If on the other 
hand, when it was dark (we had no electricity), and there was a cold wind creating huge banks of snow, I would ‘just skip it, ' 
because the alternative --an indoor chamber pot, white enamel with a lid --was worse. This potty had  to be used more or less 
publicly because the bedrooms were shared and there was no indoor bathroom. I was always very modest about my private parts 
and private functions, and potty's were only used in emergencies, and usually with considerable embarrassme nt. No one ever 
explained to me that it was not good for me to retain fecal matter, and I never thought about it unless my movements became s o 
hard that it was painful to eliminate. Later in life, I continued this pattern of putting off bowel movement s, even though outhouses and potties were a thing of the 
past. As a young adult I could always think of something more interesting to do than sitting on a pot, besides it was messy a nd 
sometimes accompanied by embarrassing sound effects which were definite ly not romantic if I was in the company of a young 
man. During two pregnancies the tendency to constipation was aggravated by the weight of the fetus resting on an already slug gish 
bowel, and the discomfort of straining to pass my first hard bowel movement  after childbirth with a torn perineum I won't forget. Rapid Relief From Colon Cleansing  
    During fasting the liver is hard at work processing toxins released from fat and other body deposits. The liver still dumps i ts 
wastes into the intestines throug h the bile duct. While eating normally, bile, which contains highly toxic substances, is passed 
through the intestines and is eliminated before too much is reabsorbed. (It is the bile that usually makes the fecal matter s o dark in 
color.) However, reductio n of food bulk reduces or completely eliminates peristalsis, thus allowing intestinal contents to sit for 
extended periods. And the toxins in the bile are reabsorbed, forming a continuous loop, further burdening the liver. The mucus membranes lining th e colon constantly secrete lubricants to ease fecal matter through smoothly. This secretion does 
not stop during fasting; in fact, it may increase because intestinal mucus often becomes a secondary route of elimination. Al lowed 
to remain in the bowel, toxi c mucus is an irritant while the toxins in it may be reabsorbed, forming yet another closed loop and 
further burdening the liver. Daily enemas or colonics administered during fasting or while on cleansing diets effectively remove old fecal material sto red in 
the colon and immediately ease the livers load, immediately relieve discomfort by allowing the liver's efforts to further det oxify 
the blood, and speed healing. Fasters cleansing on juice or raw food should administer two or three enemas in short su ccession 
every day for the first three days to get a good start on the cleansing process, and then every other day or at very minimum,  every 
few days. Enemas or colonics should also be taken whenever symptoms become uncomfortable, regardless of whether you  have 
already cleaned the colon that day or not. Once the faster has experienced the relief from symptoms that usually comes from a n 
enema they become more than willing to repeat this mildly unpleasant experience. Occasionally enemas, by filling the c olon and making it press on the liver, induce discharges of highly toxic bile that may cause 
temporary nausea. Despite the induced nausea it is still far better to continue with colonics because of the great relief exp erienced 
after the treatment. If nause a exists or persists during colon cleansing, consider trying slight modifications such as less or no 
massage of the colon in the area of the gall bladder (abdominal area close to the bottom of the right rib cage), and putting slightly 
less water in the col on when filling it up. It also helps to make sure that the stomach is empty of any fluid for one hour prior to the 
colonic. Resume drinking after the colonic sessions is completed. If you are one of these rare people who ‘toss their bile', just keep 
a plas tic bucket handy and some water to rinse out the mouth after, and carry on as usual. Enemas Versus Colonics  
    People frequently wonder what is the difference between a colonic and an enema. First of all enemas are a lot cheaper because you give the m to yourself; an enema bag usually costs about ten dollars, is available 
at any large drug store, and is indefinitely reusable. Colonics cost anywhere from 30 to 75 dollars a session. Chiropractors and naturopaths who offer this service hire a colonic  technician that may or may not be a skilled operator. It is a 
good idea to find a person who has a very agreeable and professional manner, who can make you feel at ease since relaxation i s 
very important. It is also beneficial to have a colonic therapist who massages the abdomen and foot reflexes appropriately during 
the session. Enemas and colonics can accomplish exactly the same beneficial work. But colonics accomplish more improvement in less time 
than enemas for several reasons. During a colonic f rom 30 to 50 gallons of water are flushed through the large intestines, usually in 
a repetitive series of fill -ups followed by flushing with a continuous flow of water. This efficiency cannot even be approached with 
an enema. But by repeating the enema thr ee times in close succession a satisfactory cleanse can be achieved. Persisted with long 
enough, enemas will clean the colon every bit as well as a colonic machine can. Enemas given at home take a lot less time than traveling to receive a colonics at s omeone's clinic, and can be done entirely at 
you own convenience --a great advantage when fasting because you can save your energy for internal healing. But colonics are 
more appropriate for some. There are fasters who are unable to give themselves an enema  either because their arms are too short 
and their body is too long and they lack flexibility, or because of a physical handicap or they can't confront their colon, s o they let 
someone else do it. Some don't have the motivation to give themselves a little discomfort but are comfortable with someone else 
doing it to them. Some very sick people are too weak to cleanse their own colon, so they should find someone to assist them w ith 
an at -home enema or have someone take them to a colonic therapist. Few pe ople these days have any idea how to properly give themselves an enema. The practice has been discredited by 
traditional medical doctors as slightly dangerous, perhaps addictive and a sign of psychological weirdness. Yet Northamerican s on 
their civilized, low fiber, poorly combined diets suffer widely from constipation. One proof of this is the fact that chemical 
laxatives, with their own set of dangers and liabilities, occupy many feet of drug store shelf space and are widely advertise d. Is the 
medical pro fession's disapproval of the enema related to the fact that once the initial purchase of an enema bag has been made 
there are no further expenses for laxatives? Or perhaps it might be that once a person discovers they can cure a headache, st op a 
cold dead in its tracks with an enema, they aren't visiting the M.D.s so often. The enema has also been wrongly accused of causing a gradual loss of colon muscle tone, eventually preventing bowel 
movements without the stimulation of an enema, leading finally to  flaccidity and enlargement of the lower bowel. This actually 
can happen; when it does occur it is the result of frequent administration of small amounts of water (fleet enemas) for the p urpose 
of stimulating a normal bowel movement. The result is constant  stretching of the rectum without sufficient fluid to enter the 
descending colon. A completely opposite, highly positive effect comes from properly administered enemas while cleansing. The difference between helpful and potentially harmful enemas lies in the amount of water injected and the frequency of use. Using a cup or two of water to induce a bowel movement may eventually cause dependency, will not strengthen the colon and may  
after years of this practice, result in distention and enlargement of th e rectum or sigmoid colon. However, a completely empty 
average -sized colon has the capacity of about a gallon of water. When increasingly larger enemas are administered until the colon 
is nearly emptied of fecal matter and the injection of close to a gallo n of water is achieved, beneficial exercise and an increase in 
overall muscle tone are the results. Correctly given, enemas (and especially colonics) serve as strengthening exercises for the colon. This long tubular muscle is  
repeatedly and completely  filled with water, inducing it to vigorously exercise while evacuating itself multiple times. The result is 
a great increase in muscle tone, acceleration of peristalsis and eventually, after several dozens of repetitions, a considera ble 
reduction of trans it time. Well -done enemas work the colon somewhat less effectively and do not improve muscle tone quite as 
much as colonics. Injecting an entire gallon of water with an enema bag is very impractical when a person is eating normally. But on a light 
cleansing diet or while fasting the amount of new material passing into the colon is small or negligible. During the first few da ys of 
fasting if two or three enemas are administered each day in immediate succession the colon is soon completely emptied of rece ntly 
eaten food and it becomes progressively easier to introduce larger amounts of water. Within a few days of this regimen, injec ting 
half a gallon or more of water is easy and painless. Probably for psychological reasons, some peoples' colons allow water to be injected one time but then "freeze up" and resist 
successive enemas. For this reason better results are often obtained by having one enema, waiting a half hour, another enema,  wait 
a half hour, and have a final enema. A colonic machine in the hands of an expert operator can administer the equivalent of six or seven big enemas in less than one 
hour, and do this without undue discomfort or effort from the person receiving the colonic. However, the AMA has suppressed t he 
use of colonics; they are illegal to administer in many states. Where colonics are legal, the chiropractors now consider this practice 
messy and not very profitable compared to manipulations. So it is not easy to find a skilled and willing colonic technician. Anyone who pl ans to give themselves therapeutic enemas while fasting would be well advised to first seek out a colonic 
therapist and receive two or three colonics delivered one day apart while eating lightly and then immediately begin the fast. Three 
colonics given on three successive days of a light, raw food diet are sufficient to empty all recently eaten food even from a very 
constipated, distended and bloated colon, while acquainting a person with their own bowel. Having an empty colon is actually a 
pleasant and to most people a thoroughly novel experience. A few well -delivered colonics can quickly accustom a person to the 
sensations accompanying the enema and demonstrate the effect to be achieved by oneself with an enema bag, something not 
quickly discoverable any o ther way. How To Give Yourself An Enema  
    Enemas have been medically out of favor for a long time. Most people have never had one. So here are simple directions to sel f-
