Category: The People’s Key

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to thrive when transitioning to the natural diet, while others struggle?

Disclaimer: This article is provided for educational purposes only and reflects a Natural Hygiene (Terrain Model) perspective on health and nutrition. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any condition, and does not constitute veterinary or medical advice. The views expressed are independent of the conventional medical or veterinary industry, and all decisions regarding animal care or personal health care are the responsibility of the owner/individual.

One of the biggest factors I’ve seen time and again that determines success or failure is the choice of fruit.

Those who base their diet on calorie-dense fruits tend to succeed. Those who gravitate toward watery fruits like melons often struggle, binging on cooked foods in the evenings or losing too much weight.

Why? Most people simply can’t eat enough watermelon, cantaloupe, or berries in one sitting to meet their body’s daily calorie needs.

The average person needs between 1,700 and 2,000 calories for a moderately active lifestyle. If you’re exercising, lifting weights, biking, or running, you’ll need more than 2,000. But let’s say you aim for an average of 1,800 calories per day, spread across three meals and a snack:

• Two fruit meals at 600 calories each
  
• One salad around 300–400 calories
  
• One snack around 200–300 calories
  

How much fruit do you  need to make a 600-calorie fruit meal?

• Bananas: about 3 cups (roughly 5 to 6 medium bananas)
  
• Watermelon: 21 cups! 

This is where many go wrong. Influencers may glamorize “watermelon island cleanses”, but unless you’re eating a 20- to 30-pound melon each day, you’ll likely fall short on calories, leading to cravings and fatigue.

Not only that, but melons are highly fermentable in the digestive tract. If your digestion is still compromised from previous habits or you’re still eating cooked foods, melon meals are more likely to ferment, leading to bloating and gas, and those calories get wasted. Unripe melons make this problem even worse.

In contrast, those who make dense fruits like bananas, mangoes, papayas, apples, pears, and even durian the foundation of their fruit meals are far more likely to succeed. These fruits are easier to eat in calorie-sufficient quantities, helping you:

• Meet your daily energy needs
  
• Avoid cravings for cooked foods
  
• Prevent unnatural weight loss and muscle wasting
  

Take a look at the chart below and save it for future reference. Make sure at least one meal per day is built around dense fruits. Pair watery fruits with dried fruits or bananas, and periodically check your total calorie intake to ensure you’re on track.

Remember: Your body needs calories to heal. Healing is a high-energy process, and underfeeding the body—especially to the point of excessive weight loss—starves it of the very energy it needs to cleanse and repair.

Don’t sabotage your healing by eating too light. Fuel your body with the fruits it was designed to eat—dense, sweet, juicy fruits—and give yourself the best chance to succeed in both your transition and long-term health journey.

Fruit by the piece

Bananas – 6 medium     623.04 kcal

Pears – 6 medium         608.76 kcal

Grapefruit – 6 medium    645.12 kcal

Apple – 7 medium 662.48 kcal

Orange – 10 medium 615.7 kcal

Peaches – 11 medium 643.5 kcal

Kiwi Fruit, Green – 15 fruits 631.35 kcal

Mandarin Orange – 15 small 604.2 kcal

Tangerine – 15 small 604.2 kcal

Plums, Raw – 20 medium   607.2 kcal

Cucumber – 20 medium 604.8 kcal

Fig, Raw – 21 small  621.6 kcal

Tomatoes – 30 medium 664.2 kcal

Apricots, fresh – 38 each 638.4 kcal

Fruit by the cup

Durian – 1.75 cups 625.12 kcal

Mango – 4.5 cup 619.41 kcal 

Papayas – 5.5 cups 614.6 kcal

Grapes –  6 cups 625.15 kcal

Cherries, Sweet –  6.5 cups 630.65 kcal

Blueberries – 7.5 cups 632.69 kcal

Honeydew Melon – 9 cups 617.37 kcal

Raspberry – 10 cups 627.26 kcal

Blackberries – 10 cups 619.2 kcal

Strawberries – 12 cups, 601.91 kcal

Cantaloupe – 15 cups 621.01 kcal

Watermelon – 21 cups 620.14 kcal

Dried Fruits

Dates, Medjool – 10 dates 664.8 kcal

Raisins – 1.5 cups 650.31 kcal

Figs, Dried – 1.75 cups 649.25 kcal

Apricot, Dried  –  2 cup 626.58 kcal

Disclaimer: This article is provided for educational purposes only and reflects a Natural Hygiene (Terrain Model) perspective on health and nutrition. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any condition, and does not constitute veterinary or medical advice. The views expressed are independent of the conventional medical or veterinary industry, and all decisions regarding animal care or personal health care are the responsibility of the owner/individual.

Have you ever wondered why it’s so hard to stop eating foods like bread, cheese, pizza, or ice cream—even when you’re full?

It’s not just habit, taste, or lack of willpower. The answer lies in opioid peptides—powerful food-derived compounds that hijack your brain, override your body’s natural signals, and leave you craving more.

🧠 What Are Opioid Peptides?

Opioid peptides are drug-like substances that are released during digestion from certain food proteins. The most well-known are:

• Gliadorphin (also called gluteomorphin), from gliadin, a component of gluten in wheat
  
• Casomorphin, from casein, the primary protein in dairy
  
• Less potent variants also come from corn (zein), soy, and even spinach (rubiscolin)—but wheat and dairy are by far the most powerful and problematic
  

These peptides bind to the same opioid receptors in the brain that respond to drugs like morphine and heroin. The result? A flood of dopamine in your brain’s reward center. You feel comforted, relaxed, and emotionally “numbed” for a while—and your body wants more.

🍕 How They Lead to Overeating

These opioid peptides interfere with the body’s finely tuned hunger and satiety system in multiple ways:

1. They Hijack the Reward System

• Foods containing gliadorphins and casomorphins stimulate dopamine release, producing pleasure and comfort.
  
• This reward response becomes addictive, causing cravings that have nothing to do with true hunger.
  
• The more you eat these foods, the more your body associates them with emotional relief.
  

2. They Block Satiety Signals

• Normally, when you eat enough, hormones like leptin and cholecystokinin (CCK) tell your brain you’re full.
  
• Opioid peptides dampen these messages, allowing you to continue eating well past the point of biological need.
  

3. They Promote Emotional Eating

• Because they produce a sense of calm and pleasure, these foods are often used to self-soothe.
  
• Bread, cheese, and pasta become emotional crutches, eaten not for nourishment, but to numb stress or sadness.
  

4. They Disrupt Digestion

• From a physiological standpoint, these proteins are difficult to digest and unnatural to our frugivorous bodies.
  
• The incomplete digestion produces these opioid byproducts, creating a vicious cycle of enervation, toxicity, and craving.
  

🧬 The Worst Offenders

These foods combine opioid peptides with high fat, salt, and sugar, making them neurologically irresistible:

• Pizza (gluten + casein + fat + salt = addiction formula)
  
• Mac & cheese
  
• Cheese sandwiches and burgers
  
• Ice cream
  
• Pasta with cheese or cream sauce
  

They don’t just taste good—they chemically manipulate your brain.

🍃 Natural Hygiene Perspective: Why This Matters

According to the science of Natural Hygiene, the human body is designed to be guided by clean, honest biological signals. True hunger is felt in the throat, not the stomach. True satisfaction is light, energizing, and requires no stimulant.

Opioid peptides disrupt these signals by:

• Creating false hunger
  
• Overriding satiety
  
• Causing emotional dependence on food
  
• Enervating the system and leading to toxemia
  
• Fueling disease and dysfunction through chronic overeating and wrong food choices
  

Overeating is not just a behavioral problem—it’s often the result of being stimulated by foreign substances that never belonged in the human diet to begin with.

