Interesting thread... a lot of interesting discussions going on here.

Having been familiar with various phases of jamie's thoughts on this matter already, it is interesting to see where he and minxx are at now.

Personally, I find the idea of any diet to be odd. People are so different from each other, and also from themselves at different points in their lives. How can one even think that what a growth-spurt teenage boy needs to be healthy is the same as a middle-aged woman approaching menopause?

What I think is that most people in the world are so filled up with junk that they do need to detox and stop consuming things that are clearly fucking them up. Doing this, as well as expanding one's self-awareness, and learning to breathe and rest properly (meditation and some form energy work being key) leads one to a place where one begins to intuit what your body needs in that moment or period of time. One becomes attracted to certain herbs or supplements for period of time, and loses interest in ones that are no longer helping or necessary... naturally, and non-rigidly.

People who talk to me about strict regimens and get hung up about exact amounts of this and that often seem to me to be misplacing their healthy focus on being a better functioning human being into very abstract and left brained thought loops. Even ones who are fans of the Tony Wright Left In The Dark stuff often seem to not see that they are using this information in a totally left brained way. The right brain (or even better the holistic super-conscious mind) is much more suited for leading you in the moment towards godly health IMHO.

This means being creative. This entails not doing the same thing day after day, but switching things up in direct response to what is going on in your body. Plenty of people are severely deficient in various essentials, and as such, get a great boost when they find a good source of whatever they were missing. They mistakenly assume that such nutritional sources (or even physical activities) are universally good for all people at all times, though. If they formulated this thought clearly and said it out loud... they might realize how ridiculous it is.

What I require for optimal functioning as a lifelong martial artist, entheogen user, who has had long stretches of relatively sedentary indoor work, and has traveled the world extensively... is totally different from week to week and highly dependent on where I am and what I am doing. If I am in the tropics and scuba diving every day or doing a lot of surfing, I must eat totally different than when I am wintering in a ski resort, or wandering in damp and misty Pacific Northwest Rainforests. Even when I am stuck indoors for weeks on end, my diet will depend on whether I worked out that day, went to the sauna, spent the night tripping balls... etc. etc.

As for the whole vegan, raw food elitism... I have mixed feelings.

On the one hand, everyone knows at least a few truly annoying vegans who are so self-righteous and condescending that they actually manage to drive people away from veganism and give health food a bad name. Trust fund hippies who shop in trendy health food stores and only buy or eat stuff that costs an arm and a leg, and can not seem to stop showing off how amazing their fair-trade, non GMO, totally organic, wildcrafted whatever is, while talking torrents of shit about whatever you happen to be eating at the moment... are themselves unhealthy to be around, because the feeling of wanting to throttle them is itself toxic.

On the other hand, I don't have any problem with arrogance, elitism, and even narcissism... when it is warranted and mixed with a healthy dose of compassion and humility. The fact is that we are not all equal. People who spend their days raping & pillaging are simply not of the same value as master healers, virtuoso musicians, advanced yogis, powerful shaman or any other master.... not to the world, and certainly not to me personally. Not even on a spiritual level. Sorry.

I find the old canard that we are all created equal to be wrong-headed. Even if it were true (which I don't see), we certainly don't stay equal after birth.

People get mad at folks like Usain Bolt & Muhammad Ali because they are shameless in flaunting their greatness... but there is no doubt that they ARE, in fact, great. To be the fastest living human being by a long shot for going on 6 years with no sign that anyone is even approaching his level is truly remarkable. I guarantee you that Usain could outrun all the vegan fruitarians in the world even if he let them start while he wolfed down a Big Mac. Is it wrong to recognize that he is exceptional? Hell no. He should be a bit more mature perhaps, choose his words a bit more wisely... he doesn't need to talk shit about other runners etc. But this is mostly because his running already speaks volumes.

