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Understanding Why Numbers Can Mislead and How True Health is Determined by the Body’s Vital Functions

From a terrain model and Natural Hygiene perspective, bloodwork is not considered beneficial, helpful, or truly indicative of disease because it reflects only a momentary snapshot of the body’s adaptive processes rather than its overall state of health. The body is inherently self-regulating, self-healing, and governed by natural biological intelligence. It is never defective or in need of micromanagement; instead, it is constantly working to maintain balance, also called homeostasis.

When symptoms arise or blood values fluctuate, these changes are adaptive or eliminative responses. These changes are evidence that the body is actively correcting internal imbalances, eliminating toxins, or responding to temporary influences such as stress, diet, rest, or emotional state. Therefore, bloodwork does not reveal a disease but merely the current condition of the internal terrain, which is always in flux.

Why Blood Tests Misrepresent Health

In Natural Hygiene, health is defined not by numerical lab values but by vitality, harmony, and the unimpeded functioning of the organism. As Dr. Herbert Shelton explained, “Disease is a remedial effort, a struggle of the vital powers to purify the system and recover the normal state.”

Blood composition changes continuously depending on what the body is processing or eliminating. If the body is fasting, cleansing, or under emotional stress, blood chemistry naturally shifts to support these functions. To interpret such fluctuations as abnormal ignores the body’s intelligence and the contextual nature of physiology.

Medical interpretation of blood results assumes that health is static, that all bodies should conform to fixed laboratory averages derived from chronically sick populations. In reality, no two people or animals share identical blood chemistry. A so-called abnormal value may simply indicate that the body is cleansing, resting, fasting, or repairing damaged tissue.

The Error of Diagnosing by Effects

The disease model of medicine misinterprets adaptive effects as causes. When the body raises white blood cells to cleanse debris, this can be labeled infection. When the liver increases enzyme activity during detoxification, this can be labeled as liver failure. When cholesterol rises to repair tissue damage, it can be labeled as heart disease.

Natural Hygiene teaches that what medicine calls a disease marker is simply an effect of systemic adjustment, or a reflection of the body’s intelligent effort to restore balance. Focusing on the effect while ignoring the cause is, as Shelton warned, “chasing shadows while the real substance of disease – the violation of the laws of life – goes unaddressed.”

When Blood Tests Lead to Harm

Because the medical model misreads the body’s intelligent responses as pathology, interventions often interfere with or suppress healing and create suffering. Here are real examples illustrating how reliance on bloodwork can mislead and cause injury:

Cat Wrongly Euthanized for Liver Failure
A cat was overweight and began losing weight after switching to a more natural diet and fasting. A blood test showed elevated liver enzymes. The veterinarian interpreted this as liver failure, when in truth the liver was performing its natural duty. It was processing stored fat and toxins as the body detoxified. The elevation was temporary and adaptive. Misreading this normal healing process, the vet pressured the owner to euthanize. Had the cat been allowed to rest and fast naturally, the blood levels would have normalized, and the liver would have recovered from years of dietary abuse.  Fasting never causes injury to the body; it is the most powerful healing process available to both man and animal alike.   But in this case, bloodwork taken from a healing body led to needless death because of a lack of understanding on the part of both the animal’s owner and the vet. In this case, the misunderstanding of health perpetuated by the disease industry had a fatal result.   

False Thyroid Failure After Injury
A woman dislocated her shoulder and went to the emergency room. Before offering care, staff demanded bloodwork. Under extreme pain and stress, her thyroid values appeared critically low, and she was told she needed lifelong medication and to start immediately. Fortunately, she refused. Two weeks later, with rest and recovery, having healed the injury, she got another test from an independent lab, not disclosing prior diagnosis, and her thyroid levels were completely normal. The stress-induced readings could have led to unnecessary drugging and damage, another case where misinterpreting adaptive changes as pathology nearly caused harm.  Luckily, in this case, my client was already well-educated in health and did not succumb to the pressure of the false diagnosis. However, many more are uneducated and rely on the medical system to guide them, causing serious and long-term damage to their health. 

When Blood Tests Lead to Harm: Anemia, Sodium, and the Dangers of IVs

Perhaps the most frequent medical harm is when someone arrives at a hospital dehydrated, weak, confused, or delirious. Conventional medicine interprets the situation entirely through a narrow, mechanical, reductionist blood-value lens, rather than seeing the entire holistically minded and biologically based picture. The dominant medical narrative assumes symptoms arise from deficiencies or an attack from an outside entity, a virus, bacteria, or parasite, rather than from the dehydration, toxic burden, lymph stagnation, and impaired elimination that are the true causes of disease.   (This narrative helps to sell their most profitable products – antibiotics, antivirals, and chemotherapy. Without an outside invading force, you cannot justify applying poisons to the body of your customer.) 

