made lots of sense when food was scarce, because sweet foods also provided calories, right. But now that sweet tooth, which leads us to foods that taste good and are enjoyable, is very counter-productive. So I suppose you could say that when you eat refined carbohydrates and sugars that you feel bad later, so that should stop you from eating them. But, then the test is not what tastes good and is enjoyable, but rather what makes you feel better and your body perform better. So, then, if a veg who has PMS, or depression or dry skin or tooth decay starts eating good quality meats, and fermented vegetables, and sees improvement, then it looks like something other than/in addition to raw food was what the body needed.

I think the issue is just more complex than you suggest. Our tastes and our digestive systems evolved in a food environment much different than the current environment. The vitamin and mineral content of food is different today than it was when our tastes and systems evolved. The available foods and cultural influences on diet are different. The way that our bodies use food is changing with changes in gut flora from processed food, antibiotics etc... People from different parts of the world have sustained themselves on different types of diets. It just seems like there are a host of factors (available foods, quality of foods, genetics, toxic environments, other health conditions, changes in medical practices...) that influence what will be the optimal diet.

Overall, I am pretty skeptical about simple solutions.

[sunshinestarr]

Originally Posted by Momtezuma Tuatara

Well, they dropped a nought off there.

Even all the medical articles I have state that conservatively the medical profession says the no toxicity is seen up to 4 HUNDRED micrograms...

However, if you look at the work Professor Ethan Taylor has written up on AIDS, herpes, influenza and hepatitis he says that 400 mcgs selenium causes all of these viruses to become totally dormant. They cannot function in tissue that has adequate selenium. And remember, that when it comes to "illness" the body will use far more of it.

Well my favourite book (Guide to Nutritional Healing, Blach) has dropped the ball twice now - they highly recommend Ester-C, which I'm finding out is not that great, and are saying not to take more than 40mcgs of selenium in pregnancy.
Sunshine is confused!

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Originally Posted by Planta

I didn't miss that. Two things here:
1- In the context of trying to find what is the optimal food for humans, I find that we should put first foods that require the minimum processing, ideally no processing at all - just pick and eat. If grains have to be processed, then they fall down a lot on the optimum list.
2- Even though sourdough greatly reduces the phytate content, there are important amounts left. Furthermore, not many people use this sort of processing. Quote: "Recent work has indicated that phytate must be almost totally removed to eliminate its inhibitory effect on nonheme iron absorption".

Ah. So that pretty much leaves you to the tropics.

Yes, but what grains are replaced with is not raw food as I suggest. If the replacement is even worse than the grains, then of course the results can't be good.

Definition of worse is in the mind of the thinker. Your factoids are not mine.

We agree on the antibiotics, vaxes, etc. So the point is to find the basics beyond those. Of course I wouldn't dream of saying all the medical interventions are OK if we eat raw! When we return to a natural approach to health we exclude the obviously harmful stuff, but then we still need to ponder what is best for health, and that's when my raw idea comes in.

Well, that's your idea. And for you to function that way, would require living in a Garden of Eden that had everything at your finger tips. The real world doesn't function like that. Leastways, not the one I live in.

This is an interesting field in itself. My opinions:
1- the issue of animal products is a separate one from the raw one. There are lots of raw foodists that eat raw animal products. I might become one of them one day.

Not on the basis of your rabbit comment...

2- living in cold regions is often brought up as a major impediment to eating raw, yet noone ever questions the necessity of living in these places. I don't know why humans colonised these environments, but we are certainly not physiologically adapted for them yet (maybe in some million years we will).

That's a silly explanation. I, like many other people, was born in that environment. I didn't ask to be born there. And neither would most of the indigenous people who have lived in the artic regions for generations. They are remarkably adapted to live there.

Let me tell you a story about how it was that Greenpeace came to support the Inuits on the issue of whale meat. I was told this, in person, by the person who "captained" the inuit vessel.

