natural hygiene and alternative lifestyle living

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TABLE OF CONTENTSTABLE OF CONTENTSTABLE OF CONTENTSTABLE OF CONTENTSTABLE OF CONTENTSfor The Foundational Bedrock Teachingsfor The Foundational Bedrock Teachingsfor The Foundational Bedrock Teachingsfor The Foundational Bedrock Teachingsfor The Foundational Bedrock Teachings

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All Correct Natural Hygiene Teachings & The 10 Energy Ehancers Practiced Here!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS for The Foundational Bedrock TeachingsPracticed at Our Hygiene Homestead in The Woods ...............

FRONT COVERS OF OUR 2 FOUNDATIONAL BEDROCK BOOKS...2 BOOKS IN 1: The Health Seekers’ YearBook with

The Best of Common Health SenseThe Live Food Factor: The Comprehensive Guide to the

Ultimate Diet for Body, Mind, Spirit & Planet ......... Page 2

VICTORIA’S HYGIENIZED CHAPTER 4 of The Live Food Factor :A Paradigm Shift from The Medical Mentalityto Natural Hygiene —“The Superlative, Alternative Health Care System!” . ............... Pages 3 - 36

VICTORIA’S HYGIENIZED CHAPTER 14 of The Live Food Factor :Detoxification & Healing .............................................................. Pages 38 - 51

VICTORIA’S HYGIENIZED CHAPTER 15 of The Live Food Factor :The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast & The Juice Diet ................. Pages 52 - 66

VICTORIA’S “PROFILE OF THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST” ................ Page 67

LIVE-FOOD PHOTOS & FUN! ................................................................... Page 68

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❦❦❦❦ • Our Hygiene Homestead in The Woods • DOCUMENT #3-4: PAGE 1 • ❦❦❦❦

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The Correct Natural Hygiene Retreatfor The Global Health Seeker!


THE LIVE FOOD FACTOR:THE COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE

TO THE ULTIMATE DIETFOR BODY, MIND, SPIRIT & PLANET

= The Best-Ever Bookon Alternative Health Care & Raw Foods!

2 BOOKS IN 1:THE HEALTH SEEKERS’ YEARBOOK withTHE BEST OF COMMON HEALTH SENSE= The Best-Ever,Take-It-Home, Do-It-YourselfHandBook on The Best-Ever AlternativeHealth Care System: Natural Hygiene!

Here Are Your2 Best-Ever,Foundational

Bedrock Books:Teachings on

“BACK-TO-NATURE”Natural Hygiene

— “The Best-Ever

AlternativeHealth Care

System!”Both Edited for Natural Hygiene

by The Top Doctorin Natural Hygiene:

Dr. Vivian Virginia Vetrano


To GetWell & StayWell? Go Back to Nature!Here We Go — Back to The Basics of Life... Foundational Bedrock Teachings Follow...

— PAGES 1 - 36 ARE EXCERPTED —mostly from Chapter 4 of The Live Food Factor.

Primary Author of the Following: Victoria BidWell1st Editor: Dr. Vivian V. Vetrano • 2nd Author/Editor: Susan Schenck

NOTE — Since the publication of our fall, 2008, Live Food Factor 2ndEdition, I have further re-edited & re-written my following “FoundationalBedrock Teachings” previously dropped into The Live Food Factor. Hereis the best overview introduction to Natural Hygiene ever presented toHealth Seekers. The changes in the following long & short excerpts areboth perfectionistic & significant in both format and content. ENJOY!

AND SO — Let’s saddle up our horses! Our trail has been blazed by The1800’s Pioneers in Natural Hygiene! It is time to switch horses in themiddle of your life-stream! You have joined up on what will be one of thegreatest adventures of your lives! Friends of GetWell ★StayWell, America!and HighJoy and I are happy to take it with ya’ll! The Wilderness Woman!

A Paradigm Shiftfrom The Medical Mentality

to Natural Hygiene —“The Superlative, Alternative

Health Care System!”All truth goes through three stages:

The truth will first be ridiculed, then violently opposed,and finally accepted as self-evident. — Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860) —

Susan begins Chapter 4 as I write “with” her:A paradigm shift is a dramatic change in one’s belief system, a fundamental change in underlying

assumptions. If a scientist works from the wrong theories or from misconceptions based on wrongassumptions, he or she will ask the wrong questions and design and conduct irrelevant experimentswith erroneous if not dangerous conclusions. Dr. Lorraine Day applies so working — and wrongly so— to the present-day medical paradigm: “Modern medicine isn’t getting great results in treating diseasebecause its scientists are looking in the wrong direction, wasting time and money on incorrect theories.”

Victoria BidWell continues: “This is a book about breaking free of addictions and creatingthe healthiest life for body, mind, spirit, and planet. It is a book about breaking addictions:specifically, addictions to cooked food and to taking drugs; and generally, addictions to self-sabotaging beliefs and to an energy-robbing lifestyle. Although most of us know an addiction inaction when we see it, let us appreciate my clear definition of the term: An addiction is a processover which we are powerless and that leads to self-sabotage and ultimately, when allowed to run itscourse, to self-destruction. Addiction works at the subconscious level. It takes the path of leastresistance. It defies conscious attempts to change. It takes control. It causes the addict to think anddo things that are dangerously against his or her own best interests. It works against highest, personalvalues. It leads to becoming progressively more obsessive with thoughts and feelings that leadrelentlessly to compulsive and destructive actions. It is characterized by fear and danger to self andothers. Its sure sign is denial-in-action when confronted with a better way.”

Susan continues: Beliefs are the hardest addictions to break. Most of us are so addicted to ourconvictions that we don’t want anything to disrupt the cozy, little belief-worlds in which we feel safe.For some, beliefs take on religious overtones. Most of us are deeply attached to our ways of thinkingsince they define our lifestyles. Even when presented with strong evidence indicating that a painful orfear-inducing belief is untrue, that the truth is infinitely better, and that the universe is far morebenevolent than suspected, even then, ignorance and insecurity can lead many of us to shrug off theevidence and meld back into the comfort zone of negative, although familiar and therefore comfortablebelief systems.

For some of us to confess, even to our own selves, that we may need belief or paradigmadjustments, that we have been wrong and even blinded to the truth, it takes not only humility, butalso courage. And it takes a willingness to shift into sometimes initially frightening, although ultimatelyfreeing modes of seeing reality. Beliefs are so ingrained within some of us that we are willing to die orto enlist others to die for these cherished ideas about what is right and wrong, true and false. Whensuch beliefs are grounded in altruism and heroism and for the greater good, and require that onesacrifice his or her life for The People, then dying for others would be commendable. But some peopleare too trusting. And rather than question “the system,” they blindly choose to follow dangerous dictatesfrom the status quo, while holding onto beliefs grounded in lies that lead to the needless harm andeven death to themselves and to their loved ones. For examples, some are willing to risk their lives inan unjust war rather than question the judgment of their political leaders, although it may turn out thatthe war was more for political imperialism and corporate privatizing than for “defending the freedomsof The People.” Suicide bombers give their lives for their causes, blindly believing they are fulfillingtheir jihad-destinies. And some people subject themselves to chemotherapy, trusting in the systemwithout researching the data, though the value and safety of the treatment is now highly questionable.

A paradigm shift often occurs when a person begins, slowly perhaps over a period of time, toview something from a radically different viewpoint. It is a shift, not in a mere theory, but in an entireperspective, an entire belief system. Sometimes, the shift is made instantaneously and can be mind-blowing! Once a person makes a paradigm shift, he or she often becomes amazed or aghast or evenamused or angry at how she or he could have deeply invested in a former, erroneous belief system!

Two examples of this situation are nearly always referenced when paradigm shifting isencouraged. One is the formerly popular belief that the world was flat until Christopher Columbusproved otherwise by sailing to the New World without falling off the edge in 1492. The other is Galileo


Galilei’s 1610 adoption of Nicolaus Copernicus’ 1530 theory, radical for their times, that the Earthorbited the Sun and was not a stationary center around which the whole universe rotated. Copernicuswas branded a “heretic” by the Catholic Church, arrested, and publicly humiliated. It took until 1992for the Vatican to reverse its earlier position that the Earth was the center of the universe! This beliefhas been so impossible to give up that some today have formed The Geocentric Bible Foundation. Theyare dedicated to perpetuating the myth that the Sun revolves around the Earth!

Victoria BidWell points out the all-pervasiveness & all-importance of paradigmshifting from The Medical Mentality to Natural Hygiene in our times:

Human history is full of paradigm shifts that have dramatically changed our value systems,preferred lifestyles, and prioritized goals: from spears to guns and atom bombs as weapons, fromhorses to cars and planes and rockets for transportation, from women who couldn’t own property orvote and who were mandated by law to obey their husbands to women legislated to receive equalcivil and political rights, from certain races/classes of people who were treated like second-classcitizens or made slaves to their receiving legislated equalities. We have yet to make the paradigmshift that will save the Earth from exploitation at the hands of those run by uncontrolled greed andselfishness. One of the biggest paradigm shifts in all history occurred in the 20th century whenAlbert Einstein presented his theory of relativity, proving to the world: “IT’S ALL ABOUT ENERGY!”He postulated that we live in a nonmaterial universe in which all matter at the most minute level isnot matter at all — but energy, made of differing atomic combinations vibrating at differing speeds!Out of his early 20th century discoveries and the work of other scientists after Einstein came thequantum physics paradigm shift that brought us televisions, nuclear bombs, spaceships, computers,cell phones, and CAT scans. Also from Einstein’s work came the pop psychology movement backedup by the psychoneuroimmunologists (or “molecular biologists”) who taught people how todeliberately change their thoughts and feelings — non-material, non-measurable metaphysicalconstructs — to bring about improvement in their physical health — material, measurable, scientificevents. Now we are in the midst of another radical shift: from The Medical Mentality to NaturalHygiene health care, from the doctor as healer to the human body as healer, from lifestyle practicesas unimportant to lifestyle choices as all-important, from surgeries and synthetic drugs as the besthealing agents to The 10 Energy Enhancers as the very best healing strategies, from diet as irrelevantin health considerations to the live food factor as essential for Superlative Health.

Susan continues with Victoria:

Yet, some people arrogantly cling to erroneous theories. Imagine having dedicated the focus ofyour entire life to a theory and then having to watch some radical upstart come along and pull the rugout from under it! The close-minded always react with a staunch, egoistic desire to protect their theories,especially when a lot of money has been invested in them. Such is the case with today’s global trillion-dollar-a-year medical system. Dr. Gabriel Cousens explains: “Paradigm-shifting breakthroughs oftenhit cul-de-sac dead-ends in societal acceptance due to the vagaries of vested economic interest, politicalintrigue and pride of the ego” (Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine, p. xv). Eventually, though, the truthemerges. Those who are heavily invested in the previous paradigm will die. Younger scientistsunattached to old theories then become free to test new hypotheses without scorn from older colleagues.Hence, the proverb has endured down through the ages: “Science changes, one funeral at a time.”

Eating raw food is not difficult. But giving up cooked food is. We have already seen the manycumulative benefits to the individual — on all levels — when a raw food diet is followed. Chapter 1gave us 10 reasons to go raw, but only one of those reasons is powerful enough to prompt change. Themost highly motivating reason that inspires most people to sacrifice their French fries, conveniencefoods, or even indulgence choices at social gatherings is... HEALTH. We have already seen the manybenefits conferred by the body to the entire living organism — on all levels — when one of the conditionsfor health is provided: a raw food diet.


Let’s ask some telling questions. How many will give up that mouth-watering dish of twice-baked potatoes just so their complexions will glow? How many will quit making lasagna just to savethe effort and time of scrubbing the melted cheese off the pan? How many will sacrifice sampling allthe goodies at a potluck just to feel more spiritual? Who will give up the convenience of packaged,processed foods just to spare the landfill of paper and plastic wrappings? On the other hand, if aperson were faced with a life-threatening illness, he might take a closer look at the wholesome, rawdiet Nature has provided from the raw materials of air, soil, water, and sunlight. If a person were losingher mental capacities, she might give raw foods her serious consideration. If depressed, a person mightdecide to learn about the raw food promises. If extra energy were desired to commune with God at ahigher spiritual level, a person might be attracted to eating light and right, raw foods. So, let’s face it.Health is one of the most important things in this life — mental, spiritual, emotional, and physicalhealth. People want to feel good, as the title of this book suggests — in body, in mind, and in spirit.

If you are interested in improving any of these areas of your well-being — and they are allintertwined, each affecting the other — you will definitely want to educate yourself in healthful livingpractices. Victoria BidWell emphasizes: “We urge you to co-operate with The Natural, PhysiologicalLaws of Life and understand why they work. The only other choice is to go against these naturallaws and sabotage yourself in the process. The 1970s’ T.V. ad was right: ‘It’s not nice to fool MotherNature!’ Not only is it ‘not nice,’ it is not good, it is not wise, and it is not even possible! Fatigue anddisease-in-progress penalties must always be paid when we break natural health laws, as they areimmutable: they change for neither man nor woman, for neither child nor beast!

“Virtually all raw fooders and other holistic health proponents have rejected the conventional,medical model of disease origin and its so-called ‘cures’ via drugs, various treatments, and surgery.Yet most members of conventional society still do see disease through the teachings of their medicaldoctors. To go forward in The Superlative, Alternative Health Care System of Natural Hygieneeducation, we must first get deprogrammed from the false ideas into which we have beenindoctrinated. Let us start with examining The Medical Mentality. This establishment, status quomodel teaches that the cause of disease is 1 of 4 possibilities or combinations thereof: disease is dueeither to a mystery, an inevitability as time marches on, a genetic flaw, or the result of unfortunateencounters with malevolent microorganisms — or to a combination of these 4.”

2 MODELS OF DISEASE ORIGIN & HOW TO GET WELLFrom Victoria BidWell & Edited by Dr. Vetrano & with Susan

I am grateful to Victoria BidWell — “The List Lady” — for her clear-cut contributions and liststhat appear in our Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7. I also thank Dr. Vetrano for taking the time from her busyschedule to edit (3 times!) what was Chapter 4 and what has now become Chapters 4 - 7.

I came straight from the raw food studies. And my Natural Hygiene background was limited,as I had studied only 100 pages of Dr. Shelton before writing my 1st Live Food Factor Edition. SoVictoria spent many hours on the phone with me giving me a crash course in Natural Hygiene fromher 2 BOOKS IN 1: The Health Seekers’ YearBook with The Best of Common Health Sense. In thefollowing, I collaborated with Victoria but gave her free rein up to where she turns the trail-blazingback to me. She brought her Natural Hygiene teachings to my 1st Edition ideas on disease origin,organized our ideas, elaborated upon them with new materials, introduced specific terms anddefinitions, and got the wording precise and correct throughout our chapters. In our collaboration, Iconducted and collected virtually all of the research Victoria quotes. Because of her major role in thefollowing, foundational teachings, therefore, when first person pronouns are used — “I,” “me,” and“my” — that is my new friend in Natural Hygiene teaching. Victoria urges our readers “to study andtake to heart” the Natural Hygiene Appendices E. and F. that she prepared before reading on, “...so thatyou may more fully appreciate and profoundly grasp these life-saving teachings that follow.”


THE MEDICAL MENTALITY AT ITS VERY WORST!1... THE MEDICAL MENTALITY holds that a person can appear “perfectly healthy” one day andthen be mysteriously, inexplicably stricken with a dreaded disease overnight! The words “baffling”and “mysterious” are favored when explaining why the patient is ill and cause is unknown.

2... THE MEDICAL MENTALITY supports a belief in “The Germ Theory” as originally proposedby Louis Pasteur: disease is caused by microorganisms or viruses foreign to the body, which theyinvade and use as a host; and the cure of germ-inspired disease is a laboratory-inspired antidote.

3... THE MEDICAL MENTALITY holds that there are 10,000+ known and categorized and nameddiseases, each disease with its own cause or causes, known or unknown. Years of scientists’ timeand billions of Americans’ dollars are spent annually, searching for the external, mysteriouscauses of various diseases and their antidotes.

4... THE MEDICAL MENTALITY looks at the “disease process” as warfare, as an enemy which“invades or attacks the body” and, therefore, as something which can — and must — be stopped:the symptoms must be palliated or suppressed; the body must, in some way, be “treated” withsome sort of doctor-prescribed drug, treatment or therapy, or surgery to make the patient get well.

5... THE MEDICAL MENTALITY teaches you that illness is to be expected as the years advancesince germs are everywhere and since disease is an expected, wear-and-tear part of the agingprocess. Doctors hopelessly and coldheartedly state: “You will just have to learn to live with it!”(“it” meaning “the pain and degeneration”)... if standard medical treatment cannot get you well.

6... THE MEDICAL MENTALITY is not interested in promoting dietary nutrition as an integral partof getting well or staying well, although it may make minor concessions such as recommendinga reduction in dietary salt or the adoption of a weight-loss program. The prevailing, pessimisticattitude, however, is that even if there were something to this “dietary nutrition,” people would notchange their eating habits, anyway. At its worst, The Medical Mentality does not have faith in thehuman being to change: A sense of hopelessness prevails.

7... THE MEDICAL MENTALITY looks at the practice of fasting to be synonymous with starvation;and fasting is, therefore, viewed as a form of dangerous extremism.

8... THE MEDICAL MENTALITY refuses to acknowledge the evidence that any of the manyalternative health care systems have any validity, whatsoever. It does this in the face of vastamounts of ever-increasing evidence and carefully kept records. Any improvement on the partof individuals under alternative health care systems is attributed to chance or to “spontaneousremission” or to other causes; or the improvement is branded as “dangerous in the long run,”regardless of how much the person has improved.

9... THE MEDICAL MENTALITY encourages both a belief in and a dependence upon themedical/pharmaceutical complex as the final authority on all health questions and as the only realsource of knowledge and power that leads to individual health. Conformity to EstablishmentThinking and The Medical Mentality are systematically and relentlessly conditioned and brain-washed into the minds of The People, from birth unto death, through both subtle cues and bymeans of open intimidation by those in power. These tactics have all the trappings of a cult.

10... Under THE MEDICAL MENTALITY, you subject yourself and your loved ones to continuedmedical treatment, disregarding the all-too-often reality: you only get worse as the medicaltreatment continues. Furthermore, because you have been successfully indoctrinated by themedical-cult mentality, you have no hope and no desire to search for a workable, alternativehealth care system, no impetus to learn how to take personal responsibility for your own health.


NATURAL HYGIENE AT ITS VERY BEST!1... NATURAL HYGIENE holds that health is the normal state of all livingorganisms and that health is maintained through natural, self-initiating,self-healing processes!

2... NATURAL HYGIENE holds that the one cause of all disease is the toxicsaturation at the cellular level of the bodily tissues, blood stream, and fluids broughton by the depletion of Nerve Energy reserves through toxic living habits. This self-poisoned state is termed: “Toxemia” or “Auto-Intoxication” or “Toxicosis.”

3... NATURAL HYGIENE views disease as orderly, backward degenerations at thecellular level and fluid levels as a result of Toxemia. In order to prevent theseretrograde changes and to forestall degenerative changes in the actual structure andconsequent function of cells, tissues, organs, and systems for as long as possible, thebody isolates and/or eliminates abnormal accumulations of metabolic waste andingested poisons. Such bodily-conducted actions of elimination (also called “excre-tion”) may be called “disease” (acute); but they actually serve to prevent further,degenerative, long-term, and irreversible changes (chronic).

4... Because Toxemia is “The One Cause of All Disease,” NATURAL HYGIENErefutes the concept that microorganisms — also called “germs” or “viruses” — are thesole, causative factors of disease.

5... Because only the body is capable of instituting eliminating, cleansing, healing,renewing processes, NATURAL HYGIENE rejects the ingestion of any substanceswhich the body cannot metabolize and assimilate and which cannot be used in thenormal, metabolic processes for appropriation into bodily tissues and fluids. Suchunnatural substances can only further poison and then further enervate the body andare not to be considered as “food” or “nutrition,” in any way. Both medication and“quasi-food” substances typical of the refined, chemicalized, processed StandardAmerican Diet (SAD) are included in this poisoning category and are not only health-threatening, but also life-threatening.

6... NATURAL HYGIENE recommends the following as “The Ideal Diet” and,therefore, as the only foods fit for the highest level of human health and well-being:whole, raw and dried fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, and sprouts prepared inproper combination and eaten in moderation and when one is in a state of EmotionalBalance. Non-toxic supplements are recommended to offset our depleted soilssituation. Dr. Vetrano and Drs. Tosca and Greg Haag and I recommend only USANA.

7... NATURAL HYGIENE advocates fasting on water-only for some Health Seekers.Fasting provides physical, physiological, sensory, mental, and emotional rest. Thisdeep and almost total rest provides the body with the ideal conditions that arenecessary for the regeneration of Nerve Energy and that are mandatory for theelimination of toxins, cellular repairs, and fullest restoration of health possible.

8... NATURAL HYGIENE maintains that health is the personal responsibility ofeach individual and that God-given health, happiness, and Hygiene Joy are achievedonly by the most conscientious and daily application of The 10 Energy Enhancers!


Victoria BidWell — “The Wilderness Woman” — Takes The Leadwith Her Correct Natural Hygiene Teachings & Many Lists...

“DEER, DEER” HEALTH SEEKERS& LIVE FOOD ENTHUSIASTS!

First, a crucial abstract noun: “physiology” is a general term in the sciences that basically names“all the processes that take place in the living body, in sickness and in health.” The adjective“physiological” means “bodily” or “referring to the body.” Next, please stop to enjoy Appendices E.and F. They will greatly enrich your grasp of what is to come here. By the end of our Chapters 4,5, 6, and 7, you will know more about how to get well and stay well than all medicaldoctors deeply entrenched in The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst.

Throughout my now 25 years of helping Health Seekers, I have always begun lessons with anew student/client by using the simple, binary approach, to separate the wheat from the chaff, byasking, “What are the only 2 ways to try to get well?”

Everyone knows the answer and gives some variation of this: “Do what the medical doctors tellyou or do something else.” After all, Health Seekers do not make it to me without going the medicalroute and finding only dead-ends, usually both costly and energy-draining, not to mention time-wasting.

They are all right. All the ways to try to get well other than the one conventional, status quo,medical route can be lumped under the term “do-something-else-health-care,” also popularly called“holistic health care” and “alternative health care.” All alternativists reject the medical model andpropose alternative treatments, cures, pills, potions, and/or therapies. It should be noted, however:as long as the alternativist health care professional is telling the patient to do something ortake something into his body that is toxic or unnatural in order to get well and stay well, thealternativist mindset is just a holdover of The Medical Mentality. (This does not, however,apply to user-friendly supplementation designed to compensate for depleted soils, ourextremely stressful lives, and our toxic environments as supplied by USANA neutriceuticals.)

The alternative model lumps together all teachings of all alternativists. From A to Z: fromaromatherapy to The Zone Diet; from massage, foot reflexology, and crystals to chiropractic,naturopathic, and hair analysis; from valid and physiologically correct to quackery and on the wrongtrack entirely — alternativism umbrellas them all. The very best, overriding, alternativist healthcare system, however, is the scientific truth, is based on The Natural, Physiological Laws of Life,and gets the best results for sick and suffering Health Seekers. It is called “Natural Hygiene.”

