Last week I posted, Feeding Versus Cleansing Part One. We learned about Helen who was brought to Dr. McBride’s clinic by her worried aunt. Helen was 21 years old, and was dangerously underweight and getting thinner by the day. She was a tall girl – 185 cm (over 6’ 6”) in height with a weight of 51 kg (112 lbs.). She looked emaciated, pale, her eyes were dull and her voice feeble.
This Post is the continuation of last week’s Post. Here is the link
https://2healthyhabits.wordpress.com/2019/08/16/feeding-versus-cleansing-part-one/
This is Part Two of two. These two Posts have been condensed from Dr. McBride’s Post FEEDING VERSUS CLEANSING. Here is the link http://www.doctor-natasha.com/feeding-versus-cleansing.php
Many people would be surprised to hear that human beings can live exclusively on animal foods. Dr. McBride has patients who live entirely on animal food with great results, both children and adults. Patients with ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease and severe mental illness do very well on a No-Plant GAPS Diet. These people live on meats, including organ meats, animal fats, meat stock and bone broth, fish (including shell fish and molluscs), fish stock, fresh eggs and fermented raw diary – kefir, sour cream, ghee, butter, cheese and yoghurt. In some severe cases of ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease this is the only diet that allows them to be well, to stop all medication, to reach their normal body weight, to remove all digestive symptoms and to function to their full capacity. In severe cases of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and other psychiatric conditions this diet can be a saviour. Some of these people have lived on this diet for 2 years or longer and have no desire to change their eating habits, because this diet works for them. Some of them tried to add a little vegetable or fruit to their regimen and found that their symptoms started returning, so they had to stop.
One of the healthiest group of traditional people in the world Weston A. Price found in his research were Masai people in Africa who ate no plant matter at all. They are nomadic people travelling with their cattle and everything they eat is provided by their animals. They eat meat, organ meats, milk and sour milk. When they were asked why they don’t eat fruit found in their habitat, they laughed and answered that fruit was food for their cows. These people had no diseases of our modern ‘civilised’ world whatsoever: no heart disease, no cancer, no degenerative conditions, their childbirth was easy and healthy, their bodies were trim and muscular, their life span was long and they had beautiful healthy teeth. Apart from perfect physical health these people were intelligent, joyful, peaceful, friendly and happy, no psychological problems at all. But when some of them moved to a city and adopted a modern diet, they started getting the same diseases people suffer from in any modern country.
So, the fact is humans can live without plants. However, we cannot live without animal foods!
But what about all the plant-based diets shown to help with chronic disease? Why are cold-pressed good quality plant oils shown to be beneficial for so many degenerative conditions? What about all the antioxidants, enzymes, vitamins, minerals, bio-flavonoids and other substances in plants which are shown to be beneficial to health?
The real purpose of plants is to be CLEANSERS. While they are unable to feed our bodies to any serious degree, they are wonderful at keeping us clean on the inside. They also provide energy for the body to use in the form of glucose and some co-factors (helper molecules) in the form of vitamins and minerals, but their main purpose is to keep your body clean and free of toxins. Indeed plants are equipped with powerful detoxifying substances, which can remove various man-made chemicals, pollution and other toxins we accumulate in our bodies. Plants are particularly powerful cleansers when consumed raw. Their juices absorb in the upper parts of the digestive system contributing a plethora of detoxifying substances and co-factors; juicing of raw greens, vegetables and fruit is a major part of any cleansing protocol.
When the plant matter moves further down in the gut it feeds the gut flora in the bowel. Human bowel is an equivalent of the rumen of the herbivorous animals; it has a rich population of microbes, which can convert some plant fibre and starch into useful nutrients for the human body, such as short-chain fatty acids.
However, the problem with fibre and starch is that they feed equally the bad and the good microbes. How good this plant matter is for you depends on the composition of your bowel flora: if it is healthy the fibre and starch will do you good, if it is unhealthy the plant matter will feed the pathogens in your gut, which will flourish and produce many toxins and do a lot of damage.
When we cook plants we reduce their cleansing ability, but make them more digestible, so they provide some building materials for the body to use. Unfortunately, these materials cannot build the body to any degree: they are largely carbohydrates, which the body can use for producing energy and store as fat. When plants are severely processed (grains in particular) they provide the wrong building materials for the body causing disease.
