Hi,

Just some information before starting the fast, that might protect the less experienced ones.

DR. STANLEY BASS

http://www.living-foods.com/articles/handb.html

Below are some provocative excerpts from the interview with Dr. Bass, with supplemental comments. "...speaking of fasting, I have personally fasted more than any living human being, including Dick Gregory. I've done maybe over 2000 days in my life... Something peculiar happens to fasters. When they break a fast the appetite gets ravenous for about 7-10 days, depending on the length of the fast. It's very, very difficult to control yourself then, and you wind up overeating and bingeing".  "...The problem with fasting is that it leads to extremes. Like the pendulum of a clock, the further you swing one way, the further you swing the other way...I wound up living a seesaw existence of fasting and over-eating, fasting and over- eating. This is the danger of fasting." Dr. Bass then discusses the psychology of fasting, and recommends: "...Rather than depending on the fast to change your lifestyle, develop the habit of good lifestyle...then when you fast you'll do the right thing afterwards..."

On to fruitarianism - Dr. Bass believes that fruits, fruit acids demineralize the body: "Oh, people say fruits are alkaline...If you examine the end point of fruits in the urine and in the bowels and stool, you get an alkaline ash, but what about the acid in the fruit?...It [your body] gets the bases to neutralize the acids in the fruit from your own body and it pulls the minerals out of your skeleton and tissues to neutralize it. So it is dangerous to overeat of fruits, especially citrus...vegetables are more important than fruit. Gorillas will eat 55-65 pounds of food, and that's about 97% vegetables and only 3% fruit.

PTtogether comment: I guess the protection here is to really mix the 1 orange juice in the distilled water (8 onzes glass) while in the OJ fast, so reducing the acidity of the citrus fruit.

DAVID WOLFE

http://www.davidwolfe.com/articles/rhoda.shtml

Question: Many raw fooders experience problems with their teeth, such as enamel corrosion and general decay. How do you account for this? Have you personally had any experience of this? If so, please detail your own experiences and how you addressed the problem, both at the time and subsequently.

Answer: My experience is that most raw-foodists, like most of the population in general, are mineral deficient. Specifically, when it comes to teeth issues, deficiencies are prevalent in sulfur, zinc, magnesium, calcium, and especially silica.

What initially causes teeth issues is detoxifying too rapidly without appropriately drinking green vegetable juice daily, have green-powdered superfoods daily, and eating salad daily. Also eating too much sugary fruit exacerbates the situation.

• I have a wealth of experience in this field. It is something that I have become specialized in over the years. To have teeth degeneration, we need 3 things simultaneously: an acid pH of the mouth, the presence of staphylococci bacteria, and the presence of sugar. If you knock out these three factors, you will never have tooth decay.

The best overall food to strengthen the teeth is grass. Nettles are a close second.

 

DR. STANLEY BASS

The whole story “MY EXPERIENCES WITH FRUIT” by Dr. Stanley Bass here:

 

http://www.drbass.com/aboutfruit.html

 

FRUIT AND TEETH
When I was in my late 20's, I had the good fortune to meet a Naturopath and Chiropractic doctor, a great leader and teacher in the field of Natural Hygiene, Dr. Christopher Gian-Cursio, who introduced me to a new wonderful world of balanced nutrition, which I went into deeply, with the intention of becoming a practitioner some day.

He told me about his experiences while following Arnold Ehret, which led to deficiencies in his diet. He once went on a grape cure, recommended by Johanna Brandt. He lived on nothing but grapes, cases of them for about 35 days. He ate pounds of them at each meal. By the 32nd day, his gum was bleeding, and his teeth loosened in their sockets. He said that one of his teeth fell out of his mouth. He exclaimed, "My God, I am detoxicating my teeth."

At that point he knew that something was terribly wrong with the fruit diet. It wasn't until later, when he read a booklet by a famous British nutritionist entitled "Fruit, It's Use and Misuse". He said it was the best book he ever read on fruit. I later read his book, but don't recall his name. This doctor stated that according to the theory of nutrition, fruit was alkaline in it's ash effect after digestion and was good for you. But, after what he observed in many people, he came to the conclusion that the alkaline ash present after digestion was due to the fruit acids leeching out the minerals from the body to neutralize the acids in the fruit. The body was not gaining in mineral content, but was losing the minerals from the bones, teeth and body instead.

The theory was based on a faulty interpretation of what actually happened. This clearly explained what had happened to me on my citric-acid fruit-juice diet. This also explained what had happened to Dr. Cursio on his grape diet, rich in malic acid. This explained what had happened to many people who went on acid fruit diets. I remember when I was in a hotel in New York working with an orchestra, when several of my teeth had loosened up, and one abscessed tooth caused my face to swell greatly. Not wanting to quit the job, I began an immediate fast on water alone, a method I had always used in emergencies, whenever I was in pain. In a few days, the swelling and pain subsided and was completely gone by the 10th day and 2 days later I felt something in my mouth. I took it out and it was a molar tooth with a big hole through it. My body had ejected the dead tooth - first by producing an inflammation in my jawbone, followed by the loosening and discard of the dead tooth. The same thing happened to me at another time in my life when my body discarded another dead tooth the same way. When I told the story to 2 dentists, they said they never heard of this before. When my jawbone receded from the tooth, due to the loss of minerals from the acid in the fruit, I years later lost 2 healthy teeth due to the jawbone receding off the teeth.

A surgeon dentist who was a Natural Hygienist and later became my dentist, in Rockaway Beach, Moe Leichter, told me that the worst recession of the gums and loss of teeth he saw in patients were in vegetarians and Natural Hygienists who lived mostly on fruit.

 

He said that their teeth were ridged, soft in some, and lacking in calcium. He believed it was best to avoid heavy use of acid fruit.

My comment: Again I guess the protection here is to really mix the 1 orange juice in the distilled water (8 onzes glass) while in the OJ fast.

 

 

Happy 2006 to everyone.

PTtogether