administer an effective enema series. The enema bag you select is important. It must hold at least two quarts and be rapidly refillable. The best American -made brand 
is made of rubber with about five feet of rubber hose ending in one of two different white hard plastic insertion tips. The b ag is 
designed for either enemas or vaginal d ouches. It hangs from a detachable plastic "S" hook. When filled to the brim it holds 
exactly one -half gallon. The maker of this bag offers another model that costs about a dollar more and also functions as a hot water 
bottle. A good comforter it may make,  but the dual purpose construction makes the bag very awkward to rapidly refill. I 
recommend the inexpensive model. The plastic insertion tips vary somewhat. The straight tubular tip is intended for enemas; the flared vaginal douche tip can be 
useful for enemas too, in that it somewhat restrains unintentional expulsion of the nozzle while filling the colon. However,  its four 
small holes do not allow a very rapid rate of flow. To give yourself an enema, completely fill the bag with tepid water that does not exceed body temperature. The rectum is 
surprisingly sensitive to heat and you will flinch at temperatures o nly a degree or two higher than 98 Fahrenheit. Cooler water is 
no problem; some find the cold stimulating and invigorating. Fasters having difficulty staying warm should be wary of cold wa ter 
enemas. These can drop core body temperature below the point of comfort. Make sure the flow clamp on the tube is tightly shut and located a few inches up the tube from the nozzle. Hang the filled ba g 
from a clothes or towel hook, shower nozzle, curtain rod, or other convenient spot about four to five feet above th e bathroom floor 
or tub bottom. The higher the bag the greater the water pressure and speed of filling. But too much pressure can also be 
uncomfortable. You may have to experiment a bit with this. Various body positions are possible for filling the col on. None is correct or necessarily more effective than another. Experiment 
and find the one you prefer. Some fill their colon kneeling and bending forward in the bathtub or shower because there will l ikely 
be small dribbles of water leaking from around the  nozzle. Usually these leaks do not contain fecal matter. Others prefer to use the 
bathroom floor. For the bony, a little padding in the form of a folded towel under knees and elbows may make the process more  
comfortable. You may kneel and bend over while placing your elbows or hands on the floor, reach behind yourself and insert the 
nozzle. You may also lie on your back or on your side. Some think the left side is preferable because the colon attaches to t he 
rectum on the left side of the body, ascends up the left side of the abdomen to a line almost as high as the solar plexus, then 
transverses the body to the right side where it descends again on the right almost to the groin. The small intestine attaches  to the 
colon near its lower -right extremity. In fa ct these are the correct names given for the parts of the colon: Ascending, Descending 
and Transverse Colon along with the Sigmoid Colon or Rectum at the exit end. As you become more expert at filling your colon with water you will begin to become awa re of its location by the weight, 
pressure and sometimes temperature of the water you're injecting. You will come to know how much of the colon has been filled  
by feel. You will also become aware of peristalsis as the water is evacuated vigorously and disc over that sensations from a colon 
hard at work, though a bit uncomfortable, are not necessarily pain. Insertion of the nozzle is sometimes eased with a little lubricant. A bit of soap or KY jelly is commonly used. If the nozzle  can 
be inserted without lubricant it will have less tendency to slip out. However, do not tear or damage the anus by avoiding necessary 
lubrication. After insertion, grip the clamp with one hand and open it. The flow rate can be controlled with this clamp. Keep ing a 
hand on the c lamp also prevents the nozzle from being expelled. Water will begin flowing into the colon. Your goal is to empty the entire bag into the colon before sensations of pressure or  
urgency to evacuate the water force you to remove the nozzle and head for t he toilet. Relaxation of mind and body helps achieve 
this. You are very unlikely to achieve a half -gallon fill up on the first attempt. If painful pressure is experienced try closing the 
clamp for a moment to allow the water to begin working its way around  the obstacle. Or, next time try hanging the bag lower, 
reducing its height above the body and thus lowering the water pressure. Or, try opening the clamp only partially. Or, try pa nting 
hard, so as to make the abdomen move rapidly in and out, sort of shak ing the colon. This last technique is particularly good to get 
the water past a blockage of intestinal gas. It is especially important for Americans, whose culture does not teach one to be tolerant of discomfort, to keep in mind that  pain 
is the body's  warning that actual damage is being done to tissues. Enemas can do no damage and pose no risk except to that rare 
individual with weak spots in the colon's wall from cancers. When an enema is momentarily perceived unpleasantly, the correct  
name for the ex perience is a sensation, not pain. You may have to work at increasing your tolerance for unpleasant sensations or it 
will take you a long time to achieve the goal of totally filling the colon with water. Be brave! And relax. A wise philosophe r once 
said th at it is a rough Universe in which only the tigers survive --and sometimes they have a hard time. Eventually it will be time to remove the nozzle and evacuate the water. Either a blockage (usually fecal matter, an air bubbl e, or 
a tight ‘U' turn in the colon, usually at either the splenetic, or hepatic flexures located right below the rib cage) will prevent further 
inflow (undesirable) or else the bag will completely empty (good!) or the sensation of bursting will no longer be tolerable. Go sit 
on the to ilet and wait until all the water has passed. Then refill the bag and repeat the process. Each time you fill the colon it wil l 
allow more water to enter more easily with less unpleasantness. Fasters and cleansers should make at least three attempts at a 
complete fill -up each time they do an enema session. Water and juice fasters will find that after the first few enemas, it will become very easy to inject the entire half -gallon of water. That is because there is little or no chime entering the colon. A fter a few days the entire colon will seem (this is incorrect) to be 
empty except when it is filled with water. This is the point to learn an advanced self -administered enema technique. An average 
colon empty of new food will usually hold about one gallon of water. That is average. A small colon might only hold 3/4 gallon, a 
large one might accept a gallon and a half, or even more. You'll need to learn to simultaneously refill the bag while injecti ng water, 
so as to achieve a complete irrigation of the whol e colon. There are several possible methods. You might try placing a pitcher or 
half-gallon mason jar of tepid water next to the bag and after the bag has emptied the first time, stand up while holding the tube  in 
the anus, refill the bag and then lie down  again and continue filling. You might have an assistant do this for you. You might try 
hanging the bag from the shower head and direct a slow, continuous dribble of lukewarm water from the shower into the bag whi le 
you kneel or lie relaxed in the tub. Thi s way the bag will never empty and you stop filling only when you feel fullness and pressure 
all the way back to the beginning of the ascending colon. Of course, hanging from a slowly running shower head the bag will 
probably overflow and you will get spla shed and so will the bathroom floor when your wet body moves rapidly from the tub to the 
toilet. I've imagined making an enema bag from a two gallon plastic bucket with a small plastic hose barb glued into a hole d rilled 
in the bottom or lower edge. If I w ere in the business of manufacturing enema bags I'd make them hold at least one gallon. A word of caution to those folks who have a pattern of overdoing it, or tend to think that more is better. This is not true w hen it 
comes to colon cleansing. Do no t make more than three attempts to fill and clean the colon with an enema bag. Usually the colon 
begins to protest and won't accept any more fill -ups. When having colonics on a colonic machine it is a good idea to continue until 
the water comes back reason ably clear for that session. It is not a good idea for a faster to have colonics that last more than three -
quarters of an hour to an hour maximum, or it will be too tiring. Even non -fasters find colonics tiring. After all, the colon is 
basically a big musc le that has become very lazy on a low -fiber diet. I've personally administered over five thousand colonics, taught several dozen fasters to self -administer their own and stood by 
while they gave themselves one until they were quite expert. In all that experience I've only seen one person have a seriously bad 
result. This was a suicidally depressed water faster that I (mistakenly) allowed to administer their own colonics with my mac hine. This person not only took daily colonics, but allowed water to flow  through their colon for as long as two hours at a time. Perhaps 
they were trying to wash out their mind? After several weeks of this extreme excess, the faster became highly confused and 
disoriented due to a severe electrolyte imbalance. They had to be ta ken off water fasting immediately and recovered their mental 
clarity in a few days. The loss of blood electrolytes happened because during colonics there occurs a sort of low -grade very slow 
reverse osmosis. Curing With Enemas  
    It is not wise to contin ue regular colonics or enemas once a detoxification program has been completed and you have returned to 
a maintenance diet. The body should be allowed its regular functioning. But because enemas immediately lower the toxic load on the liver, I do recom mend people use them for prevention of an acute 
illness (you feel like you are coming down with something), and for the treatment of acute illnesses such as a cold. I also l ike to 
take one if I have been away traveling for extended periods, eating careless ly. But do not fall into a pattern of bingeing on bad 
food, and then trying to get rid of it through colonics or laxative. This is bulimia, the eating disorder discussed earlier. The Sheltonite capital "N" Natural capital "H" Hygienists do not recommen d any colon cleansing, ever! They think that the 
colon will spontaneously cleanse itself on a long water fast, but my experience learned from monitoring hundreds of fasters i s that 
it doesn't really. Herbert Shelton also considered colon cleansing enervati ng and therefore undesirable. Colon cleansing does use 
the faster's energy but on the balance, colon cleansing saves more work on the part of an overburdened liver than it uses up. Chapter Five  
Diet and Nutrition  
 
From The Hygienic Dictionary  
Food. [1] L ife is a tragedy of nutrition. In food lies 99.99% of the causes of all diseases and imperfect health of any kind. Prof. 