From that framework, two blood values immediately trigger intervention: sodium and hemoglobin/hematocrit.  Low sodium is framed as a dangerous electrolyte deficiency. Low hemoglobin is framed as severe anemia.

Once these labels are applied, the standard responses follow automatically: IV saline to raise sodium and blood volume, and blood transfusions to raise red blood cell counts.

From the medical perspective, this appears logical. Saline expands plasma volume and raises blood pressure. Transfused blood temporarily increases oxygen-carrying capacity. These actions stimulate the system, often producing short-term improvements in alertness, blood pressure, and laboratory values. Both doctor and patient are then led to believe the treatment is working.  

From a Natural Hygiene perspective, however, these effects are not healing because they have not addressed the root cause of any ongoing issues. This is acute stimulation from poisons and unnatural intervention.  Working is not the same as healing.   

Healing is often marked by symptoms like fatigue, mucus production, coughing, sneezing, and other elimination symptoms, as the body seeks to remove poisons or expel damaged cellular waste. Rather than accept these uncomfortable but necessary consequences as our body cleans, medicine seeks to suppress these cleaning symptoms, which effectively stops healing.   For example, the medical model always seeks to stop the cold or flu; however, the body creates the cold as the cure for chronic disease and a backlog of waste.   

IV Saline: Forced Chemistry, Not Hydration

Normal saline is an inorganic salt solution injected directly into the bloodstream, bypassing all digestive and regulatory safeguards. Inorganic sodium chloride is a cellular irritant and biocide. Its injection forces fluid shifts, stresses the kidneys, acidifies tissues, and damages vascular integrity.  This is why IV Saline leads to 50,000 to 80,000 deaths each year, learn more about The Dangers of Saline Drips. https://www.therawkey.com/the-dangers-of-saline-drips/

The temporary rise in blood pressure or mental clarity does not indicate repair. It reflects stress-driven compensation, which is the body being shocked into action, not restored to balance.

True hydration occurs through pure water, absorbed and regulated by the body according to need, through natural channels. Saline does not hydrate tissues in a biological sense; it disrupts osmotic balance and burdens elimination, and it does so by being injected directly into the bloodstream, rather than filtered through digestion.

Blood Transfusions: Stimulation Masquerading as Rescue

Blood transfusions operate under the same illusion. Transfused blood is foreign serum, chemically altered, preserved, and biologically incompatible. Its introduction provokes inflammatory reactions, hemolysis, vascular stress, and increased clotting risk.  It’s a massive burden of acute poisoning, which stimulates the body into a heightened stress response. 

The transient boost in energy or improved complexion is again stimulation, not regeneration.

Stimulation is akin to the red alert, all hands on deck response on a ship, everyone is racing around to deal with the emergency, but once the emergency is over, the crew is exhausted.  The same is true for our body.  The use of stimulants borrows from tomorrow’s energy to deal with a survival requirement today, but by doing so, we are robbing our body of vitality long term.  

The body must then divert enormous energy toward neutralizing and eliminating this foreign material, often accelerating decline once the temporary stimulation wears off.  This is precisely why blood transfusions show such poor long-term survival rates after the initial apparent improvement.

What Bloodwork Misses Entirely

In cases of dehydration-induced weakness and delirium, the hospital’s first response is to stimulate the patient with IV saline and a blood transfusion, two of the most dangerous and highest mortality medical treatments.   The real issue is water depletion, toxin concentration, and impaired circulation of waste, not a lack of salt or someone else’s blood.

As the body dehydrates, blood thickens, lymph stagnates, and toxins become more concentrated. Mental confusion and weakness are protective signals that the system is overwhelmed. Flooding this terrain with saline or transfused blood further burdens circulation and elimination, even if symptoms are briefly masked.

This is why these interventions are repeatedly credited with saving lives, while their downstream damage is rarely acknowledged. Medicine evaluates success by short-term stabilization and lab normalization, not by long-term tissue integrity or true recovery. When symptoms improve briefly, the treatment is praised. When deterioration or death follows, it is blamed on underlying disease, age, or bad genetics. In other words, the hospital takes all the credit for positive outcomes and none of the credit for the negative outcomes they cause.  