Under The Medical Mentality are 4 overriding schools of thought. Under the alternatives, ifdifferent diets to get well are included, are literally hundreds of schools of thought: from acupunctureto Zen. We do not intend to cover all these alternatives in our Live Food Factor book. Some are justmodified versions of The Medical Mentality and on the wrong track entirely. Some seem harmless butdo little good, either. When these “harmless dead-ends” and the sometimes phenomenal wastes intime and energy, not to mention money, are calculated into health-seeking, however, harm indeed hasbeen done, since this Health Seeker ends up getting worse while taking the precious time traveling intoeach no-where-land. Sometimes, there is no coming back from these no-where-lands. There is no suchwaste when on the right track. Every alternative program that is firmly based in correct humanphysiology and health sciences and that shows how the body is self-healing if the causes of disease areremoved and the conditions for health are provided is on the right track. But only one is the best of allthe hundreds. In this Chapter 4, we lay out 2 paradigms: the medical model and the alternative modelknown as “Natural Hygiene” — which is best summarized as “Health by Healthful Living!”


THE CONVENTIONAL PARADIGM:THE MEDICAL MODEL OF DISEASE

& ITS 4 TRADITIONAL SCHOOLS OF THOUGHTThe Medical Mentality is represented by 4 primary, traditional schools of thought: (1) The MysterySchool, (2) The Wear-and-Tear School, (3) The Genetic/Congenital School, (4) The Germ Theory School.

SCHOOL #1 OF THE MEDICAL MENTALITY: THE MYSTERY SCHOOLThe Mystery School of disease origin is based on the assumption that the body is fundamentally

flawed, that it will break down and contract or be stricken with disease, and that nobody really knowsexactly why or what to do about it. In the case of “disease as a mystery,” how doctors handle such casesis shrouded with occult factors. We are told that the causes of some diseases and their cures are simply“baffling,” “mysterious,” or “unknown.” These explanations are backed up by admonition andintimidation to “follow doctors orders” and to never go outside the establishment for cures. The MysterySchool is turned to when the other 3 schools fail utterly and probably accounts for about 10%, more orless, of conventional doctor and hospital case files in recent times.

SCHOOL #2 OF THE MEDICAL MENTALITY:THE WEAR-AND-TEAR SCHOOL

The second school of thought under the medical model is based on the assumptions that thebody is fundamentally flawed in design, that it will break down as time marches on by virtue of “wear-and-tear,” and that disease is inescapable and disrepair inevitable. Dentistry and ophthalmology (eyedoctoring) and orthopedic, replacement, and reconstructive surgeries are representative of this school.Some in The Wear-and-Tear School do acknowledge that the lifestyle choices — primarily of wrong-nutrition, under-exercise, and over-stress — have been known to accelerate breakdown.

But most doctors and patients have little faith in the human ability to change these lifestylehabits and even less in the human psyché to be inspired to change. Wear-and-tear doctors, therefore,handle diseases with a “We can fix it!” approach. The medical doctors turn to administering drugs,performing surgeries to replace worn out parts or get rid of them completely, replacing blood, andgenerally doing what is necessary to get a few more weeks, months, or years in for their patients untilinevitable and final breakdown occurs. In addition to many other diseases, such as arthritis, obesity,and chronic fatigue, 3 of the top 4 Killer Diseases in America today are all wear-and-tear situations:cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cirrhosis of the liver. Wear-and-tear patients, therefore, probablyaccount for 70%, or much more, of conventional doctor and hospital case files in recent times.

SCHOOL #3 OF THE MEDICAL MENTALITY:THE GENETIC/CONGENITAL SCHOOL

The third school of thought under the medical model explains the ongoing disease processes inthe body as flawed-genetics, as a diseased destiny stored within one’s DNA; and no cure is offered inmost all cases. While it is true that some diseases are genetically determined and thus not preventable,such conditions are extremely rare compared to the numbers of sick people seeking medical interventionfor wear-and-tear and germ-related disease situations. Flawed genetics or flawed-at-birth patientsaccount for 2% - 5%, or even less, of conventional doctor and hospital case files in recent times.

Dr. Lipton states: “Some diseases, like Huntington’s chorea, beta thalassemia and cystic fibrosis,can be blamed entirely on one faulty gene. But single-gene disorders affect less than two percent of thepopulation” (The Biology of Belief, p. 51). Dr. Lipton even cites a study in which the improved diet ofmice prevented their genetic diseases from being passed on (p. 71).

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In the most comprehensive study on nutrition ever conducted, genes were found to be virtuallyirrelevant compared to diet (The China Study, T. Colin Campbell, p. 71). Gabriel Cousens, M.D.,corroborates Campbell when he points out that genes themselves don’t cause disease, but rather, thatan unhealthy lifestyle and poor diet can change gene expression in such a way as to develop disease.What we eat and the toxins to which we expose ourselves affect our genes. Dr. Vetrano re-emphasizesthe conclusions of both men: “Good nutrition is very often master of heredity. And many Health Seekerswho have had so-called “genetic diseases” have recovered, employing fasting followed by an uncookeddiet of fresh fruits, vegetables, and nuts and seeds. Supply the body with the correct diet and with allthe requisites of life, and it is possible that even genetic errors, damaged genes, and mishaps at birth(congenital defects) may be corrected fully or to some extent.”

In addition, gerontologists now agree that 75% of a person’s health after the age of 40 dependsnot on genetics, but on what that person has done to keep his genes healthy. About 80% of our healthstatus is determined by diet, lifestyle choices, and other environmental factors. (See my Appendix F.)This is why identical twins can grow up with very different results. One can stay very youthful andhealthy well into old age by practicing healthy habits, while the other, who breaks every law in thehealthful-living book, inevitably experiences disease and debility early in life, by comparison.

Even the Human Genome Project researchers align with this 80% determination, stating thatgenes are only a part of the story. The book Genetic Nutritioneering: How You Can Modify Inherited Traitsand Live a Longer, Healthier Life by Jeffrey S. Bland, Ph.D., shows that scientists now have a huge amountof evidence that many diseases previously attributed to “bad genes” are now known to be caused by abad diet that “feeds the genes,” affecting them for the worse.

SCHOOL #4 OF THE MEDICAL MENTALITY: THE GERM THEORYThe fourth school of thought under the medical model of disease is The Germ Theory School: it

holds that disease-producing microorganisms, either present in the body or by introduction, are thesole, causative factor in disease. The cure is to get rid of the germs, almost exclusively, with drugs,usually via injections. This school of thought probably accounts for 30% - 40% of conventional doctorand hospital case files in these recent, pandemic-phobic times. The Germ Theory is so pervasive in thecollective American consciousness, and its basic tenets still operating so powerfully today, that a separatesection is devoted to this theory later in another chapter.

THE BEST MODEL OF DISEASE ORIGIN: TOXEMIA THEORY“HEALTH BY HEALTHFUL LIVING!” VIA NATURAL HYGIENE

Einstein laid the foundation for virtually all of the natural health care models when he showedthe world that everything, including the human body, at its most fundamental level, is vibrating energythat follows natural laws. If we cooperate with the natural laws of our being, we will have health. Themany alternative, holistic models of disease origin and health care that are on the right track are thusall energy-oriented. The alternative health care movement shook the world in 1986 when Fit for Life —the all-time best seller in diet and nutrition in history — made “Natural Hygiene” a common householdterm in millions of homes worldwide. Health via raw foods is the alternative movement now gainingthe most momentum. As far as I am concerned, The Live Food Factor is so far superior in scope, content,research, organization, and especially correct recipes to Fit for Life that our book should now be heraldedas “The New, All-time Best Seller in Diet & Nutrition in History!” Only time will tell if those of ussharing and promoting our Live Food Factor will make that happen. First, we must capture the globalimagination of Health Seekers and spark them with inspiration that produces motivation to do right!

In our new millennium, the people are becoming so well informed that they are rejecting themedical route and choosing the Natural Hygiene road to recovery. With our system, we learn thissequence of events: we get sick because we become toxic, and we become toxic because our bodies run


low in Nerve Energy. I simply teach:

“DISEASE IS AN ENERGY CRISIS IN A TOXIC BODY!”Virtually every new Health Seeker gets this and wants to know more about Natural Hygiene!

Since 1832, Natural Hygiene has been waved under the banner of “Health by Healthful Living!”For 25 years now, I have taught Natural Hygiene under banner of “The Superlative, Alternative HealthCare System!” Its popularity is growing because it is systematically grounded in human physiologyand the health sciences. It gets the best results for sick and suffering Health Seekers. For most sickpeople, it is the only route that gets good results at all. When Dr. Vetrano, Susan, and I speak of “The 10Energy Enhancers” or “health care based on The Natural, Physiological Laws of life” or “Health byHealthful Living!” from this point on, therefore, we are speaking of all alternative health care systemsbased on principles that are on the right track and that align with those of the best systematic body ofnatural healing knowledge and health care known as “Natural Hygiene.” To the degree the alternativesdo so, to that degree will they be successful in helping Health Seekers get well and stay well.

CRUCIAL TERMS FOR HEALTH SEEKERS IN NATURAL HYGIENE

THE MAINSTREAM & SYNONYMOUS TERMS: “DISEASE” & “PATHOLOGY”The second model of disease origin is The Toxemia Theory as Natural Hygiene teaches,

specifically, as laid out by Dr. J.H. Tilden in his landmark Toxemia Explained book where he gives us The7 Stages of Disease paradigm. Foundational to The Toxemia Theory is the Natural Hygiene definitionof “disease” as “the natural, normal result of toxic accumulations within the fluids and tissues of thehuman body as a result of Nerve Energy supplies too low to keep itself clean.” Again, simply put:

“DISEASE IS AN ENERGY CRISIS IN A TOXIC BODY!”We use 2 common mainstream words over and over again and synonymously: in Webster’s

Dictionary, “disease” means “sickness,” while “pathology” means “the study of disease.” The adjective“pathological” means “diseased.” But specifically, in Natural Hygiene, the abstract noun “disease”refers to toxin accumulation in the body ultimately leading to a downward spiral of pathologicalsymptoms, usually with much pain, and an unnatural, untimely death. The only cure of disease in the“Health by Healthful Living!” model is a natural cure. It is based on providing the energy-enhancingconditions for health and removing the energy-draining leaks of disease. Only then can the body get itsNerve Energy supplies up and go through its own self-initiated, self-cleansing, and self-repairingprocesses. Only then can the body raise its molecular vibration and cellular integrity higher into health.

In some cases of pathology, some Health Seekers may choose to undertake, for a relatively shortperiod of days or weeks, a properly supervised or assisted fast on water-only or a fresh, raw juice diet.(For a crash course on The Natural Hygiene Fast and/or detoxing while on raw foods, refer to Chapters14 and 15, the bulk of the most crucial teachings in both of which I wrote and Dr. Vetrano edited.) Specific terminology and definitions are used by Natural Hygiene health educators and must begrasped by Natural Hygiene Health Seekers if they are to move upward into health. These are neitherWebster’s Dictionary nor medical school textbook terms and definitions. Being totally natural whencompared to conventional medical thinking, the “Health by Healthful Living!” paradigm is indeedthrough the looking glass and appears so many times backwards and upside down, or at least — veryodd. And rightly so: the 2 models are opposite in many ways! A new vocabulary is therefore needed forthese new concepts. To understand Natural Hygiene and profit from its health care system, Dear HealthSeekers, please become familiar with the following terms and their specific definitions. What follows,therefore, is a deprogramming from the conventional medical paradigm to the unconventional NaturalHygiene alternative. Get ready to get turned upside down — and maybe even inside out!


THE NATURAL HYGIENE TERM: “ENERVATION”Foundational to the Toxemia Theory, also termed “The Health by Healthful Living! Paradigm”

is the term “Enervation.” Think of this as “exhaustion so deep that the body is in deep trouble!”Defined as follows, Enervation is the first of The 7 Stages of Disease: “the result of the body beingso low in Nerve Energy (tired) that poisons created within the body and poisons taken into the bodyaccumulate in the fluids and cells, and finally, in the tissues and organs and systems.”

THE NATURAL HYGIENE TERM: “NERVE ENERGY”“NERVE ENERGY,” in Natural Hygiene, refers to the low-grade electricity generated by the

brain that supplies current to the body and regenerates and repairs all tissues: bone, blood, skin,muscles, nerves, and glands. The Health Seeker best appreciates the human body as a wondrous,electro-chemical power system! It is Nerve Energy that “runs the whole show,” such that all bodilyfunctions — and especially nutrition through diet, air, water, and sunlight, and the elimination oftoxins from endogenous and exogenous sources — are performed well within their normal, health-promoting parameters. When a person lives in a state of high Nerve Energy, well nourished on TheIdeal Diet, the body has the vital force it needs to keep itself well nourished and well cleansed, freeof disease, and full of vitality for the reasonable demands made upon it from a lifestyle of moderationin all things good and avoidance of all things toxic! The very most joyful Superlative Healthresults only when Nerve Energy is high and bodily toxicity is at healthful, homeostatic levels!

“NERVE ENERGY” IS NOT “PLAIN, OLD ‘ENERGY!” “PLAIN, OLD ENERGY” refers to...anything... the body consumes in the form of food & drink,anything... the body uses in the form of muscular output,anything... the body generates in the form of heat,anything... the body burns in the form of calories,anything... the body employs to secrete fluids,anything... the body and mind experience in the form of stimulation,anything... the body ingests to get “hyped up” or excited,anything... the body expends in the form of mental and emotional activity,anything... the body, mind, and spirit exude in the form of charisma,anything... the body stores in the form of potential activity.Anything the mind and body consumes from the outside, anything the mind and bodygenerate in the form of creative thoughts or mental constructs or emotional output,anything the mind and body exert in the form of muscular output is not “Nerve Energy.”We may experience these activities, these “anything events” as stimulating and evenfeel fully energized when experiencing them. But what we are engaging in with these“anythings” is the expenditure of Nerve Energy — not the generation of Nerve Energy!

HOW TO RESTORE YOUR NERVE ENERGY!The brain can also be likened to a high-powered battery that needs continual recharging on a dailyand nightly basis. Its “low-grade electricity” can be “recharged” in 1 of 4 ways:1. ADEQUATE SLEEP — time spent as needed2. REST & CATNAPS DURING THE DAY — time spent as needed3. COMPLETE REST — time spent during The Natural Hygiene Fast4. QUIET, STILL TIME — time spent in meditation, biofeedback, prayer, or some

still & calming inactivity proven to provide deep rest to the mind & body.


THE NATURAL HYGIENE TERMS: “TOXEMIA” & “TOXICOSIS”The dictionary definition of “toxemia” means “poisons in the blood”: it is sometimes used to

mean “a generalized state of auto-intoxication.” But the term “Toxemia” with a capital “T” I formallydefine in Natural Hygiene lexicon as Dr. Tilden’s 2nd Stage of Disease: “the result of the body being solow on Nerve Energy that basic, eliminative and self-cleansing functions at the cellular level are held incheck, such that poisons created within the body and poisons taken into the body from outside sourcesaccumulate in the fluids and cells, and finally, in the tissues and organs and systems.” This accumulationultimately leads to pathological symptoms, including pain and suffering, and to an unnatural, untimelydeath. The only “cure” of disease in The Toxemia Model is based on providing the conditions forhealth and removing the energy-draining leaks so that the body can get its energy supplies up andthen go through its own self-initiated detoxification and reparative processes and thus regain health.

“Toxemia” is also formally termed “Toxicosis” and informally termed “auto-intoxication” or“self-poisoning.” But more specifically, in the Natural Hygiene lexicon, “Toxicosis” refers to the moreadvanced bodily condition of Toxemia or poisoning, not only of the blood but of the other bodily fluidsand of individual cells and their specialized tissue groups. The entire body partakes of these retrogradechanges when succumbing to Toxicosis. The weaker organs and body parts retrograde more dramaticallyand show breakdown first. Or it may be a very vascular organ or an organ of elimination that takes thebrunt of poisons that flow into the organ. “Toxemia,” rather than “Toxicosos” is used most frequently.

When Nerve Energy is low, elimination of toxic waste is impeded: the body must operate undera toxic overload: a handicap. Poisons saturate first the blood stream and bodily fluids, and then thecells, tissues, organs, and systems. What I have formally termed “The Descent into Disease” will continueunless strict, Natural Hygiene measures via The 10 Energy Enhancers bring about an intervention andThe Ascent Out of Disease. It is a 2-way staircase each Health Seeker can take — if she or he has notdescended into the pathological point of no return. If no contraindications are warranted, the verybest, easiest, quickest way to so ascend back up into health is by taking The Natural Hygiene Fast.

The Toxemia Model of disease is best exemplified by Natural Hygiene teachings from Dr. Tilden,Dr. Shelton, Dr. Scott, Our 3 Texas Doctors Vetrano and Tosca and Gregory Haag, T.C. Fry, and myself.And although many other alternative health care models are based on the reality that we get sickbecause we got toxic, many of their teachings are neither correct nor as systematized and clearly setforth; and nearly all of them tell you to “take something” or undergo some treatment or therapy toimprove your condition. Others want to throw an incorrect and dangerous twist into their brands,such as eating an all-fruit or almost all-fruit diet or taking very long fasts regardless of contraindications.The correct Natural Hygiene model has been gaining momentum because it gets the best results amongHealth Seekers who are strict in its application of what Dr. Shelton and 1800s’ doctors called “Healthby Healthful Living!” This alternative health care is based on self-initiated education, self-responsibility,and self-care, rather than on drug and doctor dependency. In comparison, taking the Natural Hygieneapproach is far, far less costly than going the medical route and totally non-toxic for the Health Seeker!

Health Seekers have come to me so many times, grasped this concept of why they are sick, andexclaimed with variations of: “Oh, my God! I’m sick because I’m toxic!” They get very happy andexcited! Some get very angry! Some of these people have spent as many as 10 years and more, investingas much as tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in the medical route and in alternative routes thatwere really just holdover dead-ends from The Medical Mentality — only to get decidedly worse! Theirnext question is always some variation of: “What do I do to get back my energy and end my crisis?”Great hope is on their horizons! Within days or weeks of doing right and eating live, they get better andthen better and better! The whole time, they had been on one of the wrong tracks that led to no-where-land dead-ends. The happy answer to: “How do I get well and stay well?” is simple. First are neededa few more definitions and my many lists. Being dubbed “The List Lady” by Susan, I am so gratefuland pleased to provide these in the following, so that you, too, will be best-educated and know how toend the energy crisis in your toxic bodies and recover the health and high joy of your youthful days! Ihope and pray that you will share these teachings with Health Seekers in your corners of our globe!


THE NATURAL HYGIENE TERMS:“ACUTE DISEASE” & “CHRONIC DISEASE”

In this Natural Hygiene model of health care, disease is divided into 2 distinct types. Illnessesor disease symptoms are evaluated as “acute” in the earlier stages, meaning the body can make acomplete recovery into health if strict, corrective action is taken soon enough. Examples of short-lived,acute illnesses are the so-called “common cold” and a mild case of the “flu,” diarrhea, headache,indigestion, fatigue, and all “-itises” and all in their very early stages.

Disease that has progressed until irreversible tissue damage has taken place is evaluated as“chronic and degenerative.” Examples of long-term, chronic diseases include most advanced cancersand emphysema, gangrene, ulcerative colitis, and rheumatoid arthritis. Chronic, degenerative diseaseis latter stage disease, meaning the body can at least arrest the degeneration, or at best, make a partialor near-full recovery into health if corrective action is taken immediately and strictly.

Susan pointed out to me such a simple but profoundly well-put reality: when people get sick,they really don’t care about models and schools of thought explaining the causes of disease. Theysimply want to get well! They want what “gets results.” And the very best results and fastest resultscome with healthful living habits. The 2 most important healthful living habits are: (#1) getting enoughrest and sleep for revitalization of Nerve Energy reserves and (#2) eating the raw food diet for bothenergy conservation and provision of necessary and wholesome, raw materials so that the body canrebuild healthy tissues most efficiently.

I will say, however, that after all my years of working to help Health Seekers in all stages ofacute and chronic diseases, once a person starts studying Natural Hygiene in depth and studyingespecially Dr. Tilden, Dr. Shelton, Dr. Vetrano, and my 2 BOOKS IN 1: The Health Seekers’ YearBookwith The Best of Common Health Sense, this Health Seeker who both studies and lives strict NaturalHygiene enough to reap benefits invariably does want to learn more and eventually does indeed then“care about models and schools of thought explaining the causes of disease.” Out of love for fellowman, woman, and child, they are driven to learn more and to share the blessings of this knowledge.This is how a Health Seeker turns into a Health Revolutionist, out of the humanitarian desire to sharethis amazing information and help end pain and suffering, whenever possible, among others!

To clearly understand The Toxemia Model of disease origin, let us first rule out emergencysituations of wear-and-tear patients and accident victims who need 11th hour medical interventionbecause they are in the throes of death or extreme distress (about 5% of sick persons). Let us thenaddress all Health Seekers with acute or chronic diseases (about 95% of sick persons). For these HealthSeekers, the systematic application of The Superlative Alternative is the best one that gets the mostconsistent, most dramatic health results without any drug and doctor dependency, whatsoever, andwithout the enormous expense that comes with them. Simply put: The Toxemia Model offers the bestsolution for any Health Seeker with disease — acute or chronic!

A NATURAL HYGIENE QUALIFICATIONOF THE TERM “CURE” TO MEAN “THE BODY ALONE DOING THE CURING”

Many alternativists use the term “cure” freely. But we never, ever use the word “cure” except inthe strictest sense that “all cure is body-initiated, body-conducted, and body-maintained when theconditions for health are provided and the causes of disease are removed.” And the word “medicine”is never used unless The 10 Energy Enhancers could metaphorically be considered the only “medicine”man, woman, and child should ever take.

It should be noted that Dr. Shelton did actually use the term “cure” in his very first book, TheFundamentals of Natural Hygiene, in 1922. But after that, he decided to give Natural Hygiene its own andmutually exclusive terminology and definitions so that Health Seekers would not confuse The ToxemiaModel with The Medical Mentality.


THE NATURAL HYGIENE REJECTION OF THE TERMS:“THERAPY” & “TREATMENT”

Because The Medical Mentality and Natural Hygiene are so opposite so much of the time, thesame vocabulary cannot be used for both without misunderstanding. While many alternative healtheducators opt to use the terms “treatment” and “therapy,” Natural Hygiene alternativists are dead-setagainst using these medical model terms. We want to free Health Seekers from The Medical Mentalityaltogether. Therefore, there are no treatments or therapies or pills or potions to take that will get youwell: there is only the self-healing body receiving your natural, healthful living care to get you well.

The Hygienic leaders, teachers, and doctors are so convinced that only the body does the healing,that they never use the terms “treatment” or “therapy” to mean Hygienic measures such as fasting andprescribed exercises, for examples. They speak, instead, of “providing the conditions for health.” Torepeat: Natural Hygiene educators want the Health Seeker to think outside the medicine man’s bagand get into his or her own body-as-healer, instead. This paradigm shift must be made. The HealthSeeker must step through the looking glass — if he or she wants to get well and intends to stay wellwithout drug or doctor dependency.

THE NATURAL HYGIENE TERMS:“DETOXIFICATION” • “DETOX” • “DETOXIFY” • “DETOXER”

A final term must be addressed: “detoxification” and its variants: “detox,” “detoxify,” and“detoxer.” Dr. Vetrano has just issued a statement proposing that Natural Hygienists leave these termsexclusively to the medical world from which they originated in 1867. The medical model employs toxicdrugs to reduce the even more toxic properties of poisons within the body system. Enervating, toxicdetoxification (There is an oxymoron for you!) treatments and therapies are also employed by M.D.s.For examples: addicts are given toxic methadone to get off heroine, or they take enervating sweat bathsto get alcohol out of their already tired systems.