Arnold Ehret, Mucusless Diet Healing System. [2] But elimination will never heal perfectly just so long as you fail to discon tinue 
the supply of inside waste caused by eating and "wrong" eating. You may clean and continue to clean indefinitely, but never with 
complete results up to a perfect cleanliness, as long as the intake of wrong or even too much right foods, is not stopped. Pr of. Arnold Ehret, Mucusless Diet Healing System. [3] Cooked food favors bacterial, or organized, ferment preponderance, because 
cooking kills the unorganized and organized ferments, and both are needed to carry on the body's digestion. Raw foods –fruits and 
veget ables –favor unorganized ferment digestion, because these foods carry vitamins, which are unorganized ferments –enzymes. Dr. John.H. Tllden, Impaired Health: Its Cause and Cure, 1921. Recently, my younger (adult) daughter asked my advice choosing be tween a root canal or having a bridge made. This led to a 
discussion of her eating habits in general. Defending her currently less -than-optimum diet against my gentle criticism, she threw 
me a tough riposte. "Why," she asked, when I was raised so perfectly  as a child, "when I ate only Organic food until I was ten and 
old enough to make you send me to public school where I could eat those lousy school lunches" (her unfeeling, heartless mothe r 
home -schooled her), "why even at that young age, (before she spent  her adolescent rebellion eating junk food) why at that point 
did I still have a mouthful of cavities?" And she did. At age ten my daughter needed about ten fillings. This beautiful daughter of a practicing naturopath had received what, at the time, I  considered virtually perfect nutrition. She 
suckled hugely at her mother's abundant breast until age two. During this time her mother ate a natural foods diet. After wea ning 
my daughter got only whole grains, a little fresh goat's milk from my goat, fruit s and lots of Organic vegetables. I started my spa 
when my daughter was about five years old and from that point she was, like it or not, a raw fooder. And all that raw food wa s 
Organic and much of it from Great Oaks School's huge vegetable garden. For my daughter to develop cavities on this diet is reminiscent of Woody Allen's joke in his movie "Sleeper." Do you recall t his 
one, made about 1973? The plot is a take off on Rip Van Winkle. Woody goes into the hospital for minor surgery. Unexpectedl y 
he expires on the operating table and his body is frozen in hopes that someday he can be revived. One hundred and fifty years  later 
he is revived. The priceless scene I always think of takes place in his hospital room immediately after he comes to co nsciousness. The doctor 
in charge of his case is explaining to Woody what has happened. Woody refuses to believe he died and was frozen, asserting th at 
the whole story is a put on. Woody insists that the 'doctor' is clearly an actor hired by his friends! I t absolutely can't be the year 
2123. 'Oh, but it really is 2123,' insists the doctor. 'And it is no put -on by his friends; all his friends are long dead; Woody knows 
no one at all in 2123 and had better prepare himself to start a new life.' Woody stil l insists it is a put on. "I had a health food store," he says, "and all my friends ate brown rice. They can't be dead!" And my perfectly nourished daughter couldn't have developed cavities! But she did. And if she cheated on her perfect diet, ba d 
food could not have amounted to more than two percent of her total caloric intake from birth to age ten. I was a responsible mom 
and I made sure she ate right! Now my daughter was demanding to know why she had tooth decay. Fortunately, I now know the 
answer. T he answer is rather complex, but I can give a simplified explanation. The Confusions About Diets and Foods  
    Like my daughter, many people of all ages are muddled about the relationship between health and diet. Their confusions have 
created a profitable  market for health -related information. And equally, their confusions have been created by books, magazine 
articles, and TV news features. This avalanche of data is highly contradictory. In fact, one reason I found it hard to make m yself 
write my own book is that I wondered if my book too would become just another part of the confusion. Few people are willing to tolerate very much uncertainty. Rather than live with the discomfort of not knowing why, they will 
create an explanation or find some answer, a ny answer, and then ever after, assert its rightness like a shipwrecked person clings to 
a floating spar in a storm. This is how I explain the genesis of many contemporary food religions. Appropriately New -Agey and spiritual, Macrobiotics teaches the way to perfect health is to eat like a Japanese whole foods 
vegetarian –the endless staple being brown rice, some cooked vegetables and seaweeds, meanwhile balancing the "yin" and "yang" 
of the foods. And Macrobiotics works great for a lot of people. But no t all people. Because there's next to nothing raw in the 
Macrobiotic diet and some people are allergic to rice, or can get allergic to rice on that diet. Linda Clark's Diet for a Small Planet also has hundreds of thousands of dedicated followers. This system balances the 
proportions of essential amino acids at every single meal and is vegetarian. This diet also works and really helps some peopl e, but 
not as well as Macrobiotics in my opinion because obsessed with protein, Clark's diet contains too many hard-to-digest soy 
products and makes poor food combinations from the point of digestive capacity. Then there are the raw fooders. Most of them are raw, Organic fooders who go so far as to eat only unfired, unground cereals 
that have been soaked in war m water (at less than 115 degrees or you'll kill the enzymes) for many hours to soften the seeds up and 
start them sprouting. This diet works and really helps a lot of people. Raw organic foodism is especially good for "holy joes ," a 
sort of better -than-everyone -else person who enjoys great self -righteousness by owning this system. But raw fooding does not help 
all people nor solve all diseases because raw food irritates the digestive tracts of some people and in northern climates it is hard to 
maintain bod y heat on this diet because it is difficult to consume enough concentrated vegetable food in a raw state. And some raw 
fooders eat far too much fruit. I've seen them lose their teeth because of fruit's low mineral content, high sugar level and constant 
fruit acids in their mouths. Then there are vegetarians of various varieties including vegans (vegetarians that will not eat dairy products and eggs), and  then, 
there are their exact opposites, Atkins dieters focusing on protein and eating lots of meat. T here's the Adelle Davis school, people 
eating whole grains, handfuls of vitamins, lots of dairy and brewers yeast and wheat germ, and even raw liver. Then there's t he 
Organic school. These folks will eat anything in any combination, just so long as it is o rganically produced, including organically 
raised beef, chicken, lamb, eggs, rabbit, wild meats, milk and diary products, natural sea salt in large quantities and of co urse, 
organically grown fruits, vegetables grains and nuts. And what is "Organic?" The w ord means food raised in compliance with a set 
of rules contrived by a certification bureaucracy. When carefully analyzed, the somewhat illogical rules are not all that dif ferent in 
spirit than the rules of kashsruth or kosher. And the Organic certificatio n bureaucrats aren't all that different than the rabbis who 
certify food as being kosher, either. There are now millions of frightened Americans who, following the advice of mainstream Authority, have eliminated red meat 
from their diets and greatly re duced what they (mistakenly) understand as high -cholesterol foods. All these diets work too –or some –and all demonstrate some of the truth. The only area concerning health that contains more 
confusion and contradictory data than diet is vitamins. What a rats nest that is! The Fundamental Principle  
    If you are a true believer in any of the above food religions, I expect that you will find my views unsettling. But what I co nsider 
"good diet" results from my clinical work with thousands of cases. It is  what has worked with those cases. My eclectic views 
incorporate bits and pieces of all the above. In my own case, I started out by following the Organic school, and I was once a  raw 
food vegetarian who ate nothing but raw food for six years. I also ate Ma crobiotic for about one year until I became violently 
allergic to rice. I have arrived at a point where I understand that each person's biochemistry is unique and each must work out their own diet to 
suit their life goals, life style, genetic predispo sition and current state of health. There is no single, one, all -encompassing, correct 
diet. But, there is a single, basic, underlying Principle of Nutrition that is universally true. In its most simplified form,  the basic 
equation of human health goes: He alth = Nutrition / Calories. The equation falls far short of explaining the origin of each 
individuals diseases or how to cure diseases but Health = Nutrition / Calories does show the general path toward healthful ea ting 
and proper medicine. All animal s have the exact same dietary problem: finding enough nutrition to build and maintain their bodies within the limits of 
their digestive capacity. Rarely in nature (except for predatory carnivores) is there any significant restriction on the numb er of 
calor ies or serious limitation of the amount of low -nutrition foods available to eat. There's rarely any shortage of natural junk food 
on Earth. Except for domesticated house pets, animals are sensible enough to prefer the most nutritional fare available and t end to 
shun empty calories unless they are starving. But humans are perverse, not sensible. Deciding on the basis of artificially -created flavors, preferring incipid textures, we seem 
to prefer junk food and become slaves to our food addictions. For ex ample, in tropical countries there is a widely grown root crop, 
called in various places: tapioca, tavioca, manioc, or yuca. This interesting plant produces the greatest tonnage of edible, 
digestible, pleasant -tasting calories per acre compared to any othe r food crop I know. Manioc might seem the answer to human 
starvation because it will grow abundantly on tropical soils so infertile and/or so droughty that no other food crop will suc ceed 