From a terrain-based view, neither saline nor transfusions creates health. They interrupt the body’s intelligent response to dehydration and toxicity, replace biological regulation with forced manipulation of internal chemistry, and trade immediate symptoms for deeper injury.  The body does not need stimulation to heal. Stimulation is an injury response. The body needs pure water, rest, warmth, and removal of burdens to heal. 

To learn more about the significant dangers of blood transfusions, read https://www.therawkey.com/blood-transfusions/

The Terrain Perspective: The Body as Its Own Laboratory

Natural Hygiene rejects the idea that health must be verified through chemical analysis. The body is its own laboratory – it constantly tests, adjusts, and corrects itself through sensation, appetite, rest, elimination, and vitality. As Dr. Carrington wrote, “So-called disease is the process of cure itself.”

When we replace faith in our own senses with fear of laboratory numbers, we surrender to the illusion that health can be managed externally. True healing never comes from measuring, medicating, or manipulating. It arises only when the causes of disease, which are generally toxemia, wrong food, exhaustion, emotional tension, and poisoning, are removed and the conditions of health are restored.

Why Blood Tests Create Fear Instead of Healing

Every test carries the potential to plant fear and distrust in the body’s own processes. Anxiety before, during, and after testing alters blood chemistry, which can make the results themselves unreliable. The procedure of drawing blood is also a small physical insult; it momentarily disturbs the balance of internal fluids and can activate stress responses.  These stress responses can then alter the chemistry of the blood, resulting in a false diagnosis.

Worse, the interpretation of results often drives people away from healing. When a doctor says, “Your numbers are bad,” people rush to suppress symptoms rather than remove causes. This fear-based cycle leads to endless testing, drugs, and damage.  If we persist in chasing blood work numbers and diagnoses, then we often ignore the true path to healing, which is accomplished through rest, fasting, hydration, proper foods, sunshine, and emotional peace.

What to Observe Instead

True assessment of health lies in the observation of vitality:

• Steady energy throughout the day
  
• Deep, restful sleep
  
• Regular elimination and clear urine
  
• Clear skin, bright eyes, and easy breathing
  
• Cheerful mood and emotional balance
  
• Natural appetite and enjoyment of raw, living foods
  

These signs cannot be measured by a laboratory. They can only be lived, observed, and nurtured.

In Summary

Bloodwork cannot meaningfully diagnose or define health because it fails to account for the body’s dynamic, self-correcting nature. Health is not measured by static numbers but expressed through vitality and harmony. When we stop trying to analyze and control the body, and instead supply its true needs – clean air, pure water, raw foods, rest, sunlight, and peace – it restores its own balance perfectly.

Learn More

• The Nature and Purpose of Disease Series – Understand why symptoms are signs of healing, not sickness. https://www.therawkey.com/the-nature-and-purpose-of-disease/
  
• What Is the Natural Human Diet? – Discover the foods that build and sustain true health.  https://www.therawkey.com/what-is-the-natural-human-diet/
  
• Parasites: A Symptom, Not a Cause – Learn why “pathogens” are helpers, not enemies. https://www.therawkey.com/parasites-a-symptom-not-a-cause-rethinking-worms-and-other-parasites/
  

Consultations – Need help one-on-one? A consultation can help you to better understand your conditions, their causes and create a clear path back to radiant health. To learn more about consultations: https://www.therawkey.com/consultations/

The real cure for atrial fibrillation lies in removing causes, not suppressing symptoms.

The science of Natural Hygiene teaches us that atrial fibrillation (AFib) is not a mysterious heart disease but a sign of systemic enervation and toxemia – the body’s way of signaling that its vital energy has been drained and its inner balance disturbed.

The Nerve Control of the Heart

The heart is not an independent machine that “malfunctions.” It is governed entirely by the nervous system, which acts as the electrical conductor for the body’s orchestra of cells. Every heartbeat is triggered by nerve impulses arising from the sinoatrial (SA) node – a small cluster of specialized nerve fibers often called the body’s natural pacemaker. These impulses are not mechanical sparks; they are expressions of nerve energy, the vital electrical current that powers all physiological function.

Dr. Herbert Shelton explained:

“The body is primarily an organism that works on the amount of electricity it generates and which it has in its reserves. If this supply is depleted or otherwise insufficient to cope with the needs of the body, then body functions become impaired.”
(Life Science Course, Lesson 2 – The Nature and Purpose of Disease)

When this nerve energy is diminished – through fatigue, emotional strain, stimulants, overwork, or toxic food – the fine coordination between the heart’s nerves and muscles becomes erratic. The atria may quiver rather than contract rhythmically, producing what medicine labels fibrillation.