Nevertheless, I have asked Dr. Vetrano to allow the use of this trendy and popular term and itsvariants in The Live Food Factor, especially since the whole idea of getting pure and clean is so attractiveto people who would like to have all life has to offer at its best! We want to make the use of this termperfectly clear in all our following teachings. “Detoxification” and its variants herein always refer to“the natural, physiological processes of the body alone doing the cleansing, eliminating, and excretingof toxins as a result of discontinuing toxic substances and instituting The 10 Energy Enhancers.”“Detoxification” never refers to taking some medicine or over-the-counter drug to get clean. Preferred,Natural Hygiene synonyms for these medical-minded “detox” terms are “cleansing,” “elimination oftoxins,” and “excretion of wastes.” All alternative health care systems correctly based in physiologyand on how the body works in health and disease are on the right track, but none use the specialdefinitions in the foregoing terminology. These are unique to the Natural Hygiene paradigm and lexicon.

Virtually all emergencies, far-gone cases of wear-and-tear, blunt force traumas, and 11th hourcrises absolutely require medical and/or chiropractic intervention to end suffering and save lives. Barringthese extreme situations, however, the Health Seeker takes into the body only 4 nutritive EnergyEnhancers: pure air, pure water, sunlight, and non-toxic, raw foods in digestive-friendly combination.(See our solution to the depleted soils situation and our troubled times at the end of thewww.health4thebillions.org item you have just purchased for a 5th item in this list.) The Health Seekerpractices the 6 other non-nutritive Energy Enhancers to inspire natural healing.

For the Natural Hygienist, there is but one disease (Toxemia) and but onenatural healing process (revitalization, cleansing, body chemistry balancing, andrepair). From this natural perspective, getting well becomes — AN ADVENTURE!And staying well — FUN!


THE 10 ENERGY ENHANCERS VERSUS THE 10 ENERGY ROBBERSWhile Dr. Shelton never did consistently name or list The 10 Energy Enhancers and while

T.C. Fry named and numbered an unwieldy 22, I have provided just 10 that encompass all healthyliving habits. These 10 lifesavers are listed in the order of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: survivalneeds first, aesthetic and social needs last. Since we speak of “The 10 Energy Enhancers” assynonymous with “Natural Hygiene” so many times throughout our live food factor adventure, Ipresent them now for your ease of understanding not only Natural Hygiene, but of appreciatinghow live foods factor in with 9 other factors for the health of your body, mind, spirit, and planet.

THE 10 ENERGY ENHANCERS were also called “the basic requisites of life” or “theprimordial requisites of life” by The Pioneers of Natural Hygiene. Practicing themconsistently and strictly causes the body to adapt by building health:(1) Cleanliness — inside & out(2) Pure Air(3) Pure Water(4) Adequate Rest & Sleep(5) The Ideal Diet of non-toxic, properly combined, raw fruits & vegetables, nuts,

seeds & sprouts, organic whenever possible(6) Right Temperatures(7) Adequate Sunlight(8) Regular Exercise(9) Emotional Balance — which includes freedom from addiction, high self-esteem,

a purposeful life & meaningful goals(10) Nurturing Relationships.

The mental and emotional factors (Energy Enhancers #9 and #10) ar e covered in several placesthroughout our Live Food Factor book. And for more in-depth reading on the science behind the mind/body connection, order my GetWell★StayWell Affirmations for Americans! It is the best resource forbeginners and provides 500 affirmations in print and on 4 compact discs that reaffirm the importanceof The 10 Energy Enhancers and all of Natural Hygiene in a fun and powerful way!

THE 10 ENERGY ROBBERS are also called “the remote causes of disease” or “thesecondary sources of disease” by The Pioneers of Natural Hygiene. Practicing themconsistently and almost exclusively causes the body to adapt by building disease.(1) Uncleanliness — inside & out(2) Impure Air(3) Impure Water(4) Inadequate Rest & Sleep(5) The Standard American Diet of processed (cooked), refined, chemicalized meat,

dairy, fruits & vegetables (mostly cooked) & grains & junk food(6) Wrong Temperatures(7) Inadequate Sunlight(8) Lack of Regular Exercise(9) Emotional Unbalance — which includes addictions, low self-esteem,

a purposeless life & meaningless goals(10) Toxic Relationships.


THE REMOTE OR SECONDARY SOURCES OF TOXEMIA:ENDOGENOUS TOXINS & EXOGENOUS TOXINS

While the one and only, direct cause of Toxemia is critically low Nerve Energy, also termed“Enervation,” the remote or secondary sources or causes of Toxemia are many; and they are seen inenergy-draining lifestyle choices. As I re-emphasize later, the average sick and tired American is makingseveral hundred, if not 1,000+ such slow-suicide choices every day! All people auto-intoxicate from 2sources: from within the body — resulting in what we term “Endogenous Toxemia” — and from whatwe take into the body from the outside — resulting in what we term “Exogenous Toxemia.” The HealthSeeker will learn to minimize the sources of Endogenous Toxemia through an energy-conservativelifestyle that is governed by The 10 Energy Enhancers and to eliminate — as totally as possible — thesources of Exogenous Toxemia through an energy-wise lifestyle that excludes The 10 Energy Robbers.

THE LIST OF ENDOGENOUS TOXINS“Endo” = “within” + “gen” = “generated or borne.” Endogenous Toxins, therefore,are “generated within” the body & include the following:(1) Natural, normal metabolic waste; on-going, toxic byproducts at the

cellular level(2) Spent debris from cellular activity(3) The natural, normal death of cells in healthy numbers or inordinate,

wholesale death of cells in unhealthy numbers due to the disease processat work

(4) Emotional &/or mental stress in normal displays or in excess(5) Physical fatigue, in normal amounts or in excess.

THE LIST OF EXOGENOUS TOXINS“Ex” = “outside” + “gen” = “generated or borne.” Exogenous Toxins, therefore, are“generated outside” of the body & include the following:(1) Unnatural food & drink typical of The Standard American Diet(2) Natural food deranged by processing, refining & preserving(3) Improper food combinations resulting in creation of toxins upon digestion(4) Medical/pharmaceutical/herbal drugging by health care professionals(5) Supplemental drugging from taking inferior, toxic supplements(6) Tobacco, alcohol & all forms of recreational drugging(7) Environmental, commercial & industrial pollutants.

These energy-robbing lifestyle practices result in poisonous waste storage within the body andretrograde changes, away from the direction of health and toward poison-retention and malfunction atthe cellular level. These backward, malfunctioning changes as a whole are named or identified by theabstract noun: “disease.” But I live in Concrete, Washington, for a reason: to tell you that there is nothingabstract about the pain and suffering of the disease process in action! The changes in a person’s mobility,swollen tissues, complexion, demeanor, and the pain and misery accompanied by diminished capacity— there is nothing abstract about these! They are as concrete as it gets! Over time, the Endogenous andExogenous Toxins accumulate far beyond the body’s Nerve Energy capacities to conduct a “poisons-in/poisons-out” balance. For the average person deep into The Descent into Disease and eating thepathogenic, cooked food supply, enough Nerve Energy is never available for him or her to climb out.


“LIVE FOOD — IT’S ALL ABOUT ENERGY!”For thousands of years, the power of the body to make good use of a period of time set aside for

fasting has been known. And now, the power of the body to make good use of the 100% live food dietin revitalizing, detoxifying, balancing body chemistry, and healing is becoming known. The body mustconserve its Nerve Energy, generate more Nerve Energy (by resting, sleeping, and very still activitieslike meditating), and minimize both the incoming toxins and bodily-created toxins in order to havesufficient Nerve Energy to cleanse fluids and tissues and initiate excretion of poisons and self-healing.And since for most people, cooked food is the main source of “incoming toxins” that stresses theirbodies (See Chapter 6.), this practice must be stopped if one intends to detoxify, get well, and stay well.

“LIVE FOOD — IT’S ALL ABOUT ENERGY!” That’s our motto. By eating live fruits, veggies,nuts, seeds, and sprouts, the Health Seeker first conserves Nerve Energy which is, thus, freed up tobe used by the body, mind, and spirit to create health and happiness. (What a blessing! Who couldask for anything more?) Following are 7 wonderfully conserving and freeing reasons I always useto show Health Seekers how to get high energy and high joy, naturally! FUN!

CONSUMING LIVE FOODS CONSERVES NERVE ENERGY!(1) Energy is conserved because the body is not required to expend energy manufacturingdigestive enzymes to process live foods (See Chapter 6.), as naturally occurring enzymesare present and alive in abundance in raw foods.(2) Energy is conserved because the body is not required to continually detoxify fluidsand tissues of Exogenous Toxins created when heated, refined, chemicalized foods areeaten: the Exogenous Toxins are not present in correctly chosen, live foods!(3) Energy is conserved because the body is no longer creating nor being required toeliminate toxic by-products (Endogenous Toxins) of cooked food metabolism.(4) Energy is conserved because the body moves fiber-rich, peristalsis-stimulating, livefoods through its digestive tract with a high-energy/high-efficiency quotient comparedto what it takes to move cooked, fiber-deficient foods.(5) Energy is conserved because live foods are nutrient-rich and thus provide the bodywith both the best, digestible, assimilable building blocks and supplies needed forenergy-efficient, metabolic activities. (See Chapter 7.)(6) Natural Hygiene teaches Health Seekers to eat foods in digestive-friendly,biochemical compatibility. If the Health Seeker will eat live foods in proper combination,energy is conserved because the body does not have to detox from any EndogenousToxins that are poisonous by-products of poorly combined foods.(7) Energy is conserved when live, pure foods are eaten in modest amounts and strictlyaccording to genuine hunger: the digestive task set before the body is easy and efficienton energy demands. In energy-draining comparison, supermarket shelf foods, especiallycondimented, spiced, sugared, salted, high-fat and high-starch foods — all dead — areaddicting. Their consumption leads to overeating for most people. The big energy taskset before the body is doubled on SAD foods: the foods are energy demanding to digest,and huge amounts typically eaten by most are hugely demanding to metabolize.

By eating raw, more energy is conserved and freed up, for cleansing and healing,for rising to your calling and living out your dreams! For giving and receiving love. Formaking the world... A Better Place! RAW FOODS = RAW ENERGY! SO SIMPLE! FUN!


ENERGY ENHANCERS #4: REST & SLEEP!Sleep is a period of complete unconsciousness of the individual and a function of the nervous

system exclusively: with the advent of sleep, the body shuts down consciousness. Non-nervous tissuesof the body, such as bone and muscle and blood, do not transmit nerve impulses; nevertheless, these non-nervous tissues, too, need the period of nightly sleep, as they, too, do have their own healthy functionsand need revitalization and restorative time. Are Adequate Rest & Sleep “The Missing EnergyEnhancers” in your life that are preventing you from reaching Superlative Health? Are you followingthe other 9 Energy Enhancers but still suffering in ill health? An estimated 4 out of 6 American adultsreport “daytime sleepiness.” This makes them sluggish, irritable, unable to focus on tasks at hand. It alsomeans that sleep-deprivation among our citizens has reached pandemic proportions! This much weNatural Hygienists have fully established: “Sleep is a part of the life of every animal and human in theworld.” Rest is helpful. Fasting is helpful. Meditation is helpful. But Sleep — and only Sleep — isabsolutely necessary for renovation and recharging of the nervous system and affords a period ofrevitalization for other structures so that the organism can continue to function normally and be WELL.

SLEEP PROVIDES 2 PRIMARY NEEDS(1) A period of revitalization for the nervous system & renewing of Nerve Energy(2) A time of decreased activity for the repair of organic damages & rebalancing

of body chemistry.

THE MISERIES OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION

(1) Toxins that are eliminated more rapidly while sleeping accumulate to anabnormal, unhealthy degree if one does not take Adequate Sleep. These retainedwastes damage tissues and organs throughout the body. If the nervous system isnot recharged by nightly sleeping, it cannot send the proper number of nerveimpulses to the various bodily organs for their proper functioning! Consequently,these organs function poorly. The result is greater toxin accumulation. Eventuallyand relentlessly, the individual takes The Descent into Disease.(2) Enervation from insufficient Sleep leads to a lowering of available, vital NerveEnergy: this causes all organs to work less efficiently, resulting in poor digestionand toxin accumulation from impaired liver, kidney, lungs, and intestines.(3) Drowsiness and inability to concentrate to actual impairment of memory andphysical performance, particularly reduced ability to carry out mathematicalcalculations, cause endless, everyday problems in personal and financial lives.(4) COUNTLESS MORE MISERIES! BEWARE! This list could go on and on. Everycell and organ of the body is adversely affected: hallucinations, mood swings,increased heart rate variability, Irritation/Inflammation of the digestive tractresulting in body messages causing insomnia, decrease in release of growthhormones, decrease in normal body temperature, significantly decreased meta-bolic activity of the brain after only 24 hours, decreased immune system functionmeasured by decreased white blood cell count, abnormality in hormone produc-tion regulating hunger and appetite that causes a desire to eat well in excess ofcaloric demands to stimulate oneself into wakefulness and resulting in obesity.


THE BLESSINGS & BENEFITS OF GETTING ADEQUATE SLEEP(1) During Sleep, the entire human body is permitted a priceless and profoundRest: this deep Rest can neither be traded for blood nor bought with money!(2) During Sleep, sympathetic nervous activity decreases, while parasympatheticactivity increases, reducing muscular tone to almost nil. This provides a muchgreater Rest of the skeletal muscles compared to that of simple, wakeful resting.(3) During Sleep, arterial blood pressure falls; pulse rate decreases; skin vesselsdilate. This deep Sleep, therefore, affords deep Rest for the heart and for themuscles of the arteries.(4) During Sleep, activity of the gastro-intestinal tract increases, improvingdigestion and absorption of food to promote better nutrition.(5) During Sleep, skeletal muscles are completely relaxed; when in restingwakefulness, especially when under stress, muscles are tensed to some degree.(6) During Sleep, the metabolic rate falls by 10% to 20%, thus permitting thebodily tissues, organs & systems a much-needed, deep Rest.(7) During Sleep, healing and repair wherever needed throughout the bodyincrease. During Sleep we generate energy to get well! Healing and repair aremost profound while both sleeping and undertaking The Natural Hygiene Fast.

RECUPERATION & RECOVERY COME FROM REST & SLEEP!Recuperation from a temporary or partial exhaustion will take place with 1 or 2 days of extra

Rest & Sleep. If, however, you continually burn the candle at both ends, day in and day out, for years,you will be forced into paying the price of exhausted Nerve Energy and even exhaustion of reserves.If you persist in the excesses that waste Nerve Energy, then Enervation will follow... “as night followsday.” This leads to lowered functioning capacity of every tissue, organ, and system in the body. Atthis point, to get well, it could take the enervated person many weeks or even many months (or years)of 12 hours a day or more of Rest & Sleep, along with strict, low-keyed, 10 Energy Enhancers’ living.

Rearranging the lifestyle to align with Natural Hygiene and relearning how to best deal withstress and taking time for Adequate Rest & Sleep are your only antidotes to fatigue. Any product —over the counter or illegal — that promises otherwise is selling stimulants that only give a false senseof being energized while further depleting Nerve Energy reserves! Stimulants are traps! Unlike thehigh cost of stimulants, and happily so, Energy Enhancers of Rest & Sleep are FREE for the dozing!

ACUTE DISEASE VERSUS CHRONIC DISEASE

First, let me repeat that the word “disease” is an abstraction. There is no such concrete thingyou can hold in your hand or that you can otherwise measure, that you can point to and say: “This is adisease,” like you can hold a rubbery, round object in your hand and say, “This is a ball.” There are onlyabnormal conditions of body tissues and fluids — and their malfunctioning and your misery. These arealways accompanied by unpleasant, subjective experiences of fatigue, malaise, irritation, itching,inflammation, ulceration, and/or scar tissue and pain/suffering. Whenever we use the abstract word“disease,” therefore, we are always referring to these concrete realities of malfunction and misery at alllevels of our fearfully and wonderfully made bodies. With this clarification, The Toxemia Model separatesdisease into 2 distinct classifications: acute and chronic. Their mutually exclusive characteristics follow.


3 CONSIDERATIONS IN UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCESBETWEEN ACUTE & CHRONIC DISEASE

(#1) Disease evolves from Enervation to Toxemia to acute symptoms of Irritationand then Inflammation. These are the formal terms used to name the first 4 stagesof disease in Dr. Tilden’s 7 Stages of Disease paradigm. When these symptomsare not reversed through healthful living habits, the symptoms worsen and evolvefurther into chronic disease and the latter 3 stages of disease, formally termed,“Ulceration,” “Induration,” and “Chronic Degeneration.”(#2) The 6 ways acute and chronic diseases differ are mutually exclusive. Once aperson descends the stairs from acute into chronic, great steps upward into healthcan be made; but he or she can never return to fullest and most vibrant health.(#3) All people who are living The 10 Energy Robbers will eventually developacute and then chronic disease — if accidental death does not get them first! Thisreality makes “Our Live Food Factor & 10 Energy Enhancers Message” of utmosturgency and a complete blessing for absolutely every person on the planet!

6 WAYS ACUTE DISEASE & CHRONIC DISEASE DIFFER

(1) Acute disease has been short-lived in the making, in process only a few hours,days, or weeks. Due to higher Nerve Energy reserves and thus a lowered adaptationto tolerate toxic saturation, natural healing takes place. To repeat: examples ofshort-lived acute illnesses are the so-called “common cold” and “flu,” diarrhea,headache, indigestion, fatigue, and all “-itises” in their earlier stages. Chronic,degenerative disease, by contrast, has been long-lived in the making, in processover many months or years. For the chronic sufferer, due to lowered Nerve Energyreserves and thus an increased adaptation to tolerate toxic saturation, naturalhealing does not take place without strict, healthful living intervention. Examplesof long-term chronic diseases include diabetes, emphysema, gangrene, rheumatoidarthritis, all the advanced stages of colitis, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases.(2) In acute disease and while practicing The 10 Energy Enhancers, the sufferermay have flare-ups (“healing crises”) due to a higher vitality. In virtually all casesof acute disease, complete recovery into health is reached once healthful livingpractices are instituted and detoxing and repair are completed. The chronic suffererexhibits lowered vitality and experiences progressively worsening symptoms astime goes on and does not have the vital energy to conduct any healing crises.(3) Acute disease may last only a few hours, days, or weeks in the healing process.Even without learning about and practicing energy-enhancing habits, manypeople are healed of acute disease because their living habits are healthy enoughand their Nerve Energy reserves high enough. But eventually and withoutexception, if energy-robbing habits are continued long enough, acute disease willevolve into chronic degeneration. Chronic disease will last the rest of the chronic


sufferer’s lifetime and will be the death of him or her if strict adoption of The 10Energy Enhancers is not implemented before the pathological point of no return.

(4) Acute disease reflects a strong enough Nerve Energy supply and residualvitality that powerful elimination of toxic waste and repair processes are stillpossible. Chronic disease reflects a long-term state of toleration of toxins. It is astate of continued elimination of enough toxins to sustain life but in compromised,ever-lowering health. In the latter stages of chronic disease, the natural healingrate is much slower for the Health Seekers who have weakened their defensemechanisms (also collectively called the “immune system”) by conventionalmedical treatment and who have taken years of drugs, surgeries, and other energy-draining treatments. For medical model refugees deep into chronic degenerationwho have so weakened themselves on dead-end medical routes, the arrest or partialrecovery rates are much lower and much less dramatic. Even in chronic cases,however, the cleansing, eliminating, chemistry balancing, repairing processes arestill possible — if The 10 Energy Enhancers are implemented soon enough.

(5) Acute disease is designated “remedial” or “corrective in nature,” because thedisease evolution itself is an orderly, natural process by which the body attemptsto eliminate toxins and repair itself. Acute disease results in complete reversal ofthe disease process — if The 10 Energy Enhancers are strictly followed. Chronicdisease is also designated “remedial” or “corrective in nature,” but one cannotexpect the same recovery results as in acute disease. In chronic disease, completearrest of the disease process and possibly some reversal and even much reversalof the abnormal tissues and fluids into health can be expected. In chronic disease,some tissue changes of a detrimental and many times irreversible nature havetaken place. The tissue degenerations are sometimes reversible, sometimes not,depending on the severity and the type of tissue damage. Still, these improvementsfor chronic sufferers are causes for celebration compared to the dead-end medicalroute paradigm where virtually all just get worse and worse!

(6) Acute disease uses up energy in the elimination of toxic waste and in cellularrepair, such that the tissue integrity and normal organs‘ and systems’ functioningare fully restored. The Health Seeker may feel enervated or exhilarated when theacute crisis passes, depending on the amount of Nerve Energy expended and onthe kind and amount of toxic overload expelled. This is the time to take extra restand recuperate the Nerve Energy expenditure of getting well. Chronic disease ischaracterized by progressive fluid and cellular poisoning and retrograde changes,such that tissues, organs, and whole systems lose their functional integrity, endingin long-term misery and/or death of the chronic sufferer.

IN SUMMARY: OUR MESSAGE IS URGENT! “Take action during acutestages! Do not let your disease evolve into the chronic degeneration! Once youget well, you cannot go back to your old bad habits if you intend to stay well!”


THE 7 STAGES OF DISEASE PARADIGM BY DR. J.H. TILDEN— OR — HOW TO REVERSE THE DISEASE PROCESS!

AS SUMMARIZED BY VICTORIA BIDWELLRepetition is the backbone of learning new information until it is fully internalized. Do let

me repeat the most crucial teaching of all herein: “The One Cause of All Disease” is termed“Toxemia.” It is defined as “the poisoning of bodily fluids and tissues.” We become sick because wefirst became toxic. And we became toxic because, just before getting sick, we ran so low on NerveEnergy that the body could not keep the tissues and fluids clean. We burned our candles at both ends.The solution to “the energy crisis in a toxic body,” therefore, is to get the Nerve Energy back, torevitalize! With restored reserves of Nerve Energy, the body can go about detoxification and repair.Since disease is the bodily adaptation to a toxic overload via The 10 Energy Robbers, the reversal ofthe disease process is simply an energy-enhanced body ecology via The 10 Energy Enhancers!

What I term “The Descent into Disease” was first presented by Dr. J.H. Tilden in his landmark1926 publication Toxemia Explained as “The 7 Stages of Disease.” The role of raw foods in the climbout of disease, regardless of the Stage, early or advanced, is 3-fold. (1) They are free of ExogenousToxins. (2) They provide the human body with the superlative nutrition the body needs to performits basic, metabolic tasks. (3) They provide this nutrition in an energy-conservative package, beingeasy and energy-efficient to digest. Less Nerve Energy used to process the food ingested = more NerveEnergy for detoxification and repair. Remember: “It’s all about Nerve Energy, first and foremost!”

THE 7 STAGES OF DISEASE: A 1-PAGE SUMMARY OF AN ENTIRE BOOK!