there. Manioc will do this because it needs virtually nothing from t he soil to construct itself with. And consequently, manioc puts 
next to nothing nourishing into its edible parts. The bland -tasting root is virtually pure starch, a simple carbohydrate not much 
different than pure corn starch. Plants construct starches fro m carbon dioxide gas obtained from the air and hydrogen obtained 
from water. There is no shortage ever of carbon from CO2 in the air and rarely a shortage of hydrogen from water. When the 
highly digestible starch in manioc is chewed, digestive enzymes read ily convert it into sugar. Nutritionally there is virtually no 
difference between eating manioc and eating white sugar. Both are entirely empty calories. If you made a scale from ideal to worst regarding the ratio of nutrition to calories, white sugar,  manioc and most fats are at the 
extreme undesirable end. Frankly I don't know which single food might lie at the extreme positive end of the scale. Close to perfect 
might be certain leafy green vegetables that can be eaten raw. When they are grown on extr emely fertile soil, some greens develop 
20 or more percent completely digestible balanced protein with ideal ratios of all the essential amino acids, lots of vitamin s, tons of 
minerals, all sorts of enzymes and other nutritional elements –and very few calor ies. You could continually fill your stomach to 
bursting with raw leafy greens and still have a hard time sustaining your body weight if that was all you ate. Maybe Popeye t he 
Sailorman was right about eating spinach. For the moment, let’s ignore indiv idual genetic inabilities to digest specific foods and also ignore the effects stress and 
enervation can have on our ability to extract nutrition out of the food we are eating. Without those factors to consider, it is correct 
to say that, to the extent one 's diet contains the maximum potential amount of nutrition relative to the number of calories you are 
eating, to that extent a person will be healthy. To the extent the diet is degraded from that ideal, to that extent, disease will develop. Think about it! Lessons From Nutritional Anthropology  
    The next logical pair of questions are: How healthy could good nutrition make people be, and, How much deviation from ideal 
nutrition could we allow ourselves before serious disease appears? Luckily, earlier in t his century we could observe living answers 
to those questions (before the evidence disappeared). The answers are: We could be amazingly healthy, and, if we wish to enjo y 
excellent health we can afford to cut ourselves surprisingly little slack. Prior  to the Second World War there were several dozen sizable groups of extraordinarily healthy humans remaining on Earth. Today, their descendants are still in the same remote places, are speaking the same languages and possess more or less the sa me 
cultures. Only today they're watching satellite TV. wearing jeans, drinking colas –and their superior health has evaporated. During the early part of this century, at the same era vitamins and other basic aspects of nutrition were being discovered, a  few 
farsig hted medical explorers sought out these hard -to-reach places with their legendarily healthy peoples to see what caused the 
legendary well -being they'd heard of. Enough evidence was collected and analyzed to derive some very valid principles. First lets  dismiss some apparently logical but incorrect explanations for the unusually good health of these isolated peoples. It 
wasn't racial, genetic superiority. There were extraordinarily healthy blacks, browns, Orientals, Amerinds, Caucasians. It wa sn't 
living  at high altitude; some lived at sea level. It wasn't temperate climates, some lived in the tropics, some in the tropics at se a 
level, a type of location generally thought to be quite unhealthful. It wasn't a small collection of genetically superior ind ividuals, 
because when these peoples left their isolated locale and moved to the city, they rapidly began to lose their health. And it wasn't 
genetics because when a young couple from the isolated healthy village moved to town, their children born in town wer e as 
unhealthy as all the other kids. And what do I mean by genuinely healthy? Well, imagine a remote village or a mountain valley or a far island settlement very 
difficult to get to, where there lived a thousand or perhaps ten thousand people. Rarely fewer, rarely more. Among that small 
population there were no medical doctors and no dentists, no drugs, no vaccinations, no antibiotics. Usually the isolation ca rried 
with it illiteracy and precluded contact with or awareness of modern science, so there w as little or no notion of public hygiene. And this was before the era of antibiotics. Yet these unprotected, undoctored, unvaccinated peoples did not suffer and die fr om 
bacterial infections; and the women did not have to give birth to 13 children to get 2 .4 to survive to breeding age –almost all the 
children made it through the gauntlet of childhood diseases. There was also virtually no degenerative disease like heart atta cks, 
hardening of the arteries, senility, cancer, arthritis. There were few if any bir th defects. In fact, there probably weren't any aspirin 
in the entire place. Oh, and there was very little mortality during childbirth, as little or less than we have today with all  our 
hospitals. And the people uniformly had virtually perfect teeth and ke pt them all till death, but did not have toothbrushes nor any 
notion of dental hygiene. Nor did they have dentists or physicians. (Price, 1970)  
    And in those fortunate places the most common causes of death were accident (trauma) and old age. The typical life span was 
long into the 70s and in some places quite a bit longer. One fabled place, Hunza, was renowned for having an extraordinarily high 
percentage of vigorous and active people over 100 years old. I hope I've made you curious. "How could this be?" you're asking. Well, here's why. First, everyone of those groups lived in 
places so entirely remote, so inaccessible that they were of ne cessity, virtually self -sufficient. They hardly traded at all with the 
outside world, and certainly they did not trade for bulky, hard -to-transport bulk foodstuffs. Virtually everything they ate was 
produced by themselves. If they were an agricultural peop le, naturally, everything they ate was natural: organic, whole, unsprayed 
and fertilized with whatever local materials seemed to produce enhanced plant growth. And, if they were agricultural, they li ved on 
a soil body that possessed highly superior natural  fertility. If not an agricultural people they lived by the sea and made a large 
portion of their diets sea foods. If their soil had not been extraordinarily fertile, these groups would not have enjoyed sup erior 
health and would have conformed to the curre ntly widely -believed notion that before the modern era, people's lives were brutish, 
unhealthful, and short. What is common between meat -eating Eskimos, isolated highland Swiss living on rye bread, milk and cheese; isolated Scottish 
island Celts with a dietary of oat porridge, kale and sea foods; highland central Africans (Malawi) eating sorghum, millet tropical 
root crops and all sorts of garden vegetables, plus a little meat and dairy; Fijians living on small islands in the humid tro pics at sea 
level  eating sea foods and garden vegetables. What they had in common was that their foods were all at the extreme positive end of 
the Health = Nutrition / Calories scale. The agriculturists were on very fertile soil that grew extraordinarily nutrient -rich food , the 
sea food gatherers were obtaining their tucker from the place where all the fertility that ever was in the soil had washed ou t of the 
land had been transported –sea foods are also extraordinarily nutrient rich. The group with the very best soil an d consequently, the best health of all were, by lucky accident, the Hunza. I say "lucky" and 
"accident" because the Hunza and their resource base unknowingly developed an agricultural system that produced the most 
nutritious food that it is possible to gro w. The Hunza lived on what has been called super food. There are a lot of interesting books 
about the Hunza, some deserving of careful study. (Wrench, 1938; Rodale, 1949)  
 
Finding Your Ideal Dietary  
    Anyone that is genuinely interested in having the bes t possible health should make their own study of the titles listed in the 
bibliography in the end of this book. After you do, award yourself a BS in nutrition. I draw certain conclusions from this bo dy of 
data. I think they help a person sort out the massi ve confusion that exists today about proper diet. First principle: Homo Sapiens clearly can posses extreme health while eating very different dietary regimens. There is no one  
right diet for humans. Before the industrial era almost everyone on Ear th ate what was produced locally. Their dietary choices were pretty much 
restricted to those foods that were well adapted and productive in their region. Some places grew rye, others wheat, others m illet, 
others rice. Some places supported cows, others goa ts, others had few on no domesticated animals. Some places produced a lot of 
fruits and vegetables. Others did not. Whatever the local diet, during thousands of years of eating that diet natural selecti on 
prevailed; most babies that were allergic to or not  able to thrive on the available diet, died quickly, probably of childhood bacterial 
infections. The result of this weeding out process was a population closely adapted to the available diet of a particular loc ale. This has interesting implications fo r Americans, most of whose ancestors immigrated from somewhere else; many of our 
ancestors also "hybridized" or crossed with immigrants from elsewhere. Trying to discover what dietary substances your partic ular 
genetic endowment is adapted to can be diffic ult and confusing. If both your parents were Italian and they were more or less pure 
Italian going way back, you might start out trying to eat wheat, olives, garlic, fava beans, grapes, figs, cow dairy. If pure  German, 
try rye bread, cow dairy, apples, cab bage family vegetables. If Scottish, try oats, mutton, fish, sheep dairy and cabbage family 
vegetables. If Jewish, try goat dairy, wheat, olives and citrus. And certainly all the above ethnic derivations will thrive o n many 
kinds of vegetables. Afro -Americ ans, especially dark -complexioned ones little mixed with Europeans, might do well to avoid 