This irregularity does not arise from a “faulty heart” but from a temporarily disordered control system, much like flickering lights when electrical current fluctuates. Restoring the source of current – not replacing the wiring – is the real remedy.

Toxemia and Enervation: The True Roots

Natural Hygiene teaches us that disease begins with enervation, the loss of vital nerve energy. When energy output exceeds recovery, the body can no longer perform all of its eliminative and restorative duties. Waste products accumulate in the blood and tissues, leading to toxemia – the internal pollution that underlies all disease.

Shelton described it this way:

“When toxic substances from whatever source saturate the blood and tissues… then the conditions of toxemia and toxicosis exist.”

AFib is one of the many ways the body expresses this systemic exhaustion. The heart, being highly sensitive to electrical and chemical balance, reveals enervation before other organs show distress.

Why AFib Appears Alongside Heart Failure, Stroke, or Dementia

Wikipedia and conventional medicine note that atrial fibrillation “is associated with increased risk of heart failure, dementia, and stroke.”   But from the Natural Hygiene viewpoint, these are not caused by AFib – they are parallel effects of the same underlying systemic degeneration.

The fibrillation does not cause the failure – it warns us of the growing concern. The same toxemic state that irritates and weakens the nerves controlling the heart also irritates and hardens the arteries, congests the brain, and depletes oxygen delivery. AFib is therefore a symptom of declining vitality, not the agent of destruction.

To use Dr. Hereward Carrington’s words:

“So-called disease is… merely a curative effort on the part of Nature; it is the process of cure itself – manifested in a set of symptoms.”

When the heart begins to flutter, Nature is calling attention to the overload – asking us to stop the practices that waste nerve energy and poison the bloodstream. The condition is not a punishment, but a warning.

A Precursor, Not a Peril

Atrial fibrillation is like the body’s early alarm system. It appears when the organism is still vital enough to protest.  If the warning is ignored – if stimulants, drugs, worry, and dietary abuses continue – the body will progress to deeper stages of disease: degeneration of heart tissue, circulatory obstruction, and failure of brain and kidney function.

But if the causes are removed – through rest, fasting, and a return to the natural conditions of life – the body restores order. As vitality increases, nerve energy returns, toxic matter is expelled, and the rhythmic harmony of the heart re-establishes itself.

As Shelton taught:

“To ‘cure’ disease, remove the causes of disease. It is the worst kind of folly to attempt to cure disease by ignoring its causes and employing modalities which are in themselves causes of disease.”

Why AFib Can Appear During Fasting

It often surprises people when AFib – or other irregular heart sensations – arises during a fast, precisely when they are “doing everything right.” Yet this, too, is an expression of the same natural laws.

During fasting, the body finally has the rest and freedom from interference it needs to begin deep cleansing. Stored wastes and irritants are drawn out of the tissues and re-enter the bloodstream for elimination. This temporarily increases the toxicity of the circulating fluids, changing the electrical balance and exciting the nerves.

As the body mobilizes these poisons, the heart – being both a pump and an electrical organ – responds to every fluctuation in blood chemistry and nerve tone. A brief period of fluttering, pounding, or irregular rhythm may occur as the organism readjusts to the shifting internal environment.

Shelton observed that during healing crises,

“The body withdraws energy from normal body activities and redirects them to the healing crisis.”

This means less nerve current is available for regular rhythmic control, while more is directed toward elimination. Once the cleansing phase passes, the rhythm returns to normal – stronger and steadier than before.

Far from being dangerous, this is evidence that the body is working with renewed vigor to restore purity and balance. The appropriate response is not fear or medication, but continued rest, trust, and observation. The heart’s irregularity will quiet as the blood becomes cleaner and vitality increases.

True Recovery

The Natural Hygiene path to restoring heart health is the same universal law that restores all health:

• Rest – both mental and physical – to rebuild nerve energy.
  
• Pure air, water, and sunlight to oxygenate and vitalize.
  
• A diet of fresh fruits and tender greens, the true food of our species.
  
• Fasting when appetite is lost, to allow the body to cleanse.
  
• Freedom from stimulants and sedatives, which rob the nerves of their reserves.
  

The heart’s flutter, far from being an enemy, is the body’s plea: “Slow down, lighten the load, let me cleanse and restore.”

When we heed that call, the heart does not fail – it heals.