STAGE 1 IS ENERVATION: Nerve Energy is so reduced or exhausted that allnormal, bodily functions are impaired, especially the elimination of Endogenousand Exogenous Toxins. Stage 1 thus begins the progressive, chronic process of“Toxemia Toleration” that continues through all of The 7 Stages. The toxicsufferer does not feel his “normal self.” He feels either stimulated or depressed.STAGE 2 IS TOXEMIA: Nerve Energy is too low to eliminate metabolic wastesand ingested poisons at a normal rate. These toxic substances begin to saturatefirst the blood stream and other fluids and then the cells themselves. The toxicsufferer feels inordinately tired, run-down, and disoriented or “out of it.”STAGE 3 IS IRRITATION: Toxic build-up within the bodily fluids and tissuescontinues. The cells/tissues where build-up occurs are irritated by the toxic natureof the wastes, resulting in low-grade Inflammation. The toxic sufferer often feelsexhausted, irritable, itchy — even hostile or irrational or in a fog. If the toxicsufferer goes to a medical doctor at this point, the doctor can only guess at a namefor the malaise or “dis-ease” or cannot find enough disease symptoms present topin on a formal name to the complaints and declares: “There is nothing wrongwith you! This is all in your head!” A psychiatrist may then be recommended.STAGE 4 IS INFLAMMATION: The low-grade, chronic Inflammation from Stage3 has led to the death of cells. An area or organ where toxicants have amassed nextbecomes fully inflamed. The toxic sufferer experiences actual pain, along withpathological symptoms. The Doctor entrenched in The Medical Mentality nowcan clearly see a pathology: he names the set of symptoms and begins treatments.


STAGE 5 IS ULCERATION: Tissues are destroyed. The body ulcerates, formingan outlet for the poisonous build-up. The toxic sufferer experiences a multiplica-tion and worsening of symptoms and pain. Standard medical doctors typicallycontinue drugging and often commence with surgery and other forms of moreradical and questionable treatment at Stage 5. The standard doctor easily namesthe disease and declares: “You’re just going to have to learn to live with pain!”

STAGE 6 IS INDURATION: Induration is the result of long-standing, chronicInflammation, interspersed with bouts of acute Inflammation. The chronic In-flammation causes an impairment or sluggishness of circulation: and becausesome cells may succumb, they are replaced with scar tissue. The toxic suffererendures even more physical pain. In this 6th Stage, standard medical doctorscontinue with drugging and/or surgery and/or other modalities/treatments.

STAGE 7 CHRONIC, IRREVERSIBLE DEGENERATION: Cellular integrity isdestroyed through their disorganization and/or cancerous proliferation. Tissues,organs, and whole systems lose their ability to function normally. Biochemicaland morphological changes (change is form) from the depositing of Endogenousand Exogenous Toxins bring about degenerations and death at the cellular level.The toxic sufferer is “a pathological mess” — heading toward his or her deathbed.

THE NATURAL HYGIENE MODEL & RECOVERY EXPECTATIONS

YOUR HIGHEST HEALTH POTENTIAL — WHAT IT’S DETERMINED BY

(1) Your systemic weakness, which is affected by your inherited predispositionand your past injuries and irreversible damage already done to your body,

(2) The amount and kinds of toxins present in your body,(3) Your existing Nerve Energy reserves,

(4) Your complete abandonment of The 10 Energy Robbers,(5) Your strict adoption of The 10 Energy Enhancers.

In virtually all cases of acute — remedial or corrective disease — complete recovery (“bodilycure”) is reached once a long enough fast is taken and/or healthful living practices are instituted andrevitalizing, detoxing, chemistry balancing, and repair are complete. Well over a million case file recordsat Natural Hygiene facilities over 3 centuries show that people enjoyed greatly improved to marvelousresults in virtually 100% of the acute cases reviewed. Records of out-client/patient care through officecalls or in-client/patient care at clinics, schools, and retreats attest to the efficacy of Natural Hygienecare to achieve acute disease recoveries. The very long list of alternativists worldwide include these:Dr. J.H. Tilden, Dr. Herbert Shelton, Dr. Keki Sidhaw, T.C. Fry, Dr. William Esser, Dr. Vetrano, Drs. Toscaand Gregory Haag, Drs. Burton, Dr. David Scott, Dr. Alan Goldhamer, myself, and many dozens of T.C.Fry’s graduates who have run in the past or are currently running Natural Hygiene facilities.

It cannot be said, however, that complete recovery is reached for people with chronic,degenerative disease who get similar care. But it can be said that the chronic Health Seeker’s situationdid either arrest or improve, even improve tremendously, providing the pathological point of no return


and/or deathbed illness had not been reached. At this “point of no return,” the person is literally onthe deathbed, with little or no energy even to lift a finger. The organs and systems are failing. In chronic,degenerative disease, by definition, “Irreversible damage has occurred.” The realistic results to beexpected, therefore, are either arrest of symptoms or partial, but sometimes, near-complete reversalinto improved health. Still, arrests and partial to near-complete reversals are causes for celebrationcompared to the dead-end medical route paradigm prognoses for chronic patients deep into degenerationand getting ever worse with no hope in sight!

Obviously, it is best to take action during the acute rather than the degenerative stage. Both theacute and chronic will have to strictly, conscientiously, consistently follow the healthful living practicesin all areas of their lives once arrest or partial or complete recovery is achieved.

Only a very, very few Health Seekers who are deep, deep into chronic degeneration are too farpast the pathological point of no return to recover: probably only 1% or 2% of Health Seekers readingthis at this moment. If these 1% or 2% open this document today or arrive at the doorsteps of a NaturalHygiene spot in this deathbed condition and as a last resort tomorrow, it is sometimes just too late fortheir self-healing bodies to do the work of revitalizing, regenerating, rebuilding, and renewing. Thebody does have its limits. Still, these far-gone Health Seekers are very, very few in comparison to thevast majority who are in earlier stages of disease. Tempus fugit! Carpé Diem! (Time flies! Seize the day! )

I am begging all of you here: The moment you see signs of “The Old, Grey Mare — She Ain’tWhat She Used to Be Syndrome,” please, do something immediately! PLEASE DO NOT WAIT!There is not room here to go through the 10,000+ diseases the medical doctors have named to convinceyou to turn to Natural Hygiene RIGHT NOW. And I doubt you would care to wade through such adissertation if one were set before you.

But, let me share just one heart-breaking example of a Health Seeker who recently visitedmy facility: Our Hygiene Homestead in The Woods. For some years, she had watched symptoms ofmild deformation and pain and limited movement develop — just in her hands. Not knowing aboutNatural Hygiene, she of course went the medical route, including very toxic drugs with damagingside effects. When she saw her very first gnarled knot slowly appear in her hand with diminishedmovement and with pain accompanying attempts to move her fingers, that was the very momentshe could have done something to stop the relentless development of the brutal disease we allknow as “rheumatoid arthritis” — if she had only known. This life-changing, heart-breaking diseasealmost always starts in the hands and progresses throughout the body and especially to the kneesand hips until the once-active person with a life of promise and activity ahead cannot even handlebasic, bodily functions without help. After a long fast, the pain in her hands left, but not the pain inthe knees. It breaks my heart, when one does not know about Natural Hygiene and waits too long.

Most of the time, when the conditions for health are consistently provided, results can onlybe called “MIRACULOUS!” The real miracle, however, is simply the natural, healing capabilitiesof the body, so wonderfully resourceful in its design when accessed in time! To claim your ownvirtual healing miracle, see how to best get strict with The 10 Energy Enhancers in Appendix G!

NATURAL HYGIENE’S “HEALTH BY HEALTHFUL LIVING!” MOTTO: 1 DISEASE PROCESS & 1 WAY TO RECOVER!

For the vast majority of us Health Seekers who do choose the alternative route, our full recoveries(acute) or arrests or partial-to-near-full recoveries (chronic) are do-able. WE ARE AMONG THENATURAL HYGIENE INTELLIGENTSIA! We know that disease is as natural a process as is health.We know that in disease, the body has a low Nerve Energy reserve, with a too-many-toxins in/not-enough-toxins-out imbalance established and building. We know that the body’s job is to keep theblood, fluids, and tissues clean, and that in disease, the body has a low Nerve Energy reserve andresorts to putting toxins away in special areas to eliminate them when reserves are higher. We knowthat in health, the body has a high Nerve Energy reserve, with a toxins-in/toxins-out balance maintained.


We Hygiene paradigm shifters correctly understand it impossible to find congruent the ideathat there is one cause of all disease — Toxemia — with the idea that disease is caused by some mysteriousforce, wear-and-tear, bad genes, or dangerous germs. We well informed correctly find it impossible toreconcile the ideas of letting the body heal itself by providing the conditions for health with druggingand cutting practices to create health. We Natural Hygiene Intelligentsia are filled with truth, confidence,and optimism! Those with The Medical Mentality remain in the dark, mystified by all the diseasearound them, and very often — and understandable so — feel victimized, demoralized, hopeless.

One Natural Hygiene Pioneer taught the idea of “one disease, one healing.” Turn of the 20thcentury Florence Nightingale, the mother of nursing, taught: “There are no specific diseases, only specificdisease conditions.” Dr. T. Colin Campbell, author of the recently published landmark The China Study,a book based on the largest nutritional study ever conducted, concurs with our pioneering teacher.When asked if he could make specific dietary recommendations according to certain diseases, Campbellreplied that he had come to see, through decades of research, 2 truths. First, diseases all have “impressivecommonalities.” And second, the same good nutrition benefiting the body in disease prevention canalso nourish a sick body back to health.

Wouldn’t it have been nice if “Health by Healthful Living!” had been taught to us starting inkindergarten, in a simple format, culminating in making us all well-informed and disciplined caretakersof our physical bodies and examples of mental and emotional well-being upon high school graduation?

IN DEFERENCE TO THE GOOD DOCTORSWritten by Victoria BidWell & Endorsed by Us Other 4 Women:

Dr. Vetrano, Dr. Tosca Haag, Victoria Boutenko & Susan Schenck

As pitifully outdated and absolutely wrong as “The Medical Mentality as Its Very Worst” is andthe personnel who perpetuate it are, the collective group of individuals who have supported it and docontinue certain of its practices in the medical paradigm have contributed much good to society. Nodoubt about it: their sophisticated, technological gadgetry and pharmaceutical genius enable them toprolong the lives of seriously sick and deathbed-ill people. The Good Doctors and their staff, with theirspace-age, life-support systems, keep people in severe, degenerative conditions alive when no Hy-gienic intervention or guidance could so do. Their cutting edge work in tissue regeneration is genius.

Furthermore, we all know at least one person who is alive today only because of spectacular,heroic, medical intervention by The Good Doctors and their personnel. (Had this person turned whole-heartedly to healthful living practices years earlier, however, his health would have undoubtedly im-proved so greatly that he would not have needed the medical intervention in the first place!) Please dounderstand that this book is not discounting that “The Good Doctors and their personnel” do good. Ofcourse, we acknowledge enthusiastically that the medical-minded collective have made invaluablecontributions and have instituted certain practices that can only be called “absolute blessings”: provid-ing insulin to diabetic sufferers, offering child birthing services, reviving a stopped heart, carrying outkidney dialysis, performing organ transplants and life-saving emergency surgeries, prescribing nar-cotics in cases of excruciating pain, outfitting amputees with prosthetics, performing replacement andreconstructive surgeries, giving dental aid, offering many kinds of First Aid services and follow upsupport to a long list of trauma and burn victims, and numerous like measures. Such services providedby The Good Doctors and their personnel are, indeed, “absolute modern medical blessings.”

Nevertheless, what we do assert is that — on the whole — those with their Medical Mentality— in no way — offer “The Superlative, Alternative Health Care Program” whereby we can learn toprevent disease in its earliest stages of Enervation and Toxemia and enhance health by removing theremote causes of disease (The 10 Energy Robbers) and providing the conditions for health (The 10Energy Enhancers). We speak here, therefore, in deference to The Good Doctors and their personnel,and commend them for their good works. We only wish there were more of them! If only the medicalstudents were to turn their attention to studying the conditions for health while in school, in addition


to memorizing the names of 10,000+ diseases and what drugs to prescribe for the diseases! If only thedoctors were to teach the suffering people how to enhance their health through energy-conservinglifestyle practices rather than devoting themselves almost exclusively to prescribing drugs and unnec-essary surgeries and other enervating “therapies” and “treatments”! Then, we would not have thesuffering class as the largest and most miserable and demoralized group of Americans among us to-day! What Good Doctors and personnel we would then have!

This concludes my many lists and contributions and exacting teachings on Natural Hygieneas... “The Superlative, Alternative Health Care System.” Now Susan takes the lead with and Dr. Vetranoand me to back her up.

The Live Food Factor is 700 pages long: you are getting just a fraction here.Many, many more pages of The Live Food Factor foundational teachings ofChapters 4 - 7 are not in this gift introduction to the Natural Hygiene book

you have just purchased at www.health4thebillions.org.But with these gift excerpts placed before your electronic purchase today,your “New 300+ GetWell Friends” & I have given you the most brilliant overviewever presented of “NATURAL HYGIENE as THE SUPERLATIVE ALTERNATIVE!”To receive & make use of our full teachings, start with your purchases of the2 best-ever, take-it-home, do-it-yourselves handbooks on Natural Hygiene:#1... 2 BOOK IN 1: The Health Seekers’ YearBook with The Best of Common

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SO, WITH ALL THIS GOOD NEWS, WHY DO SO MANY OFUS CLING SO DEFENSIVELY TO THE MEDICAL MENTALITY?Susan “with Victoria BidWell” conclude Chapter 7 of The Live Food Factor:

For many people, it takes time to switch from The Medical Mentality to Natural Hygiene. Formost, the switch is not instantaneous. In the following, Victoria and I give 14 separate answers to theabove question. Undoubtedly, many more exist. The reasons vary for some of our clinging, seeminglydesperately, to the conventional medical paradigm. The reasons are different for every clinger.

(1) Many of us have mind-sets entrenched in The Medical Mentality; and we are initially shocked andneed time to digest the new ideas, try them out, and verify that they are correct.

(2) Many of us respect unconditionally our doctors and cannot imagine they might not know absolutelyeverything. We put them on pedestals and worship them, more or less, as infallible gods.

(3) Many of us, including our doctors, have put complete faith in The Medical Mentality and ask noquestions. Many doctors are so sure of themselves, that our surety in them is likewise engendered. Butwe must consider that most doctors are only doing what they learned in medical school. Most doctorsthink they are on the right track, having spent so many years in medical school and having seen somany patients’ symptoms relieved by their treatments/drugs. For people who do not take good care ofthemselves, some drugs, such as antibiotics and painkillers, appear at least temporarily helpful becausethey so successfully mask symptoms and relieve pain due to the mimic phenomenon.

(4) Most of us, including doctors, fully believe in The Wear-and-Tear Theory, and therefore, look for noother, better way. Most all of us believe that sickness is inevitable, even normal and natural, especially


as we age. So many of us fully believe that most people are simply going to get sick, sooner or later.(5) Most of us, including our doctors, believe that the root cause of illness can be effectively tackled bydrugs. Few see that taking drugs to cure an illness is like cleaning your kitchen with dirt! Many doctorsget frustrated at their inability to cure their patients permanently. The few medical doctors who manageto break the mold by thinking outside the medicine bag do so at the risk of being branded “quacks,”“medical heretics,” or “alternative health renegades.” They fear losing their licenses or being sued fornot following standard procedures.(6) Most of us have been completely propagandized into believing The Medical Mentality throughcultural indoctrination. Those who have been fully indoctrinated into the status quo completely trustthe mass media programming, the reporting on scientific studies, and all the messages in pro-drug/pro-doctor advertisements. In the book Trust Us, We’re Experts! How Industry Manipulates Science andGambles with Your Future by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, we get a behind-the-scenes peek intohow the powers-that-be carry on systematic brainwashing. Nearly all of us have been conditioned toworship the men and women in white laboratory coats so that we will believe in and automatically goto doctors, purchase pharmaceutical remedies, and submit to hospital treatments without so much asa question. As David Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D., points out, “The fact that many opinions are held by greatmasses of people is hypnotic. Few minds can escape the appeal of the authority of mass agreement…Few can resist the propaganda of the news media” (The Eye of the I, p. 182).

Public relations expert Edward Bernays confessed to having been hired to promote the healthbenefits of bananas, bacon, and Crisco cooking oil. In his book Propaganda, he explains how people aremade to depend psychologically on what physicians and other opinion leaders say. “Those whomanipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the trueruling power of our country.... Our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largelyby men we have never heard of.” When you come to realize the truth in Bernays’ warning, that thepharmaceutical corporations and government agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)care more about money than they do about your health, it would be like discovering your mother hasMunchausen Syndrome, a mental disorder in which a mother is driven to do great harm to her childrenor take their lives just to satisfy their own maternal neuroses. It is shocking to learn that many of thosewhom we have trusted to protect our health are actually poisoning us, even killing us with their drugs,surgeries, and other treatments while their “health care” costs drain all but the very rich very dry.(7) Another reason is that many of us fit the profile of “natural-born followers.” We prefer to let anyonein a position of medical authority take responsibility for our health: doctors, nurses, hospital personnel,pharmacists, nutritionists. We do not want to acknowledge that we have to do a whole lot more thanswallow “magic bullets” to be healthy. Many of us do not want to accept the need for self-responsibility.(8) Furthermore, many of us take the path of least resistance in our health pursuits. In the short run, itis vastly easier to take a pill or injection, to get a surgery or a treatment, than to change lifestyle habits,and especially, our diets. Taking the path of least resistance, though limited, saves us from putting outeffort. Taking a drug, which requires the very least effort, also gives us instantaneous, symptomaticrelief, unlike the much slower process of natural recovery of health via The 10 Energy Enhancers. Somedo not want to learn what is poisonous. Some do not want to detoxify their environments. Some do notwant to quit their jobs, if they are too stressful or if the workplace environment is too lethal. Taking thepath of least resistance is so much easier than making so many new decisions and so many new choicesthat will require so much more energy that so many so do not have! To revamp lifestyles completely —it all takes so much effort! It is so much easier to swallow a pill or go in for a treatment — or both.

It is far, far easier to have someone else do the research and reasoning concerning our bodilyneeds. Yet, as Victoria Boutenko writes, “When we let others observe and reason for us, in a sense, weconsciously choose to stay blind and deaf” (Green for Life, p. 3).(9) Most people want the quick fix, even if it doesn’t cure in the long run. Dr. Joel Fuhrman, author ofFasting and Eating for Health: A Medical Doctor’s Program for Conquering Disease, prophesied that the timemight come when doctors would be accused of malpractice for not prescribing the substantially more


effective, nutritional approach to their patients. In an interview with Shelly Keck-Borsits in her bookDying to Get Well, however, Dr. Fuhrman is less optimistic and points out how well-worn is the path ofleast resistance: “The masses will continue to seek instant gratification via dangerous nutritional habitsand drug-seeking.” Most people have just not been inspired to put much effort into their health.(10) Another reason many of us cling so desperately to the medical paradigm is that we have taken avictim stance in life, especially when it comes to our health. All 4 schools of medical thought are perfectset-ups for the victim mentality: we are victims of a mysterious disease, we are victims in danger ofwearing out, we are victims of our DNA, we are victims of germs. Some of us are victims of combinationsof these 4 schools. Some have attended all 4 schools and appear hopelessly entrenched in The MedicalMentality. The helpless, hopeless victim falls into depression or rants and raves about how horrible it isto grow old and how his or her medicine isn’t working and how bad its side effects are. “It wasn’t myfault! A better way I was never taught!” are both the victim’s funeral dirge and tombstone epithet.(11) And yet another reason is financial. Many people don’t want to invest much money in their bodies.If health insurance won’t cover the alternative doctor or health retreat, they won’t go. They spend moremoney on upkeep of their cars’ bodies than on their own bodies. They take more pride in their luxuryvehicles than in turning their bodies into luxurious vehicles for their souls!

Some are fearful of upsetting the economic structure. The new approach, while creating manynew jobs, would also put many people out of jobs. Keep in mind that the Standard American Diet ispart of The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst: until just recently, most doctors have claimed that diethas little or nothing to do with health! Therefore, most medical professionals, food giants, restaurantowners, pharmacists, drug salespeople, employees of the American Cancer Society and other suchorganizations searching for cures via drugs and herbicide and pesticide producers, and even someveterinarians, as well as some alternativists who disclaim the diet/health connection — all would haveto change or radically revamp their careers to some degree if not radically if Natural Hygiene were torule! Such revamping would then directly affect, all the way down the employee ladder to janitors andcleaning ladies. Toxicity is big business in this country! Throughout 2 BOOKS IN 1: The Health Seekers’YearBook, Victoria and Dr. Vetrano call those whose livings are based on building acute and chronicdisease, addiction, emotional and mental suffering: “The Disease Industrialists” — and rightly so!(12) Many of us resist the idea that diet is absolutely, intimately connected to vibrant health and well-being. We have been so poorly educated about health and nutrition in schools and via the media, thatwe often completely separate the impact of what we eat on a daily basis from our day-to-day experiencesof health — or lack of health. We want you to make the connection, then get well and stay well! FUN!

When an animal is sick, we inquire as to what it has been eating. When a person is sick, we justtake him or her to the doctor. When there is an ad for pet food, it emphasizes nutritional value. Whenthere is an ad for human food, it emphasizes taste and convenience — or ridiculously enough, even sexappeal! Veterinarians and farmers both know that animal health depends principally on diet. Theyalso know that animals will adapt to unnatural, cooked, and chemicalized foods by fattening up, agingprematurely, and developing other serious disease symptoms. For agribusiness entrepreneurs, fatteninganimals so that they mature quicker for an early slaughter and immediate market turnover is just,plain “good business.” The trick is to get the animals to market before the disease process to which thesickening diet is contributing becomes noticeable to the few and far between inspectors from the FDA.

For the millions of pet owners out there, the emphasis, however, is not on shortness of life,wealth, and apathy to animal sentience, but on length of life, health, and love for their creaturecompanions. Raw food diets for pets are becoming all the rage among those who are in the know. Moreand more people are putting their beloved dogs and cats on raw meat instead of the more convenient,canned, bagged, or boxed pet food that has been heated and processed for extended shelf life. Horselovers know that dried grass hay and alfalfa in the winter and fresh grasses in the summer will leavetheir horses happy, sleek, and full of life. Victoria and Dr. Vetrano, both horsewomen who began theirlove of all animals in early childhood, agree: “Horse lovers would never dream of feeding their steedsa steady diet of cooked foods!” Yet few people apply this common sense to their own feed troughs or


even stop to consider that just such a diet of uncooked food may also be far healthier for themselves!(13) Perhaps most challenging of all, some of us just, plain do not want to relinquish our favorite SADfoods and do not want to even try to switch to health-enhancing diets. Worse yet, some of us do noteven think it possible to end our deep-seated addictions and have given up, even though we knowbetter! Reluctance to give up our favorite, toxic, cooked foods in exchange for raw food health may bethe biggest mental and emotional stumbling block for most aspiring paradigm shifters! So much of ouridentity — or our few, reachable pleasures in life — revolves around food. The idea that we might haveto change our diets to obtain health is, for some, a fate worse than living in food-related diseases. Somepeople would sooner change their religions or even let themselves die than change their eating habits.In fact, Devivo and Spors point out that our entire social structure revolves around food and is... “linkedto love, sex, agreement, admiration, obedience, control, belonging, reward, indulgence, and self-destruction. Our very identity of who we are contains food likes, dislikes, events, recipes, and restaurants.To be outside of that paradigm can be very unsettling” (Genefit Nutrition, p. 181).(14) So, why do so many cling so defensively to the medical model? Victoria BidWell, in an intensephone consultation, finally got me to understand that all these 13 reasons and many others you maycome up with, ultimately, fit under one umbrella. One understanding and loving answer covers all:“They cling so because they do not yet know and have not yet internalized The Superlative, AlternativeNatural Hygiene Health Care System. To truly know is to do right spontaneously — every time, becausethe knowledge has been internalized and the consequent wisdom has been turned into doing right —every time.” Victoria, Dr. Vetrano, and I hope we have now let that cat out of its SAD bag!