There was a greenpeace boat north of Barrow that sank, and some of the locals from Barrow, who happened to have their quota of whale meat behind them, which they were towing to one of the villages. So they picked up the four greenpeace men, and decided to teach them a lesson. They sailed around and around in circles for about five days and got them really hungry. The only thing available to eat was whale meat. To be precise RAW whale meat. The greenpeace guys were in their thermals and all suffering from hypothermia. The inuits were in minus temps, shorts and T-shirts and positively steaming. After three days, four of the five greenpeace guys caved and ate raw whale meat. Within an hour, they had to peel off their thermals because they were far too hot. (The fifth guy didn't cave, and ended up having toes amputated because of frost bite.) On the fifth day they went to this village, which was actually about three hours away from where they had picked up the greenpeace guys, and it took another few days for greenpeace to get around to picking up these men. The four who were okay, were quite happy to eat indigenous food, but the fifth would only eat white man's crap.

People in these regions are well adapted to the temperatures, so long as they eat the right foods, and wrap up in appropriate clothing when its -58 with a wind chill factor of 20.

I think that you are talking through the left ear when it comes to these regions. You have no experience, no connections with these races, and simply don't know what you are talking about.

People talk of these issues while cosily sitting in heated apartments and actually living in an artificially tropical climate all through winter.

Oh right then. Bit of an assumption isn't it? You might do that, but we don't. We might use a fire sometimes in winter, primarily to try to keep some fo the damp out, but primarily I dress and eat for the temperatures.

Oh and another thing. I'll never forget reading in an older book (can't remember the title) when things were sailing vessels only, a story about a sailing ship that went around Cape Horn. They pulled in at a cove in Southern Chile, and some near naked people paddled out to them. They wrote in great detail about how these people with minimal clothing were literally "steaming" from their bodies. At the time, I thought that an interesting fantasy observation, until I saw it for myself in the arctic circle.

I know it isn't possible to go back and undo all the humans ever did, but we can still try to provide to our bodies living conditions as close as possible to what we are truly adapted for.

Again, what we are adapted for is diverse and a matter of opinion. If people in deserts adapt to that, and people adapt to the arctic circle, then they are adapted. if they weren't they wouldn't survive. Your logic is flawed.

If we accept heating (yes, try to imagine surviving winter without it), why don't we accept that we should eat mainly fruits? Because we deceive ourselves in thinking we've adapted to other foods when in fact we have not.

Again, totally flawed thinking. You wouldn't survive in cold temperature on fruit. You eat to adapt. Not the other way around.

So people should then just take their selenium supplements and go on encouraging the devastating agriculture? It isn't just about selenium or any number of other minerals. How do you supplement the yet unknown compounds that could be as important as the ones you know?

In this there is some logic to your thinking. But also some illogic. For some funny reason, in the face of the FACT that this country has widespread selenium deficiency as does much of America, the medical people here maintain that the population, has darwinianly adapted to low selenium. Never mind that we have all the conditions you'd expect to see in selenium deficient people.

Ironically, I was talking to a woman this morning in the Taupo area, which is one of the worst selenium deficient areas in the country, and she admitted that though they have to supplement their cows, sheep and goats with selenium, otherwise they would die, she hadn't thought to use the selenium rich seaweed and chook manure in her garden to make sure that their broccoli was selenium rich.

She had been talking to the agricultural people and realised that what she needed was rock dust, seaweed and chook manure...

That's the point! Why should I eat them when they are toxic to me? Why should I not concentrate on foods that are delicious raw and minimally toxic?

fine. Go right ahead. But don't assume that others consider that to be relevant for their lifestyles. There would be people who, if they didn't have potatoes, would die.

Oh, and by the way. During the Irish famine, you know what killed off more Irish than the famine itself?

The Americans. In their wisdom they decided to be guardian angels and sent grains via ship. It arrived very late of course, when many had died from hunger in the process, but then when people at the maize and wheat that the americans sent, the inability of the Irish to utilise it physically, created even more deaths than the famine itself, so in that respect, your grain paper has some relevance. It's just a shame that the Irish were so hungry they felt they had to eat what America had to offer. Papers from the time found that those with any sense, kept their livestock alive with the grain and tried to eek out their existence with the grains which their bodies were already attuned to which was barley and oats.