Learn how to heal today, start by returning to the natural human diet

Continue Learning

If this article helped you understand the heart’s healing process, you may also enjoy exploring these related topics:

• Learn more about the purpose of disease, how disease is created, why it is created, and how we can reverse it by returning to feeding our body in alignment with our physiology  –  read The Nature and Purpose of Disease Series.
  
• Learn more about returning to a state of health by returning to the foods our body is naturally designed for  –  read What Is the Natural Human Diet?
  
• Discover the foundational principle that powers every cell and organ  –  What Is Nerve Energy?
  
• Understand the process your body uses to cleanse and rebuild  –  What Is Detox Really? It’s Probably Not What You Think!
  
• Learn why healing symptoms often arise during fasting and why fasting is not a “magic cure” but a natural rest phase  –  Fasting Is Not a Magic Cure
  
• Explore the deeper science of how disease develops on a cellular level  –  Disease 101: How We Create Disease (and How We Reverse It)
  

Have more questions? Want to get answers about your specific health issues or concerns? I offer consultations  –  learn more about them here: Consultations

Ready to make changes but not sure where to start? Need guidance or accountability? Join our 30-Day Natural Human Diet Support and Education Group  –  new groups start on the 1st of every month.

Eat fruit and be well, my friends.

Why This Popular “Health Tonic” Is Actually Damaging the Body

What Vinegar Really Is

Vinegar is the waste product of bacterial decomposition. When sugars in fruits or grains are left to rot, bacteria and yeasts convert them first into alcohol and then into acetic acid—the sharp, burning compound that gives vinegar its sour bite.
In plain terms, vinegar is the acid residue of a food that has been partially decomposed. It is not a living food; it is a decayed one. Its acids are the same type the body works hard to expel during detoxification.

A Product of Rotting, Not of Life

As Life Science Lesson 37 explains, fermented and putrefied foods are “very carefully spoiled.” They are foods overrun by microorganisms whose waste products—alcohol, ammonia, lactic acid, and acetic acid—remain in the jar and later in the bloodstream of those who consume them.
Acetic acid irritates every membrane it touches. It disrupts digestion, interferes with the stomach’s natural alkalinity, and kills red blood cells. Foods soaked in vinegar—pickles, relishes, dressings—often pass through the body unchanged because digestive juices cannot penetrate them.

Vinegar: A Drug Masquerading as a Food

Natural Hygienists classify vinegar as a condiment, not a food. Condiments are excitants—chemicals that sting the senses, whip the nerves, and create the false feeling of “energy.”
As T. C. Fry wrote in Condiments Are Drugs,

“There is one quality about all condiments that make them unfit for the human diet: they are all pathogenic. As excitants or stimulants they are inherently poisonous.”

This brief stimulation is the same deceptive “lift” a person feels from coffee or alcohol. The body responds to irritation by rushing nerve energy to the site, accelerating pulse and secretions to defend itself. We mistake this emergency reaction for invigoration.

How the Vinegar Fad Took Hold

The modern craze of drinking apple cider vinegar began as a quick-fix promise: Lose weight, balance pH, cure digestion, fight germs! It appealed to a generation already addicted to stimulation and numb to natural taste.
A healthy body requires no acid drink to “aid digestion.” Digestion is a controlled, intelligent process directed by the body itself. Vinegar merely irritates the stomach lining, forcing the body to expel protective mucus and divert energy away from healing and assimilation.

The supposed “cleansing” that people report after vinegar tonics is nothing more than the body’s emergency effort to eject an irritant. In Hygienic terms, this is a minor eliminative crisis—not health improvement, but defense.

Why It Feels Like It “Works”

When the body is exhausted, stimulants seem to supply energy. They do not; they spend it. The brief rush after taking vinegar is a drain on the vital current—nerve energy that should be conserved for true healing.
Over time, repeated stimulation leads to enervation, the first stage of disease described in Lesson 2: The Nature and Purpose of Disease. Enervation reduces digestive power, slows elimination, and causes the very symptoms vinegar drinkers hope to fix: fatigue, indigestion, and acidity.

The Hygienic Alternative

Health never comes from poisons, stimulants, or decayed foods. It comes from supplying the causes of health: pure air, rest, sunlight, emotional calm, and foods in their natural, unfermented state—fresh fruits, tender greens, nuts, and seeds.
When we stop assaulting the body with artificial excitants, vitality rebuilds, digestion normalizes, and the taste for harsh condiments fades away.