The good news about the new “Health by Healthful Living!” paradigm is that we are no longeramong the ill-informed or see ourselves as victims, fearing that we are at the mercy of a mystery, or thatwe will wear out before our time, or that, at any time, our genes from within or some pathogen fromwithout could wreak havoc on our health. We no longer fear and tremble every time we get a cancerscreen. Some of us no longer even bother with twice a year physicals or dental check-ups. Excludingexternal factors beyond our control, we are now in total control of our health! Health via The 10 EnergyEnhancers and, especially, the live foods will make us masters of Superlative Health!

Another pleasant surprise about this alternative paradigm shift is that the price tag often reads:“FREE!” There is no need to pay costly medical bills for doctors, laboratory tests, surgery, drugs, toxicsupplements, and other medical world products. Some may want to spend initially on a new, marvelous,powerful kitchen machine to make raw food preparation easy and fun or on exercise equipment or ahealth retreat visit. But for the most part, and if you want to forego these initial costs, this alternativeparadigm in health care is free for the taking! Yes, “FREE!” — advertisement studies have announcedthe word to be the most favorite in the American vocabulary and the one that catches the eye the mostwhen appearing in the printed word. Not one of us enjoys just throwing our money away. Except forthe cost of quality food and good drinking water (The price of food must be paid whether live orSAD.), the other 8 Energy Enhancers are completely “FREE!” Your body is its own healer and doesn’tcharge you a penny! For those of us who are used to thinking that health care and even preventivemedicine should be expensive, this financial freedom comes as a huge relief and a great delight! FUN!

“Let Food Be Thy Medicine and Medicine Be Thy Food.”— Hippocrates, Founder of So-called “Modern Medicine” • 400 B.C. —

Eventually, a person may become disillusioned enough and sick enough and desperate enoughwith the medical model to try an entirely different kind of “medicine”: LIVE FOODS. After a fewweeks of eating a near all-raw or 100% raw food diet, the person is sold: Nature does prove to be thebest “medicine.” Hippocrates was right. Food can be “thy medicine.” And medicine can be “thy food.”

And yet, it all seems so strangely surreal, so fantastic — like Alice in Wonderland: everything isthrough the looking glass or even upside down — or both. Suddenly, the real pharmacopoeia becomesthe “farmacopoeia”! Attributed to Meryl Streep is the statement: “It is bizarre that the produce manager


is more important to my children’s health than the pediatrician.”Cooking food destroys life-promoting properties. Fire had its place back in the Neanderthal

day: to cook beasts for survival food, to heat caves, to ward off predators. But when applied to thefoods we eat today? Cooking (fire) is seductive, exuding warmth, engendering a “Nothing better thanmom’s home-cooking feeling.” Cooking (fire) jogs our memories of love and happiness while the heated-up foods release aromas delicious. But let us not be fooled: fire kills live fruit and vegetable matter.Victoria’s silly poem says it all: “Plant an unfired seed in the ground, and watch it sprout... watch itgrow. Plant a roasted seed, and watch it not... watch it rot — only disease will a heated seed sow.”

Unheated food is “true medicine.” The body heals itself, cures itself of disease, when properlycared for, properly nourished, and keeps a toxins-in/toxins-out balance. The body needs the proper,raw materials for its best building blocks, to be found exclusively in natural, sun-ripened fruits,vegetables, nuts, seeds, and sprouts. Raw foods are alive! Cooked, denatured, chemical-ridden foodsare dead! Look at a juicy, organic apple. If you eat it, its life force will be used by your body as superlativenutrition at the cellular level! Raw food is full of nutrition which the body needs and uses for rejuvenationand vigorous living: vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients galore, fats, proteins, carbohydrates, enzymes,biophotons, fiber, and so much more! None of this is so with the cooked apple. Instead, the cookedapple’s toxic by-products will add to your burden! If you want more out of life and to live in pleasureand happiness, eat live foods. If you want less out of life and to die in pain and misery, eat dead foods.

Dr. Herbert M. Shelton paints a colorful picture for us and the results of this “Health byHealthful Living!” paradigm shift in his most upbeat of all 80+ volumes authored — Health for theMillions: “When one adopts Natural Hygiene, one lives in a new world. The transition from the oldworld to the new is immediate. All Nature becomes more beautiful and glorious! Duties whichwere irksome become easy to perform. We breathe purer atmosphere. New purposes animate us.New strength, energy, and power to perform are infused into us. The change in our character isequally as great! We see in every tree and shrub and in every blade of grass a beauty of which wehad not before been conscious! Our whole life is permeated by a new spirit of love and good will!We develop a gentleness and kindness that are new to us. A fresh zeal enters into our relations withthose around us. Strength is given us to perform whatever we choose, with cheerfulness and delight.Troubles, anxieties, cares are dissipated; for we know that our welfare is secure and on a firm basis.”

The proof is in the raw pudding. Let live foods be “thy medicine.” And let medicine be “thyfoods.” Chances are, no matter how healthy and happy you are now, you will be amazed at howmuch more health and happiness are to be discovered and plucked and savored along your raw lifeadventure and enjoyed to the Hygiene hilt!

Are you ready to switch horses in the middle of your life-stream?You do not need to get off. And don’t worry. You won’t fall off. You do not need toget all wet, either. You just stand in 1 stirrup and then swing yourself over to theother cozied-up horse! Then, you keep riding wherever The Superlative Alternativetakes you. There, you will find... “The Loveliest, Liveliest Trails in The Wilderness!”

“DEER, DEER” HEALTH SEEKER FRIENDS OF OURS...ARE YOU READY FOR THE RIDES OF YOUR LIVES?

Then — Let’s saddle up our horses! We’ve a trail that has been blazed!

We intend to get as good as it gets — with GOD’S AMAZING GRACE!

We will ride the greatest, greenest pastures & peaks of high energy & health!

We need only not stray from — but stay on — GOD’s Back-to-Nature Trails:NATURAL HYGIENE by way of THE PHYSIOLOGICAL LAWS OF LIFE!


THE NATURAL, PHYSIOLOGICAL LAWS OF LIFEAS TAUGHT IN NATURAL HYGIENE

Victoria BidWell summarizes from hundreds of pages of Natural Hygienetexts by The Pioneers & gives her parenthetical extrapolations

1. LIFE’S GREAT LAW: Every living cell of the organized body is endowed with aninstinct of self-preservation, sustained by an inherent force in the organism called “vitalforce” or “life force.” The success of each living organism — whether it be simple orcomplex — is directly proportional to the amount of its life force and inverselyproportional to the degree of its activity.

(The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides Life’s Great Law with propa-ganda to program The People into thinking that the 75 trillion cells of the body whichmake up “human life” must, without question and at all times, be subjugated to thedictates of The Medical Doctor and that lasting, reliable, dependable health and even“life” itself comes only through such subjugation. In fact, absolutely everyone insociety is expected “to have” a Medical Doctor — to the extent that many are in shockwhen a Natural Hygienist tells them he or she does not even “have” a medical doctor!)

2. THE LAW OF ORDER: The living organism reflects order in form, construction, andfunction and is completely self-constructing, self-maintaining, self-directing, self-repairing, self-defending, and self-healing.

(Although most Medical Doctors do acknowledge that science has revealed muchabout how the body works, The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides The Lawof Order with propaganda to program The People into thinking that the presence ofdisease in the body is often times a “mystery,” with no known causes and no knowncures. Or that disease is an “enemy at war with the body,” a war that can only be won byfollowing the dictates of The Medical Doctor. Or that we all “just wear out.” Or thatdisease is caused by germs against which the human body has no power to create its ownimmunity. The implication here made by the M.D.s is that the body is, in actuality,“disorderly” and unable to fend for itself, that it needs a medical doctor for that task.)

3. THE LAW OF ACTION: Whenever action occurs in the living organism, as the resultof extraneous influences, the action must be ascribed to the living thing that has thepower of action — and not to the lifeless, the leading characteristic of which is inertia.

(The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides The Law of Action withpropaganda to program The People into thinking that the drugs pushed by those incontrol of The Medical/Pharmaceutical Industry have the power not only “to act” but “toheal,” as long as these drugs are introduced into the body, exactly as Medical Doctorsdictate. Likewise, alternative health care dieticians are fond of promoting foods byportraying them with powers of action which they absolutely do not, according to TheLaw of Action, possess! To do so is just another rendition of The Medical Mentality.)

4. THE LAW OF POWER: The bodily power employed, and consequently expended, inany vital or so-called “medicinal action” is vital power used up (or “expended NerveEnergy”), in other words, “natural power from within — and not from without.”


(The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides The Law of Power withpropaganda to program The People into thinking that the bodily response to anystimulation from ingestion of toxic medicines which The People experience comes frompowers inherent in drugs/poisons, while the scientific truth is that the power experi-enced comes from the body being stimulated by drugs/poisons to rid itself of the drug.)

5. THE LAW OF DISTRIBUTION: The power of the body, whether that power is greator little, is distributed in a manner proportionate to the importance and needs of thevarious organs and tissues of the body. Power is distributed where it is needed most tokeep the body alive — until death do it part. A healthy body with high Nerve Energyreserves distributes its energy freely to all demands made upon it for normal function-ing and even extraordinary tasks at hand. But for a body failing, power is distributedfirst and foremost where needed to keep the body alive as long as possible.

(The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst makes no effort to attempt to overridesuch an obviously Common Health Sense affirmation of how the human body works.)

6. THE LAW OF CONSERVATION also termed “THE LAW OF AUTOLYSIS”: When-ever nutritive abstinence (fasting or a low-calorie intake) is affected to bring aboutimproved health, the living organism’s reserves are conserved and economized: livingstructures are autolyzed in the inverse order of their usefulness, while toxic substancesare eliminated in the process. This Law refers both to The Natural Hygiene Fast and toweight-loss done right.

(The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides The Law of Conservation withpropaganda to program The People into thinking that any kind of fasting will ulti-mately lead to an unbalanced biochemistry and to living on essential tissues, thusending in starvation. The M.D.s see fasting as a dangerous form of extremism. Alongthese same lines, any dieting for weight-loss that does not follow The Basic Four FoodGroups, no matter how the foods are served, cooked or raw, condimented or plain, isdeemed extreme and dangerous by those of The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst.)

7. THE LAW OF LIMITATION: Whenever and wherever the expenditure of vital powerhas advanced so far that fatal exhaustion is imminent, a check or brake is put upon theunnecessary expenditure of power; and the organism rebels against the further use ofeven an accustomed stimulant. Here is where the metaphor cliché — “You can’t beat atired horse!” — is useful: a horse can get so exhausted that it lays down and just barelylifts its head to look at its master and groans in misery if the master beats him to get up.

(The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides The Law of Limitation withpropaganda to program The People into thinking that “extraordinary, warlike mea-sures” must be used in hopes that science will kill the enemy-disease. Limitations of thehuman body are absolutely not respected. This false paradigm employed “to cure” oftentranslates in reality as “to kill” as Nerve Energy reserves are squandered on treatments.)

8. THE LAW OF SPECIAL ECONOMY: Under favorable conditions, the vital organismstores up all excesses of vital funds above the current expenditures as “reserve funds”to be employed in time of special need. The body puts energy currency in its bank.


(The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides The Law of Special Economywith propaganda to program The People into thinking that no matter how deathly weaka person gets with therapies/drugs prescribed by The Medical Doctors, war [againstwhat Hygienists correctly denote as “symptoms of toxic overload”] should continue tobe waged, that “reserve funds” [if this term were to even be recognized by The MedicalDoctors] should bravely be deployed in hopes of winning victories over the dreadedenemy-disease. Doctors love to call for “extreme measures,” extreme use of energy.)

9. THE LAW OF VITAL ACCOMMODATION: The response of the vital organism toaccommodate itself to external stimuli is DNA-determined, based upon a self-preserva-tive instinct which adapts or accommodates itself to whatever influence is set before it.

(The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides The Law of Vital Accommo-dation with propaganda to program The People into thinking that the most effectiveway to train the body to accommodate to self-preservation is to become dependent upona chosen Medical Doctor’s thinking and care and to follow the chosen M.D. dictateswithout question, even when they are only getting worse, treatment after treatment.)

10. THE LAW OF STIMULATION, ALSO TERMED “THE DUAL EFFECT”: When atoxic or irritating agent is brought to bear upon the living organism, the body puts forthvital resistance that manifests itself in an action at once accelerated, but also impaired.The body is stimulated and can even appear to be full of energy during the process! Thisresistance, however, has a dual effect: what goes up must come down. Stimulationdiminishes the bodily power precisely to the degree to which it musters up action! Theincreased action is caused by the extraordinary expenditure of vital power called forthwhen stimulated. The available power supply is thus diminished by this same amountthat was used during the stimulatory process. All toxins = stimulants = energy-draining.

(The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides The Law of Stimulation withpropaganda to program The People into thinking that the therapies and drug treatmentsprescribed by M.D.s should be followed, without question, regardless of the fact thatThe People experience loss of energy, loss of mental clarity, loss of hope, and finally, lossof life. In the M.D.s’ paradigm, “to stimulate” is a good thing: in Natural Hygiene, it is“to poison and to waste Nerve Energy that should be conserved for detox and healing.”)

11. THE LAW OF COMPENSATION, also termed “THE LAW OF REPOSE: ” Wheneveraction in the body has expended the substance and available energy of the body,Adequate Rest and/or Sleep is induced in order to replenish the body’s Nerve Energy.

(The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst does not negate the need for AdequateRest & Sleep. That need has been clearly established by science. The Medical Mentalitydoes, however, muddy The Law of Compensation with propaganda to program ThePeople into thinking that to take sleeping pills, whenever falling asleep naturallybecomes even slightly troublesome, is a perfectly harmless practice and a good thing.)

12. THE LAW OF SELECTIVE ELIMINATION: All injurious substances which gainadmittance by any means into the living organism are counteracted, neutralized, andexpelled as fully as the bodily Nerve Energy supplies allow by such means and throughsuch channels as will produce the least amount of harm to living structure. It follows,


therefore, that if Nerve Energy supplies are low and a person has become very toxic, hewill not have the Nerve Energy necessary to expel fully the Endogenous and ExogenousToxins present in his body and he will thus start The Descent into Disease.

(The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides The Law of Selective Elimina-tion with propaganda to program The People into thinking that the flesh and blood,nerve and brawn of the human body have a virtually unlimited ability to tolerate and/or to detoxify a virtually unlimited number of mild and even virulent toxins commonlyserved in the foods from The Standard American Diet, found in our polluted environ-ment, and omnipresent in the drugs and treatments prescribed by The Medical Doctors.)

13. THE LAW OF UTILIZATION: The normal elements and materials of life are all thatthe living organism is ever capable of constructively utilizing, whether it is well or sick.No substance or process that is not a normal-factor-element in physiology can be of anyvalue in building up the structure of the living organism; and that which is unusable ina state of health, is equally unusable in a state of illness.

(The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst overrides The Law of Utilization withpropaganda to program The People into thinking that virtually anything called a “food”by The Standard American Diet Industrialists and anything called a “drug” by theMedical/Pharmaceutical Disease Industrialists can be consumed absolutely and posi-tively without harm and not only with impunity, but also with benefit. This is goodnews to The People who seek pleasures non-stop! They are happy to be brainwashedinto the “Eat, Drink & Be Merry, for Tomorrow You Surely Will Not Die!” mindset.)

14. THE LAW OF QUALITY SELECTION: When the quality of nutriment beingreceived by the living organism is higher than that which made up the existing, livingtissue, the organism will discard lower-grade cells to make room for appropriating thesuperior materials into new and healthy tissue.

(The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst makes no effort to attempt to overridesuch an obviously Common Health Sense affirmation of how the human body operates,all the while offering the direct contradiction: “What you eat does not matter!”)

15. THE LAW OF THE MINIMUM: The development of living organisms is regulatedby the supply of that essential element which is least abundantly provided or utilized.The essential element in shortest supply determines the amount/rate of development.

(The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst makes no effort to attempt to overridesuch an obviously Common Health Sense affirmation of how the human body works.)

16. THE LAW OF DEVELOPMENT: The development of all or any parts of the livingorganism is measured in direct proportion to the amount of vital forces and nutritivematerials that are directed to it and brought to bear upon it.

(As noted in “LIFE’S GREAT LAW,” — the first Law given — The MedicalMentality at Its Very Worst does not acknowledge the “vital forces” [“Nerve Energy”]aspect of The Law of Development and overrides the “nutritive materials” aspect of thisLaw with propaganda to program The People into thinking that the quality of the“nutritive materials” of The Standard American Diet are totally adequate to supplyhealth and that SAD consumption by humans is absolutely nothing to worry about.)


“DEER” BACK-TO-NATURE HEALTH SEEKERS!If you are considering a visit to Our Hygiene Homestead in The Woods, I want

to provide my following teachings in Chapters 14 and 15 dropped into The LiveFood Factor book for your review of what to expect when you come! These teach-ings, now rewritten and significantly improved, take up most all of both these 2chapters: they appear in bold-face so you will know when I am teaching and whenSusan is speaking. I got involved with The Live Food Factor in order to see that theNatural Hygiene was correctly and thoroughly presented. Please read these 2 ex-citing, eye-opening, and crucial chapters before we talk about your making a res-ervation for fasting, juice dieting, or eating! May these teachings bless you andyour loved ones! — “The Wilderness Woman!”

MY HYGIENIZED CHAPTER 14 of The Live Food Factor

— Detoxification & Healingvia Natural Hygiene —

Victoria BidWell is fond of reminding me, “IT’S ALL ABOUT ENERGY!” As a former stimulant addict, Inow realize I was looking for energy in all the wrong places. Toxic food, drink, and medications appeared tosupply energy momentarily when my metabolism shifted into high gear to eliminate them. All the while, takingthese protoplasmic poisons actually resulted in wasted energy.

“As Natural Hygienists, We Are Energy Conservationists!”By Victoria BidWell with Dr. Vetrano & Susan Schenck

Susan writes: I want to thank Victoria and Dr. Vetrano for their extensive contributions and editing runningthroughout this chapter and the next. In Chapters 14 and 15, we are building on the foundational, alternative healthcare science and teachings laid down in Chapters 4 through 7. Your review of these chapters would be most usefulat this point. Victoria with Dr. Vetrano’s editing provide a summary here:

If we want more energy, we must stop wasting it and start generating it! Real energy is generated whileengaged in just one of The 10 Energy Enhancers. Can you guess which one? It is during Sleep primarily, aswell as during other periods of Rest, all forms of quiet meditation, and/or fasting on water-only. Energy isexpended while engaged in all The (other) 9 Energy Enhancers; but its use is conserved, minimized. Thevery biggest conserver of all The (other) 9 Energy Enhancers is #5 — The Natural Hygiene Diet. When allis said and done, as Health Seekers, we are energy conservationists of our own body ecologies!

All the energy freed up with The Natural Hygiene Diet can now be used for cleansing, biochemicalbalancing, repair, and other life-supporting, health-enhancing work. As soon as sufficient Nerve Energyreserves are replenished, your body will proceed to detoxify and heal itself at the cellular and subcellularlevels. As elimination of toxins proceeds, actual normalization of cellular structure and function at themolecular, atomic, and subatomic levels will lead to repair and rebuilding of cells, tissues, organs, and entiresystems. These events have been likened many a time, by the Natural Hygiene doctors and physiologists, to“Nature’s Microsurgery — at Its Finest!”


Few people are at the deathbed, pathological point of no return. Except for those rare cases, this cleans-ing and subsequent complete healing (for acute cases) and partial to near-complete healing (for chroniccases) is useful, and it is available to everyone. Learning and applying this knowledge is like winningThe Superlative Health Lottery! And virtually everyone who enters and stays with it is a winner!

Although most people can safely go through toxin elimination and healing on their own, we are includ-ing here a precautionary disclaimer from 2 BOOKS IN 1: THE HEALTH SEEKERS’ YEARBOOK WITHTHE BEST OF COMMON HEALTH SENSE: “If you are ill or on medication, do not attempt this programwithout the supervision of a practitioner experienced in the dramatic effects of turning from a lifestyle thatengenders disease to one that promotes health.” We also advise: “It is absolutely essential that you consult analternative medical doctor before discontinuing any prescribed medications.”

The body is amazing in its ability to regenerate, renew, and repair — once the conditions for health aresupplied! The natural diet for humans is composed of non-toxic, raw foods. They should be eaten in propercombination for ideal digestion and in moderate amounts and under the influence of Energy Enhancer #9:Emotional Balance. This biologically correct food supplies the body with the nutrition it needs to optimizethe detoxing/healing processes. Also important are the 4 non-dietary forms of nutrition: Pure Air, PureWater, Sunshine, and Adequate Rest & Sleep. Well-supplied, especially with these 4 Energy Enhancers, thebody will proceed to detoxify and heal tissues — in its own chosen order and in its own sweet time.

The person in acute stages of illness who experiences a symptom flare-up or who just feels tired, unin-spired, and out of sorts all of the time — both situations being typical of the earlier stages of disease — willhave an easier and speedier time of elimination of toxins and recovery than someone in the latter stages ofNerve Energy exhaustion and toxic overload characteristic of chronic, degenerative disease.

For the individual who has been burning the energy candle at both ends, microscopic waste residues,exogenous poisons, and toxic endogenous by-products of metabolism inevitably accumulate from years onSAD cooked and poorly combined foods. Lacking the Nerve Energy to keep itself clean, the body adaptswith a process called “disease.” All endogenous and exogenous remote sources of Toxemia, including cookedSAD food toxins, end up in 1 of 3 places. They are deposited within the cellular protoplasm. They arepresent in the fluids around cells and tissues. Or they circulate in the bloodstream and lymphatic system.

Happily, all these poisons are mobilized for elimination just as soon as sufficient Nerve Energy suppliesare replenished! As elimination of toxins proceeds from the tissues, the poisons enter bodily fluids and exitthrough the primary organs and systems of excretion. The largest excretory system of the body is the skin:its surface area is about 15 square feet for the average individual. The other primary organs of eliminationare as follows: the lungs, liver, kidneys, the digestive tract, and the circulatory and lymphatic systems.

Susan: Now we see the beauty and promise of going through detoxification and healing! Most people experi-ence the process as episodes of healing crises recurring over various time intervals: hours, days, weeks, months —or even years for the person in advanced stages of degeneration. These episodes are invariably interspersedwith periods of natural highs that eventually stabilize and become the permanent condition: clear-headed, euphoric well-being accompanied by physiological peace unlike anything experienced in re-cent years or past decades. Victoria calls it... “Something akin to the peace that passes all understanding.”

Homeopathic pioneer Samuel Hahnemann, M.D. (1755 - 1843) observed that healing tends to proceed inreverse order as the symptoms first appeared. Consider all the Exogenous Toxins of food-generated residues.Consider the Endogenous Toxins of poor food combining. Consider the ingested, absorbed, and inhaled environ-mental pollutants, as well as drugs taken. Victoria BidWell points out: “Virtually all toxins are all retainedand build up when there is an energy crisis in a toxic body!” With revitalization, these retainedpoisons typically detoxify in reverse order of when they were either taken into the body or created within the bodyand then accumulated. In other words, you will detoxify from the lactic acid created from this afternoon’s exerciseroutine before the toxins created and stored from last month’s poorly combined meal. You will detoxify from thehamburger you ate yesterday before the grilled steak you ate last July.


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What should you expect? As long as you observe a complete package of healthful living practices, especiallyAdequate Rest & Sleep, then revitalization, cleansing, and repair will proceed. Progress is more rapid for somethan for others. The pace is speediest while eating 100% raw. The pace goes more slowly when you are partiallyraw. Even when eating merely 5% cooked food, the process does slow down. If you stay 100% raw or mostly all-raw and provide all the other conditions for Superlative Health in right amounts, your body will eventually riditself of virtually all toxins accumulated ever since infancy. The more raw, the better — if your digestive system isnot greatly compromised and can handle raw foods in quantity! All the while, revitalization, detoxification, re-newal, repair, biochemical rebalancing take place simultaneously. The body’s healing intelligence is awesome!