I don't think the raw idea is a personal fad any more than the non-vaccinating is (even though many people would also call it that).

Well, this is where we differ. People who think everyone on earth can survive well on a totally raw diet are far more "faddy" than people who don't vaccinate in my opinion.

I agree with these, but how can we dissociate talking of gut flora from diet? It's like talking about the health of breathing without adressing the air quality.

Pardon? Since when did I dissociate gut flora with diet?

That is the foundations stone of nutrient absorption. My suggestion to you, Planta is that this thread is redundant to your thinking processes.

You are welcome to stay if only to show everyone the flaws in your logic.

So to me the priorities are:
1- eliminate all chemicals - medication, but also the endless food additives plus pesticides

Correct.

2- eat foods raw to the extent that it is possible. Of course 100% is impossible right away for an infinity of reasons, but if raw is not a goal at all the cooked food takes over in no time at all (otherwise it wouldn't be so widespread as it is).

Matter of opinion. It doesn't in my life.

But it might in the lives of people who don't actually think about the issue.

I do eat cooked food, but it doesn't form the predominant part of my diet. And I'm not going to stop, because a lot of those foods provide nutrients I can't get any other way.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Originally Posted by sunshinestarr

Well my favourite book (Guide to Nutritional Healing, Blach) has dropped the ball twice now - they highly recommend Ester-C, which I'm finding out is not that great, and are saying not to take more than 40mcgs of selenium in pregnancy.
Sunshine is confused!

Yeah well a lot are confused.

Here is one of the articles I picked up yesterday for your entertainment.

Dominion Post, The, Sep 09, 2004

Edition: 2, Section: FEATURES--GENERAL, pg. B9

Health campaigner was inundated with toenail clippings

OBITUARIES


John Grenville Hugh East, teacher and health campaigner. B Wellington, August 3, 1936; m 1968 Maureen Swainson (3s); d Blenheim, August 27, 2004. JOHN EAST'S campaign to reduce the risk of cancers, heart disease and asthma by increasing the amount of selenium in the New Zealand diet reached its peak one night in 2001 when, during a television interview, he asked people to send him their toenail clippings.

Hundreds of clippings arrived in the mail from throughout the country and an analysis confirmed his long-held belief that New Zealanders' levels of the mineral were very low.

A year later, after he petitioned Parliament's Health Select Committee on the issue, the committee recommended steps be taken to increase the average intake to 150-200 micrograms a day -- a proposal that has yet to be acted on. Mr East's life-long passion for healthy eating began at the age of 10, when his grandfather taught him the importance of using seaweed in compost. He learned that health-giving minerals in the seaweed were taken up by the vegetables grown in the compost.

It was not till he retired from teaching in Blenheim in 1996 that he discovered that missing from New Zealand diets was an important mineral -- selenium. It stemmed from a query to soil expert Professor John Walker about the flavour of his tomatoes. In his reply, Mr Walker mentioned that selenium would not be a factor as New Zealand soils were deficient in it and he could not understand why something was not being done about it.

Mr East took up the challenge. He spoke regularly at Federated Farmers meetings, urging farmers to add selenium to their soils as well as give their stock selenium supplements. He seldom missed a chance to make a new convert -- pregnant women in supermarkets often found themselves drawn into conversation with a friendly well-dressed gentleman who quietly urged them to consider the benefits of selenium.

He was convinced the New Zealand medical fraternity was conspiring with pharmaceutical companies to prevent research into selenium's benefits and was deliberately ignoring important overseas findings.

His cause was given added impetus in 1999 when Finland announced the results of an experiment in raising the levels of selenium in its soils. The Finns recorded a reduction in heart disease and cancer, attributing it to raised selenium levels in their blood plasma. He urged all New Zealanders to ask their general practitioner to test the selenium level in their blood plasma. New Zealanders' blood plasma selenium level is one of the lowest in the world at 1.07 millimols a litre and Mr East wanted that raised to 2 millimols.

John East went to school at Mt Cook, in Wellington, and Taumarunui. He dug graves to save money for accounting studies at Otago University, graduating after his final year at Victoria University. Accounting work in Dunedin's fisheries followed before he married and moved to a teaching post at Southland Boys' High School, Invercargill.