In Summary

Apple cider vinegar is not a healing elixir but a corrosive stimulant born of rot. It irritates rather than nourishes, provokes rather than purifies. True healing never comes from exciting the body but from allowing it to rest and restore its intelligently-designed balance.

Learn more about the purpose of disease, how disease is created, why it is created and how we can reverse disease by returning to feeding our body in alignment with our physiology, Read The Nature and Purpose of Disease Series

Learn more about returning to a state of health by returning to the foods our body is naturally designed for, read What is the Natural Human Diet?

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 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/

Eat fruit and be well my friends.

The medical industry and the mainstream media have lately created a fasting fad filled with misinformation about fasting.   The most dangerous aspect of this is pushing people who are eating improperly into fasting.   Many following Keto, Carnivore or other highly dangerous and unsuitable diets, are further damaging their body by attempting to fast.  Putting the body into a back and forth yo-yo of relief and damage, relief and damage. 

Fasting is not a quick fix. Fasting is not your magic potion.

Fasting longer than a few days should not be undertaken until a person is eating their natural diet for at least 6 months to 1 year. 

Entering a fast from a cooked diet should only occur if the body itself is forcing the fast by making you nauseated, or creating vomiting or diarrhea.   

Hydration during and prior to a fast is very important.

We must drink at least 1 gallon of water every single day of the fast.  If you have not worked up to drinking this much, and your body is chronically dehydrated from eating cooked foods, you are concentrating the acidic waste more, and causing more damage to the body, more quickly, rather than helping the body.

Our bowels must be clear when entering the fast

Having bowels that are clogged with meat, dairy, grains, and other inappropriate materials means all of that material will sit in the digestive tract, putrefying or fermenting while you are fasting, causing your body to be poisoned with ammonia and alcohol and other byproducts of putrefaction.  

A high fiber diet should be consumed for at least a few weeks prior to starting a fast, to allow the removal of putrefactive and fermenting matter.

Fasting can NEVER substitute for a proper diet. 

Fasting should not be used as a trade-off for eating improperly.  We cannot fast our way out of our mistakes and then go right back to making the same mistakes again.  We cannot use fasting to make up for an indulgence in junk foods.  We have to get out of this quick-fix mindset if we want to maintain our health.

Fasting removes mucoid plaque

Starting in our toddler days, as our parents force-feed animal products and cooked foods into our digestive tract, our first response is colic – to cry in pain.  This is, of course, normalized by the medical industry, so we are socially conditioned to either just let the baby cry or, worse, to stuff more and more food in each time they cry.   Babies do not cry because they are hungry; they cry because they are in pain.  

As we continue throughout life to put irritating materials in the digestive tract, our body has no choice but to put layers upon layers of mucus into the digestive tract, resulting in a buildup of these mucus plaque that both protect the delicate tissues of the digestive tract and also impair nutrient absorption.   

Once we fast, the body sheds these mucus plaques that have been built up over decades.   Each fast we do, more and more is shed, and our digestive tract begins to heal.

However, they were put in place to protect the digestive tract from the poisons in cooked foods and animal foods in the first place.   If we go back to the cooked foods after the fast, we are doing injury to the digestive tract all over again.  But this time, the injury is not a slow building over decades, but a more rapid injury because we are eating far greater quantities then we did as an infant.     If we injure the tissues right after they have been freshly exposed this can lead to the body creating scar tissue instead.

 

Fasts are a tool that goes along with a proper diet

Fasting is a tool we can use in partnership with eating properly, however, fasts longer than a few days should not be done if the person is not returning to their natural foods.  And fasting should never be thought of as a quick fix, magic cure, or replacement for eating properly.  

Fasting requires rest

The whole purpose of the fast is to give full physiological rest.   If you are taking a break from eating, you should also be taking a break from working, exercise, and other responsibilities.  You should spend the majority of the fast in a state of rest, either in bed or in a comfortable spot where you can read, listen to calming music, or have a quiet, relaxed conversation.

Fasting will create symptoms

Fasting, whether we are starting with symptoms already, or we are symptom free but just want to give our body more opportunity to clean and heal, will always create some symptoms.  The most common symptoms that arise when fasting are fatigue, weakness, “cold” and “flu” detox symptoms, nausea, headaches, dizziness, lightheadedness, heart palpitations, changes in blood pressure, fever, and shortness of breath.   These are just some of the possible symptoms that can arise, not a full accounting.    Symptoms are the body curing itself, cleaning itself, so all cleaning and expulsion symptoms are possible to arise during a fast, since the fast itself is giving the body the energy it needs to clean. 