Susan with Victoria: The bulk of this process usually completes within weeks or months for most peoplewho are more tired than toxic. Dr. Vetrano realistically estimates it could take more than a year for theseriously sick person who is enervated, toxic, and into latter stages of disease. For the very ill, deepest levelsof excretion of poisons and subsequent renewal can be expected to take years. Who cares? However long ittakes, you are getting better, sometimes noticeably and dramatically better, every month — if not everyweek! Although it can never be proven scientifically, we go by a simple rule of thumb. For every year ofeating cooked food, you need a strict month of doing everything right. “TO DO RIGHT” especially means“eating a nearly all-raw if not 100% raw food diet and getting plenty of Rest & Sleep and practicing allother 8 Energy Enhancers.” The entire cleansing, renewal, healing process is greatly sped up by undertak-ing The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast. That is why it is called “fast-ing” = the revitalization, detoxing, andhealing take place the fastest of any other approach!

The Fatigue Factor: “What Goes Up Must Come Down!”By Victoria BidWell

Many people going through detoxification complain of feeling “so tired all the time.”In the following, I explain this Fatigue Factor letdown as simply, “What goes up must come down!”

Reasons are 2-fold why a Health Seeker, when going onto raw, wholesome, non-toxic, non-stimulating foods, feels especially tired, out of sorts, and maybe discouraged — and perhaps evenlacking the mental/emotional wherewithal to continue. First, the body is no longer continually beingstimulated with toxic food/drink. Their absence in the system leaves the detoxer to experience anactual state of extreme tiredness. The continual excitation and titillation is severely missed by theformer stimulant junkie once they have been cut off. They had been delivering what felt like agenuine and wonderfully energetic boost! In physiological reality, the body had been continuallyoverworking to expel the chronic use of stimulants. You can only whip a tired horse for so longbefore he gives up responding with heroic energy bursts and then drops to his knees and finally islaid low in exhaustion and agony. The second reason a detoxer feels fatigued without stimulants isbecause the body is working hard to detox existing poisons from fluids/tissues. This requires extraenergy and leaves the detoxer feeling extra fatigued. (See The Law of Simulation or Dual Effect.)

A person who cannot get going in the morning without coffee is the classic example of thisdrugging/stimulating effect in action. But that effect is also inherent in all toxic food/drink andwaiting to be expressed as soon as a person ingests them. This perceived “genuine and wonderfullyenergetic boost” is a total illusion! In physiological reality, it is a real drain — and not a genuineboost! Ingestion of stimulants/poisons in toxic food/drink are inspiring the body to respond by goinginto an alarm mode to store or excrete these unnatural and toxic substances. Taking these stimu-lants/poisons just squanders readily available Nerve Energy. So, if one’s Nerve Energy Meter reads“Near-Full,” the person feels strong and energetic for the moment. But if one’s Nerve Energy Meterreads “Near-Empty,” the person just feels drained and weak and inevitably crashes soon thereafter.


Dr. Shelton exclaims: “WE SHOULD GET OUR OF BED IN THE MORNING WITH ABOUNCE!” Tell me, Dear Health Seekers, is that how you get up? An estimated 90% of Americanadults have to jump-start with this dark brew. Drinking the coffee is just beating your already tiredbody to get a little more mileage out of you before you — like the beaten horse — fall to your kneesand collapse in exhaustion and agony. (See, again: The Law of Stimulation or Dual Effect.)

WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN! When a person so stimulates himself with a drug(cooked, toxic food/drink) and feels up, he must come down with the inevitable drain and very realdrop in energy. Among Health Seekers who quit the poisons altogether and become bona-fide detoxers,most experience this unpleasant Fatigue Factor to one degree or another. They often dive into thephysical, mental, and emotional doldrums and can hardly drag themselves around. This is not thetime to quit, Dear Health Seekers! Revitalization is just around the corner!

Since all food/drink typical of the Standard American Diet are toxic, the ingestion of theirexogenous poisons sets up a dangerous chain of events that leads first to exhaustion and finally todisease and untimely death. Certain foods and chemicals can be singled out as especially hazardousto your health: meat and dairy, refined sugar and flour, all excitotoxins, salt, all hot spices, andcaffeine, for examples. The fact is that all cooked and/or SAD food is stimulating, toxic, energy-draining, and disease-promoting. Once your Nerve Energy reserves are exhausted, all cooked/SADpoisons lead to no fun and ultimately — to an early grave.

The Fatigue Factor links in this health-robbing chain of events follow:

· Habitual ingestion of SAD food/drink, most of which is cooked, introducesExogenous Toxins into the body.

· Digestion of poorly combined foods releases endogenous by-product poisonsinto the body.

· Continual stimulation & irritation to the body’s 75 trillion cells result inpoisoning of tissues & fluids that leads to The Descent into Disease.

· Bodily toleration to poisons builds up while Nerve Energy reserves drain down.

· Biochemical & psychological addiction sets in as the body reaches upper limitsof its ability to tolerate poisons: The Descent into Disease is well underway.

· As long as the food/drink poisons are ingested on a daily basis, the cooked SADfood eater experiences constant stimulation boosts: his body is now in chronic,low-grade activation of The Fight-or-Flight Response & depression sets in.

· The second-to-second drain of Nerve Energy on the body, mind, emotions &spirit to deal with SAD toxic food/drink leads to all-out fatigue & burn-out —termed “Enervation” — & to subsequent auto-intoxication, termed “Toxemia.”

· The final, fateful, fatal link? Once Enervation sets in? The SAD cooked foodaddict has begun The Descent into Disease. Unless this person gets on the righttrack, he or she is well on the way to an early & miserable death. NO FUN.


While serving as College Instructor and Exam Corrector for most of the 3,000 students taking T.C.Fry’s 2,200-page correspondence course, The Life Science Health System, I prepared from it an overview ofwhat symptoms to expect when providing your body the ideal conditions for detoxifying and healing. Through-out my Natural Hygiene teachings, you will easily see why I am “The List Lady.” And so, in the following, Ialert you to 4 certain and 19 possible detoxification symptoms in the following list!

4 Certain & 19 Possible Detoxification SymptomsBy Victoria BidWell

You cannot make deals with your body or control its DNA-determined events. You can never knowexactly what to expect. Every person is different, depending on inherited predisposition, available NerveEnergy supplies, amounts and kinds of toxins present, and irreversible damages already done. How strictyou get with The 10 Energy Enhancers is the final, determining factor. I can, however, preview for youwhat to expect.

Some Health Seekers undergo a lengthy, dramatic, troublesome, and even miserable detoxifica-tion. Others notice no discomfort at all as they enjoy ever-increasing levels of higher energy and sharpermental clarity and higher Natural Hygiene Joy! Whether you experience one of these extremes or findyourself somewhere in between, be alerted to the more common detox symptoms. Ride on through themto get to the other side and reach your greatest state of Superlative Health and Hygiene Joy!”

Next, I provide a 23-point list of what to expect while undertaking The Natural Hy-giene Fast or eating a non-toxic, raw diet. The first 4 describe initial and ongoing eventscommon to all detoxing Health Seekers. The remaining 19 appear in no particular order.They may or may not be the detoxer’s experience as revitalization, cleansing, repair, andbiochemical balancing take place simultaneously, or at least in stages and cycles, throughoutthe body’s 75 trillion cells. I repeat, “Every detoxer’s experience is different.”

(1) Nerve Energy supplies revitalize. This physiological event sounds too abstract to grasp. We get itwhen we see firsthand or learn of Health Seekers who do revitalize. They start a fast while terribly tired.They remain terribly tired for days and even weeks. And then, they revitalize so fully that many diseasesymptoms disappear. They move about energized and look bright-eyed and bushy-tailed — all withouthaving eaten an ounce of foods for many days and even weeks! If we had a Nerve Energy Meter tomeasure Nerve Energy supplies for such detoxers, it would be obvious that while getting well, this Meter’sneedle would have moved from “Near-Empty” to “Full” — and even their reserve tank would be filled!

(2) Body chemistry normalizes. Dr. David Scott of Scott’s Natural Health Institute in Strongsville, Ohio,has developed his own blood tests on approximately 100 different parameters that he works up on aweekly basis for patients at his facility. So useful in charting progress are these blood tests that he re-quires them before admitting his patients.

Most fast during their visits. But some are simply eating raw and living The 10 Energy Enhancers.Almost invariably, every patient with initial out-of-range readings shows blood chemistry moving in thedirection of normalizing, with or without a healing crisis having taken place. If bodily reserves are ad-equate and time allows, a patient may fast to complete normalization on all parameters. If reserves areinadequate, refeeding commences with periods of detoxification, healing, and body chemistry balancingtaking place while feeding on nontoxic, live food meals and/or drinks.

While blood tests are seldom required at other alternative health care facilities, guests/patientscan always request them. Similar results of blood chemistry moving in the direction of normalizing, withthe Health Seekers going through healing crises that often end in complete normalizing (whether fastingor living strict on the raw, clean diet), are virtually universal in all cases. Without the costly blood tests,


we can only surmise that body chemistry is normalizing in ourselves, as well, when we undertake todetox, whether it is during an at-home or in-clinic fast or by the slower route of eating raw foods andapplying strictly The 10 Energy Enhancers.

I recently asked Dr. Scott if, in his opinion, a person in apparently good health, with no chronic,degenerative problems, a person who just wanted to start his or her own detoxing program by fastingand without going to a retreat, could safely undertake a short fast of 7 - 10 days. His response was adefinite, “Yes. That should not be a problem under those circumstances, as long as the person is trulyfasting, staying in bed, resting, and avoiding stimulations of all kinds.”

(3) Blood, fluids, and tissues are cleansed. At Dr. Scott’s Natural Health Institute, prior to undertakinga fast and at the end of the visit, the patient may be invited to observe a sample of his or her own live bloodunder a glass slide and through a microscope. Dr. Scott’s sophisticated technology allows you to view themicroscope picture of your blood sample, greatly enlarged, on color television. Typically, prior to the fast,the blood is filled with unmistakable debris. But the blood is seen to be startlingly clear and clean after-wards. This is the scientific, impressive, astounding proof of Dr. Tilden’s 7 Stages of Disease paradigm!

(4) The tongue gets coated and tastes bad — usually bitter. The coated tongue may be light and barelywhite to heavy and furry and quite colorful! Depending on what is being eliminated, the coated tonguecan exhibit any range of colors: from the most common white to greenish to reds and browns. This“detoxer’s tongue” is the single, most visible sign that the body is cleansing. If a person fasts to comple-tion, the tongue will turn pink and appear clean. The breath will smell pleasant. The bitter taste willdisappear. These events occur at about the same time that a genuine and compelling hunger returns.

If a faster breaks his fast to begin refeeding without going to completion, the white and furrytongue will disappear, often within minutes or sometimes hours after that first bite of nontoxic, raw food.But the tell-tale detoxer’s tongue will just as speedily return between feedings as long as clean, raw foodsare taken. This return of the detoxer’s tongue is the sure-sign that detoxing is continuing.

While eating the non-toxic raw diet and when elimination of toxins is not yet complete, HealthSeekers will, therefore, experience the detoxer’s tongue between meals and snacks, usually slightly. It ismore dramatic upon awakening to break the night’s fast/sleep with breakfast. With the morning meal,we are literally breaking a fast of the night’s sleep: that is why the word elements = “break” + “fast.”

(5) Headaches are the universal “join-the-club badge” of the toxic faster or detoxing raw fooder.These headaches result primarily from withdrawals of the most notorious of the Exogenous Toxins: caf-feine, nicotine, alcohol, sodium chloride, cooked food, SAD food, and drugs.

(6) When resting nearly 24/7 and not eating, most fasters not terribly tired need less sleep. In fact,the most common complaint of most fasters after the headache is the inability to sleep. Some speculatethat while toxins are circulating in the bodily fluids in preparation for elimination, the poisons can stimu-late the mental, emotional, physiological, and physical functioning. Insomnia very often is the result.

(7) Nervous irritability and irrational, emotional outbreaks can occur. These are also withdrawalsymptoms, commonly experienced for 3 - 10 days and sometimes in cycles. Because of this unstable emo-tional/mental state, I must forewarn you not to any make major, life-changing decisions until withdrawalis full and complete, until stability is regained! I have seen people mess up their lives for years to come, orfor the rest of their lives, by not heeding this warning.

(8) Cleansing, and more so during periods of fasting than while eating raw, can bring about aunique, physiological state with unique brain function. This state is often called “faster’s high” or“detoxer’s high.” Whether fasting or eating all non-toxic, raw foods, this pleasurable, altered state ofconsciousness is also called a “spiritual high” because the mind is so much sharper and clearer than whentired and toxic. Some even report being visionary in perception and thought. This spiritual high is brought


on by one or more events: by the detoxer’s experience of deep rest and revitalization, by the lightening ofthe person’s toxic overload, by the detoxer completely letting go of emotional stresses, by trusting com-pletely in the healing powers of the body, and by the faster’s subjective experience of holding high hopesfor healing. Finally, physiology explains the high. It is brought on when the 200 billion brain cells live noton glucose from daily food or stored glycogen, but on released and oxidized fatty acids from stored fat.This unique, physiological state is called “ketosis.” The altered neuron and total body function from all ofthe above can result in extraordinary mental, emotional, and/or spiritual experiences — especially if thedetoxer has a very big imagination and/or a mindset that enjoys transcending the material world! FUN!

(9) The kidneys increase filtration. The urine becomes foul-smelling and dark-colored. Kidney stonesare sometimes passed.

(10) The liver undergoes cleansing, often with virtually no symptoms, except blood tests that showout-of-normal readings indicating a healing crisis in progress. A complete liver cleansing is typicallyfollowed by disappearance of any existing, so-called “liver spots” or “age spots” on the hands and face.

(11) The gall bladder cleanses. Bile is sometimes vomited. Stones are sometimes passed.

(12) The mucous membranes throughout the length of the digestive tract and respiratory systemare cleansed. Throughout the mouth and sinus orifices, phlegm is coughed up, sneezed out, and other-wise eliminated by nearly every detoxer at some point. Phlegm is the sticky vehicle in which ride toxinsfor elimination. Phlegm appears in differing shades of whites, greens, and browns. This is when what TheMedical Mentality calls the “flu” or “common cold” can occur. Symptoms include the following: coldsores, fever, shivering, sneezing, runny nose, coughing, sinusitis, inability to keep warm, and more. InNatural Hygiene, the misnomers “flu” and “common cold” are always replaced with the physiologicalreality: the body has reached upper levels of toleration for toxins and is conducting an elimination.

(13) The breath can become foul-smelling. This is an olfactory indication of pollutants leaving thebody in the form of toxic molecules in exhaled breath.

(14) Weight loss always occurs during the fasting detox and almost invariably occurs with the rawfood detox, as well. Such weight loss is temporary and should not cause concern. Body weight willnormalize on the Natural Hygiene program. To reach their desired weight, some Health Seekers willwant to start a regular aerobics or weight-lifting exercise program as needed for either weight loss orweight gain, respectively. But after a fast of more than a day or 2, all Health Seekers will regain someweight immediately upon refeeding, as the body is in a slight state of dehydration while fasting and willquickly re-hydrate itself fully once feeding is resumed. After a fast, the detoxed Health Seeker will rehy-drate and gain pounds upon eating juicy foods. One must eat lightly to avoid an undesired weight gain.

(15) The skin can become an avenue for intense elimination of toxins. Red spots, pimples, pustules,itching rashes, or even open and ulcerated sores (almost always small rather than large) may come andgo, repeatedly. The body’s orifices and pores may give off offensive odors, mild to strong. The mouth mayhave a foul or very salty taste as the body eliminates poisons and sodium-chloride, respectively.

(16) Nausea, cramps, pain and/or unpleasant rumblings in the stomach and/or intestines can oc-cur. Signs of detoxing and healing, these may be misinterpreted as hunger. This is always a false hunger.

Genuine hunger, by contrast, is always a mild and pleasant urging to eat and is experienced assubtle cues in the mouth and throat. This is much akin to being thirsty, an experience to which we can allrelate: the tongue seems to get larger, and the body cries for attention until thirst is quenched. Like that,the mouth and throat call for food when genuine hunger is experienced. Most people have never experi-enced genuine hunger in their entire lives and cannot relate to this description experientially. We hope tochange all that with these teachings. After all, being able to identify genuine hunger is at the crux offeeling satisfied on the live food diet and is therefore crucial to our success as Health Seekers!


(17) Pain may be experienced in localized areas where plaque, calcifications, tumors, cellulite, orsome such toxic deposits exist. With continued cleansing and healing, especially during The NaturalHygiene Fast, the body breaks down these unhealthy tissues, cleans the toxic fluids, and eliminates themorbidity. Such pain experienced is often simply a retracing impulse. Or this pain can be actually feltconcomitant with structural or organic abnormalities during mending of past injuries.

(18) Weakness invariably occurs with fasting. The body’s energies are being directed away from themusculoskeletal system and toward the cleansing of bodily fluids and tissues, especially tissues within thetorso. Normal reaction time can be off. Shakiness can also occur, with or without the weakness. Bouts ofweakness and/or shakiness may also occur while eating raw and detoxing.

(19) The reproductive organs of both male and female undergo excretion of toxins and healing.This healing has led to restored capacity to reproduce in cases of sterility and to increased fertility incases of limited fertility. Many cases of men and women able to procreate, once detoxified, are on record.

(20) Enlarged organs return to normal size if The 6th Stage of Disease — Induration (or harden-ing) — in Dr. Tilden’s paradigm has not yet been reached. If the fast is long enough and if the glandhas not fully hardened, many prostate enlargements have been known to reverse to normal and soften.

(21) Swollen, edematous tissues normalize. All men and women experience swollen tissues normaliz-ing as tendons on hands and feet appear and their true facial features emerge. Puffy eyes, hands, and feetare the first to normalize. (It is wonderful for these Health Seekers to look like themselves, again! FUN!)

(22) Nervous system tissues of the eyes are cleansed. The reported cases of arrest and partial reversalof chronic degeneration in cases of macular degeneration, glaucoma, and cataracts are few. Nervoussystem tissues are among the least responsive to correct, even once the conditions for health are provided.

Many cases, however, of dramatically improved vision after a completed period of detoxificationand healing are on record. Health Seekers often report one or more of the following visual events: anupgrading of eyesight so that glasses are no longer needed, a downgrading in strength of prescriptionglasses, more sharp and more clear vision with colors more bright and vivid, eyes that no longer burn orhurt when in use, dry eyes that re-hydrate and otherwise normalize. Disappearance of annoying floaters,the mis-shapen black specks that move around on the surface of the eye lens and that can obstruct vision,also can occur.

(23) The arteries are cleaned out of fatty/cholesterol/toxin plaque. Blood tests during cleansing oftenshow a rise in fats as they leave their arterial storage places and move into the bloodstream prior toelimination. Given sufficient time for healing, tests also show a normalizing of all body fat readings. Withnormalizing of cholesterol and triglyceride levels, pulse rate and blood pressure also move into normalranges. This last change is perhaps the very most exciting to most, since half the American people die ofa heart and/or vessel disease! “Death by cardiovascular disease” is seldom seen as the “Cause of Death”on death certificates among Health Seekers who go through the cleansing and healing and who follow upwith strict, healthful living practices while living!

This ends my long list of “POSSIBLE DETOXIFICATION SYMPTOMS.” This list, however, isfar from exhaustive. For the complete story, we urge that you review some of the many supportive mate-rials in The FastWell & GetWell Library at www.getwellstaywellamerica.com. Fasting for the Health ofIt: 100 Case Histories Selected from Over 200,000 Clinical Records by Jean Oswald and Dr. Herbert Sheltonis a tremendous inspiration! The Hygienic System, Volume III: Fasting and Sunbathing by Dr. Shelton isthe most detailed and complete text on fasting ever written. Dr. Vetrano and Drs. Tosca and GregoryHaag have also prepared over 30 live DVD lectures on what to expect while fasting and detoxifying onraw foods, specifically, and with healthful living practices, in general.


The 2 Extremes of What to Expect while FastingBy Victoria BidWell

If a person experiences any detoxification symptoms whatsoever, she can rejoice! Cleansing is occur-ring! “SOMETHING GOOD IS HAPPENING!” is the comforting motto for all novice detoxers. The guestsat Our Hygiene Homestead in The Woods like to playfully — and sometimes agonizingly — role play meand my responses to their complaints or reports of any of the following: a really foul taste in their mouths,nausea, vomiting, nagging aches or pains anywhere, shakes, ad nauseam. For I always respond with “GOOD!”or “WONDERFUL!” or “VERY NICE!” And these detox symptoms are all good, wonderful, and very nice,indeed! When The 10 Energy Enhancers are being provided during a fast? YES! Something good is alwayshappening when the faster is good and miserable! Misery is all par for the horse and just as it should be!

If virtually no symptoms appear after fasting a few days or going raw for a week or 2, and if theenergy is good, it means the Health Seeker is enjoying a detoxification honeymoon high. However, if aperson does not experience noteworthy symptoms and if he or she is in an advanced state of chronic degen-eration and if the energy has been and continues to be low, especially terribly low, this is a red flag warning.It means he or she is so weakened that very little Nerve Energy has been recuperated for elimination oftoxins and healing thus far. More patience and time are needed just to get the Nerve Energy Meter well past“Near-Empty.” These greatly weakened Health Seekers need to be under the care of a qualified professionalto monitor progress. Every person is different. Many people breeze through, riding on a detox honeymoonhigh. A very few others may need care every step of the way. Most people undertaking a serious cleansingand healing do experience themselves somewhere between these two extremes.

Recorded case histories from natural healing retreats show that a very few persons deep into pathol-ogy will only get well with a long fast or a series of short fasts. These rare cases do exist. These very sickpeople need to complete their detoxification and healing under supervision or assistance. We are not offer-ing pie-in-the-sky promises, miracle cures, panaceas, or other such irresponsible teachings here! (That wasone of my few complaints, besides “the all-fruit diet,” with T.C. Fry’s teachings.) We want people to knowthe science and the truth — and to break free of The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst in the process!

We do offer this general detox rule: The more junk food a person has eaten, the more abuse to whichhe has subjected his body, the more he has depleted his existing Nerve Energy reserves, the more drugs hehas taken, the more sleep he has neglected to secure, the more toxic his fluids and tissues have become froma lifetime of endogenous and exogenous poisoning, then — the more Nerve Energy he will need to recoupbefore the body can initiate major detoxification and renewal, much less bring them to successful conclu-sions. Many relatively young and drug-free people in good health and with high Nerve Energy reserves mayexperience only very mild detoxification symptoms or no noticeable symptoms at all when going raw.

Our follow-up general detox rule is just as important to heed: The more a person wants to remaincleansed, healed, and highly energetic, then — the more strict must be the energy-conserving, healthfulliving habits once the detoxification and healing period is complete. A key cornerstone to experiencing thisfeels-good, natural high is the 100% all-raw food plan or close to 100%.