He moved to Blenheim's Marlborough Boys' College in 1973, where he stayed for the next 23 years, teaching accounting and economics. He gained a reputation for a dogged determination to root out petty crime at the school, earning the nickname Super Sleuth.

He had coached future All Blacks Steven Pokere and Brian McKechnie at Invercargill and continued his interest in rugby at Blenheim in his early years, but was most proud of his later success as manager of the college's music groups. One, a jazz quintet that included his sons Gregory and Andrew, won the Nelson-Marlborough regional final of the Westpac music competitions in 1986 and was selected for the national final. -- By Jon Morgan. Source: James East.

and to this day, Parliament has done nothing about that recommendation, and the only people who supplement anything are farmers who don't want their animals dead.

And why is that? A dead or sick animal doesn't provide income.

On the other hand, the only source of income for doctors is sick people

[sunshinestarr]

Wow. What a read!
I have a question: Can someone tell me when I should take my selenium supplement? Before a meal, during, after? With what other vitamins/minerals? I took a half capsule (100mcgs) after a meal today and I have a pounding headache from it.
I'm trying to combat it by drinking water.
Thanks!

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Also this:

Journal of Nutrition; Dec2004, Vol. 134 Issue 12, p3290-3295, 4p, 4 charts

South Island women who were currently pregnant had lower plasma selenium concentrations (0.74 ± 0.15 µmol/L) than nonpregnant lactating and nonpregnant nonlactating women (0.94 ± 0.16 and 0.93 ± 0.16 µmol/L, respectively, P = 0.0001). Clearly, pregnant women, infants and toddlers are at risk of suboptimal selenium status, and further research is warranted to assess potential effects in these groups. The finding of an association between household smoking and lower selenium concentrations in children should be investigated further. Dietary interventions are recommended to improve dietary selenium intakes in South Island children and their mothers

so will they study it for the next 100 years, makes lots of research money and argue it till the cows come home and in the meantime... mothers do... what exactly?

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Now here's another thought given that gram negative bacterial infections cause endotoxemia, which is processed through the glutathione and P 450 pathways, both of which require selenium you would think someone would have thought to trial this out in a species other than elderly mice wouldn't you?

Journal of Nutrition; May2005, Vol. 135 Issue 5, p1157-1163, 7p, 4 charts, 3 graphs

Mice fed the low diet had greater LPS-induced weight loss than mice fed the high diet. Plasma α-T concentration and glutathione peroxidase (GPX) activity increased with each increment in α-T and selenium 24 h post-LPS treatment. Brain α-T concentration and GPX activity were lower in mice fed the low diet than in those fed the adequate or high diet. Regardless of diet, interleukin (IL)-6, IL-1β, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)α mRNA levels were elevated by LPS ∼3-fold in cortex, cerebellum, striatum, and hippocampus. Thus, antioxidants inhibit sickness behavior independently of IL-6, IL-1β, and TNFα mRNA levels 2 h post-LPS in the brain regions analyzed. Taken together, these findings suggest that adequate intake of dietary α-T and selenium may help promote recovery from gram-negative bacterial infection in the aged.

Editted to add.. they might actually help reduce severity in the first place, or even stave off infection at all....

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

But here is a study with some brains:

Journal of Nutrition; Jan2006, Vol. 136 Issue 1, p172-176, 5p

Selenium and the carotenoids play an important role in antioxidant defenses and in the redox regulation involved in inflammation. We tested the hypothesis that low selenium and carotenoids predict mortality in older women living in the community. Women who were enrolled in the Women's Health and Aging Studies I and II in Baltimore, MD (n = 632; 70-79 y old) had serum selenium and carotenoids measured at baseline and were followed for mortality over 60 mo. Median (minimum, maximum) serum selenium and carotenoids were 1.53(0.73, 2.51) μmol/L and 1.67 (0.13, 9.10) μmol/L; 14.1% of the women died.