🍇 What Doesn’t Contain Opioid Peptides?

✅ Fruits
✅ Tender leafy greens
✅ Raw, properly combined plant foods

These foods:

• Do not produce opioid peptides
  
• Restore true hunger and natural satiety
  
• Don’t stimulate or sedate the nervous system
  
• Leave the mind clear, the emotions balanced, and the body energized
  

🌱 The Takeaway

If you’ve struggled with overeating, cravings, or emotional eating, the solution isn’t in self-control—it’s in removing the stimulants.

Wheat, dairy, and processed foods hijack your body’s natural intelligence. When you return to the Natural Human Diet, your cravings fade, your portions regulate naturally, and food becomes nourishment, not a drug.  

Ready to make changes but not sure how to begin? Need some motivation or accountability? Why not join our 30-Day Natural Human Diet Support and Education Group? New Groups start on the 1st of every month! https://www.therawkey.com/the-natural-diet-support-group/

Have more questions? Want to get answers about your specific health issues or concerns? I offer consultations, learn more about them here: https://www.therawkey.com/consultations/

Eat fruit and be well my friends.

Debunking the Carnivore Diet through a review of anatomy, physiology and cellular biology

Disclaimer: This article is provided for educational purposes only and reflects a Natural Hygiene (Terrain Model) perspective on health and nutrition. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any condition, and does not constitute veterinary or medical advice. The views expressed are independent of the conventional medical or veterinary industry, and all decisions regarding animal care or personal health care are the responsibility of the owner/individual.

As we have discussed in a previous article, Humans are Herbivores, frugivores herbivores, or fruit eaters. Despite the mountains of very clear and irrefutable evidence that leads to this conclusion, in recent years we have seen a growing number of fanatical people claiming humans are natural carnivores, or in some cases merely promoting what they call a carnivore diet.  In this series of articles, we will be addressing many facets of this issue.  In this part, we will address the evidence given to us by some tribal peoples as well as our human anatomy and physiology.  In later parts, we will examine the history of these claims, and we will even examine some of the institutions and presenters who promote these ideas of carnivory.  We will also discuss why carnivory is harmful, as well as how and why some people can get positive results from this type of program, as is commonly claimed by carnivore diet proponents.

Part 1:  Tribal Peoples and Comparative Anatomy

Tribal Peoples

One common concept that has been successfully proliferated in some health-seeking circles is that in a natural setting or according to some type of ancestral tenets, humans have always hunted and eaten meat.  The problem comes when we look at some tribal peoples that still live this way and we find that their lifespans are very short.  The Maasai tribe, recently famous for their meat-based diet and natural lifestyle, are reported to have an average lifespan in their 40s.  Another source puts their lifespan in the 50s.  Autopsies on Maasai indicate they suffer from notable or extensive atherosclerosis, even in their 40s.  Would such a short lifespan with notable chronic diet-induced disease conditions make sense if they lived as they were intended?  No, of course not.

The Maasai have also given us another piece of interesting evidence with their customs.  The Maasai men go on retreats where they indulge in large amounts of meat from cattle, sheep, and goats for up to 1 month at a time.  It is common that they develop diabetes or prediabetic markers during this time.  Quoting directly from the results of the observational study:

Participants more than doubled their energy intake from 2125.5 to 4690 calories. Prior to the stay, the average distribution of energy intake for carbohydrate, fat and protein was 67.1%, 23.6%, and 9.3% respectively, while this distribution during the stay was, 4.6%, 55.5% and 39.9%, respectively. Participants’ weight and cholesterol levels were significantly increased and half of participants developed disorders in their glucose metabolism. This reflects a temporary negative impact on their cardiovascular risk factors.

(https://globalhealth.ku.dk/news/2019/maasai-men-develop-lifestyle-diseases-during-calorie-saturated-health-refuge/)  

Here is the study on Maasai, done specifically through autopsy, which shows that they display “extensive atherosclerosis” despite their high level of physical fitness.  (https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/95/1/26/167903)

Inuits are another similar case.  They’re said to be living in their natural habitat and surviving on their diet yet they have comparably very short lifespans which are considerably shorter than the rest of Canada which eats more of a western diet replete with processed junk foods.  According to data from (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/82-003-x/2008001/article/10463/4149059-eng.htm) the Inuit life expectancy was as low as 29 years in the 1940s, which was less than half of the average Canadian who lived to 66 at that time.  This gap has narrowed over the years but Inuit do still lag behind the rest of Canada for health outcomes and life expectancy and live longer the more they seem to assimilate typical Canadian diet and customs.

So if a population is living in their natural state and eating natural food, why would their lifespan be significantly shorter than people living in a totally unnatural way?  At some point we must look at the larger picture and concede that something isn’t right.

The Larger Picture: Comparative Anatomy and Physiology

Digestive Design

This will cover teeth, jaw, stomach and stomach acid, the small intestine, the cecum, and the colon from the perspective of comparative anatomy.

Stomach Acid and Digestion

First, before we take a larger survey of our digestive system, I would like to address a common claim regarding stomach acid.  I am happy to concede that humans have the same stomach acid as lions.  It needs to be highlighted, however, that lions have the same stomach acid as sheep and cows.  In fact, all mammals as far as I’m aware (please correct me if anyone knows of an exception) produce hydrochloric acid for stomach acid. Therefore the relevant question is not, “how harsh is your stomach acid?” because lions, sheep, and humans all have the same stomach acid.

A more relevant question is, what is the environment of the stomach like? What is the concentration of that stomach acid in your stomach while digesting food? Lions have an average stomach pH so low they can digest whole bones. They can bite the hand right off your arm and swallow it and it will liquefy completely. Omnivores like wolves or bears can do this as well.

Of course, humans cannot digest bones. All obligate carnivores and all omnivores can digest bone in this manner, but humans cannot. Sure, we produce the same type of stomach acid that obligate carnivores do, but the overall pH of our stomachs does not allow us to digest bone the way that carnivores and omnivores can.

Teeth and Jaw

When we look at an animal’s teeth to try and discern their optimal diet, we are looking at their incisors, canines, and molars.

For herbivores,the front teeth, called incisors, should be prominent as they are generally used to sever plants with a bite.  Carnivores and omnivores have much less prevalent incisors, and their incisors tend to come to a fine point rather than an edge.  As humans, we of course have prominent and edged incisors just like herbivores.

If you look at carnivore or omnivore incisors, they are typically very small, being less than a quarter of the size of the adjacent canine.  While the function of incisors is largely the same across herbivores, omnivores and carnivores, the shape is different and they do function slightly differently.  Carnivores and omnivores have incisors that come to a point, whereas herbivores have incisors that form into a flat edge.  This seems to be designed for biting fruit and greens cleanly which are typically much softer than flesh.  Carnivore and omnivore incisors are sharper and the point allows them to nibble away at flesh or skin more easily.

Canines are a more ambiguous tooth as they serve a more diverse purpose.  Canines can be for tearing flesh, tearing the skin of fruit, and for social displays or combat.  There are many examples of herbivores which have large or prominent canines.

Perhaps the greatest example of an herbivore with prominent canines is the hippopotamus.  Despite eating only plants, hippos have massive canines they use to battle crocodiles, lions, leopards and hyenas.  

There is also a species of deer called the Sabre-Tooth Deer which despite being obligate herbivores has massive canines that look like fangs.  With the Sabre-Tooth Deer, it is only the males which have the large canines, and they seem to be used mostly for courting, territorial and mating disputes.