wheat and instead, try sorghum, millet or tropical root crops like sweet potatoes, yams and taro. Making it even more difficult for an individual to discover the ir optimum diet is the existence of genetic -based allergies and 
worse, developed allergies. Later in this chapter I will explain how a body can develop an allergy to a food that is probably  
irreversible. A weakened organ can also prevent digestion of a foo d or food group. One more thing about adaptation to dietaries. Pre -industrial humans could only be extraordinarily healthy on the diet they were 
adapted to if and only if that diet also was extraordinarily high in nutrients. Few places on earth have na turally rich soil. Food 
grown on poor soil is poor in nutrition; that grown on rich soil is high in nutrition. People do not realize that the charts and tables 
in the backs of health books like Adelle Davis's Lets Cook It Right, are not really true. They a re statistics. It is vital to keep in 
mind the old saying, "There are lies, there are damned lies, and then there are statistics. The best way to lie is with stati stics." Statistical tables of the nutrient content of foods were developed by averaging numerous samples of food from various soils and 
regions. These tables basically lie because they do not show the range of possibility between the different samples. A chart may 
state authoritatively that 100 grams of broccoli contains so many milligrams of  calcium. What it does not say is that some broccoli 
samples contain only half that amount or even less, while other broccoli contains two or three times that amount. Since calci um is 
a vital nutrient hard to come by in digestible form, the high calcium br occoli is far better food than the low calcium sample. But 
both samples of broccoli appear and taste more or less alike. Both could even be organically grown. Yet one sample has a very  
positive ratio of nutrition to calories, the other is lousy food. (Schu phan, 1965) Here's another example I hope will really dent the 
certainties the Linda Clarkites. Potatoes can range in protein from eight to eleven percent, depending on the soil that produ ced 
them and if they were or were not irrigated. Grown dry (very low  yielding) on semiarid soils, potatoes can be a high -protein staff 
of life. Heavily irrigated and fertilized so as to produce bulk yield instead of nutrition, they'll produce two or three time s the 
tonnage, but at 8 percent protein instead of 11 percent. N ot only does the protein content drop just as much as yield is boosted, the 
amino acid ratios change markedly, the content of scarce nutritional minerals drops massively, and the caloric content increa ses. In 
short, subsisting on irrigated commercially -grown potatoes, or on those grown on relatively infertile soils receiving abundant 
rainfall will make you fat and sick. They're a lot like manioc. Here's another. Wheat can range from 7 to 19 percent protein. Before the industrial era ruined most wheat by  turning it into 
white flour, wheat -eating peoples from regions where the cereal naturally contains abundant protein tended to be tall, healthy and 
long-lived. Wheat -eating humans from regions that produce low protein grain tended to be small, sickly and s hort-lived. (McCarrison, 1921, 1936, 1982; Albrecht, 1975)  
    Even cows have to pay attention to where their grass is coming from. Some green grass is over 15 percent protein and contains  
lots of calcium, phosphorus and magnesium to build strong bodies. O ther equally or even better looking green grass contains only 
six or seven percent protein and contains little calcium, phosphorus or magnesium. Cows forced to eat only this poor type of grass 
can literally starve to death with full bellies. And they have a hard time breeding successfully. The reason for the difference: 
different soil fertility profiles. (Albrecht, 1975)  
    When people ate local, those living on fertile soils or getting a significant portion of their diet from the sea and who beca use of 
physical isolation from industrial foods did not make a practice of eating empty calories tended to live a long time and be ver y 
healthy. But those unfortunates on poor soils or with unwise cultural life -styles tended to be short -lived, diseased, small, weak , 
have bad teeth, etc. The lesson here is that Homo Sapiens can adapt to many different diets, but like any other animal, the o ne 
thing we can't adapt to is a diet deficient in nutrition. So here's another "statistic" to reconsider. Most people believ e that due to modern medical wonders, we live longer than we used 
to. Actually, that depends. Compared to badly nourished populations of a century ago, yes! We do. Chemical medicine keeps 
sickly, poorly nourished people going a lot longer (though one wonde rs about the quality of their dreary existences.) I hypothesize 
that before the time most farmers purchased and baked with white flour and sold their whole, unground wheat, many rural 
Americans (the ones on good soil, not all parts of North America have ri ch soil) eating from their own self -sufficient farms, lived 
as long or even longer than we do today. You also have to wonder who benefits from promulgating this mistaken belief about 
longevity. Who gets rich when we are sick? And what huge economic interes ts are getting rich helping make us sick? The Human Comedy  
 I know most of my readers have been heavily indoctrinated about food and think they already know the truth about 
dietetics. I also know that so much information (and misinformation) is c oming out about diet that most of my 
readers are massively confused about the subject. These are two powerful reasons many readers will look with 
disbelief at what this chapter has to say and take no action on my data, even to prove me wrong. Let me warn y ou. There is a deep -seated human tendency to put off taking responsibilities, beautifully demonstrated 
by this old joke. A 14 year old boy was discovered masturbating by his father, who said, "son, you shouldn't do that! If you keep it 
up you'll eventually  go blind!" ` "But father,” came the boy's quick reply. "It feels good. How about if I don't quit 
until I need to wear glasses?" The Organic Versus Chemical Feud  
    Now, regrettably, and at great personal risk to my reputation, I must try to puncture the very favorite belief of food religi onists, 
the doctrine that organically grown food is as nutritious as food can possibly be, Like Woody Allen's brown -rice-eating  friends, 
people think if you eat Organic foods, you will inevitably live a very long time and be very healthy. Actually, the Organic v s. 
chemical feud is in many ways false. Many (not all) samples of organically grown food are as low or lower in nutrition  as foods 
raised with chemical fertilizers. Conversely, wisely using chemical fertilizers (not pesticides) can greatly increase the nut ritional 
value of food. Judiciously used Organic fertilizing substances can also do that as well or better. And in either  case, using chemical 
fertilizers or so -called organic fertilizers, to maximize nutrition the humus content of the soil must be maintained. But, raising soil 
organic matter levels too high can result in a massive reduction in the nutritional content of the  food being grown –a very frequent 
mistake on the part of Organic devotees. In other words, growing nutrition is a science, and is not a matter of religion. The food I fed to my daughter in childhood, though Organic according to Rodale and the certifica tion bureaucrats, though 
providing this organic food to my family and clients gave me a feeling of self -righteousness, was not grown with an understanding 
of the nutritional consequences of electing to use one particular Organic fertilizing substance over another. So we and a lot of 
regional Organic market gardeners near us that we bought from, were raising food that was far from ideally nutritious. At lea st 
though, our food was free of pesticide residues. The real dichotomy in food is not "chemical" f ertilizer versus "Organic," It is between industrial food and quality food. What I 
mean by industrial food is that which is raised with the intention of maximizing profit or yield. There is no contradiction b etween 
raising food that the "rabbis" running Or ganic certification bureaucracies would deem perfectly "kosher" and raising that same 
food to make the most possible money or the biggest harvest. When a farmer grows for money, they want to produce the largest 
number of bushels, crates, tons, bales per ac re. Their criteria for success is primarily unit volume. Many gardeners think the same 
way. To maximize bulk yield they build soil fertility in a certain direction (organically or chemically) and choose varieties  that 
produce greater bulk. However, nature is ironic in this respect. The most nutritious food is always lower yielding. The very soil 
management practices that maximize production simultaneously reduce nutrition. The real problem we are having about our health is not that there are residues of  pesticides in our food. The real problem is that 
there are only residues of nutrition left in our foods. Until our culture comes to understand this and realizes that the heal th costs of 
accepting less than optimum food far exceeds the profits made by grow ing bulk, it will not be possible to frequently find the 
ultimate of food quality in the marketplace, organically grown or not. It will not be possible to find food that is labeled o r 
identified according to its real nutritional value. The best I can say a bout Organic food these days is that it probably is no less 
nutritious than chemically -grown food while at least it is free of pesticide residues. The Poor Start  
    For this reason it makes sense to take vitamins and food supplements, to be discussed in  the next chapter. And because our food 
supply, Organic or "conventional," is far from optimum, if a person wants to be and remain healthy and have a life span that 
approaches their genetic potential (and that potential, it seems, approaches or exceeds a c entury), it is essential that empty calories 
are rigorously avoided. An accurate and quick -to-respond indicator of how well we are doing in terms of getting enough nutrition is the state of our 
teeth. One famous dentally -oriented nutritional doctor, M elvin Page, suggested that as long as overall nutrition was at least 75 