Please note those levels are higher than people in our country but still don't come to the 2.00 μmol/L base level....

higher serum selenium [hazard ratio (HR) 0.71, 95% CI 0.56-0.90/1 SD increase in log_e selenium; P = 0.005] and higher serum total carotenoids (HR 0.77, 95% CI 0.64- 0.84/1 SD increase in log_e total carotenoids; P = 0.009) were associated with a lower risk of mortality. Women living in the community who have higher serum selenium and carotenoids are at a lower risk of death.

Well now. Who would have guessed ... not me?

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Originally Posted by chlobo

BTW, what is the book from Amazon.uk that someone mentioned?

I did a search on abebooks.com for passwater's book and by going to the specific website for a shop that had a book for a dollar found these two:

2. Passwater, Richard All about Selenium (FAQs All about Health Ser.)
New York, NY, U.S.A. Putnam Publishing Group, The 1999 0895299674 Paperback Very Good
ISBN: 0895299674 ISBN: 0895299674. < | >
Price: 0.34 USD
Add to
Shopping Cart

3. Passwater, Richard A. Selenium As Food and Medicine
New York, NY, U.S.A. McGraw-Hill Trade 1981 0879832290 Mass Market Paperback Very Good - Minor Wear
ISBN: 0879832290 ISBN: 0879832290. < | >
Price: 0.01 USD


Fancy that. A book for one cent. The postage will cost a fortune in comparison.

[Planta]

Originally Posted by jessicaSAR

I don't really understand how this would work with regard to things like sugar.

If you mean refined sugar, it doesn't work. The hypothesis is that only whole, raw, unprocessed foods can be evaluated correctly by our food instinct (there is of course some doubt concerning the time we need to regain this instinct after a lifetime of eating cooked).

Originally Posted by jessicaSAR

Humans have evolved to have a taste for sweets. This made lots of sense when food was scarce, because sweet foods also provided calories, right. But now that sweet tooth, which leads us to foods that taste good and are enjoyable, is very counter-productive.

Only if you allow in your diet all the artificially sweetened stuff. If you stick to raw you can't seriously overeat sweet things. For example, the pineapple case is remarkable: if it is cooked you can eat forever and don't know when to stop. If it is raw it will start biting your tongue and it will be absolutely impossible to continue eating after a point (which varies greatly with many factors). Have you tried it?
There are, of course, some fruits such as bananas that seem to behave like cooked sweets. But maybe it is because they are good for us in the big amounts that our body tolerates them.

Originally Posted by jessicaSAR

I think the issue is just more complex than you suggest. Our tastes and our digestive systems evolved in a food environment much different than the current environment. The vitamin and mineral content of food is different today than it was when our tastes and systems evolved.

So what food of today do you think is most similar to the food we evolved on? Should we just not care? I wouldn't if human health was better than it is at the moment.

[pumpkinsmama]

Can I produce enough food to make a difference nutritionally by gardening in a small backyard plot (with proper soil additives) or should I concentrate on purchasing supplements. It would be a huge effort to keep the dog out of it, and a huge PITA. (a family of three +1 dog)

[Planta]

Originally Posted by Momtezuma Tuatara

Ah. So that pretty much leaves you to the tropics.

Not necessarily. Do you agree that there is lots of heating going on in the cold regions (even if you prefer cold)? Then why not other measures of immitating tropical life (of course in limited ways)? In fact, eating raw isn't even a tropical attribute, as you exemplified with the inuit eating raw whale.

Originally Posted by Momtezuma Tuatara

Definition of worse is in the mind of the thinker. Your factoids are not mine.

Who has logic problems here? You took the example of US eating less grains than other countries and having more problems than those and inferred that the problems are not caused by the grains. Did I say grains are the only cause of health problems? It is only an example of what effects cooked food can have, but maybe other cooked foods are even worse than grains. So if they are replaced, let's say, by potatoes processed to death and seasoned with elaborate chemical cocktails, the result on health can't be good - do you agree?

Originally Posted by Momtezuma Tuatara

Well, that's your idea. And for you to function that way, would require living in a Garden of Eden that had everything at your finger tips. The real world doesn't function like that. Leastways, not the one I live in.