Gelada Baboons are yet another example.  They are the only primate which eats primarily grass, which makes up 90% of their diet, however, they have large canine fangs which they use for protection.

Camels also have prominent canines, despite an entirely herbivorous diet.  Camels use their canines to crush woody desert plants for food.

Molars can also be very diverse across different types of animals.  Carnivore and omnivore molars are meant to be able to cause significant shearing and snap bones, so they form points that are very hard and useful for cracking bones to get to the marrow.  Rather than meeting directly, they tend to pass and overlap so they are able to work almost like a pair of scissors.  Herbivores, on the other hand, exhibit varying degrees of flatness in their molars, and their molars meet so they can crush plant matter repeatedly.  Ruminants like cows can have very flat molars, while frugivore species have molars that form interlocking surface areas with peaks and valleys.

While not necessarily completely flat, they tend to be designed to chew the same type of plant matter over and over again, whereas carnivores and omnivores are designed to just tear pieces away so they can swallow them whole without much chewing.   Carnivore and omnivore stomach acid is much stronger, so there is less of a need for them to chew up their food thoroughly.  Herbivores get a lot of water from the plant matter they are designed to eat, and are designed to chew the same foods over and over again in order to pulverize the food in order to extract the water, and in the absence of an incredibly harsh environment within the stomach, this extra pulverizing in the mouth also makes food easier to digest and break down.

An additional piece of anatomy that seems to confirm this view is the jaw.  Carnivore and omnivore jaws work on a single powerful hinging joint which is on the same plane as the teeth.  This seems to be designed to inflict maximum bite power and shearing force, whereas herbivore jaws are more complex, with the jaw joint that hinges above the plane of the teeth.  They also possess less capacity for a powerful bite and the added complexity of the jaw joint also allows for side-to-side movement of the chin.  This side-to-side movement enables herbivores to reposition them with each chewing movement, chewing the same material over and over.
                                                                                               

Carnivores and omnivores cannot wag their chins back and forth the way humans can.  This is a property that is unique to herbivores because our jaws are designed to chew the same fibrous plant materials over and over in order to pulverize them so that we can extract the maximum water content and make them easier to digest and breakdown over the course of our longer digestive tracts.  For herbivores, digestion starts in the mouth; carnivores and omnivores seem to only be using their teeth and jaws to break up the material enough to swallow it.

And while not necessarily a 100% correlation, most herbivores also have an enzyme in their saliva called salivary amylase which helps to begin to digest and break down starches and sugars.  This is generally not present in omnivores and carnivores, but is generally present in herbivores.  Salivary amylase is present in humans. 

Fiber

It is also frequently cited that insoluble fiber has no nutritional components and is not able to be digested.  This is mostly true, however it still serves a purpose.  Not only does it sweep through our digestive tract which keeps it relatively clean, it also helps to house and proliferate digestive bacteria which are very important for our overall health.  Gut bacteria not only help digest our food, they also provide us with nutrition that can be difficult to get elsewhere.  They also help regulate our neurotransmitters.  And of course extra fiber also helps keep us having regular eliminations which is our largest avenue of detox and critical to good overall health.

Sometimes carnivore diet promoters will claim they utilize nearly 100% of the meat they eat and that they don’t need to have daily or any type of regular digestive elimination.  In a larger context, this makes no sense at all, because even though lions are designed to eat flesh and can digest bone, they still poop. All carnivore and omnivore mammalian species have regular and consistent bowel elimination. It makes absolutely no sense that humans eating meat will not need to poop. Will they poop less? Of course, because they’re not eating fiber. Fiber is an essential part of a healthy diet not because we get any value from it directly, but because it helps keep things moving throughout the gastrointestinal tract and it helps promote a healthy gut biome.

I am also willing to concede that because of the absence of fiber, flesh is able to liquefy or dissolve more than the average plant food.  However, not all of the constituents of flesh are useful or even healthy for us.  Though present in all types of meat, red meats and seafood are particularly high in purines, which break down into uric acid which can contribute to many health issues, such as gout, kidney stones and other kidney issues, arthritis, heart disease and heart failure.


Failure to eliminate waste is not a benefit. It’s a myth that humans are able to utilize all the meat they eat.  While after a series of chemical reactions we may be able to utilize some of the components of flesh, it still contains harmful compounds and still requires our liver and kidneys to deal with a greater burden than ideal plant-based options.  It is also a more laborious process to utilize the nutrition that is locked away within flesh.   We will look at part of this process in more detail in an upcoming section called, “Chemistry of Glucose, Protein and Fats.”

Digestive Tract

Next, in perhaps the most well known area of comparative anatomy, we will look at the length of the digestive tract.  The way this was initially conceived is to measure the length of the digestive tract not on its own, but to compare it to the length of the body cavity in which it rests.  

Carnivores and omnivores also tend to have much shorter digestive tracts than herbivores. Not only is their stomach acid much more harsh, but they also have harsher byproducts from the flesh they consume to contend with, so they possess a shorter digestive tract to eject waste more quickly.  Herbivores however require long digestive tracts to fully break down as much fibrous plant matter as possible and to separate water from food as much as possible.  Herbivores also absorb nutrition through the entirety of their digestive tracts, including their colons, whereas the colon of the omnivore and carnivore is very short and meant only to eject waste. 

This design is also illustrated specifically in the cecum, which is a section of the digestive tract between the small and large intestines.  Species that eat grass tend to have the most well- developed cecum, whereas species that thrive on meat have a very small cecum.  Just prior to the cecum, there is an ileocecal valve, which prevents food from going backwardbackwards up the digestive tract.  The cecum is also where further digestion and fermentation happens.  So there is a valve that protects the earlier part of the gastrointestinal tract from pressures that may accumulate due to fermentation, and then there is what appears to be a specialized fermentation chamber.  This may be why it seems to be more developed in herbivores which depend more on these processes to get the most out of their plant foods, whereas carnivores and omnivores do not require this process to extract all of their nutrition from their food.  Humans have a relatively large and well-developed cecum.

The entire process of digesting meat is faster and more harsh, whereas plant matter is a slower and more gradual process with less harmful byproducts, and so the entire design of the digestive tract appears to reflect this.  Carnivores and omnivores seem designed to be expecting to take in more toxins through their ideal food source, so their waste removal organs are more robust, their digestive tract is shorter, and they can easily accommodate this greater burden with regularity.  Humans have a relatively long digestive tract and relatively small waste removal organs, as well as a colon which is able to absorb nutrition; These are all characteristics of herbivores.

Chemistry of Glucose, Protein, and Fat

It is also important to note that all animals, be they carnivores, omnivores, or herbivores, utilize glucose within their bodies as their primary fuel source.  Carnivores and omnivores depend on gluconeogenesis and glycerols to get most of their glucose, whereas herbivores consume more glucose and depend less on these measures.

Gluconeogenesis takes place primarily in the liver, kidneys, and digestive tract, and is the process of refining protein or fat sources into usable glucose, amino acids, fatty acids and glycerol.  This process takes some energy and yields some byproducts, and can be considered less efficient than consuming glucose directly.  It is also worth noting that even when humans are operating in ketosis, studies show it takes 15 to 20 percent more calories to accomplish the same baseline tasks than if they were operating on glucose.  This seems to show that not only is glucose the true baseline fuel source for all animals, but it is also more efficient than fats or proteins for humans which is a strong indicator that fruit is our optimal food.

Protein Purpose and Utilization

On the topic of protein, T.C. Fry, a notable Natural Hygiene author, has offered another fascinating piece of the puzzle.  He compares the amount of protein present in the mother’s milk of different species.  I have copied his information into a table below:

The first number is the average number of days a newborn takes to double its weight. The second number is the average percentage of protein present in the mother’s milk of that species.

