"The Great Health Debate" Summary of Speakers 5 & 6

These two speakers both brought up several new ideas that I hadn't considered before. They also recommend different approaches to health. This post is going to be harder to summarize, but I'll do the best I can for those of you who have shown interest in my thoughts on health and nutrition.

Each speaker had 1 hour to share a huge amount of their knowledge. I took a lot of notes, but, I will be commenting mostly about what makes sense to me, share it the way I understand, and share my personal thoughts on it.

First, I listened to Donna Gates. Her photo is of a pretty young lady with a nice convincing voice. I was surprised to learn that she is actually 64-years old. She talks a lot about fermented food, which I didn't know or really care to learn about until I visited my in-laws at Christmas time and my sister-in-law shared her interest in it and wondered what I thought about it. I didn't know. She explained briefly and gave me a recipe for rejuvelac (fermented wheat water). However, in my research, I came across a comment here and there that made me worry that the risks, however small, were not what I wanted to test out on my family --- I set that idea aside for another time.

However, the more Donna Gates spoke, the more I became convinced that I would feel good about placing my health in her care. She is all about fermenting foods and says that fermenting helps the body to assimilate the food. She explained a little about the history of fermenting and the beneficial role they play in our gut. She also has a "safe starter" she sells on her site (of course).

She doesn't love raw or processed milk. Doesn't like meat. Loves coconut kefir and Natto (fermented soy). She says everything has its opposite and that there is a balance in everything, such as your body should be 80% alkaline and 20% acidic.

She basically recommends all the good quality foods touted by health enthusiast but adds fermenting to it. This is her list of essential nutrients:

• Fermented foods (it increases the value of a food hundreds of times)
• Mineral rich foods
• Protein (from dark leafy greens. These produce anti inflammatories and strengthen muscles)
• Vitamin C
• Sunshine
• Good night sleep
• Water
• Air (breath!)
• Exercise

The next guy's diet description, at first, had me imagining myself in my backyard, sunbathing while sipping from a clear glass of ice water and licking a salt rock and listening to tummy growls. I wondered what and if I would get to eat!


Dr. Robert O. Young studies health on a cellular level --- in the blood and it's pH level. He is against eating ALL and ANY meat saying healthy red blood cells should be even in shape, color and size and that eating animals make those cells lemon shape, which manifests in disease. In fact, he claims we do NOT need PROTEIN! (I've decided he is only referring to animal protein because towards the end he begins talking about eating dark leafy greens, which are full of plant proteins.) "Our body can't digest it's own flesh, so it can't digest animal flesh either... It just sits in our body and rots." ("If you want to kill your children, feed them meat!")

He is against ALL sugar. It doesn't matter whether it is processed or natural (from whole fruit), he says that sugar is a waste product of metabolism unnecessary for ATP (converts/transfers energy). He rather believes that our body runs on electrons, that our body is electric. (Are you singing the Electric Slide!) He goes on to explain that all the energy we need we can get from the sun --- if we have enough chlorophyll in our blood to absorb that energy through our skin and eyes. (I'm assuming it's similar to the way plants absorb energy from the sun). Interesting concept. So --- it's extremely important to eat your greens --- and lots of those. (Oh, let's not forget how important salt is either --- "salt is what keeps us alive.") He suggests making green drinks and raw blended soups and salads from alkaline foods every day --- don't forget the salt! (NOT table salt because of added chemicals and the aluminum (so it doesn't cake), try rock salt or Himalayan salt.

He did comment briefly on other diets: the fruitarian, with sickly looking cells; the vegetarian, which he hates because dairy and eggs are allowed; the raw foodist, which he says is better but still not great; next best is the Vegan diet, which he almost likes; but his "Alkalarian diet is best of all!" Young claims his diet can make you immortal. IMMORTAL! Seriously!(RED FLAG!) As if he's God!

If you recognize the term "alkaline" or "acidic body" --- that is Young's baby. He claims the more alkaline the body you can get it, the healthier you are. In fact, he says, an alkaline body can stay young forever! Wow! That's quite the claim. I even went so far as to wonder if he had his name changed so that he could be called "Dr. Young." (I may Google that some day.) Anyway, I went to his site to check out his alkaline food chart he mentioned (amazingly, it seams you have to buy everything if you want to get anything from this guy, including the book with his chart). I did find this other alkaline food chart very interesting because it includes many healthy foods I've been adding to our diet since we started eating raw! (Those do get a little easier to eat as you get use to the "green" taste.) The chart also includes a lot of fruits, Young says we don't need fruit because of the sugars, so I'm assuming that those would not be on his list. Do take note of how alkalizing the grains are once they are sprouted. I had to refer back to The Word of Wisdom (verse 14) just to see the part about how grains is worded again. As I noted in my previous post, it doesn't specify that you have to ground the grains into flour, so why not sprout those?! (That would mean I would need to go back to the original "staff of life" being the main part of my diet, eating it every day instead of eating it sparingly (as a support) in times of famine and cold (maybe winter is a good time to have wheat ground?)

It did get me thinking a little about Utah and the pioneers, and even today! The Great Salt Lake is full of real salt. We are counseled to eat grains (sprouted?) and all the many natural springs in the mountains (springs being the best source of raw water by David Wolfe --- the big raw foodist whom I'll hear from later tonight.) And sunshine, even in winter. If this is what we need to live a good quality healthy life, it was given to the pioneers all at once in the Salt Lake Valley --- for FREE!

Since I mentioned water, and you do need to drink good quality water, you can buy water systems from his site that add electrons into your drinking water that can help alkalize your body. I read a lot about this several years ago from a Japanese Doctor (I'd post a link, but I can't find it again.) Anyway, he convinced me we needed one, but with the water system costing nearly $2000, my husband was not convinced. (Thank goodness for him!) I thought it would only be a one time cost, but then I discovered the actual filter has to be changed every few months and those ran close to $500 each (if I remember right, you needed 2 of those). Surely, God doesn't expect us to pay money like that for our health! (I haven't checked lately to see if prices on those have dropped.)

If this truly is the diet of immortality and living on it will eventually change me in a "twinkle" --- then he has something amazing. What my heart tells me is that he is on to something but it needs more fine tuning. It bothers me that he seems so business oriented, greedy and full-of-himself. I don't like that he made it a point to invalidate the other nutritionists' research --- especially when it appears they have started using some of his research to fine tune their practices. Some pieces may fit together nicely, but, I keep hearing "Too Good to Be True," and although I will probably glean (his chart) from him, I don't know when or if I will do much more than that.

Besides, I'm not looking for the diet that's going to keep me alive the longest, I'm on a fertility quest!