percent of perfection, the body chemistry could support healthy teeth and gums until death. By healthy here Page means free o f 
cavities, no bone loss around the teeth (no wobblers), no  long-in-the-teeth mouths from receding gums, no gum diseases at all. But 
when empty calories or devitalized foods or misdigestion cuts our nutrient intake we begin experiencing tooth decay, gum dise ase 
and bone loss in the jaw. How are your teeth? I suppose you could say that I have a food religion, but mine is to eat so that the equation Nutrition = Health / Calories is 
strongly in my favor. Back to my daughter's teeth. Yes, I innocently fed her less than ideally nutritious food, but at that time I couldn't buy ideal food 
even had I known what I wanted, nor did I have any scientific idea of how to produce ideal food, nor actually, could I have d one so 
on the impoverished, leached -out clay soil at Great Oaks School even had I known how. The Organic doctrine says that you can 
build a Garden of Eatin’ with large quantities of compost until any old clay pit or gravel heap produces highly nutritious fo od. This 
idea is not really true. Sadly, what is true about organic matter in soil is that when it is in creased very much above the natural level 
one finds in untilled soil in the climate you're working with, the nutritional content of the food begins to drop markedly. I  know 
this assertion is shocking and perhaps threatening to those who believe in the Orga nic system; I am sorry. But there is another reason my daughter's teeth were not perfect, probably could not have been perfect no matter what we fed 
her, and why she will probably have at least some health problems as she ages no matter how perfectly she may choose to eat from 
here on. My daughters had what Dr. G.T. Wrench called "a poor start." Not as poor as it could have been by any means, but 
certainly less than ideal. You see, the father has very little to do with the health of the child, unle ss he happens to carry some particularly undesirable 
gene. It is the mother who has the job of constructing the fetus out of prepartum nourishment and her own body's nutritional 
reserves. The female body knows from instinctual experience that adequate nutr ition from the current food supply during 
pregnancy can not always be assured, so the female body stores up very large quantities of minerals and vitamins and enzymes 
against that very possibility. When forming a fetus these reserves are drawn down and dep leted. It is virtually impossible during 
the pregnancy itself for a mother to extract sufficient nutrition from current food to build a totally healthy fetus, no matt er how 
nourishing the food she is eating may be. Thus a mother -to-be needs to be spending her entire childhood and her adolescence (and 
have adequate time between babies), building and rebuilding her reserves. A mother -to-be also started out at her own birth with a vitally important stock of nutritional reserves, reserves put there during 
her own fetal development. If that "start" was less than ideal, the mother -to-be (as fetus) got "pinched" and nutritionally short -
changed in certain, predictable ways. Even minor mineral fetal deficiencies degrade the bone structure: the fetus knows it ne eds 
nutritional reserves more than it needs to have a full -sized jaw bone or a wide pelvic girdle, and when deprived of maximum fetal 
nourishment, these non -vital bones become somewhat smaller. Permanently. If mineral deficiencies continue into infancy and 
childhood, these same bones continue to be short -changed, and the child ends up with a very narrow face, a jaw bone far too small 
to hold all the teeth, and in women, a small oven that may have trouble baking babies. More importantly, those nutrient reser ves 
earmarked especially for making babies are also deficient. So a deficient mother not only shows certain structural evidence o f 
physiological degeneration, but she makes deficient babies. A deficient female baby at birth is unlikely to completely overco me 
her bad start before she herself has children. So with females, the quality of a whole lifetime's nutrition, and the life -nutrition of her mother (and of her mother's mother as 
well) has a great deal to do with the outcome of a pregnancy. The sins of  the mother can really be visited unto the third and fourth 
generation. This reality was powerfully demonstrated in the 1920s by a medical doctor, Francis Pottenger. He was not gifted with a good 
bedside manner. Rather than struggling with an unsuccess ful clinical practice, Dr. Pottenger decided to make his living running a 
medical testing laboratory in Pasadena, California. Dr. Pottenger earned his daily bread performing a rather simple task, ass aying 
the potency of adrenal hormone extracts. At that ti me, adrenaline, a useful drug to temporarily rescue people close to death, was 
extracted from the adrenal glands of animals. However, the potency of these crude extracts varied greatly. Being a very power ful 
drug, it was essential to measure exactly how st rong your extract was so its dosage could be controlled. Quantitative organic chemistry was rather crude in those days. Instead of assaying in a test tube, Dr. Pottenger kept several  big 
cages full of cats that he had adrenalectomized. Without their o wn adrenals, the cats could not live more than a short time By 
finding out how much extract was required to keep the cats from failing, he could measure the strength of the particular batc h.  
    Dr. Pottenger's cats were economically valuable so he made e very effort to keep them healthy, something that proved to be 
disappointingly difficult. He kept his cats clean, in airy, bright quarters, fed them to the very best of his ability on past eurized 
whole milk, slaughterhouse meat and organs (cats in the wild eat organ meats first and there are valuable vitamins and other 
substances in organ meats that don't exist in muscle tissue). The meat was carefully cooked to eliminate any parasites, and t he diet 
was supplemented with cod liver oil. However, try as he mig ht, Pottenger's cats were sickly, lived short and had to be frequently 
replaced. Usually they bred poorly and died young of bacterial infections, there being no antibiotics in the 1920s. I imagine  Dr. 
Pottenger was constantly visiting the animal shelter an d perhaps even paid quarters out the back door to a steady stream of young 
boys who brought him cats in burlap sacks from who knows where, no questions asked. Dr. Pottenger's assays must have been accurate, for his business grew and grew. Eventually he  needed more cats than he had 
cages to house, so he built a big, roofed, on -the-ground pen outdoors. Because he was overworked, he was less careful about the 
feeding of these extra animals. They got the same pasteurized milk and cod -liver oil, but he did n ot bother to cook their 
slaughterhouse meat. Then, a small miracle happened. This poorly cared for cage of cats fed on uncooked meat became much 
healthier than the others, suffering far fewer bacterial infections or other health problems. Then another mira cle happened. Dr. 
Pottenger began to meditate on the first miracle. It occurred to him that cats in the wild did not cook their food; perhaps cats had a digestive system that couldn't process o r 
assimilate much out of cooked food. Perhaps the problem h e had been having was not because the cats were without adrenal 
glands but because they were without sustenance, suffering a sort of slow starvation in the midst of plenty. So Dr. Pottenger  set up 
some cat feeding experiments. There were four possible combinations of his regimen: raw meat and unpasteurized milk; raw meat and pasteurized milk; 
cooked meat and raw milk; cooked meat and pasteurized milk, this last one being what he had been feeding all along. So he 
divided his cats into four groups and fed  each group differently. The first results of Pottenger's experiments were revealed quickly 
though the most valuable results took longer to see. The cats on raw meat and raw milk did best. The ones on raw meat and 
pasteurized milk did okay but not as well. The ones on cooked meat and raw milk did even less well and those on all cooked food 
continued to do as poorly as ever. Clearly, cats can't digest cooked food; all animals do better fed on what they can digest. A lot of people have taken Potteng er's 
data and mistakenly concluded that humans also should eat only raw food. This idea is debatable. However, the most important 
result of the cat experiments took years to reveal itself and is not paid much attention to, probably because its implication s are very 
depressing. Dr. Pottenger continued his experiments for several generations. It was the transgenerational changes that showed  the 
most valuable lesson. Over several generations, the cats on all raw foods began to alter their appearance. Their faces go t wider, 
their pelvic girdles broader, bones solider, teeth better. They began to breed very successfully. After quite a few generations, the healthiest group, the one on all raw foods, seemed to have improved as much as it could. S o 
Dr. Pottenger too k some of these cats and began feeding them only cooked food to study the process of nutritional degeneration. After three "de"generations on cooked fodder the group had deteriorated so much that the animals could barely breed. Their fa ces 
had become narro w, their teeth crooked, their pelvic girdles narrow, their bones and body structure very small, and their 
dispositions poor. Mothers wouldn't nurse their young and sometimes became cannibalistic. They no longer lived very long. Before the degenerating group completely lost the ability to breed, Pottenger began to again feed them all raw food. It took four 
generations on a perfect, raw food diet before some perfect -appearing individuals showed up in the group. It takes longer to repair 
the damage than it  does to cause it and it takes generations of unflagging persistence. I think much the same process has happened to humans in this century. With the invention of the roller mill and the consequen t 
degradation of our daily bread to white flour; with the  birth of industrial farming and the generalized lowering of the nutritional 
content of all of our crops; our overall ratio of nutrition to calories worsened. Then it worsened again because we began to have 
industrial food manufacturing and national brand prepared food -marketing systems; we began subsisting on devitalized, processed 
foods. The result has been an even greater worsening of our ratio of nutrition to calories.