You can fight The Fatigue Factor! You may be running on “Near-Empty” Nerve Energy reserves.You may be so over-stimulated by the day’s activities/concerns that you are unaware of how tired you reallyare. Stop to take complete rests. If you are indeed running on “Near-Empty” Nerve Energy and Fight-or-Flight Response adrenaline, you are a crash just waiting to happen. You have lost touch with your body. Youare living in your head as you experience the excitement of an over-stimulated mind, over-demanding dailyschedule, and over-stressed emotions. I have seen many people get in terrible and costly accidents or makehorribly unwise decisions when so enervated, over-worked, and over-stimulated — all at the same time!

Many a seemingly energetic Health Seeker has vivaciously arrived for a fast at a retreat’s doorstepsand then simply collapsed into deep exhaustion. Such people hardly had the strength to get out of bed oncethey let go of stimulating substances, thoughts, and emotions. I have seen this happen countless times and ina matter of hours or just a day or 2 — and always to one’s great surprise and chagrin, if a novice faster.


A Quick Overview of the Digestive System’s DutiesBy Victoria BidWell

The small intestine precedes the large intestine (also called the “colon” or the “bowel”). They areboth basically long tubes lined with “inner skin” which is moist at all times. The open passageway throughthem is called the “lumen.” The small and large intestines have entirely different structures and functions.

First, let’s look at the small intestine. Digestion begins in the mouth. Food is chewed and liquefiedwith saliva and salivary enzymes in the mouth into a mass called a “bolus.” The bolus is swallowed downthrough the esophagus and further liquefied with gastric digestive juices, especially hydrochloric acid andpepsin for digesting proteins, and is churned by the muscular stomach into a substance called “chyme.” Thestomach’s pyloric sphincter opens to permit chyme passage into the lumen of the small intestine. Many foldscharacterize the 3 small intestine sections which process chyme further: the duodenum, the jejunum, andthe ileum. The duodenum receives alkaline pancreatic juice to digest starches and liver bile to process fatsinto an absorbable liquid called “chyle.” Now, absorption of chyle from the small intestine and into theblood stream is ready. Microscopic, specialized, finger-like projections called “villi” line the folds of the smallintestine. The villi are covered with microvilli which are topped off with brush-like borders. The villi, microvilli, andtheir brush borders ingeniously provide enormous surface areas for nutrient absorption. From there, chyle is ab-sorbed by the blood. Then, the nutrients travel to their final destinations: the cells’ doorsteps. Here the nutrients areassimilated into the cells to be used for nutrition. The 3 sections of the small intestine add up to 18 - 23 feet in length.

At 5 - 6 feet in length, the large intestine is short by comparison. It serves primarily as the body’strash compactor and storage container once most of the food’s available nutrients have been absorbed atthe brush borders of the small intestine. Material in the colon consists of dead cells and other bodily andfood waste, as well as plant fiber and other indigestible materials. Bacterial colonies proliferate and home-stead in the colon according to the amounts and types of debris present. These bacteria decompose some ofthe cellulose and other bowel contents, producing their own waste material, some of which may either benutritive or toxic to the body. Lacking the villi of the small intestine, the cells lining the colon have virtually noabsorptive capacity. Besides serving as a moving storage container, one of the colon’s primary functions is to absorbwater into the blood stream so that feces are not watery, but instead, take the characteristic, tubular, soft shape soeasy and pleasant to pass. The colon cells also do allow absorption of minute amounts of nutrients and other by-products of bacterial decomposition while the feces pass through the bowels. Some of these by-products may be toxic,particularly those that result from the putrefactive decay of cooked foods, especially meat and other animal products.

Bowel contents passing through the lumen finally evacuate via the rectum, anal canal, and anus.Movement of food through the entire digestive tract is performed by peristalsis: autonomically controlled,rhythmic muscle contractions of the gastro-intestinal walls. Although peristalsis is an energy-intensive pro-cess, little energy expenditure is consciously experienced by persons eating 3 square meals a day. Two rea-sons account for minimal awareness of colon activity. First, the digestive tract has relatively few nerveendings beyond the mouth and throat to send signals to the brain; and so, among the healthy people, diges-tive activity goes by unnoticed. And second, the person eating has become used to the digestive process sinceit goes on all day, every day, 24/7. Most fasters, however, become very aware of their digestive tracts and thelack of this day-in, day-out intestinal energy expenditure. And persons deep into intestinal pathology, whethereating or fasting, are acutely and painfully aware of the passage of bowel contents through the lumen!

Susan notes how Dr. Alec Burton stated in a lecture at the American Natural Hygiene Society’s 1994Annual Conference that, basically, the entire digestive process is estimated to be only about 10 - 15% effi-cient in terms of energy liberated for the non-digestive, daily tasks. That is, the body uses 85 - 90% of theenergy extracted from food just to process the food, to extract its nutrients, to circulate them to the cells,and to eliminate the intestinal and urine remains! I have noted other physiologists estimate a 75% energyexpenditure. Either way, the remaining 10 - 25% of the energy liberated from our foods goes to the follow-ing: muscular movement, body heat, mental/emotional energy needs, reproduction of cells and glandularsubstances, and many other non-digestive, business-as-usual functioning throughout the body.


Are Enemas, Colonics& the Colema Board Treatments Recommended?

By Susan Schenck with Victoria BidWell

Susan begins: Whether using enemas, colonics, or the colema board is necessary or even helpful duringdetoxification is a controversial subject among natural health proponents. Both treatments involve the large intes-tine but never the small intestine. Dr. Vetrano and Victoria BidWell are quick to point out: “On raw foods,which require far, far less energy to process than SAD foods, the energy efficiency is much, much higher.Although it can never be scientifically proven, probably about 50% is extracted for non-nutritive, bodilyuse. See my Chapter 4 teachings: “LIVE FOOD: IT’S ALL ABOUT ENERGY!” Raw foods in generalrequire very little digestive energy. In fact, T.C. Fry correctly promoted fruits as “pre-digested,” since allthey need are thorough chewing, then swallowing and traveling through the tubing to the villi before ab-sorption takes place. Vegetables and sprouts require a little more energy. Nuts and seeds a little more yet.”

Victoria cautions: “Enemas and colonics involve introducing water or other liquids into the colon toforcefully loosen up and flush out 2 kinds of matter: transit feces and surface debris resulting from recentwrong eating of toxic, fiberless foods. These water treatments, as far as they reach, may loosen up and floodout virtually all of the transit fecal matter and much loose-surface colon debris. But contrary to popularbelief, these treatments are totally ineffective in loosening toxins which have been stored in colon tissues.The flushing water cannot effectively reach into any earlier-staged or latter-staged diseased tissues that arecharacteristic of ulcerative colitis, diverticular pouches, polyps, tumors, and other colon pathologies.”

Susan continues: Enemas employ the comparatively weak force of gravity. Enema flushing reaches onlyinto the anal canal, rectum, and descending colon. This treatment can easily be performed at home by filling anenema bottle with about 2 quarts of warm water and by permitting the elevated contents of the bag to trickle intothe body. The water can be spiked with wheatgrass juice or coffee to stimulate/irritate surface bowel nerve end-ings. The liquid is held in the body by muscular contraction for a period of time and then expelled into the toilet.

By contrast, colonics employ water pressure provided by a sophisticated, costly machine. The colonicflushing reaches much further. It goes not only into the anal canal, rectum, and descending colon lumens, buttravels through the transverse and ascending lumens, as well. A treatment typically involves many repetitionsusing up to 5 gallons of water in total during sessions lasting typically 60 minutes. This treatment is performed bytrained, licensed colonic therapists or by hospital nurses. The therapist controls the water pressure according tocomfort level and sometimes massages the client’s or patient’s abdomen.

A third treatment intermediate between an enema and a colonic involves a colema board. Like the enemabag, the colema board treatment can be done at home; and the fluid reaches only as far as the descending colon.Like the colonic, the person may lie down while the entire bowel is filled, flushed, and refilled many times,although the force is considerably less than with the colonic machinery.

Among the 3, the choice for those who can afford it is almost always the colonic. Many people enjoy therelaxed atmosphere of lying back and letting someone else take control of the process while listening to pleasant,soothing background music. I have had many a colonic therapist tell me that clients unwind to such a degree thatthey confide their greatest joys, pains, and secrets, just as when going to a counselor or hairdresser!

Victoria BidWell contrasts “the do-nothing intelligently” stance of Natural Hygiene care with hy-drotherapies and other forcing measures, in general: “The rationale in rejecting all treatments is that thebody will naturally cleanse and heal itself in its own sweet time and in the sequence it deems wisest as theNerve Energy reserves fill up. All we need do is provide the conditions for health and remove the causes ofdisease. The order and timeliness of all cleansing and healing is built into our genetic code and governed intheir expression by how strict we get with The 10 Energy Enhancers.


“Forcing measures are self-defeating. They first stimulate and then enervate the body, renderingthem relatively inefficient. Furthermore, they deplete the very Nerve Energy reserves the body desperatelyneeds filled up in order to conduct its natural detoxing, chemistry balancing, and healing processes. Thisstimulation/Enervation variation of The Fatigue Factor inherent in all therapies thus renders colonics andenemas not just harmless, but potentially dangerous.”

A young Herbert Shelton closely monitored the recovery progress of numerous patients at Lindlahr College’shealing facility where he apprenticed while earning his doctor’s credentials. He observed that those who receivedthe fewest treatments and therapies, that is, the least number of colonics, enemas, sweat baths, cold showers, andother such enervating interventions fared the best. They recovered more quickly and thoroughly from their ail-ments compared to those who underwent hydrotherapy and other treatments.

Further dangers exist with the enema, colonic, and colema board habit. Their continued use while fastingmay upset the body’s electrolyte balance and deplete its enzyme reserves by flushing out bowel contents and thuspreventing the recycling of electrolytically balanced water. Persons with the binge/purge eating disorder oftenbecome addicted to purging through their bowels and have messed up their electrolyte balance to a dangerousdegree. Yet another danger is that the colon may become lazy as peristaltic activity is checked in expectation offurther, forced evacuations. This results in an addictive habituation to the use of mechanical evacuation aids, aswell as laxatives, and to a mildly euphoric high with each purge — a high that is addicting in itself. Ironically,overuse of enemas, colonics, and the colema board may thus lead to chronic constipation — one of the veryconditions these treatments are designed to eliminate!

Many alternative practitioners see advantages in colonics. My personal opinion is expressed in this ques-tion: “Even though these gadgets are not natural, why not take advantage of technology designed to assist us indetoxifying our bodies as quickly as possible?” In many cases, they may be useful if not overused into abuse.

How Colon Pathologies DevelopBy Victoria BidWell with Susan Schenck

Susan points out: “Some alternativists deem enemas and colonics necessary in cases of severe constipationor other pathology when the body has not had time to adapt to The 10 Energy Enhancers to achieve naturalexcretion of the bowels.” I know that even Natural Hygiene doctors have, in rare cases, used enemas andcolonic therapy with patients experiencing excruciating pain when the “do-nothing” approach had failed tobring timely results. Neither Dr. Shelton nor Dr. Vetrano, however, ever resorted to these therapies.

After years or even decades of toxic eating habits, the processed food eater may accumulate a thick,mucoid, intestinal plaque buildup on the large intestine’s outer surfaces that face the lumen. Bowel impac-tion can result. Build-up and bowel impaction both have been observed by colonic therapists, physiologists,postmortem examiners, and autopsy pathologists. Their years of observations are documented with highlydisturbing photographs and X-rays as diseased tissues and impacted waste filled the bowel lumens. Thebody constantly works to keep such build-ups and obstructions from happening at all. But if Nerve Energyreserves are low compared to the toxic load continually imposed by the energy-squandering individual, newlayers of plaque inevitably build up within the various tissues that come in contact with the bowel lumen.

The large intestine and arteries have a particular affinity for such build-up, although the substancesattracted and stored differ. The arteries accumulate cholesterol and other fats. The colon stores primarilyuneliminated food waste, mucus, and putrefactive bacteria. If one genetically predisposed to bowel prob-lems makes worse his genetics by eating a toxic diet, then intestinal pathology inevitably will result overtime. One or more of the following can develop: flatulence, odor, diarrhea, constipation, colitis, ulcerativecolitis, spastic colon, diverticulosis, polyps, tumors, cancer, mild discomfort, “pain as bad as child-birthingcontractions,” and other conditions and combinations thereof — all of which start with an irritable bowel.


Some bowel disorders are merely embarrassing or annoying. Others bring life-threatening patholo-gies with accompanying fear, pain, and misery. I have heard Health Seekers who come to me and describetheir conditions. They share variations of the lament: “I would rather be dead than live like this!” X-rays inlife and autopsies in death have shown grossly mis-shapen colons that were very painful to evacuate throughand live with. They are most often impacted with blackened, stiff, and/or oily, gooey gunk. How sad to seethese results of cooked food addiction: starches and sugars fermented, oils gone rancid, proteins putrefied— all congealed over time, some nearly rock-like petrified! “Eat, Drink, and Be Merry!” — it can kill.

Autopsies have revealed that in certain cases, the normal 2 and 1/2" - 3" diameter colon tube hasbeen distended to 6" or more! These diseased bowels have taken on winding, fallen, convoluted shapes.They are weighted down with pounds of toxic build-up. They no longer take the healthy and relativelystraight courses and sharp right angles of the colon’s ascending, transverse, and descending sections. Andnow, among the living, medical doctors can use modern technology to put a tiny camera into the colonlumen and take color pictures of the outer colon surfaces! With pathology well into the latter stages ofdisease, these pictures are gruesome and horrifying! My latest guest at Our Hygiene Homestead in TheWoods in February, 2010, arrived with such pictures: where only pink, healthy tissues should have beenfound throughout, several areas of black and blue and purple and oozing and pus-filled, open sores haddeveloped, with diverticular pouches and polyps circled. Such pictures ought to bring any Health Seekerstill seduced by and intoxicated on The Standard American Diet to her knees and crying out like Scrooge inA Christmas Carol: “Is it too late? Do I still have time to change? Does this early death have to be my fate?”

Black mucoid and tar-like plaque has been deposited so thick onto the outer colon walls that some-times only a pencil-thick hole in the lumen is left for waste transit! Think of the strain it must take to forcea bowel movement through such a small hole! If you go for a colonic, your therapist will be able to show youclassic photos of this disgusting and pitiable situation, either on wall charts or in textbooks.

Susan continues: Upon autopsy, actor John Wayne, a real “meat and potatoes man,” was rumored to haveheld 35 - 40 pounds of fecal matter in his colon. This may just be an urban legend. But it is easy to believe. Cookedfooders, especially eaters of cooked meat, do indeed risk impacted and diseased colons.

An average, healthy colon weighs only 5 - 10 pounds when empty. Most Americans on the SAD areestimated to be carrying around 15 - 20 pounds of unhealthy colon weight. Two situations most often motivate aperson to take a fast to empty his large intestine or to detoxify while on raw foods and/or to go through a series ofcolonics. One is the presence of toxic build-up, partially created by the unfriendly bacteria homesteading. Theother is the presence of miserable disease symptoms. Some swear by colonics in the initial stages of elimination oftoxins. Their goals are to loosen up and flush out any loose, toxic material as speedily as possible and to minimizeauto-intoxication resulting from possible absorption of even the most minute amount of this undesirable material.

Some people who choose variations of the SAD take colonics regularly. They know their low-fiber andhighly intoxicating diet keeps their colons polluted. These colonic regulars reason that treatments will help. If youopt for enemas/colonics because you are still eating cooked foods, be sure to replace lost, healthy intestinal floraby taking probiotic supplements. Dr. Vetrano notes: “The natural flora will repopulate naturally while on rawfoods. And the USANA supplement is an insurance policy for such repopulation.” Victoria ends this section.

To guests at Our Hygiene Homestead in The Woods, I delight in showing a 1990s’ Hollywood satire ofthe year ’round life at one of the most successful and renowned turn-of-the-century health retreats in America!It is a wonderful last evening event, after all the guests have gone through with me, and makes my programlook like, as one guest put it, “a piece of cake.” Early 1900s’ American natural health educator Dr. HarveyKellogg at his Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan first popularized the SAD colon phenomenon by warn-ing the world: “Death begins in the colon!” His treatments, satirized, are hilarious! This raucous glimpseinto life at “The Sans” can be seen in The Road to Wellville movie. The emphasis on keeping the colon cleanis vividly portrayed in this trip to Dr. Kellogg’s fancy health retreat for the rich and famous! The viewer,however, must get past a few sexy scenes in order to enjoy the several subplots and to thoroughly “get it.”


The Detoxified & Purified — “BODY, MIND & SPIRIT!”Victoria BidWell Brings into the Concrete Our Live Food Factor Subtitle!

Christian evangelists and television personalities Elmer and Lee Bueno built a Mexican-American ministry in the 1980s and ’90s based on the promise of detoxification and healing. Theytaught The Garden of Eden Diet with the biblical prescription of Genesis 1:29 and often remindedtheir students: “There were no cook stoves in The Garden of Eden!” They called their organization“Born Again Body!” This name not only celebrates being born again in spirit. It praises the feelingof complete purification and rejuvenation of the body, as well! Lee lays out the possibility of achiev-ing a born again body in Fast Your Way to Health. Initially, Lee and I agreed when I went to rewrite/edit her manuscript, it would be a co-author project. Later, I allowed her to buy my name off thefront cover. During the project, I listed 20 signs of a detoxified, purified body, mind, and spirit viafasting and/or raw fooding. The first 17 are a compilation from Dr. Shelton’s work. The last 3 arefrom my oft-noted experiences as a Christian practicing The 10 Energy Enhancers.

· Bright pink tongue

· Sweet breath & fresh, clean-tasting tongue

· Normalized temperature

· Normalized pulse rate & blood pressure

· Soft skin, free of Irritation, Inflammation & other abnormalities

· Return of normal saliva flow

· Clear, light, odorless urine flow

· Odorless excreta

· Normal pink color under fingernails

· Increased rapidity with which blood flows back into the skin when forced out byapplied pressure

· Disappearance of unpleasant body odor

· Return of genuine hunger

· Disappearance of any acute symptoms of disease, if any were present

· At least arrest, if not partial to near-complete reversal of chronic, degenerativesymptoms, if the faster entered the fast with such symptoms & soon enough

· Bright, clear, sparkling eyes

· Renewed strength & vigor

· Sharp memory & use of mental faculties, in general

· Loss of inertia/laziness & a distinct, unmistakable quickening of the flesh to moveforward in useful & unselfish projects while fulfilling God’s plan for one’s life!

· Heightened appreciation for God & gratitude for all creation: nature, animals,the flora, the waters, the air and skies, human beings, the planet & the cosmos!

· Feeling of mild to high joy & “the peace that passes all understanding.”


The Limbic System & The Retracing Factor — Explained!By Victoria BidWell

The limbic system of the brain is located deep within the cerebral cortex. The limbic system is afist-sized mass of neurons some call the “reptilian brain” because its electrical activity bypasses neuronsassociated with rational thought and is primitive in quality and reactive and instinctive in function. Thelimbic system is also called the “emotional brain.” It plays a key role in memory. It works in concert withmultiple areas of the 2 cerebral hemispheres to give us the gamut of emotions: highs and lows and every-thing in between. Among other triggers, limbic activity bypasses the conscious mind when stimulated bytastes and smells. Other environmental triggers, such as sights and sounds and touch, can also come intoplay. But taste and smell are the most powerful, the most compelling, and the most seductive.

When food or drug memories are at play, the limbic system can conjure up the past and inspirecravings so vivid that they can be experienced as absolutely beyond rational control! Our American courtsystem even respects this phenomenon by creating a “crimes-of-passion” category whereby the lawbreakeris given a less severe sentence than the cold-blooded criminal with premeditated intent to do harm toanother. Once the limbic system is so stimulated, this is when people obsess over thoughts and act outwhat they call “irresistible compulsions.” Their lives are out of control. Physiological science and neu-roanatomy provide keys that can give us law-abiding citizens control over our daily lives and that canlikewise give those potential crimes-of-passion offenders hope over their obsessions and compulsions.

During detoxification, poisons are being eliminated that have actually been built into the body’sown cellular structures as a result of ingesting addictive foods and/or drugs. These retained toxins leavethe cells, go into the circulatory pathways and travel through the body in the process of reaching theirvarious eliminative channels. The brain can be stimulated by these released poisons. When this stimula-tion of the nervous impulses, especially via highly pleasurable memories experienced through the tastebudsand olfactory nerves, reach the limbic area of the brain — WATCH OUT! Wildly concrete images ofsight, sound, touch, taste, and smell can be conjured up! And equally provocative accompanying memo-ries and obsessions/compulsions can be evoked! Substance abuse of recreational drugs and addiction toprescription drugs both employ this same limbic pathway as do toxic food cravings. The desire to re-eatthe toxic foods, therefore, can be just as irresistible as the desire to re-live the drug experiences!

In Natural Hygiene teachings, this phenomenon of re-living a taste or a smell, a drug experience,an ache or a pain, a memory, or even an obsession/compulsion during detoxification and healing is for-mally termed “retracing.” It occurs among detoxers with regularity. If not educated as to what is happen-ing, these detoxers may feel helpless and hopeless as they give in to the confusing and overpowering urgesfor the very chains from which they are about to free themselves! They must understand the science ofphysiology and brain function behind the helpless feelings. They must work with their bodies, minds,emotions, and spirits in order to claim that freedom. Understanding this Retracing Factor demystifiesthe compulsion, gets rid of confusion, and allows the person to consciously override these addictive urges.

The good news is, that with this understanding, most times we can just count slowly and deliber-ately from 1 to 15. Or we can count from 1 to 100, if that’s what it takes to carry us well past the urge toindulge. Or we can just offer little prayers or say to ourselves: “This too shall pass.” We can direct ourattention to some mindless task, demanding chore, or pleasurable activity to move us through and wellpast the cravings. This is employing behavioral modification techniques at their best. For the behaviormodification practices I have found most useful for Health Seekers, see Appendix F..

Susan continues: In the next chapter, Victoria BidWell continues taking the lead. With Dr. Vetrano and meto back Victoria up, we will examine the scientific practice of fasting and when to fast as an aid to detoxificationand healing of body, mind, and spirit. This is a new chapter in our 2nd Edition of The Live Food Factor.


“DEER” HEALTH SEEKERS ’ROUND OUR WORLD!I have deleted a few sections of this chapter written by Susan that areway off The Natural Hygiene Track and only serve to distract. In the fol-lowing are all my Back to Basics Teachings: a few written by Susan &edited by myself but most presented exclusively by me & edited by Dr.Vetrano. My teachings are all in bold-face. The Natural Hygiene Fast &The Juice Diet are our focus: for these are exactly & correctly what youwill get at Our Hygiene Homestead in The Woods. The Wilderness Womanin The Cascade Mountains of Washington State, U.S.A.

MY HYGIENIZED CHAPTER 15 of The Live Food Factor

The Correct Natural HygieneFast & The Juice Diet

Susan and Victoria begin: Going on a fast = blocking out a period of time to be used bydenying oneself something. “To fast” commonly means “to abstain from something, usuallyfood and/or drink.” People fast for different reasons: to cleanse the body and improve health,to lose weight, to break addictions, to increase spiritual or mental awareness, or to take asocial or political stand.

While many fast for the wonderful feeling of lightness and freedom it brings, most people fast becausethey want to get well. If, however, the prospect of fasting doesn’t sound particularly appealing, just bereassured that genuine hunger generally disappears in a few days. Usually by the third day, the physiologi-cal call for food is gone, although cravings and desire for food as entertainment may persist for some people.

Your body can cleanse and heal itself more rapidly while fasting or juice dieting, often incorrectlyreferred to as “juice fasting.” Since the body doesn’t have to spend so much energy digesting foods andeliminating their residues, it can focus on revitalizing, expelling stored toxins, and repairing damaged cells.