Maintaining proper hydration during a fast helps to minimize the severity of symptoms

Hydration is so important.  When we get dehydrated, the acids concentrate, damaging our organs and tissues.  So maintaining the body in a proper state of hydration every day of the fast is essential.   This is why dry fasting causes kidney damage, kidney failure and premature death.   Hydration is essential to minimizing the damage as the old waste is pushed out of the system.   Water dilutes the acids, dilutes the poisons.    Aim for a minimum of 1 gallon, but do not be surprised if you need to drink up to 2 gallons a day, as thirst demands.   Rarely will the body even demand a bit more, up to 2.5 gallons or 3 gallons, but it is possible to overdrink on water, so do not maintain over 2 gallons when fasting for more than a day or two.  And only drink that much if your body is demanding that water through thirst.   1.5 gallons to 2 gallons is where most people will have the most comfortable fasting experience. 

Fasting is a wonderful tool that we have that allows us to heal our bodies, but unfortunately, there are many people out there following dangerous fasting practices.   Before starting a fast, always educate and empower yourself.  

Learn more about returning to a state of health by returning to the foods our body is naturally designed for, read What is the Natural Human Diet?

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 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/

Eat fruit and be well my friends.

Protein Confusion: How Misleading Science Damaged Human Health

The great protein myth has destroyed the lives and health of many people. Overconsumption of protein is possibly the single greatest cause of disease in humans; still to this day, disease industry experts push sick, overweight, and tired humans to consume more and more of what is creating their sickness.

The Dangers of Excess Protein

Proteins break down into acids in the body. Acids burn and damage cells. Any excess protein leads to inflammation, edema, and eventually to tumors and organ failure. Nearly every disease label of the medical industry can find its roots in the overconsumption of protein foods.

The sad truth is the human body cannot even utilize complete proteins. There’s no such thing as a protein deficiency. The body uses amino acids, which are the constituents of protein, to build its own proteins. Your human proteins are not cow proteins, chicken proteins, or fish proteins; they are unique to the needs of your body structure.

How the Body Really Uses Protein

Animal tissues add an additional disease-causing acid burden to the body because the unusable complete proteins must be broken down into amino acids, causing more work to be done by the stomach and digestive tract. The more the cells work, the more acidic cellular waste they create as part of their normal functions. In addition, many of the amino acids found in animal proteins will be damaged or destroyed in the cooking process, so the body must work even harder to expel the excess waste, adding even more burden to the body. All of this burden and all the excess acidic cellular waste and excess acidic protein waste are what lead to symptoms of disease.

How Much Protein Do Humans Really Need?

Lessons from Breast Milk

How much protein do we actually need? And how did we get so far off the mark as to create epidemics of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, strokes, and rampant mental illness, depression, and anxiety?

Humans have the greatest need for amino acids in the time from birth to 18 months when rapid growth requires human protein to be created out of amino acids. Human breast milk contains only 1.1 grams of protein in 100 grams of milk. It contains 3 times that in sugar, (3.5 grams of carbohydrates). The growing infant, which doubles its weight in 180 days, requires only roughly 1-2% protein.

Once fully grown, we recycle up to two-thirds of our protein wastes to meet our needs. The fully grown adult requires far less than the infant, and yet within mainstream circles it’s standard practice to recommend a high-protein diet.

We have confused marketing with science to our great detriment and we still to this day continue the trend. We confuse medicine with science and then mindlessly parrot “trust the science” without even a basic understanding of what true science is.

“In the early 50s nature failed the test of American medicine. It was found that breast milk contains 60% less protein than the infant needs. A “formula” was created with 2 1/2 to 3 times the protein plus added salt. Today we know that it wasn’t nature but science that flunked: The devastating consequences soon appeared: kidney damage, hyperacidity with osteoporosis, dangerously high phenylalanine and tyrosine content in the blood, poor protein metabolism and increased acceleration with consequent stressful disparity of physical and mental growth. An attempt has been made to transfer advertising concepts of growth and weight gain rates to actual human beings—and it fell through. There was a harmful habituation to the wear and tear of a high-protein diet. The frugal use of protein was not learned. From birth on, the child was being burdened with both “stress conditioning factors” (Selye), high protein and salt. Important developmental phases were shortened by accelerated growth and this, according to Portmann, works against the development of the “supertype” (Wellek), that human type which is most needed in our time who is not just able to analyze but also grasp the whole of a phenomenon in its form and essence.”