Consumption of products made out of flour and sugar (very processed plants) are the major cause of pretty much all degenerative health problems in our modern society: weight gain, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, psychological and neurological problems in children and adults, infertility, polycystic ovaries, immune abnormalities, etc.
A cleaner body always feels better than a toxic one. That is why so many people feel well on the plant-based diet in the first few weeks. But when the body finished cleansing you need to start feeding it with animal foods. If that point is missed the body starts starving and deteriorating. With Helen’s vegan diet she was cleansing herself until she literally got ‘washed out’. She has missed the point when her body has finished cleansing and needed to start feeding. That is why she lost so much weight despite eating large amounts of grains, beans, nuts, fruit, vegetables and vegetable oils. This diet was not feeding her. Her menstruations stopped because her body was starving and conserving whatever precious resources it had left; it could not afford to waste them on monthly menstruations.
Vegan (plants only) diets can be seen as a form of fasting. They do not feed the body properly but provide it with a lot of cleansing. While your digestive system is busy processing plant matter (so you don’t feel hungry), the diet will provide your body with large amounts of cleansing substances. The ultimately toxic people are cancer victims; they require a lot of cleansing. That is why most nutritional cancer – treatment protocols are vegan. Remember that vegan diets are only suitable for a period of cleansing. They must never be chosen as a permanent life-style. When your body has finished cleansing it will need feeding, and that is when you have to introduce animal foods. If that is not done the body starves, starts cannibalising itself and problems start developing.
Vegetarian diets, which include animal foods, can be adopted as a long-term strategy. It is possible to be a healthy vegetarian as long as you continue eating some animal foods to provide feeding/building substances for your body, such as plenty of eggs and full-fat dairy.
There are many forms of vegetarianism: some eat fish, some eat eggs and dairy, some allow occasional consumption of meat. People who get into trouble are those who decide to stop eating meat and live largely on processed foods. They get ill very quickly. This group of people is particularly prone to diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cancer.
Another group of people who get into trouble are those who follow low-fat vegetarianism. A lot of impetus for removing fats from the diet comes from counting calories as fats produce the highest amount of calories per gram. Looking at food in terms of calories is another example of how inadequate our food science can be. Human beings cannot live without fats. Mother Nature took billions of years to design our foods, everything she put into them is essential, including fat. Every component in a natural food is balanced with all other components, they work as a whole. To remove fat out of a natural food is to make it incomplete and unbalanced; the human body cannot thrive. Low-fat vegetarianism typically leads to degenerative diseases of the nervous system and immunity.
In summary, there are two groups of natural foods on the planet and each of them has its own role to play in the human physiology.
Animal foods – meat, fish, eggs and dairy – are largely building/feeding foods. They feed the cell regeneration in the body allowing the body to maintain its normal physical structure and chemical composition. Animal foods are essential for your body to function. Your body manufactures a myriad of protein-based chemicals every day – hormones, enzymes, neurotransmitters, etc. Animal foods are particularly important for growing children, as their bodies need large amounts of building materials on a daily basis.
Plant foods – grains, beans, fruit, vegetables, herbs, nuts and seeds – are largely cleansing / detoxifying foods and do not feed the body to any serious degree. They keep the body clean on the inside by helping it to remove toxins and wastes. They provide energy for the body in the form of glucose. They provide some micro-elements for the body to use: minerals, vitamins, phytonutrients and co-factors.
There is some overlap: animal products, particularly raw, have a considerable cleansing ability while plants have some feeding ability, particularly when cooked, fermented and sprouted.
So let us enjoy both the animal foods and the plant foods. The important thing is to keep them natural with minimal processing.
These Posts have been condensed from Dr. McBride’s Post FEEDING VERSUS CLEANSING. Here is the link http://www.doctor-natasha.com/feeding-versus-cleansing.php
Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride is a medical doctor with two postgraduate degrees: Master of Medical Sciences in Neurology and Master of Medical Sciences in Human Nutrition.
If you are interested in the vegetarianism or veganism long-term, I suggest you read her book, Vegetarianism Explained: Making an Informed Decision https://www.amazon.com/Vegetarianism-Explained-Making-Informed-Decision/dp/0954852060
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Lydia Polstra
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