Species	Days to Double Weight	Average % of Protein in Milk
Man	180	1.6%
Horse	60	2%
Cow	47	3.5%
Goat	19	4.3%
Pig	18	5.9%
Sheep	10	6.5%
Dog	8	7.1%
Cat	7	9.5%

To quote T.C. Fry on protein:
The highest need for protein in the diet occurs for most animals during the above periods when the newborn is doubling its birth weight.  It is important that we realize the protein content in mother’s milk, the optimum food nature has provided for rapid growth of the young, is far below the usual foods that are recommended because of their protein content (such as meat, nuts, legumes, grains, etc.).  Protein is indeed important for growth, but we might well question the alleged necessity for concentrated, high-protein foods.

The second role of protein is in the repair of tissues or replacement of worn-out cells.  After an organism reaches its full growth (usually between 18 and 22 years for humans), protein is needed only to supply the loss incidental to tissue waste.  Cell degeneration and waste occur primarily because of toxicity in the body.  If we adopt a lifestyle and diet that introduces a minimal amount of toxins into the body, then tissue waste will decrease significantly.  As a result, actual protein needs will also diminish.  After an individual reaches adulthood, the only protein needs are for the repair and replacement of tissues that have deteriorated, due largely to body toxicity.

Protein is not used directly as fuel for the body or for muscular activity.  In muscular work, excretion of nitrogen as a result of protein usage increases only very slightly.  Instead, it is the excretion of carbonic acid and absorption of oxygen that increase.  These changes indicate that an expenditure of energy is derived mainly from non-nitrogenous foods (such as carbohydrates and fats) and not from protein.  It is true that the body can use protein to generate fuel for physical activity, but it does so by breaking the protein down into a carbohydrate form.  Protein is used as fuel only when there is either an excess of proteins or a lack of carbohydrates.  When this occurs, the body splits off the nitrogenous matter from the protein molecule and uses the remaining carbon contents to produce fuel.  This process not only involves a net loss of energy, but it also places an unnecessary strain on the liver, kidneys and other organs to eliminate the unusable nitrogenous wastes.

It is for this reason that the popular high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets in weight loss and also why they are dangerous.  Since the body has to expend so much energy in converting the excess protein into the needed carbohydrates for fuel, a net loss occurs in the body and the dieter loses weight.  At the same time, he also places a heavy burden on his kidneys to eliminate all the uric acid generated by this protein breakdown and simultaneously overworks an already exhausted liver.

If more physical activity is anticipated, it is only necessary to increase the carbohydrate intake of the diet.  Proteins are very poor in fuel-efficiency and do not aid directly or efficiently in muscular activity.

Check back soon for part 2 and more of this series! Or for further reading check out What is the Natural Human Diet? or The Nature and Purpose of Disease series!

Disclaimer: This article is provided for educational purposes only and reflects a Natural Hygiene (Terrain Model) perspective on health and nutrition. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any condition, and does not constitute veterinary or medical advice. The views expressed are independent of the conventional medical or veterinary industry, and all decisions regarding animal care or personal health care are the responsibility of the owner/individual.

First, let’s familiarize ourselves with DMSO and its reported effects on the body.

DMSO is classified as an anti-inflammatory and pain reliever drug which is marketed as a dietary supplement. It is also available by prescription as a pharmaceutical drug.

It has recently been promoted in the natural health and alternative health communities as a supplement. Its purported uses include treatments for:

Headache

Painful Bladder Syndrome

Shingles

Rheumatoid arthritis

Eye problems

Scars

Scleroderma (disease that causes scar tissue to form in the skin)

And an alternative Cancer Treatment

According to WebMD, the most frequent side effects from using DMSO on the skin include:

Stomach upset

Skin irritation

A strong odor of garlic

Using DMSO by mouth can cause:

Dizziness

Drowsiness

Nausea

Vomiting

Diarrhea

Constipation

Decreased appetite

More serious side effects include:

Severe allergic reactions

Headaches

Itching and burning when applied to the skin

DMSO can also be lethal to humans when used in high concentrations.

Now let’s look from a terrain perspective. Does this product trigger any expulsion symptoms in any humans?

Keep in mind that the more toxic our bodies become the less energy they have for expelling toxins. We look at humans as a whole; One individual may not get an expulsion symptom if their system lacks the vitality to expel toxins. However if some humans are reporting these expulsion symptoms then we can know that the substance is toxic to humans.

Looking at the list of side effects we see nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and decreased appetite. These are all expulsion symptoms. Expulsion symptoms tell us that the human body sees DMSO as a threat. This is a strong indication DMSO is harmful to our health.

Another thing to consider from the Terrain model perspective: What is the supposed benefit of the medicine or treatment?

DMSO is being marketed as a treatment for headaches, irritated bladder, rashes, shingles, inflammation, rheumatoid arthritis, eye problems, and scarring of tissues. Treatments are generally harmful to the body because the symptoms exist to promote the healing process; either to aid in the expulsion of toxic materials or in an attempt to create protections against them. This is why we refer to them as “expulsion symptoms” and are often part of a healing crisis.

The body also attempts to protect itself through the creation of inflammation, swelling, and formation of scar tissues or tumors to encapsulate the toxic chemistry. When the body lacks the vitality to expel toxins, it will use other methods to protect the cells from any toxic chemicals it cannot expel. This is most often accomplished by bringing water to the area to dilute the acidic chemistry, but may also include the creation of scar tissues or tumors to encapsulate.

Therefore the symptoms DMSO claims to stop are in reality the body’s natural attempts to clean, heal, and protect itself from waste which is generating the disease conditions. Not only does DMSO do nothing to remove the cause of the initial disease conditions, but it actively interferes with the body’s attempts to remove the waste while also adding to the total toxic burden in the body. While DMSO may provide some short-term relief from a given symptom in some cases, it is certainly not a cure but instead, it is a toxin. The body itself is in worse condition after DMSO has been ingested. DMSO would not be recommended if a return to health is the goal. A poison applied to the body may temporarily alter the symptoms created by the body, but the symptoms themselves are the cure for disease conditions, so stopping them is not helping the body, it is always hurting the body. As usual, from a Terrain Model perspective, we focus on supporting the body and its natural systems to remove the true cause of disease rather than the application of chemical bandaids and toxic remedies to suppress symptoms. One can never poison the body back to health.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for educational purposes only and reflects a Natural Hygiene (Terrain Model) perspective on health and nutrition. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any condition, and does not constitute veterinary or medical advice. The views expressed are independent of the conventional medical or veterinary industry, and all decisions regarding animal care or personal health care are the responsibility of the owner/individual.

by Dr. Herbert M. Shelton

We have received numerous requests for information about blood transfusions, blood banks (or, as, one correspondent called them “bloody banks”), and the desirability of donating blood to the sick and wounded. All this curiosity has been aroused by the frequent calls for blood and the many stories carried by the press of the great good accomplished by transfusions and by the use of the blood banks.

Our readers, despite the information they possess, are still very susceptible to voodooism’s propaganda. If the propaganda is persistent enough, or repeated often enough, or if its claims are great enough, they think there may be more to it than there is to other forms of propaganda.

That blood-transfusing is a hoax and a swindle; that it is only an expensive and dramatic piece of grand-stand play by voodooism’s white-robed priests; that it is a damaging and often fatal procedure, have been known for years; yet our readers seem to think there may be good in it.