When we fed infants on a high protein formula the devastating results were obvious, yet 70+ years later we are still stuffing ourselves and our children with protein, destroying their bodies and our own and fueling epidemics of preventable and reversible dietary diseases.

The True Cost of Protein Overload

Uric Acid, Gout, Kidney Stones, Inflammation, Pain, and Accelerated Aging

“It is a matter of experience,” wrote A. Fleisch, president of the Swiss Wartime Nutritional Commission, in his book Nutritional Problems in Times of Shortage (Basel, 1947) “that increased protein consumption also lowers the number of calories taken in.” The stimulating qualities of protein—especially meat protein— lead to over-estimation and over-consumption, which are not justified by nutritional physiology because they lead to “luxuriant combustion”—an inefficient “burning off” of excess. There must be another, especially stimulating, irritative effect of eating meat above and beyond the irritative effects of excess protein (specific-dynamic effect) and the extractive and general products of roasting. This irritative effect, which has since been isolated, is caused by uric acid, a very strong irritant on the sympathetic nerves. And so in meat we have a strongly hypermetabolizing three- to four-fold irritative effect.”

Proteins increase uric acid in the body leading to gout and kidney stones. Additionally, fat blocks the body’s ability to expel uric acid, and many high-protein foods are also high-fat foods. So when we consume the double hamburger with cheese, the cheese pizza, the macaroni, and cheese, or any other SAD diet staple, we double down on the acids. We first burden the body with acids then we make it even harder for the body to expel those acids.

History of protein misinformation

“In the late nineteenth century. Baron von Liebig was the first person to separate foods into proteins (nitrogenous substances) and carbohydrates/fats (non-nitrogenous substances). Since the muscles are composed chiefly of protein. Liebig concluded (incorrectly) that proteins supply muscular energy and the amount of protein consumed must be related to bodily activity. In fact, it is actually the non-nitrogenous foods that supply the best fuel for muscular activity.

Liebig’s Mistaken Assumptions

Liebig was one of the first scientists to make a recommendation for protein intake. He determined the body’s protein requirements by measuring the actual amounts of protein consumed by a group of men engaged in physical activity who ate a heavy diet. He reasoned that by measuring the protein intake of men who ate more than average and worked harder than usual, he could arrive at a safe recommended allowance of protein for all people. This is truly a bizarre method for establishing a standard and is somewhat akin to clocking race car drivers in order to establish a safe speed for school zones.

Based on this experiment Liebig determined that about 120 grams of protein daily would satisfy the needs of a moderately active adult. To obtain 120 grams of protein, a person would need to consume about 17 eggs or a pound and a half of meat or twenty ounces of almonds per day.

Dogs vs. Humans: Why Early Experiments Misled Science

Following Liebig, Voit in 1881 performed a series of experiments on dogs and likewise determined that we should consume between 100 and 125 grams of protein a day. Doubtless, dogs can safely consume 125 grams of protein per day. The protein requirement for a growing puppy is five times as great as that for a growing baby. Voit, it should be noted, did not adjust his results to account for the differences between humans and dogs despite the major differences between our species.

From the very beginning, we can see that protein requirements were artificially determined and excessively high. As early as 1887, experiments in Germany showed that 40 grams of protein was a sufficient daily amount. This comes to about one-third of the previous recommendations. However these old standards of Liebig and Voit were already firmly fixed in the minds of the medical establishment, and the belief persisted that a high-protein diet was conducive to health. So why lower the recommendations?

How Recommendations Stayed Too High

After many more experiments proved that a daily protein intake of 30 to 40 grams was entirely sufficient, the establishment finally revised its recommendations down to 60 or 70 grams. Although only one-half of the early estimates, this figure is still over 50% too high, even by conservative nutritional standards. Today, with the support of the meat, dairy and egg industries, the protein allowances still remain around 70 grams per day. It should also be noted that a typical American meat-eater consumes about 93 grams of protein daily—more than anyone else in the world on the average.”

The Path Back to Health

Give your body a break. Step away from the protein and watch your health return, your weight stabilize, edema and gout disappear, pain and inflammation cease, headaches and migraines disappear and your body will start to look and feel years or even decades younger. Return to the natural human diet and thrive, lose weight effortlessly and maintain your natural lean healthy radiant body with ease.

Learn more about our natural foods in What is the Natural Human Diet?

Learn more about the purpose of disease, how disease is created, why it is created and how we can reverse disease by returning to feeding our body in alignment with our physiology, Read The Nature and Purpose of Disease Series

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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 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/

Eat fruit and be well my friends.

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

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

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.