At this stage in my life, I have little patience for this concept of rewarding mediocrity. We have no business making idiots feel smart. We should not be dumbing things down. Everyone in a competition does not deserve a freaking ribbon. We SHOULD be honoring masters. We should shut the fuck up when they deign to speak, and listen carefully to what they have to say. And conversely, we should ignore the tripe that spills from most people's lips while they delusionally believe they are speaking wisdom... or simply run their mouths about whatever inanity currently grips their underdeveloped cerebral material.

No, my friends... we are not equal. There are very few 13 year olds who are my equal in anything. Those rare prodigies who are awesome in something at that age, I will happily give them their due respect. But in general, even those kids are dumb as posts on a true wisdom & awareness level. They simply don't have enough experience to have mastered themselves yet.

Godly health? Hard to say. Both of my grandmothers are in their 90's, and neither of them ate particularly well. I would say deep breathing and smiling are more powerful for health than food. Just remember: 3 min without air, 3 days without water, 3 months without food... and you are history. That is about the correct proportion of focus for health IMO.

I guess I have gone on long enough. Those are my handful of cents.

Be well peeps,
HF

@ Flouro

Lol, I wish it were that easy.

The handle is what makes the kettlebell so unique and beneficial. Like I was saying, most kettlebell movements are based on a swinging motion. These motions are generated from your legs, back, torso (core), then obviously it will branch out from there into your secondary muscles (arms, shoulders, some chest). These complete movements utilize your body as a functional whole. The off centered weight of a kettlebell recruits more stabilizer muscles and works the targeted muscles through a wider range of motion...in comparison to isolation-type exercises with free weights that don't hit these stabilizer muscles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8CvP0V0Jfg

Here is an awesome talk on herbs..especially tonic herbs.

I actually did when I was 13 oh so many decades ago. Truly. Started with martial arts at 4 and a half, and entheogens at 12. By 13 I was taking LSD in foreign lands and doing internal arts.

I suppose you are joking... unless you really did completely miss the point of what I was saying. Knowing you I will assume the former.

Ron Teeguarden! Hehehehe. I know him... or I should say that I was an acquaintance of his when he was starting out. A good friend of mine worked for his first herb shop, and I knew the business partner who helped him get started way back in the day.

Would be nice to rekindle that connect and get me some of his expensive ass Dragon Herbs for a reduced price. That shit can put a hole in your wallet.

No one said dancing.
Dancing

Myself, im interested in low carbohydrate, high fat for my macronutrient portion.
an ongoing experiment. Best result so far is being able to go for long periods without eating yet maintaining consistent energy levels.

Fantastic post olio

so I have been studying more about the paleo diet etc and this is interesting..

http://www.youtube.com/w...index=6&feature=plcp

so I have been studying more about the paleo thing etc and this is interesting..

http://www.youtube.com/w...index=6&feature=plcp

Great post HF.

Peace

Jamie, this is essentially what me and me wife do. We aren't raw vegans, but largely vegetarian. We do however eat some fish, and on rare occasion chicken or turkey...though now that we have several turkey's at our new house she has sworn off eating those as well.

My reason's for not eating meat actually don't have much to do with health. It was more compassion. I love animals. My wife loves animals. We were both tired of telling ourselves that steak came from the store....it comes from a living animal that display's more compassion than most people.

Anyway it only took about 30 day's for me as a vegetarian to start feeling phenomenal. My body just sort of cleared most of the toxins out. I also fast (water of juice) occasionally, but I do this much less now because quite frankly I don't have very much to clear out these day's. I eat a pretty balanced diet these day's...but not strict.

The reason I still eat some meat? I don't honestly know. I very seldom enjoy it when I do because I actually don't like the feeling or texture of flesh any more....though I still LOVE the small of a hamburger on the grill. LOVE IT! Veggie burgers will never capture that for me! So I guess I eat meat on occasion because I realize that I am in some way's still a slave to the culture I grew up in...and for most of my life I enjoyed eating meat like everyone else, or because I'm just flat our bored with the vegetarian option on the menu.