On the other side of the picture, one of our readers in Rochester sent us what he calls a “good one.” He tells us that “the Red Cross is making its rounds in the Rochester industries to replenish its blood bank—or should I call it, its bloody bank? It has just completed its stay at Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester’s largest industry. Pressure was put upon all the workers to donate of their substance.

“Here is the procedure: A pint of blood is taken from the arm of each worker. After that, each one is ushered into a sort of traveling cafeteria. The worker is now given a treat for his donation. The treat is supposed to help him recover from his loss of blood. And here it is:

“Sandwiches of white bread and baloney or cheese or peanut butter, coffee, tea, or milk (pasteurized) with white sugar cookies—cigarettes—a shot of liquor!!

“These same blood donors (or suckers) are expected to give a new transfusion within two months. Perhaps the above offerings ought to make this entirely possible. Viva La Red Cross!”

The Red Cross, which is the left hand of the Medical Trust, may always be counted on to build up the blood of its victims with good white bread, spoiled meat, coffee, good white sugar, pasteurized milk, cigarettes, and booze. When the present world madness has ended and the world is being reorganized in a way to prevent its (mis)leaders from creating another hell on earth, the Red Cross must be sent to the same oblivion to which political organizations will go. The Red Cross must be punished by forcing it to spend eternity in the same padded cell with the A.M.A. Who was it dubbed the old harlot, “The Greatest Mother of Them All”?

The present vogue is to transfuse as often as possible and, if this does not result in death, credit the transfusion with recovery. Every recovery following transfusion is attributed to the transfusion. If the patient “fails to rally” and dies, this is due to other causes.

Deaths following transfusions are more frequent than the public is aware of and, while it is positive that the transfusions do often kill outright, there is no unquestionable proof that they ever save a life, or, even that they ever result in positive good.

Apparent successful results of transfusions are usually played up for the public, while the evident failures and damages are not given any great flare of publicity. Front page space is for the spectacular.

Blood transfusions were first made from animals. Later human blood was used. At first the blood was caught in a funnel as it spurted from the artery of the donor and sent through a tube into the veins of the patient. Later a method was devised that conveyed the blood directly from the donor’s artery to the vein of the receiver. Still later, instead of direct transfusions, “blood banks” were made by taking the blood, mixing it with an anti-clotting chemical and storing it until used. The latest development is that of “blood dust.” The blood plasma is dried in huge sausage skins and stored or shipped. Later this dust is mixed with distilled water and pumped into the veins. Or, if distilled water is unavailable, the unopened skins are immersed in ordinary water. The water passes through the skins, which filter out foreign matters from the water. Enough water passes through the skins to create a fluid “plasma.”

It should be recognized that the introduction of the blood of one individual into the body of another is the introduction, therein, of a foreign serum. True, it is human serum and, therefore, theoretically at least, should not produce the symptoms or reactions of serum poisoning—anaphylaxis. Actually, however, it does this very thing as we shall show often adding a few symptoms that are missing from serum poisoning.

Let me list the symptoms and evils which follow transfusions as given by these great surgeons—chills, nausea, vomiting, muscular pains, dyspnea (difficult breathing), cyanosis (blueness due to heart and circulatory difficulties), urticaria (nettle rash), headache, fatal hemolysis, (breaking up of the red blood cells), spasm of the un-striated (involuntary) muscles, asthmatic symptoms in the lungs, involuntary voiding of the urine and of the feces, acute edema (dropsical accumulation) of the lungs, hemorrhage, embolism (blood clot), and death. Hemolysis may occur without going far enough to result fatally. Some of these surgeons are convinced that in some conditions in which transfusions are employed, generally, those patients who receive the transfusion “will die sooner than those without.”

“Fatal anaphylaxis following blood transfusions,” “the deaths following usually in a few hours after transfusion” and occurring often in cases where “previous study of the blood had shown that they were entirely satisfactory,” should convince everyone that blood shown to be “entirely satisfactory” is not really satisfactory. I am sure that no blood would satisfy me which would kill me in a few hours, or, even in a few days.

The damages to the body listed above, as resulting from transfusions may seem to the reader to be enough. Yet there is no reason to doubt that all the tissue damages throughout the body, which result from all serums (foreign proteins), or serum sickness, also result from blood transfusion. The above-listed damages and symptoms are only the most prominent and most important ones among those that have been studied.

Does it not seem a bit strange that a patient who is very low, who perhaps, is thought to be almost at the point of death, and is fighting desperately with the little remaining strength which he has, should be subjected to such damaging, and deadly treatment? It is stranger still when we consider that the authorities themselves consider it to be valueless in most of the conditions in which they employ it and are hopelessly divided in their opinions about which conditions it is, or may be, of limited value in occasional cases.

Dr. Peterson is evidently correct when he says that “a procedure which lends itself so readily to commercial exploitation is apt to come in for a certain amount of abuse.”

Is meat beneficial because it is nutrient-dense? Should we be eating grass-fed beef because it is nutrient-dense?

Disclaimer: This article is provided for educational purposes only and reflects a Natural Hygiene (Terrain Model) perspective on health and nutrition. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any condition, and does not constitute veterinary or medical advice. The views expressed are independent of the conventional medical or veterinary industry, and all decisions regarding animal care or personal health care are the responsibility of the owner/individual.

Have you heard people saying they eat a nutrient-dense diet? Often those promoting non-human appropriate foods like grass-fed beef promote this false concept of nutrient density as though the amount of one specific nutrient in a food makes it beneficial and can cancel out all of the detrimental effects of a food. This falls under the more is better fallacy.

For example, the disease industry promotes cooked tomatoes because they are higher in lycopene, but they ignore the fact that cooking the tomato turns the organic minerals into inorganic minerals, making them unusable, that cooking destroys the vitamin C content of the tomatoes and that cooking results in a destruction of the enzymes and many other nutrients. More lycopene does not make the cooked tomato better than the raw tomato, in fact, the cooked tomato is significantly worse for our health.

Another example of this fallacy is when people promote eating animal tissues for iron. Animal tissues contain heme iron, while plants contain non-heme iron.

The claim is the body absorbs more heme iron but this is NOT a benefit, it is an injury to the body. The non-heme iron is usable, but the heme iron is not. Heme iron that comes from animal tissues increases the risk of cancer, stroke, heart disease, and metabolic syndrome. (see Heme vs Non-Heme Iron – https://nutritionfacts.org/…/the-safety-of-heme-vs-non…/ )

Fruits and lettuce greens are full of usable iron in appropriate amounts to meet the body’s needs without overwhelming the body. More is not better, more is often much worse. Just like getting in more calories than we need is detrimental or eating more protein than we need is the leading cause of cancer and chronic disease.

Nutrient density is not a factor that results in health. Nutrient assimilation is. It’s not about how much of any one nutrient we can get, but how much we can use and if the source is free from causing injury to our body. It doesn’t do any good to load up on a substance that is high in a specific nutrient if that substance also contains things that injure the body. For example, spinach is rich in calcium, but it is also full of oxalates. A small amount of spinach, with its small amount of oxalates is easily managed by the oxalobacter bacteria in our digestive tract, but eat a lot of spinach and you will find that your health begins to suffer.

But that is precisely what the nutrient-density promoters are doing. They are eating a substance – red meat – that poisons their body with ammonia laboring under the false idea that it is nutrient-dense and therefore healthy. Please don’t fall for their tricks.

HEALTH IS NOT ABOUT WHAT WE EAT BUT ABOUT WHAT WE CAN ASSIMILATE

Food constitutes some of the raw materials that become part of the overall nutritive processes that sustain our bodies. When our bodies receive food, it is broken down mechanically and chemically into components that can be absorbed and synthesized by our cells into substances usable by the body. Many people think about foods as having different actions on the body but in fact, food is inert and the body takes all actions upon the food.