I know that very well from actually following a raw diet in this imperfect world. It's not an all or nothing thing, you know. People can eat any % of raw and all I'm saying is that the more the better, not that anything under 100% is unacceptable.

Originally Posted by Momtezuma Tuatara

Not on the basis of your rabbit comment...

Excuse me?

Originally Posted by Momtezuma Tuatara

That's a silly explanation. I, like many other people, was born in that environment. I didn't ask to be born there. And neither would most of the indigenous people who have lived in the artic regions for generations. They are remarkably adapted to live there.

Yes, people are remarkable, but they can't yet change their physiology. If we don't agree on this - we can just drop it.

Originally Posted by Momtezuma Tuatara

Let me tell you a story about how it was that Greenpeace came to support the Inuits on the issue of whale meat. I was told this, in person, by the person who "captained" the inuit vessel.
....
To be precise RAW whale meat.

So what does this story teaches us about raw food and about the logic of our argument?

Originally Posted by Momtezuma Tuatara

I think that you are talking through the left ear when it comes to these regions. You have no experience, no connections with these races, and simply don't know what you are talking about.

What exactly did I say that is inaccurate?

Originally Posted by Momtezuma Tuatara

Again, what we are adapted for is diverse and a matter of opinion. If people in deserts adapt to that, and people adapt to the arctic circle, then they are adapted. if they weren't they wouldn't survive. Your logic is flawed.

Aparently, yes. Due to the incredible inventiveness humans can come up with devices, etc to survive extreme conditions. What I was talking about is physiological adaptation.
And, anyway, why do we concentrate on some few people that live in extreme environments (and actually would do well on a raw diet of their particular region)? What does it have to do with the optimal diet for an average human?

Originally Posted by Momtezuma Tuatara

She had been talking to the agricultural people and realised that what she needed was rock dust, seaweed and chook manure...

This is an example of what can be done to improve the quality of food and would give results really quickly.

Originally Posted by Momtezuma Tuatara

That is the foundations stone of nutrient absorption. My suggestion to you, Planta is that this thread is redundant to your thinking processes.
You are welcome to stay if only to show everyone the flaws in your logic.

I am happy to be taught your famous lateral logic. So far I am dissapointed with your teachings on this.

Originally Posted by Momtezuma Tuatara

I do eat cooked food, but it doesn't form the predominant part of my diet. And I'm not going to stop, because a lot of those foods provide nutrients I can't get any other way.

Just curious - what cooked food nutrients you can't get any other way?

[Planta]

Originally Posted by pumpkinsmama

Can I produce enough food to make a difference nutritionally by gardening in a small backyard plot (with proper soil additives) or should I concentrate on purchasing supplements. It would be a huge effort to keep the dog out of it, and a huge PITA. (a family of three +1 dog)

IMO, you can produce a lot of food. There are lots of resources on the net.

[JaneS]

Originally Posted by Planta

At the moment I am 100% raw vegan (for 5 months now + more than 1 year transition)

Planta,

You've only been raw 5 months and you are arguing it to the death here???

I think I'd believe your advice on nutrition better when you conceived and birthed a child under that diet and raised the babe to the age of 2. I've lived two lifetimes during these last 3.5 years let me tell you.

[chlobo]

So how does this soaking & sprouting work? Do I just soak some oatmeal before I eat it? Do I actually need to wait for pumpkin seeds to grow something before I eat them? Is there someplace that lays it all out?

BTW, who bought the book for .01?

So I went ahead and bought one of those passwater books. Someone else had recommended this book:

Healing Power of Minerals, Special Nutrients, and Trace Elements

Is this a "must have" for understanding the issue?

[chasmyn]

Sally Fallon has some instructions in "Nourishing Traditions".

There is also some information here:

Growing and Using Sprouts

I have a question re: sourdough bread. What about Ezekiel bread? It's made from sprouted grains, is it good as well?

Also re: minerals - will I get them in the All One powder, complete nutrition information here:

All One Powder

Does this include minerals, or do I want to get a separate mineral supplement such as the ones mentioned? And do I need to continue the vitamin powder if I am taking a mineral supplement? We eat 95% organic/whole foods, drink kefir/yogurt we make ourselves.