Honest it wasn't until I really deeply questioned my own motivations and beliefs when I finally got the 'courage' to try out vegetarianism. LOL

Peace

to be honest I now think I will eat it more than once a week. I am craving meat now that I started to eat eggs and the fact that I feel more amazing than I did as a vegan tells me that at least for me, meat is essential. I would go so far as to say that I now feel like going without it long term for me is a road to brain damage. I dunno what other peoples bodies are like though. Being vegan for a few years with no animal products whatsoever other than honey was great in that I detoxed from a life on the SAD..but now adding in organic freerange animal products just feels great to add to that.

Like I said though..I cant support these factory farms etc and I dont really want to support farms in general..so I am gunna learn to hunt and start fishing again. It is the only ethical way for me to really do this.

I have always felt like this about the whole taking a life thing..I rip up bok choi in my garden to eat evbery single day..I take life. I pull up carrots and beats etc..I take life. I cant really get behind the fruitarian thing cus that seems like the most silly diet out there to be honest..eating only fruit and nothing else does not seem healthy. So I end up killing these vegetables which I dont really put below animals as life forms....I respect them, and accept that I am a living being that makes up part of the metabolism of this organism we call "earth"..and that means that I have to feed on some life to sustain life. For me accepting this has been one of the greatest lessons of all. You have to have respect for the life and the cycles though..this is why factory farms are horrible..and even organic farms just take up space that could polycultured food forests fully intact with wild animals etc. There are just other ways to go about this whole thing that honor the integrity of this amazing ecosystem and hold much more reverance for the life that supports it.

its funny because when I was so sick I felt like I would do anything to be healthy...and living as a total organic raw vegan seemed the ideal method..and it was so cleaning..it was a true detox..but it is like level one in my opinion now..

I was interested in the ideas of people like daniel vitalis for some time over the last year..but resistant to the idea of paleo eaters being healthy people etc..

Then I started to really concider the reality that we are deficient..esp with minxx being sick and doing all this research about veganism in relation to her symptoms..

Then she went to the doctor..

Then we ate some eggs and i felt good and decided I would eat as little animal products as possible..I feel like I was battling some kind of pre programmed vegan ideal that was still switched on inside my head..
Slowly though over the last couple weeks I have realized more and more how good I feel and how amazingly clean our diet is either way compared to basically any other human I have ever met..even with animal products..we are eating the best food and drinking the best water available to us. Doing more research has just sort of dissolved some of the ideas I have had about health and food for the last few years..those ideas though served me at the time because I had to seriousily do something about my degrading health asap..now I feel like I sort of entering into another much deeper phase actaully where I can start to rebuild much of my body back up to what it could potentially be in order to thrive. More wild foods is something I am going to focus on.

I bought some toe shoes too and started jogging in the forest. I have been barefoot hiking for 2 summers and dont want to put on normal shoes now just to jog..and that feels good.

That's true, but you wouldn't kill a human for food would you? Why not?

For me it's like this. The higher up the evolutionary tree I go, the worse it feels to me. Sure plants are taking life...and yes I believe they are aware of it to some extent. But when you go into the woods and shoot a turkey that has a family it's family actually feels real distress because of the event. I say this matter of factly because we have a lot of turkey's on our land that we have gotten to know quite well and we've seen the mother turkey get quite frantic when she lost one of her siblings.

BTW I'm not trying to eek out a moral high ground here.

One question for you though Jamie?

Why bounce from one extreme to the other? Why not try a less than raw vegan diet? Go vegetarian. Use some animal products, but try to avoid taking life if you can? Avoid the factory farmed products as best you can. Just "food" for thought...which of course I'm sure you have already though about!

I guess I'm just sort of surprised to see you take an about face after so many years of defending the raw vegan diet. But at the same time I respect that once you change your mind you embrace it. But brain damage? That to me is none-sense. Brain damage from what? You know as well as I do that you can get a balanced diet from fruit and veggies alone...and yes it takes work. You can't live on Pasta and sweet tarts, but you can certainly live on a balanced vegetarian diet. there are actually humans that live and die without ever touching meat...and many of them are extremely healthy.