To be appropriated for the use of the body, food must be first mechanically crushed, then mixed with digestive enzymes and acids to be chemically broken down into its smallest components. Those components, amino acids, fatty acids, sugars, vitamins, and minerals can then be transported through the walls of the digestive tract, into the bloodstream, and to the cells for use.

“Nutrition is a vital process carried on only by a living organism. It is a process of growth, development and invigoration. To eat good food and enough of it, to drink pure water and breathe pure air, in and of themselves, are very desirable, but something more is needed in order to acquire health, strength and vigor. Nutrition is dependent on function. We can have better nutritive function only when we have a capacity for better nutrition.

Food is of value only in its physiological connections with air, water, sunshine, rest and sleep, exercise or activity, cleanliness and wholesome mental and moral influences—in short, all the natural or normal circumstances which we know to be necessary for the preservation of health.” – Dr Herbert Shelton

Assimilation and utilization are oft overlooked when discussing nutrition. We can eat all ideal foods but if we aren’t able to assimilate or make use of those foods then they simply pass through our bodies wasted.

There are many factors that can affect our body’s ability to assimilate the nutrition we are giving it. Some of those factors are under our direct control, while others are a result of the long-term damage to our digestive tracts and take time for the body to be able to make the necessary repairs, clean out the backed-up waste that is inhibiting the cells from optimal performance and clean out the fat that is blocking nutrients from getting into our cells.

Sometimes this damage requires full physiological rest – water fasting – in order to fully repair. In those cases, fasting for a week or a few weeks can make more of a difference than many years of eating because we are, by resting fully, allowing the repair of the mechanisms that assimilate our foods. If those mechanisms are impaired then all of the eating we can do will never lead to health because what we eat is simply being wasted.

The primary factors that affect our capacity to process and assimilate are:

• CHEWING OUR FOODS THOROUGHLY

• EATING SLOWLY AND DELIBERATELY

• PROPER FOOD COMBINING

• MANAGING WATER INTAKE TO NOT DILUTE STOMACH ACIDS DURING A MEAL

• ALLOWING ADEQUATE TIME FOR THE FIRST MEAL TO EXIT

• OVEREATING

• EATING WHEN STRESSED, UPSET, OR EMOTIONAL

• EATING WHEN WE HAVE NO APPETITE OR WE HAVE STOMACH DISCOMFORT

Let’s look at each of these in a bit more detail.

CHEWING OUR FOOD

You may have heard the saying, “Digestion begins in the mouth.” Another favorite of mine is “Your stomach doesn’t have teeth, chew your food.” As we grow up on a predominantly cooked foods diet we lose some of our natural habits of thorough chewing. Cooked foods are soft and mushy and require very little chewing, so we develop a habit of just one or two bites and then swallowing. Unfortunately, this behavior not only leads to poor digestion of foods and limits the assimilation of foods leading to indigestion, acid reflux, fermentation, and upset stomach, but it also leads to the slow destruction of our teeth. Chewing thoroughly strengthens the teeth, and the opposite minimal chewing means less blood flow and thereby fewer nutrients brought to the teeth for the teeth to be rebuilt and strengthened. Over time this lack very slowly breaks down teeth from the inside out.

When we eat we should be chewing food until it reaches a liquid state. If we swallow before this we are making it much more difficult for our digestive tract to break down foods and we will find that we are not getting as much out of our foods as we should be. The side effects of this are bloating, gas, fermentation, and overeating because we aren’t giving time for the full signal to register, and in more extreme cases excessive weight loss can result from the foods simply passing through our system without being utilized.

EATING SLOWLY AND DELIBERATELY

In modern times it is common to eat on the run, while working at our desk, or to snack in front of the television. In all these instances we are often not focusing on the slow and deliberate eating of our foods but are instead wolfing foods down, eating quickly, chewing very little, swallowing before foods are properly chewed, and as a result overeating because we eat faster than our full sensor can communicate back to us.

As we transition back to the natural diet it’s important to recenter our focus on setting time aside to eat in a relaxed fashion where we focus just on the meal and our eating habits. Slowing down can make a big difference in how much of our food we assimilate. When we focus on what we are eating we eat less, we chew more and we digest better because we are relaxed. When we eat on the run we end up doing the exact opposite of all of that.

PROPER FOOD COMBINING

Foods require various enzymes to digest. Digestive enzymes are proteins that your body makes to break down food and aid digestion. There are different enzymes for starches versus proteins and different enzymes to break down fat versus enzymes for carbohydrates.

These enzymes are meant to be used one at a time to digest just one type of food, as a result, many of these enzymes cancel each other out when two different types of foods are ingested. When this happens, neither food is properly digested.

If we put a carbohydrate and fat in the stomach at the same time the digestive enzymes work against each other and instead of digesting and assimilating the foods, both foods remain undigested and begin to ferment or putrefy inside our digestive tract leading to gas and bloating.

When this occurs the body is unable to utilize the nutrients in the food and instead the wasted food is rushed out of the body to avoid fermentation or putrefaction from releasing too much alcohol or ammonia into our system.

If we regularly combine foods in a way that is contradictory then this can lead to excessive weight loss as the body is not utilizing nutrition. On the opposite end, if we are having a lot of food fermenting in our system the excess alcohol or ammonia can also result in weight gain.

The biggest indicator of proper digestion is that we are not getting any bloating or discomfort after a meal.

MANAGING WATER INTAKE TO NOT DILUTE STOMACH ACIDS DURING A MEAL

Waiting at least 15 minutes after drinking to start eating allows the water to exit the stomach and not dilute the digestive acids. We also need to avoid drinking water during a meal or too soon after a meal for the same reason.

If we dilute our stomach acids then we can end up with fermentation, gas, and bloating or we can also experience acid reflux or indigestion.

The best way to manage drinking water is to drink early in the day before your first meal. Then drink prior to each meal just before you prepare your meal. Avoid drinking water for at least 1 hour after eating, preferably 2-3 hours.

ALLOWING ADEQUATE TIME FOR THE FIRST MEAL TO EXIT

Eating too often can lead to food mixing in the stomach which can result in the same issues mentioned above regarding food combinations. While transitioning it may be necessary to eat more meals per day to get in enough calories, but we want to make sure that the food from the last meal has had time to move out of the stomach before putting in the current meal.

As we eat more and more raw foods our stomach will naturally stretch to accommodate the bulky water-rich foods, making eating just two or three meals a day much more natural, but in the short term, we may need to eat five or six meals a day to meet our calorie needs.

We can avoid foods running into each other by eating fast-digesting watery fruits early in the day, followed by slower digesting denser fruits next, and then salad greens and then nuts and seed and dehydrated foods late in the day. Or by allowing at least 1 hour for watery fruits, 2-3 hours for dense fruits, and 4-6 hours for everything else.

OVEREATING

When we are dealing with excessive thinness on the natural diet it can be our natural inclination to keep trying to stuff in more and more food leading to overeating. Also, we may carry over habits of overeating from our cooked foods diet, looking for that stimulation that we get from the harmful effects of the cooked foods. Other times we overeat when we are stressed out or upset because we have learned this habit as a coping mechanism.

Whatever the reason, overeating overtaxes the stomach and digestive tract to a point where the foods being put in are not being properly utilized and are instead being rushed through without the benefit of assimilation. These are wasted meals, but they are also a waste of our precious nerve energy.

