[Article Blog] Questions & Answers

Questions & Answers
December 2011

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"I always get shin splints after about a min of skipping, any ideas where I go wrong?"

That could be a need for trace minerals.

Most of us get a somewhat decent amount of iron and calcium, but then we can't utilize our nutrients due to lack of trace minerals.

Do you eat any seaweeds?
High-mineral sea salt?
Drink wheatgrass?

Each of those is high in different kinds of trace minerals.

I notice when my trace mineral content is low, my fingernails start breaking off easily within a couple weeks.

Also, Vitamin D is required to get calcium from the gut to the bloodstream. Then something I have not looked into too much yet, called "Vitamin F" is needed to get calcium from the bloodstream to the tissue. Skin, muscles and bones all need volumes of calcium.

I do not suggest calcium supplementation, but rather looking for foods high in calcium because so many vitamins are required to utilize the minerals we take in.

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"My stomach has been hurting after everything I eat. I'm at a place where everything feels potentially harmful. What should I do?"

My condolences. I've been there, and it's rough. On the positive side, that was what motivated me to get where I am today.

Digestion Tips:

Remember that cooking destroys 100% of enzymes (which are vital to digestion) and 100% of oxygen (required for every cell in the body), and 80% of vitamins and minerals (including 100% of the vitamin C content). So raw vegetables and fruits are a 1000% more beneficial than cooked ones.

Also, cooking without water (toasting, baking, frying) create acrylamide: a very dangerous toxin. Anything that is "browned" such as bread, fried chicken, french fries or toast, has a very high level of acrylamide. Often people are addicted to this toxin because it slows the body down and represses emotions and thoughts because it is so taxing to deal with. (The book Raw Emotions by Angela Stokes goes into this in detail.)

Remember that animals are given antibiotics, which kill off all the good flora and allow bad bacteria (like ecoli) to proliferate. Bacteria, even when cooked, is still very harmful, because 'bad bacteria' gives off 'waste'. Essentially, bacteria "poo" which is very toxic for us. Dairy, meat, eggs and peanuts all have very high levels of bacteria waste.

High-water content foods are more hydrating that water alone. The more juicy and watery a food is, by nature, the more oxygen it provides, the more hydration your cells receive, and the more easily-assimilated the minerals within the food. High water content foods are: melons, berries, celery, leafy greens, apples, mangoes, papaya, tomatoes, bell peppers and cucumber.

Stomach and intestines should be empty as much as possible between meals. In order to do this, digestion times must be considered:

(These times are accurate for the item eaten alone. Combining foods makes the time increase dramatically. Also, the less healthy the digestive system, the slower it is. These are times for a healthy digestive system.)

Raw melon: 20 minutes
Raw high-water fruits: 30 minutes
Dense fruits (bananas): 40 minutes
Leafy high-water greens: 1 hour
Dense greens (carrots, beets): 1.5 hours
Cooked greens and starchy vegetables (cooked yams, cooked carrots): 2 hours
Cooked grains (pasta, bread, wheat crackers): 3-4 hours
Fatty raw foods (raw seeds, raw nuts, avocado): 3-5 hours
Medium-protein high-fat cooked foods (dairy, meat, eggs): 4-5 hours
High-protein cooked foods (beans, lentils, buckwheat): 6 hours

So, using the above list, you want to emphasize meals from the beginning of the list. So melon for breakfast is excellent. Then, if you eat one hour after the melon, you're giving (in theory) forty minutes of stomach-clean time before eating again. Then for brunch, you could eat berries and an apple. If you eat again two hours later you get an-hour-and-a-half of stomach-clean time. If for lunch you eat a salad and some cooked starchy greens (like boiled yams and carrots), it'd take around two hours to digest, so you'd want to wait four hours before eating again.