When_to_Be_Your_Own_Doctor.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        If on the other 
hand, when it was dark (we had no electricity), and there was a cold wind creating huge banks of snow, I would ‘just skip it,'
because the alternative --an indoor chamber pot, white enamel with a lid --was worse. This potty had  to be used more or less 
publicly because the bedrooms were shared and there was no indoor bathroom. I was always very modest about my private parts 
and private functions, and potty's were only used in emergencies, and usually with considerable embarrassme nt. No one ever 
explained to me that it was not good for me to retain fecal matter, and I never thought about it unless my movements became s o 
hard that it was painful to eliminate. Later in life, I continued this pattern of putting off bowel movement s, even though outhouses and potties were a thing of the 
past. As a young adult I could always think of something more interesting to do than sitting on a pot, besides it was messy a nd 
sometimes accompanied by embarrassing sound effects which were definite ly not romantic if I was in the company of a young 
man. During two pregnancies the tendency to constipation was aggravated by the weight of the fetus resting on an already slug gish 
bowel, and the discomfort of straining to pass my first hard bowel movement  after childbirth with a torn perineum I won't forget. Rapid Relief From Colon Cleansing  
    During fasting the liver is hard at work processing toxins released from fat and other body deposits. The liver still dumps i ts 
wastes into the intestines throug h the bile duct. While eating normally, bile, which contains highly toxic substances, is passed 
through the intestines and is eliminated before too much is reabsorbed. (It is the bile that usually makes the fecal matter s o dark in 
color. ) However, reductio n of food bulk reduces or completely eliminates peristalsis, thus allowing intestinal contents to sit for 
extended periods. And the toxins in the bile are reabsorbed, forming a continuous loop, further burdening the liver. The mucus membranes lining th e colon constantly secrete lubricants to ease fecal matter through smoothly. This secretion does 
not stop during fasting; in fact, it may increase because intestinal mucus often becomes a secondary route of elimination. Al lowed 
to remain in the bowel, toxi c mucus is an irritant while the toxins in it may be reabsorbed, forming yet another closed loop and 
further burdening the liver. Daily enemas or colonics administered during fasting or while on cleansing diets effectively remove old fecal material sto red in 
the colon and immediately ease the livers load, immediately relieve discomfort by allowing the liver's efforts to further det oxify 
the blood, and speed healing. Fasters cleansing on juice or raw food should administer two or three enemas in short su ccession 
every day for the first three days to get a good start on the cleansing process, and then every other day or at very minimum,  every 
few days. Enemas or colonics should also be taken whenever symptoms become uncomfortable, regardless of whether you  have 
already cleaned the colon that day or not. Once the faster has experienced the relief from symptoms that usually comes from a n 
enema they become more than willing to repeat this mildly unpleasant experience. Occasionally enemas, by filling the c olon and making it press on the liver, induce discharges of highly toxic bile that may cause 
temporary nausea. Despite the induced nausea it is still far better to continue with colonics because of the great relief exp erienced 
after the treatment. If nause a exists or persists during colon cleansing, consider trying slight modifications such as less or no 
massage of the colon in the area of the gall bladder (abdominal area close to the bottom of the right rib cage), and putting slightly 
less water in the col on when filling it up. It also helps to make sure that the stomach is empty of any fluid for one hour prior to the 
colonic. Resume drinking after the colonic sessions is completed. If you are one of these rare people who ‘toss their bile', just keep 
a plas tic bucket handy and some water to rinse out the mouth after, and carry on as usual. Enemas Versus Colonics  
    People frequently wonder what is the difference between a colonic and an enema. First of all enemas are a lot cheaper because you give the m to yourself; an enema bag usually costs about ten dollars, is available 
at any large drug store, and is indefinitely reusable. Colonics cost anywhere from 30 to 75 dollars a session. Chiropractors and naturopaths who offer this service hire a colonic  technician that may or may not be a skilled operator. It is a 
good idea to find a person who has a very agreeable and professional manner, who can make you feel at ease since relaxation i s 
very important. It is also beneficial to have a colonic therapist who massages the abdomen and foot reflexes appropriately during 
the session. Enemas and colonics can accomplish exactly the same beneficial work. But colonics accomplish more improvement in less time 
than enemas for several reasons. During a colonic f rom 30 to 50 gallons of water are flushed through the large intestines, usually in 
a repetitive series of fill -ups followed by flushing with a continuous flow of water. This efficiency cannot even be approached with 
an enema. But by repeating the enema thr ee times in close succession a satisfactory cleanse can be achieved. Persisted with long 
enough, enemas will clean the colon every bit as well as a colonic machine can. Enemas given at home take a lot less time than traveling to receive a colonics at s omeone's clinic, and can be done entirely at 
you own convenience --a great advantage when fasting because you can save your energy for internal healing. But colonics are 
more appropriate for some. There are fasters who are unable to give themselves an enema  either because their arms are too short 
and their body is too long and they lack flexibility, or because of a physical handicap or they can't confront their colon, s o they let 
someone else do it. Some don't have the motivation to give themselves a little discomfort but are comfortable with someone else 
doing it to them. Some very sick people are too weak to cleanse their own colon, so they should find someone to assist them w ith 
an at -home enema or have someone take them to a colonic therapist. Few pe ople these days have any idea how to properly give themselves an enema. The practice has been discredited by 
traditional medical doctors as slightly dangerous, perhaps addictive and a sign of psychological weirdness. Yet Northamerican s on 
their civilized, low fiber, poorly combined diets suffer widely from constipation. One proof of this is the fact that chemical 
laxatives, with their own set of dangers and liabilities, occupy many feet of drug store shelf space and are widely advertise d. Is the 
medical pro fession's disapproval of the enema related to the fact that once the initial purchase of an enema bag has been made 
there are no further expenses for laxatives. Or perhaps it might be that once a person discovers they can cure a headache, st op a 
cold dead in its tracks with an enema, they aren't visiting the M. D. s so often. The enema has also been wrongly accused of causing a gradual loss of colon muscle tone, eventually preventing bowel 
movements without the stimulation of an enema, leading finally to  flaccidity and enlargement of the lower bowel. This actually 
can happen; when it does occur it is the result of frequent administration of small amounts of water (fleet enemas) for the p urpose 
of stimulating a normal bowel movement. The result is constant  stretching of the rectum without sufficient fluid to enter the 
descending colon. A completely opposite, highly positive effect comes from properly administered enemas while cleansing. The difference between helpful and potentially harmful enemas lies in the amount of water injected and the frequency of use. Using a cup or two of water to induce a bowel movement may eventually cause dependency, will not strengthen the colon and may  
after years of this practice, result in distention and enlargement of th e rectum or sigmoid colon. However, a completely empty 
average -sized colon has the capacity of about a gallon of water. When increasingly larger enemas are administered until the colon 
is nearly emptied of fecal matter and the injection of close to a gallo n of water is achieved, beneficial exercise and an increase in 
overall muscle tone are the results. Correctly given, enemas (and especially colonics) serve as strengthening exercises for the colon. This long tubular muscle is  
repeatedly and completely  filled with water, inducing it to vigorously exercise while evacuating itself multiple times. The result is 
a great increase in muscle tone, acceleration of peristalsis and eventually, after several dozens of repetitions, a considera ble 
reduction of trans it time. Well -done enemas work the colon somewhat less effectively and do not improve muscle tone quite as 
much as colonics. Injecting an entire gallon of water with an enema bag is very impractical when a person is eating normally. But on a light 
cleansing diet or while fasting the amount of new material passing into the colon is small or negligible. During the first few da ys of 
fasting if two or three enemas are administered each day in immediate succession the colon is soon completely emptied of rece ntly 
eaten food and it becomes progressively easier to introduce larger amounts of water. Within a few days of this regimen, injec ting 
half a gallon or more of water is easy and painless. Probably for psychological reasons, some peoples' colons allow water to be injected one time but then "freeze up" and resist 
successive enemas. For this reason better results are often obtained by having one enema, waiting a half hour, another enema,  wait 
a half hour, and have a final enema. A colonic machine in the hands of an expert operator can administer the equivalent of six or seven big enemas in less than one 
hour, and do this without undue discomfort or effort from the person receiving the colonic. However, the AMA has suppressed t he 
use of colonics; they are illegal to administer in many states. Where colonics are legal, the chiropractors now consider this practice 
messy and not very profitable compared to manipulations. So it is not easy to find a skilled and willing colonic technician. Anyone who pl ans to give themselves therapeutic enemas while fasting would be well advised to first seek out a colonic 
therapist and receive two or three colonics delivered one day apart while eating lightly and then immediately begin the fast. Three 
colonics given on three successive days of a light, raw food diet are sufficient to empty all recently eaten food even from a very 
constipated, distended and bloated colon, while acquainting a person with their own bowel. Having an empty colon is actually a 
pleasant and to most people a thoroughly novel experience. A few well -delivered colonics can quickly accustom a person to the 
sensations accompanying the enema and demonstrate the effect to be achieved by oneself with an enema bag, something not 
quickly discoverable any o ther way. How To Give Yourself An Enema  
    Enemas have been medically out of favor for a long time. Most people have never had one. So here are simple directions to sel f-
administer an effective enema series. The enema bag you select is important. It must hold at least two quarts and be rapidly refillable. The best American -made brand 
is made of rubber with about five feet of rubber hose ending in one of two different white hard plastic insertion tips. The b ag is 
designed for either enemas or vaginal d ouches. It hangs from a detachable plastic "S" hook. When filled to the brim it holds 
exactly one -half gallon. The maker of this bag offers another model that costs about a dollar more and also functions as a hot water 
bottle. A good comforter it may make,  but the dual purpose construction makes the bag very awkward to rapidly refill. I 