“The overstimulation of the physiological functions, which results from over-eating, weakens and impairs them through overwork. Fasting reverses this and permits them to recuperate. During the rest thus afforded, these organs are enabled to repair their damaged structures and restore their lagging energies, thus they are prepared for renewed function and are given a new lease on life. A fast is to the organs of the body what a night of restful repose is to the tired laborer.

Digestion and assimilation of food are a tax on the vital powers of the organism and increase the work of the stomach, liver, intestines, heart, lungs, kidneys, glands, etc. The more food eaten the more work these already overworked organs are called upon to perform. How can increasing the work of these organs help the sick? If feeding does not prevent sickness how may overfeeding restore health?” – Dr Herbert Shelton

Overeating results in bloating, fatigue, undigested foods in our stool, constant hunger (because nothing we eat is being utilized), indigestion, and many other symptoms. Eating more slowly and deliberately can help to improve digestion and avoid overeating. Eating whole foods and chewing them thoroughly helps to slow us down. Also, focus only on eating when eating, and do not try to multitask. Stop what you are doing, enjoy your meal, eat slowly and deliberately, and then the body will have time to signal you when the stomach reaches capacity.

EATING WHEN STRESSED, UPSET, OR EMOTIONAL

When we are under stress or emotional strain our digestive system shuts down. One of the ways that I learned to cope with stress in my life was through eating. I think there are a lot of people out there like me, who have used food as a pacifier whenever life didn’t go as planned. Unfortunately, this habit we develop is terrible for our digestion. Try your best to avoid eating when upset. Instead, sip water and try to focus on the problem at hand until it is resolved, then resume eating once the stress has passed. By doing so you will avoid the fatigue and fermentation of sluggish digestion and your mind will be clear and you will be calmer and better able to remedy the stressful situation effectively.

EATING WHEN WE HAVE NO APPETITE OR WE HAVE STOMACH DISCOMFORT

Our body communicates to us when it is in need of a break from food. Nausea, lack of appetite, a burning stomach, or any sort of uncomfortable feelings in the stomach are all signs from the body to skip the next meal. The more we obey these communications the better our health will become.

If we follow these guidelines we can improve digestion and assimilation which leads to greater energy for healing and activity and avoidance of any digestive discomfort. Eating with focus and intention can help to quickly correct any of the bad habits we have learned along the way.

Have more questions? Want to get answers about your specific health issues or concerns? I offer consultations, learn more about them here: https://www.therawkey.com/consultations/

Ready to make changes but not sure how to begin? Need some motivation or accountability? Why not join our 30-Day Terrain Model Diet Support and Education Group? New Groups start on the 1st of every month! https://www.therawkey.com/the-natural-diet-support-group/

Eat fruit and be well my friends.Have you heard people saying they eat a nutrient-dense diet? Often those promoting non-human appropriate foods like grass-fed beef promote this false concept of nutrient density as though the amount of one specific nutrient in a food makes it beneficial and can cancel out all of the detrimental effects of a food. This falls under the more is better fallacy.

For example, the disease industry promotes cooked tomatoes because they are higher in lycopene, but they ignore the fact that cooking the tomato turns the organic minerals into inorganic minerals, making them unusable, that cooking destroys the vitamin C content of the tomatoes and that cooking results in a destruction of the enzymes and many other nutrients. More lycopene does not make the cooked tomato better than the raw tomato, in fact, the cooked tomato is significantly worse for our health.

Another example of this fallacy is when people promote eating animal tissues for iron. Animal tissues contain heme iron, while plants contain non-heme iron.

The claim is the body absorbs more heme iron but this is NOT a benefit, it is an injury to the body. The non-heme iron is usable, but the heme iron is not. Heme iron that comes from animal tissues increases the risk of cancer, stroke, heart disease, and metabolic syndrome. (see Heme vs Non-Heme Iron – https://nutritionfacts.org/…/the-safety-of-heme-vs-non…/ )

Fruits and lettuce greens are full of usable iron in appropriate amounts to meet the body’s needs without overwhelming the body. More is not better, more is often much worse. Just like getting in more calories than we need is detrimental or eating more protein than we need is the leading cause of cancer and chronic disease.

Nutrient density is not a factor that results in health. Nutrient assimilation is. It’s not about how much of any one nutrient we can get, but how much we can use and if the source is free from causing injury to our body. It doesn’t do any good to load up on a substance that is high in a specific nutrient if that substance also contains things that injure the body. For example, spinach is rich in calcium, but it is also full of oxalates. A small amount of spinach, with its small amount of oxalates is easily managed by the oxalobacter bacteria in our digestive tract, but eat a lot of spinach and you will find that your health begins to suffer.

But that is precisely what the nutrient-density promoters are doing. They are eating a substance – red meat – that poisons their body with ammonia laboring under the false idea that it is nutrient-dense and therefore healthy. Please don’t fall for their tricks.

HEALTH IS NOT ABOUT WHAT WE EAT BUT ABOUT WHAT WE CAN ASSIMILATE

Food constitutes some of the raw materials that become part of the overall nutritive processes that sustain our bodies. When our bodies receive food, it is broken down mechanically and chemically into components that can be absorbed and synthesized by our cells into substances usable by the body. Many people think about foods as having different actions on the body but in fact, food is inert and the body takes all actions upon the food.

To be appropriated for the use of the body, food must be first mechanically crushed, then mixed with digestive enzymes and acids to be chemically broken down into its smallest components. Those components, amino acids, fatty acids, sugars, vitamins, and minerals can then be transported through the walls of the digestive tract, into the bloodstream, and to the cells for use.

“Nutrition is a vital process carried on only by a living organism. It is a process of growth, development and invigoration. To eat good food and enough of it, to drink pure water and breathe pure air, in and of themselves, are very desirable, but something more is needed in order to acquire health, strength and vigor. Nutrition is dependent on function. We can have better nutritive function only when we have a capacity for better nutrition.

Food is of value only in its physiological connections with air, water, sunshine, rest and sleep, exercise or activity, cleanliness and wholesome mental and moral influences—in short, all the natural or normal circumstances which we know to be necessary for the preservation of health.” – Dr Herbert Shelton

Assimilation and utilization are oft overlooked when discussing nutrition. We can eat all ideal foods but if we aren’t able to assimilate or make use of those foods then they simply pass through our bodies wasted.

There are many factors that can affect our body’s ability to assimilate the nutrition we are giving it. Some of those factors are under our direct control, while others are a result of the long-term damage to our digestive tracts and take time for the body to be able to make the necessary repairs, clean out the backed-up waste that is inhibiting the cells from optimal performance and clean out the fat that is blocking nutrients from getting into our cells.

Sometimes this damage requires full physiological rest – water fasting – in order to fully repair. In those cases, fasting for a week or a few weeks can make more of a difference than many years of eating because we are, by resting fully, allowing the repair of the mechanisms that assimilate our foods. If those mechanisms are impaired then all of the eating we can do will never lead to health because what we eat is simply being wasted.

The primary factors that affect our capacity to process and assimilate are:

• CHEWING OUR FOODS THOROUGHLY

• EATING SLOWLY AND DELIBERATELY

• PROPER FOOD COMBINING

• MANAGING WATER INTAKE TO NOT DILUTE STOMACH ACIDS DURING A MEAL

• ALLOWING ADEQUATE TIME FOR THE FIRST MEAL TO EXIT

• OVEREATING

• EATING WHEN STRESSED, UPSET, OR EMOTIONAL

• EATING WHEN WE HAVE NO APPETITE OR WE HAVE STOMACH DISCOMFORT

Let’s look at each of these in a bit more detail.