Another very important tip: Try to finish digesting before you go to sleep. So, if you're going to bed at 10:00pm, and the last meal you eat is going to be a cooked grain, such as quinoa or amaranth, which will take three to four hours to digest, you'd want to eat that at 5:30pm, and then not eat anything else for the rest of the evening. If the last thing you eat that day is a big raw salad (no cooked sweetened processed salad dressing -- using lemon juice, fresh herbs, and spices for flavor) without any seeds or avocado, then you could eat it at 8:30pm and have an empty stomach by bed time.

I don't recommend eating fruits in the evening because they give you a burst of energy, and thereby a burst of insulin, which can cause mood instability, hormonal imbalance, and difficulty sleeping. Of course, I never recommend any refined sugars, and you probably know that by now. Fruit in the late evening is a very small small annoyance the body in comparison to the toxic crisis that white sugar is to the body.

In terms of cooked foods: aim for boiled foods. Avoid frying, baking, deep-frying, toasting, etc. Also, avoid wheat and barley.

Rice noodles, millet, brown rice, quinoa, amaranth, etc, can easily take the place of wheat products.

If you can follow the tips I've outlined in this message for two weeks, I promise huge improvements. I know you can't follow all of this at once right away. It's a lot to take on. Rather, I suggest using this as a guideline and moving 'in that direction' as you can. So, for starters, just start taking note of the digestion time of a meal, and avoid combining fruits with other foods. Eating steak and potatoes at 12:00pm and then fruit at 1:00pm still counts as food-combining with fruit because the steak and potatoes will still be in the digestive system.

You'll know you're doing well when you start having a bowel movement at least once a day, or even twice a day, and when it starts becoming very very easy it get a very large turd out. Yes, kinda gross, but much better out of your body than sticking in it, right?

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"My bones are bothering me constantly. They pop without even trying."

There are a few possible causes for this: refined sugars, excess of animal protein especially from dairy, excess of toxins/proteins/sugars in general.

Sugar causes calcium to be stripped from the bones. Whenever the body gets too much sugar at once (I.E. when someone eats refined sugar), some of the sugar (most of the sugar) must be eliminated. Excess sugar in the blood is dangerous and sharp, damaging to capillaries. In order to expel the sugar as safely as possible the body uses calcium to bind to the sugar. If there isn't lots of calcium excess hanging around, then it will come right from the bones.

Anyone who eats refined sugar regularly develops bone problems. Sugared drinks, soda, candy, etc, are the very worst things you can do for your bones, even worse than milk.

For more information about refined sugars, check out the book Sugar Blues.

Milk is also high hazardous to bones. While consuming excessive amounts of calcium from dairy and supplements does result in short-term bone mineral density, the long-term effect is the opposite.

In Greece the average milk consumption doubled from 1961 to 1977 (and was even higher in 1985), and during the period 1977 - 1985 the age adjusted osteoporosis incidence almost doubled too.

In Hong Kong in 1989 twice as much dairy products were consumed as in 1966) and osteoporosis incidence tripled in the same period. Now their milk consumption level is almost “European”, and so is osteoporosis incidence.

Those are just a couple of examples, but if you look it up, this is the case all around the world. More dairy means more osteoporosis.

Fluoridated water and chlorinated water also play a huge role in overall health, and through their body-wide adverse results, the bones are also done harm. This is explained in detail in the book Empty Harvest.

To reduce risks from fluoride and chlorine:

• Consume iodine (a halogen like fluoride and chlorine essential for thyroid health)
• Use fluoride-free tooth paste (baking soda, good gums, tooth soap, etc)
• Consume distilled water or reverse osmosis water (filters generally don't remove fluoride)

And to provide the body with the minerals and vitamins required to build strong bones:

• Raw dark greens: Kale, chard, broccoli, collards
• Mineral-dense raw seeds: Chia seeds, pumpkin seeds
• Raw anti-oxidants: berries, especially currants and cranberries
• Trace minerals: raw seaweeds, fresh wheatgrass juice, sea salt

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