recommend the inexpensive model. The plastic insertion tips vary somewhat. The straight tubular tip is intended for enemas; the flared vaginal douche tip can be 
useful for enemas too, in that it somewhat restrains unintentional expulsion of the nozzle while filling the colon. However,  its four 
small holes do not allow a very rapid rate of flow. To give yourself an enema, completely fill the bag with tepid water that does not exceed body temperature. The rectum is 
surprisingly sensitive to heat and you will flinch at temperatures o nly a degree or two higher than 98 Fahrenheit. Cooler water is 
no problem; some find the cold stimulating and invigorating. Fasters having difficulty staying warm should be wary of cold wa ter 
enemas. These can drop core body temperature below the point of comfort. Make sure the flow clamp on the tube is tightly shut and located a few inches up the tube from the nozzle. Hang the filled ba g 
from a clothes or towel hook, shower nozzle, curtain rod, or other convenient spot about four to five feet above th e bathroom floor 
or tub bottom. The higher the bag the greater the water pressure and speed of filling. But too much pressure can also be 
uncomfortable. You may have to experiment a bit with this. Various body positions are possible for filling the col on. None is correct or necessarily more effective than another. Experiment 
and find the one you prefer. Some fill their colon kneeling and bending forward in the bathtub or shower because there will l ikely 
be small dribbles of water leaking from around the  nozzle. Usually these leaks do not contain fecal matter. Others prefer to use the 
bathroom floor. For the bony, a little padding in the form of a folded towel under knees and elbows may make the process more  
comfortable. You may kneel and bend over while placing your elbows or hands on the floor, reach behind yourself and insert the 
nozzle. You may also lie on your back or on your side. Some think the left side is preferable because the colon attaches to t he 
rectum on the left side of the body, ascends up the left side of the abdomen to a line almost as high as the solar plexus, then 
transverses the body to the right side where it descends again on the right almost to the groin. The small intestine attaches  to the 
colon near its lower -right extremity. In fa ct these are the correct names given for the parts of the colon: Ascending, Descending 
and Transverse Colon along with the Sigmoid Colon or Rectum at the exit end. As you become more expert at filling your colon with water you will begin to become awa re of its location by the weight, 
pressure and sometimes temperature of the water you're injecting. You will come to know how much of the colon has been filled  
by feel. You will also become aware of peristalsis as the water is evacuated vigorously and disc over that sensations from a colon 
hard at work, though a bit uncomfortable, are not necessarily pain. Insertion of the nozzle is sometimes eased with a little lubricant. A bit of soap or KY jelly is commonly used. If the nozzle  can 
be inserted without lubricant it will have less tendency to slip out. However, do not tear or damage the anus by avoiding necessary 
lubrication. After insertion, grip the clamp with one hand and open it. The flow rate can be controlled with this clamp. Keep ing a 
hand on the c lamp also prevents the nozzle from being expelled. Water will begin flowing into the colon. Your goal is to empty the entire bag into the colon before sensations of pressure or  
urgency to evacuate the water force you to remove the nozzle and head for t he toilet. Relaxation of mind and body helps achieve 
this. You are very unlikely to achieve a half -gallon fill up on the first attempt. If painful pressure is experienced try closing the 
clamp for a moment to allow the water to begin working its way around  the obstacle. Or, next time try hanging the bag lower, 
reducing its height above the body and thus lowering the water pressure. Or, try opening the clamp only partially. Or, try pa nting 
hard, so as to make the abdomen move rapidly in and out, sort of shak ing the colon. This last technique is particularly good to get 
the water past a blockage of intestinal gas. It is especially important for Americans, whose culture does not teach one to be tolerant of discomfort, to keep in mind that  pain 
is the body's  warning that actual damage is being done to tissues. Enemas can do no damage and pose no risk except to that rare 
individual with weak spots in the colon's wall from cancers. When an enema is momentarily perceived unpleasantly, the correct  
name for the ex perience is a sensation, not pain. You may have to work at increasing your tolerance for unpleasant sensations or it 
will take you a long time to achieve the goal of totally filling the colon with water. Be brave. And relax. A wise philosophe r once 
said th at it is a rough Universe in which only the tigers survive --and sometimes they have a hard time. Eventually it will be time to remove the nozzle and evacuate the water. Either a blockage (usually fecal matter, an air bubbl e, or 
a tight ‘U' turn in the colon, usually at either the splenetic, or hepatic flexures located right below the rib cage) will prevent further 
inflow (undesirable) or else the bag will completely empty (good. ) or the sensation of bursting will no longer be tolerable. Go sit 
on the to ilet and wait until all the water has passed. Then refill the bag and repeat the process. Each time you fill the colon it wil l 
allow more water to enter more easily with less unpleasantness. Fasters and cleansers should make at least three attempts at a 
complete fill -up each time they do an enema session. Water and juice fasters will find that after the first few enemas, it will become very easy to inject the entire half -gallon of water. That is because there is little or no chime entering the colon. A fter a few days the entire colon will seem (this is incorrect) to be 
empty except when it is filled with water. This is the point to learn an advanced self -administered enema technique. An average 
colon empty of new food will usually hold about one gallon of water. That is average. A small colon might only hold 3/4 gallon, a 
large one might accept a gallon and a half, or even more. You'll need to learn to simultaneously refill the bag while injecti ng water, 
so as to achieve a complete irrigation of the whol e colon. There are several possible methods. You might try placing a pitcher or 
half-gallon mason jar of tepid water next to the bag and after the bag has emptied the first time, stand up while holding the tube  in 
the anus, refill the bag and then lie down  again and continue filling. You might have an assistant do this for you. You might try 
hanging the bag from the shower head and direct a slow, continuous dribble of lukewarm water from the shower into the bag whi le 
you kneel or lie relaxed in the tub. Thi s way the bag will never empty and you stop filling only when you feel fullness and pressure 
all the way back to the beginning of the ascending colon. Of course, hanging from a slowly running shower head the bag will 
probably overflow and you will get spla shed and so will the bathroom floor when your wet body moves rapidly from the tub to the 
toilet. I've imagined making an enema bag from a two gallon plastic bucket with a small plastic hose barb glued into a hole d rilled 
in the bottom or lower edge. If I w ere in the business of manufacturing enema bags I'd make them hold at least one gallon. A word of caution to those folks who have a pattern of overdoing it, or tend to think that more is better. This is not true w hen it 
comes to colon cleansing. Do no t make more than three attempts to fill and clean the colon with an enema bag. Usually the colon 
begins to protest and won't accept any more fill -ups. When having colonics on a colonic machine it is a good idea to continue until 
the water comes back reason ably clear for that session. It is not a good idea for a faster to have colonics that last more than three -
quarters of an hour to an hour maximum, or it will be too tiring. Even non -fasters find colonics tiring. After all, the colon is 
basically a big musc le that has become very lazy on a low -fiber diet. I've personally administered over five thousand colonics, taught several dozen fasters to self -administer their own and stood by 
while they gave themselves one until they were quite expert. In all that experience I've only seen one person have a seriously bad 
result. This was a suicidally depressed water faster that I (mistakenly) allowed to administer their own colonics with my mac hine. This person not only took daily colonics, but allowed water to flow  through their colon for as long as two hours at a time. Perhaps 
they were trying to wash out their mind. After several weeks of this extreme excess, the faster became highly confused and 
disoriented due to a severe electrolyte imbalance. They had to be ta ken off water fasting immediately and recovered their mental 
clarity in a few days. The loss of blood electrolytes happened because during colonics there occurs a sort of low -grade very slow 
reverse osmosis. Curing With Enemas  
    It is not wise to contin ue regular colonics or enemas once a detoxification program has been completed and you have returned to 
a maintenance diet. The body should be allowed its regular functioning. But because enemas immediately lower the toxic load on the liver, I do recom mend people use them for prevention of an acute 
illness (you feel like you are coming down with something), and for the treatment of acute illnesses such as a cold. I also l ike to 
take one if I have been away traveling for extended periods, eating careless ly. But do not fall into a pattern of bingeing on bad 
food, and then trying to get rid of it through colonics or laxative. This is bulimia, the eating disorder discussed earlier. The Sheltonite capital "N" Natural capital "H" Hygienists do not recommen d any colon cleansing, ever. They think that the 
colon will spontaneously cleanse itself on a long water fast, but my experience learned from monitoring hundreds of fasters i s that 
it doesn't really. Herbert Shelton also considered colon cleansing enervati ng and therefore undesirable. Colon cleansing does use 
the faster's energy but on the balance, colon cleansing saves more work on the part of an overburdened liver than it uses up. Chapter Five  
Diet and Nutrition  
 
From The Hygienic Dictionary  
Food. [1] L ife is a tragedy of nutrition. In food lies 99. 99% of the causes of all diseases and imperfect health of any kind. Prof. Arnold Ehret, Mucusless Diet Healing System. [2] But elimination will never heal perfectly just so long as you fail to discon tinue 
the supply of inside waste caused by eating and "wrong" eating. You may clean and continue to clean indefinitely, but never with 
complete results up to a perfect cleanliness, as long as the intake of wrong or even too much right foods, is not stopped. Pr of.
The author had to use an indoor chamber pot, which they found embarrassing and avoided using unless absolutely necessary.
What was the author's experience with potty training as a child?
The main difference is that colonics can accomplish the same beneficial work as an enema, but in a shorter amount of time.
What is the main difference between a colonic and an enema?
The author believes that there is no single "right" diet for everyone, and that it's essential to find the diet that works best for an individual based on their unique biochemistry.
What is the author's opinion on the relationship between diet and health?
The author's daughter's teeth were not perfect due to the fact that the diet she was fed was not ideal, and the mother's own nutritional reserves were not sufficient to provide optimal nutrition during pregnancy.
Why did the author's daughter develop cavities despite being fed a supposedly "perfect" diet?
The cats that were fed a raw diet showed significant improvements in their health and breeding success, but the cats that were fed a cooked diet deteriorated in health over several generations.
What was the outcome of Dr. Pottenger's cat experiments?