CHEWING OUR FOOD

You may have heard the saying, “Digestion begins in the mouth.” Another favorite of mine is “Your stomach doesn’t have teeth, chew your food.” As we grow up on a predominantly cooked foods diet we lose some of our natural habits of thorough chewing. Cooked foods are soft and mushy and require very little chewing, so we develop a habit of just one or two bites and then swallowing. Unfortunately, this behavior not only leads to poor digestion of foods and limits the assimilation of foods leading to indigestion, acid reflux, fermentation, and upset stomach, but it also leads to the slow destruction of our teeth. Chewing thoroughly strengthens the teeth, and the opposite minimal chewing means less blood flow and thereby fewer nutrients brought to the teeth for the teeth to be rebuilt and strengthened. Over time this lack very slowly breaks down teeth from the inside out.

When we eat we should be chewing food until it reaches a liquid state. If we swallow before this we are making it much more difficult for our digestive tract to break down foods and we will find that we are not getting as much out of our foods as we should be. The side effects of this are bloating, gas, fermentation, and overeating because we aren’t giving time for the full signal to register, and in more extreme cases excessive weight loss can result from the foods simply passing through our system without being utilized.

EATING SLOWLY AND DELIBERATELY

In modern times it is common to eat on the run, while working at our desk, or to snack in front of the television. In all these instances we are often not focusing on the slow and deliberate eating of our foods but are instead wolfing foods down, eating quickly, chewing very little, swallowing before foods are properly chewed, and as a result overeating because we eat faster than our full sensor can communicate back to us.

As we transition back to the natural diet it’s important to recenter our focus on setting time aside to eat in a relaxed fashion where we focus just on the meal and our eating habits. Slowing down can make a big difference in how much of our food we assimilate. When we focus on what we are eating we eat less, we chew more and we digest better because we are relaxed. When we eat on the run we end up doing the exact opposite of all of that.

PROPER FOOD COMBINING

Foods require various enzymes to digest. Digestive enzymes are proteins that your body makes to break down food and aid digestion. There are different enzymes for starches versus proteins and different enzymes to break down fat versus enzymes for carbohydrates.

These enzymes are meant to be used one at a time to digest just one type of food, as a result, many of these enzymes cancel each other out when two different types of foods are ingested. When this happens, neither food is properly digested.

If we put a carbohydrate and fat in the stomach at the same time the digestive enzymes work against each other and instead of digesting and assimilating the foods, both foods remain undigested and begin to ferment or putrefy inside our digestive tract leading to gas and bloating.

When this occurs the body is unable to utilize the nutrients in the food and instead the wasted food is rushed out of the body to avoid fermentation or putrefaction from releasing too much alcohol or ammonia into our system.

If we regularly combine foods in a way that is contradictory then this can lead to excessive weight loss as the body is not utilizing nutrition. On the opposite end, if we are having a lot of food fermenting in our system the excess alcohol or ammonia can also result in weight gain.

The biggest indicator of proper digestion is that we are not getting any bloating or discomfort after a meal.

MANAGING WATER INTAKE TO NOT DILUTE STOMACH ACIDS DURING A MEAL

Waiting at least 15 minutes after drinking to start eating allows the water to exit the stomach and not dilute the digestive acids. We also need to avoid drinking water during a meal or too soon after a meal for the same reason.

If we dilute our stomach acids then we can end up with fermentation, gas, and bloating or we can also experience acid reflux or indigestion.

The best way to manage drinking water is to drink early in the day before your first meal. Then drink prior to each meal just before you prepare your meal. Avoid drinking water for at least 1 hour after eating, preferably 2-3 hours.

ALLOWING ADEQUATE TIME FOR THE FIRST MEAL TO EXIT

Eating too often can lead to food mixing in the stomach which can result in the same issues mentioned above regarding food combinations. While transitioning it may be necessary to eat more meals per day to get in enough calories, but we want to make sure that the food from the last meal has had time to move out of the stomach before putting in the current meal.

As we eat more and more raw foods our stomach will naturally stretch to accommodate the bulky water-rich foods, making eating just two or three meals a day much more natural, but in the short term, we may need to eat five or six meals a day to meet our calorie needs.

We can avoid foods running into each other by eating fast-digesting watery fruits early in the day, followed by slower digesting denser fruits next, and then salad greens and then nuts and seed and dehydrated foods late in the day. Or by allowing at least 1 hour for watery fruits, 2-3 hours for dense fruits, and 4-6 hours for everything else.

OVEREATING

When we are dealing with excessive thinness on the natural diet it can be our natural inclination to keep trying to stuff in more and more food leading to overeating. Also, we may carry over habits of overeating from our cooked foods diet, looking for that stimulation that we get from the harmful effects of the cooked foods. Other times we overeat when we are stressed out or upset because we have learned this habit as a coping mechanism.

Whatever the reason, overeating overtaxes the stomach and digestive tract to a point where the foods being put in are not being properly utilized and are instead being rushed through without the benefit of assimilation. These are wasted meals, but they are also a waste of our precious nerve energy.

“The overstimulation of the physiological functions, which results from over-eating, weakens and impairs them through overwork. Fasting reverses this and permits them to recuperate. During the rest thus afforded, these organs are enabled to repair their damaged structures and restore their lagging energies, thus they are prepared for renewed function and are given a new lease on life. A fast is to the organs of the body what a night of restful repose is to the tired laborer.

Digestion and assimilation of food are a tax on the vital powers of the organism and increase the work of the stomach, liver, intestines, heart, lungs, kidneys, glands, etc. The more food eaten the more work these already overworked organs are called upon to perform. How can increasing the work of these organs help the sick? If feeding does not prevent sickness how may overfeeding restore health?” – Dr Herbert Shelton

Overeating results in bloating, fatigue, undigested foods in our stool, constant hunger (because nothing we eat is being utilized), indigestion, and many other symptoms. Eating more slowly and deliberately can help to improve digestion and avoid overeating. Eating whole foods and chewing them thoroughly helps to slow us down. Also, focus only on eating when eating, and do not try to multitask. Stop what you are doing, enjoy your meal, eat slowly and deliberately, and then the body will have time to signal you when the stomach reaches capacity.

EATING WHEN STRESSED, UPSET, OR EMOTIONAL

When we are under stress or emotional strain our digestive system shuts down. One of the ways that I learned to cope with stress in my life was through eating. I think there are a lot of people out there like me, who have used food as a pacifier whenever life didn’t go as planned. Unfortunately, this habit we develop is terrible for our digestion. Try your best to avoid eating when upset. Instead, sip water and try to focus on the problem at hand until it is resolved, then resume eating once the stress has passed. By doing so you will avoid the fatigue and fermentation of sluggish digestion and your mind will be clear and you will be calmer and better able to remedy the stressful situation effectively.

EATING WHEN WE HAVE NO APPETITE OR WE HAVE STOMACH DISCOMFORT

Our body communicates to us when it is in need of a break from food. Nausea, lack of appetite, a burning stomach, or any sort of uncomfortable feelings in the stomach are all signs from the body to skip the next meal. The more we obey these communications the better our health will become.

If we follow these guidelines we can improve digestion and assimilation which leads to greater energy for healing and activity and avoidance of any digestive discomfort. Eating with focus and intention can help to quickly correct any of the bad habits we have learned along the way.

Have more questions? Want to get answers about your specific health issues or concerns? I offer consultations, learn more about them here: https://www.therawkey.com/consultations/

Ready to make changes but not sure how to begin? Need some motivation or accountability? Why not join our 30-Day Terrain Model Diet Support and Education Group? New Groups start on the 1st of every month! https://www.therawkey.com/the-natural-diet-support-group/

Eat fruit and be well my friends.