Lastly. I don't know if part of your not eating meat was compassion based for the animals or not, but to me while I do still eat some meat I view it as reducing the harm I cause. I am now responsible for far FAR less distress in the lives of animals than I once was. I am not perfect, but I like to strive in that general direction.

Ok...one more last tid bit. I do think there is a moral high ground to either hunting your own food or raising your own food relative to factory farming. FOR SURE. I grew up hunting and fishing. I don't do it today as I dont' take life (especially not in a direct fashion) any longer...though there are the occasional mosquitoes! Oh those damn morals alway's getting in the way!

Anyway I'm sure you have given a lot of thought to your current course of action. So not much for me to add other than good luck.

Peace

Just wanted to add that now I understand!

BTW I have a LOT of resect for someone that can defend something like you did and then weigh new evidence and come back to the same board and change stance. That is being very real and very honest. Much kudos for that my friend.

"Why bounce from one extreme to the other? Why not try a less than raw vegan diet? Go vegetarian. Use some animal products, but try to avoid taking life if you can? Avoid the factory farmed products as best you can. Just "food" for thought...which of course I'm sure you have already though about!"

I have thought about it and I feel like there is more death in farming an animal even for eggs than the other way around..the deforestion alone that goes into a farm causes more destruction of sentient beings than me catching a wild bird every month and a few fish. I also dont like the idea having to rely on farmers..this is one main reason why we got out of our apartment and into a house where we have a large food garden and much more rainforest nearby to forrage in etc..

Animal feed is another one. Even organic animals are often fed farmed feed that sits away in some silo for months or years and can get damp and contaminated with micotoxins..and then I would have to eat those animals. Wild animals just sounds so much more appealing to me.

I am not totally against farms though..just how they are done now. I would love to see more movement towards polyculture. Polyculture is the real future IMO..permaculture is just a step in that direction.

"BTW I have a LOT of resect for someone that can defend something like you did and then weigh new evidence and come back to the same board and change stance. That is being very real and very honest. Much kudos for that my friend."

Well, I sort of feel stupid because I told people that this was some miracle diet etc..and so it is on me to tell people now that I dont think it is anymore. I think it is a great way to detox..but at least for me it after some time it felt less and less like a sustainable diet long term.

"Brain damage from what? You know as well as I do that you can get a balanced diet from fruit and veggies alone"

I actaully dont believe this anymoe Joedirt. I dont know where these people who do this long term get enough cholesterol or the proper ratio of omega 3 to 6 to build healthy hormone levels. I have listened to many people now who did do this for 15, 20 years etc and many many of them claim to end up with hormone levels way out of whack..they loose sex drive completely, their period end up all messed up, they feel low on energy and I have even heard of people loosing all of their hair. The low ammount of omega 3's compared to the huge levels of omega 6's in a vegan diet is alarming because you need the 3's like DHA to support your brain and hormone levels..I dont know where anyone ever gets cholesterol in a vegan diet. There seems to be this idea amonsgt vegans that we never need cholesterol because our body makes some..but everything I can find that seems reliable says we do need cholesterol and our body only produces enough to survive but not really thrive.

Minxx did this diet better than anyone I know. She was like the perfect model for a balanced vegan diet and after 7 years she just crashed and had all these same symptoms that I have now heard of hundreds of other people having and turning right around as soon as they add in some animal products.

Of course a vegetarian diet with just eggs, dairy etc will probly supply people with everything they need without needing to ever eat meat.

Not sure I agree. Remember those farms are feeding a LOT of people. A lot. If every person walked into the woods and shot a deer, there would literally be no deer left on the planet. It's all a balance IMHO.



Congrats on the new house! Here is a picture of our backyard garden that we just started this year. We've only been in this house a few months now so the garden isn't what it will be next year. But you will also notice all the turkeys. They are essentially our pets now. My wife can walk up to them and almost touch them while talking gently to them. Pretty amazing to see considering whenI spent hours in the woods waiting to kill one of these birds when I was a teenager.





Totally agree here.



yep we are still on the same page!