Fasting on Water-Only Versus Juice DietingBy Victoria BidWell with Dr. Vetrano

Natural Hygiene teachers hold that fasting on water-only is the only way to fast correctly, and theyconsider it superior to juicing in most situations for most Health Seekers. Note: Natural Hygiene teachersconsider “juice fasting” to be a misleading misnomer that should be correctly termed “juice dieting.”

For the speedy elimination of toxins and healing, Dr. Vetrano explains the superiority of fasting onwater-only compared to juice dieting: “Since the body has the opportunity to revitalize and then cleanseand heal itself during The Natural Hygiene Fast, the less interference it has, the better. That is, the lessdietary ingestion, the better — whether that ingestion be in juice or whole food form. The body does notneed to waste its precious Nerve Energy and stored reserves to handle glasses or even quarts of juice everyday. Perhaps the greatest detriment to the juice diet in comparison to The Natural Hygiene Fast is that the


juice diet does not force the body to rely solely upon its reserves for nutrients. Instead of forcing the bodyto break down its tissues — especially the unhealthy, morbid tissues — for the vitamins, minerals, energyreserves, and proteins it needs, many of these nutrients are supplied by the juices daily. Furthermore,when juice dieting, the metabolism does not slow down nearly as much as it does when abstaining from allwhole or juiced food and taking in only water. Therefore, the more metabolically active, physiological/nutritional situation set up by juice dieting causes a greater depletion of the body’s protein stores thanfasting on water-alone. And thus, the body is far less challenged to break down its unhealthy, morbidtissues: the very reason the person is going on a juice diet to make happen in the first place!”

There is no need to stop and review all the other alternativists who claim that juice dieting is superiorto The Natural Hygiene Fast for revitalization, detoxification, chemistry balancing, and healing. They allhave their own theories and have many reasons for preferring the juice diet to fasting on water-only. Sufficeit to say that many alternative health care professionals and educators outside Natural Hygiene prefer thejuice diet to The Natural Hygiene Fast. One reason they never give, however, is that the juice diet is less careand worry for them — as practitioners! This is because there are few if any healing crises on juices and farfewer patients/clients complaining of their boredom and physical discomfort, if not misery, on juices! All thebetter for the practitioner, who seldom spends more than a few minutes, one-on-one with any given patientor client daily, anyway. But it is not “all the better” for the Health Seeker. Read on to understand why!

In response to the alternativists who favor the juice diet, Dr. Vetrano and I make this formal state-ment while addressing the debate issue: “Which is better? The Natural Hygiene Fast or the Juice Diet?”

Think about it! The whole idea of fasting on water-only to get well is to inspire the body to live off itsown reserve nutrients exclusively, healthy and unhealthy both. The whole idea is to set up this scenario!Fasting on water-only is the most favorable set up for complete healing to take place in as short a time aspossible. If an ill person takes juices, however, he is living partially on juice nutrients; and thus, the auspi-cious water-only set up for exclusivity and for most expeditious healing is fully sabotaged! The possibility ofinspiring the body to break down unhealthy tissues until they are completely autolyzed and the ill personis completely well is therefore far, far less likely to occur and certainly less speedily so on a juice diet!

Ill-informed doctors consider an acidic condition pathological while fasting on water-only and wantto correct it by giving the sick person raw juices. The alternativists’ fear of the body’s biochemistry turn-ing acid during a water-only fast is also completely incorrect. Yes, it is true that when fasting on water-only,the toxic body is more acidic. But that is perfectly normal and as it should be! Stored wastes and poisons areall acidic. As they leave their storage sites for elimination, the body will be perfectly and correctly acidic!But it will normalize its chemistry to alkaline in its own sweet time — and without any juices whatsoever!

Of course! Healing crises do occur less often on juices! But a healing crisis is called a “healingcrisis” because that is when healing occurs most efficiently and rapidly! And that happens most thor-oughly and expeditiously on water-only! Is this not exactly what the sick person wants? Complete andrapid healing? Besides, in some cases, full healing cannot even take place while taking in nutrients; andfor these Health Seekers, a fast on water-only is the only route to take to inspire complete bodily healing.

When taking nutrients, the juice dieter’s metabolism is not slowed down significantly, even if rest-ing a great deal. If the juice dieter is active, it is not slowed down much at all. But the faster on water-onlygoes into a unique, physiological state of deep and complete rest; and metabolism is slowed down dramati-cally. In comparison, the juice dieter’s needs for protein are much higher than those of the faster on water-only. With anything over just a few days, therefore, the juice dieter is potentially creating a serious proteindeficiency. With fruit and veggie juices, Health Seekers are getting the full spectrum of minerals for somedetoxification and healing; but they are not getting enough protein. Nutrition becomes lop-sided. With thefast on water-only, nutrient-conserving in general and protein-conservation in particular take place. Thisis the ideal set-up for complete healing. This is... The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast!


An Overview of Fasting & Freedom from AddictionsBy Susan Schenck with Victoria BidWell

For many persons without hard-core eating disorders, the cellular memory of and cravings for coffee,drugs, and cooked food are either virtually erased or greatly diminished after a fast of several days or longer.Victoria BidWell is an expert on the obsessive/compulsive eating disordered. She points out the exception to thispost-fast phenomenon of losing interest in SAD cooked foods: “The depths of a person’s addiction to cookedSAD food is often not revealed until he or she takes a fast and then starts on all-live foods. Then the addic-tions surface — sometimes with a vengeance! The new raw fooder may find himself or herself, much to hisor her despair, hopelessly hooked on cooked. One of my clients spent thousands of dollars going to anAustralian retreat because the Natural Hygiene doctor there advertised that fasting would get rid of all foodcravings. She naively believed the ad. When that did not happen for her, she was shocked! The truth is: mosthard-core, SAD food addicts will still struggle, even after taking a fast or juice diet. They will have to put outbehavior modification and visualization and affirmation energy. They may need to get on-going counselingand/of God to get free from their SAD food addiction. At the root of their problem is a self-image that needsradical changing from hopeless and unhappy to believing in new possibilities, choosing to do right, andwanting high joy as a way of life! Certainly, going all-raw, practicing The 10 Energy Enhancers, and takinga fast is the best route to help these far-gone addicts regain hope, get control of their lives, and get happy.”

Paul Bragg writes of a woman he supervised on a fast. She had been doing 4 packs of smokes and drinkinga fifth of whiskey a day! She was also a heavy drinker of colas and coffee. Her nerves were so shaky that her handtrembled while writing. She suffered from insomnia, blurred vision, pasty and flabby skin tone, and thoughts ofsuicide. When Bragg put her on a fast, he allowed her to smoke a little and drink small amounts of alcohol andcoffee. But on the third morning of the fast, these poisons began to nauseate her. Any time she began to drinkalcohol, tea, or coffee, she would vomit. For the next 7 days of the fast, she had no desire for these poisons. Braggput her on a raw diet another 10 days, then on a fast for another 10. After that, her skin tone renewed to perfection.She was happy and carefree, and she was free from addictions! Bragg reports: “She became one of the best writersin the Hollywood TV and movie world. Her income doubled and tripled. Her personal magnetism increased, andshe attracted a handsome, wholesome man for a husband” (The Miracle of Fasting, pp. 110 - 111). Through hisexperience in supervising fasts, Paul Bragg proved repeatedly that anyone with addictions can find the answer infasting. When the body becomes clean, it will no longer tolerate poisons without taking action to expel them.

German Professor Arnold Ehret maintained: “If an alcoholic were to be made to fast for a few days or eatnothing but fruit, he would soon lose his taste for beer and wine. This proves that the entire civilized mass of foodsfrom beefsteak to seemingly harmless oatmeals creates a desire for these detestable antidotes: alcohol, coffee, tea,tobacco. Why? Because overeating makes man lazy. And consequently, he has to pep himself up with stimulants”(Rational Fasting, pp. 40-41). And Joseph Sarelli declared that he was freed from an addiction to 4 packs a day ofcigarettes after a 27-day fast (Naturally, The Hygienic Way, August, 1984).

An Overview of Spiritual Benefits of FastingBy Susan Schenck with Victoria BidWell

Susan with Victoria continue: Spiritual benefits from fasting are well known in nearly every religion,though religious ritual fasts are sometimes very brief (a day or even less). Early Native American Indiansfasted while going on a vision quest and taking passage into manhood. Muslims fast from sunrise untilsundown every day during their holy month of Ramadan (not even drinking water, despite living in thedesert). Fasting is also practiced in Judaism and Christianity. The Holy Bible mentions fasting 74 times.Moses, David, Elijah, Jesus, and others mentioned in The Holy Bible fasted for as long as 40 days and 40nights, a length commonly referred to as... “The Master’s Fast.” And during The Golden Age of Greece, the


great philosopher Pythagoras required his disciples to fast for 40 days and 40 nights before being initiated into themysteries of spiritual teachings. Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle also required their students to take fasts. They believedthat only through fasting could the mind be purified enough to understand the deepest teachings of life’s greatestmysteries.

After Gandhi led the passive resistance movement of the Indians against British imperialism and anindependent India was established, internal strife between Pakistan and Muslim Indians broke out. Gandhihoped citizens on both sides would respect his love for a free India and his efforts to make the dream cometrue. He further capitalized on the people’s inability to distinguish between fasting and starvation! Gandhithus conducted long, personal protest fasts to inspire members of the 2 factions to restore peace in the newIndia. His refusal to eat unto what appeared to be starvation was so effective and so well-publicized that thefighting stopped. Gandhi, however, knew exactly how long he could safely fast, as Dr. Shelton had providedGandhi with Natural Hygiene counsel and a copy of Fasting and Sunbathing: Volume III of The HygienicSystem. Gandhi’s fasts popularized social and political fasting. It is practiced to this day by protestors.

Susan continues: Many raw food teachers have also remarked on spiritual powers improving with fasting.Arnold Ehret considered fasting the master key to mental and spiritual evolution. It was said of Dick Gregory thatafter extensive juice dieting, he lost not only weight but also his anger. He claimed that as fasting cleanses thebody, poisons are thrown off, releasing hatred and other sick emotions.

Victoria BidWell explains why some Christians experience a spiritual high when fast-ing: “During a fast, the flesh is neither fed nor satisfied with lustful longings for food. Thefaster draws closer to God and can better listen to the Holy Spirit. I recall deep into my longfast at Dr. Scott’s on one warm spring day. I walked barefoot out onto the huge lawn thatoverlooked roadways and lay down to rest. I sank down into the deep, cool grass. Suddenly,I felt the whole property being lifted up into the cumulous clouds. The non-stop sounds ofbusy traffic went completely silent. Then, the proverbial ‘peace that passes all understand-ing’ flowed through me — bringing love, joy, and gratitude into every cell of my body.”

An Overview of Fasting & Mental Health BenefitsBy Susan Schenck

According to Dr. Shelton, mental powers such as memory, attention, and association are improved duringfasting. Imagination is at its best. This is because increased blood flow and Nerve Energy used to process food arefreed up for use elsewhere in the body. He explains: “Large amounts of blood and nervous energies have to be sentto the digestive organs to digest a meal. If these energies are not required there, they may be drawn upon by thebrain in thinking” (Fasting and Sunbathing: Volume III of The Hygienic System, p. 67).

Brain tissues also excrete toxins during fasting. In fact, many times, Dr. Shelton saw mental health duringa fast improve greatly among his patients. Depression and pessimism lifted. “Insanity is frequently overcomewhile fasting, and practically all cases are improved by the fast” (p. 68).

Dr. Yuri Nikolayev of the Moscow Psychiatric Institute and Alan Cott, M.D., have even had great successin treating mental illness, including schizophrenia! Also, Michael Bobier reports that he had been obsessed withand almost suicidal over a woman who broke up with him for another man. By his 20th day of a fast on water-only,Michael was not only free from his jealousy, but even felt compassion for her and her new companion becausethey were on a cooked diet and drank alcohol (Living Nutrition, Vol. 19, 2007, p. 59). Stephen Buhner sheds somelight into how the mind is affected by fasting. When the intake of carbohydrates is low enough, the body is forcedto use fat stores for fuel. This change is called “ketosis.” “When in full ketosis, the mind simply works somewhatdifferently. Thinking can be just as acute; but it tends to be slower, more reflective, more studied, and deeper, andaside from thoughts of food or ending the fast, less inclined to dwell on future plans” (The Fasting Path, p. 76).


The Correct Natural Hygiene FastBy Victoria BidWell & Edited by Dr. Vetrano

I now assist Health Seekers wanting to fast at my school named “Our Hygiene Home-stead in The Woods” located in Concrete, Washington. I consult with Dr. Vetrano and Drs.Tosca and Greg Haag and Dr. Zarin Azar when guests need a doctors’ help. In the following,I share highlights of my experiences and knowledge about The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast.

I had the great education and pleasure of spending at least 6 years of my life, all tolled, at most of themany Natural Hygiene schools, institutes, and vacation spots during the 1970s and through into the 1990s.In my travels, I met, worked for, and/or studied with most of the most renowned names and lesser knownsof those times. These 3 decades spanned “the great heyday of Natural Hygiene and fasting” that T.C. Fry’spublications, especially his Healthful Living Magazine, inspired among his 36,000 subscribers. At most ofthese places, the facilities were filled and overflowing with 3-month long waiting lists. It was a grand era!

My longest fast on water-only was in 1992 for 36 days. Dr. Scott gave me a spot in a shared room with2 other women, in gratitude for my efforts to further Natural Hygiene teachings and help Health Seekers.At Dr. Scott’s Natural Health Institute, I fasted and then followed up with 2 weeks on lettuce and water-melon and another 18 days of fasting on water-only and another 10 days of refeeding. Most of the healingbenefits in body, mind, emotions, and spirit that I harvested then have lasted to this day. I would surely havedied of physical exhaustion from overwork and not enough Rest & Sleep if Dr. Scott had not helped me.

Humans and animals alike have practiced fasting for thousands of years and for many reasons. Yet,we never see advertisements for fasting on water-only on television. And medical doctors argue vehementlyagainst fasting in the media and to their patients who bring up the subject. If the idea of fasting sounds tooradical and tempts you to give up your conventional paradigm to alternative paradigm shift, just know thatno one is forcing you to take a fast. The slower method with The 10 Energy Enhancers also gets good results.

Remember: IT’S ALL ABOUT ENERGY! And: DISEASE IN AN ENERGY CRISISIN A TOXIC BODY! Keep in mind that the high rate of disease arrest and partial or com-plete recovery among Health Seekers who undertake a fast is backed up by The Natural,Physiological Laws of Life.

As previously stated, physiologists estimate that at least 75% of the energy the body uses on a dailybasis for persons eating conventional SAD foods goes not for body heat and muscular movement, not formental/emotional work, not for reproduction or cellular replacement, not for detoxifiying and healing, asyou might think. Instead it goes for these supremely energy-expensive, metabolic tasks: digesting food in themouth, stomach, and intestines; moving ingested food through the alimentary canal from beginning to endvia peristalsis; absorbing chyle from the small intestine into the blood stream; circulating absorbed nutri-ents through the liver for initial cleansing; moving nutrients to the cells; assimilating nutrients into the cells;converting nutrients into energy to be made available to the body; and eliminating toxic by-products andmetabolic waste from foods.

These dietary-related processes feed the 75 trillion cells of the human body and remove the foodwastes. These many food-handling processes — and not the combination of body heat, muscular contrac-tion, mental/emotional activities, and building new tissues and removing worn-out tissue debris — take upan estimated 75% of a person’s energy generated during Rest & Sleep! That leaves only 25% of a person’sNerve Energy generated during Rest & Sleep for non-dietary tasks and life-as-desired responsibilities andpursuits. This estimate, however, is much higher for persons on clean-burning live-food diets! That is, it isprobably more like 50% of energy generated during Rest & Sleep — for Natural Hygienists — is availablefor the activities that make life meaningful, purposeful, and productive. FUN!



So, why fast? It’s so simple. Abstaining from all food intake and resting from virtually all physicalactivity and mental, emotional, and sensory excitation while taking in water-only frees up the body from allof the nutritive/digestive/eliminative demands for energy and provides the body with an extended period ofcomplete Rest on many levels. Nerve Energy is generated and Nerve Energy reserves filled while the bodysubsists on its nutritive reserves — including unhealthy, morbid tissues! But this restored energy is not usedon processing food. It is used for autolysis of unhealthy tissues, for cleansing and making fluid and cellularupgrades and tissue repairs as needed while balancing body chemistry — all to the greatest extent possible.

To repeat: medical intervention may sometimes be absolutely necessary during a critical accident-emergency or for an 11th hour disease crisis. Barring these cases, however, and always whenever the HealthSeeker takes the holistic course of action in acute disease, and in most cases of chronic disease, this naturalprocess of providing a sick person a time-out period for fasting on water-only and cooperating in every waypossible with the body’s design gets better results and faster results than any other known method.

Indeed, this period of The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast provides time for the body to bring aboutthe closest thing to a “healing miracle” possible! It puts Ponce de Leon’s virtual, never-found Fountain ofYouth within grasp of Health Seekers! Fasting also provides a time-out period from cooked food addiction.When only small amounts of fresh, raw foods and juices are taken to break the fast, they are enjoyed andwelcomed by the Health Seeker with a relish indescribable! The 10,000 tastebuds have gone cold turkey forthe duration of the fast. The mind, emotions, body — and especially its tastebuds — are ready and poisedfor this new, superlative nutrition shift to live foods and the other 9 Energy Enhancers — like never before!

“Fasting” & “Starvation” — Defined

The idea and practice of going without food for an extended period of time is considered byadherents and proponents of The Medical Mentality at Its Worst to be the most unconventional,fanatical, and dangerous of all alternative health care practices. This is because these uninformedmedical doctors and their followers have mistakenly confused fasting-for-health with starving-to-death. They do not understand that The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast, properly conducted and su-pervised or assisted, provides a period of time for the most rapid and most complete elimination oftoxins and healing ever made possible for the human body! They have a lot to learn and need a crashcourse on The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast! To rightfully educate those misinformed and to get itreally straight ourselves, as well, we must start with 3 sets of basic definitions and distinctions.

First, the term “fasting” comes from an Old English verb that meant “to make firm or fixed,”while “starvation” comes from an Old English verb that meant “to die.” Interestingly enough, theseAnglo Saxon derivatives with their archaic meanings hold true even today and will help us rememberthe distinctions between the 2 practices. When a person fasts, he firmly withholds food, fixed in hisresolve not to eat. When a person starves, however, he withholds food until nutritional reserves areexhausted and until the body begins to feed upon its essential tissues — until he dies.

When misunderstood by those with The Medical Mentality at Its Very Worst, fasting conjuresup images of Nazi concentration camp victims, waiting to die! No wonder the uneducated are horri-fied at the idea and practice of fasting! This horror is compounded by 2 facts. First, the alternativists,who by conventional definition are to be mistrusted by the medical doctors, have largely taken overthe practice of fasting as their domain and area of expertise. And second, fasting is wholeheartedlycondemned by virtually all medical doctors. By the end of this chapter, however, you will be so well-informed on the idea, practice, and benefits of The Natural Hygiene Fast, that you will see it for theblessing it has been in the past for others and can be in the future for you. “This fasting knowledge willput you among the elite Natural Hygiene intelligentsia!” Dr. David Scott once proclaimed to me.

What “The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast” Is & Is Not

The second set of distinctions to make clear to the uninformed is to define just what “TheCorrect Natural Hygiene Fast” is and is not. Following are 7 parameters. As a Natural Hygienehealth educator, let me emphasize here, that these 7 parameters are directed strictly to TheCorrect Natural Hygiene Fast as practiced and popularized by Dr. Herbert M. Shelton and Dr.Vetrano and Drs. Tosca and Greg Haag while supervising over 40,000 fasters combined. Now,here are the 7 parameters — in a nutshell — that distinguish The Correct Natural Hygiene Fastfrom both other alternativists’ versions of fasting and from the dreadful practice of starvation.(The term “Correct” is applies to all 7 parameters.)

(1) The Natural Hygiene Fast occurs only with complete abstinence from all food-nutrients inany form while the body safely lives on its totally adequate reserves and while taking distilledwater-only according to thirst. (I encourage fasters to take in 6 - 8 glasses of water a day to avoiddehydration.) Starvation, by contrast, may occur even while taking in insufficient and nutrition-deficient amounts of food or may occur in the absence of food over extended time.

(2) Once underway and in a matter of 1 day or 2 or 3 days, The Natural Hygiene Faster almostalways experiences a distinct lack of hunger. During starvation, by contrast, the individual al-most always experiences a continued and compelling sense of hunger.

(3) The Natural Hygiene Fast represents a peaceful period of complete rest, willingly enteredinto and always marked by a genuine calm once the faster cooperates with his body. Starvation,by contrast, represents a tortuous period of turmoil for a person that is forced upon his body byhis own will or by someone else’s and is always marked by extreme distress.

(4) The Natural Hygiene Fast is always undertaken for beneficent reasons: mental, emotional,spiritual, and/or health-related. Starvation, by contrast, is most often undertaken for social,spiritual, political agendas and/or coercions, or because of a forced chance happenstance.

(5) The Natural Hygiene Fast is properly prepared for and properly supervised by a trainedpractitioner who daily monitors the faster’s vital signs, eliminations, and subjective experiences.Assistance to take oneself on a fast is sometimes all a Health Seeker who is not deep into chronic,degenerative disease needs. During starvation, by contrast, a person is never properly super-vised or assisted.

(6) The Natural Hygiene Fast represents a process of the body utilizing its nutritional reservesand autolyzing morbid tissues during food abstinence. “Autolysis” is key noun in fasting litera-ture. The verb is “autolyze.” The word element “auto-” means “self” and “-lysis” means “digest-ing.” And during fasting, the body is very busy doing just that: autolyzing or digesting selecttissues of self! As soon as Nerve Energy is regenerated, the body eagerly autolyzes excess bodyfat and morbid tissues, such as tumors and cholesterol deposits in arteries. And so, because of thehealing that comes about, “autolysis” is an exciting word to add to our health-seeking vocabular-ies! Starvation, by contrast, represents a process of the body, exhausted of its nutritional re-serves, slowly breaking down vital, life-sustaining tissues.

(7) The Natural Hygiene Fast is always followed by a period of assisted refeeding and a feeling ofincreased well-being and improved health. Starvation, by contrast, is always followed by learn-ing to live with irreversible tissue damage if one survives, and if not, by death.


“The Natural Hygiene Fast” Versus “The Juice Diet”The third set of definitions needed follow. The phrase “to go on a fast” has been misunderstood. To

use the phrase correctly, when a person “goes on a fast,” he is abstaining from one or more items, as definedby the preceding noun-qualifier. Thus, a “water faster” refers to a person who is taking in everything andanything but water. The “juice faster” refers to a person who is taking in everything and anything but juice.Once these distinctions are correctly understood, a person who is taking in only water and fasting fromeverything else is correctly said “to be fasting on water-only.” Among the Natural Hygiene intelligentsia,when we speak of taking a fast, it is a fast on water-only. Likewise, when taking in juices-only, the noviceincorrectly says that the person is “fasting on juices.” But since taking juices, or food nutrients in any form,for that matter, is actually eating as far as the digestive system is concerned, the person educated in the finerpoints of Natural Hygiene lexicon correctly states: “The person taking in juices is on a juice diet.”

“The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast” is defined strictly: “a water-only and complete rest endeavor.”Note this distinction: the body does not differentiate between metabolizing juices and whole foods. Eitherway, the body is eating, digesting, absorbing, assimilating food nutrients, and eliminating their waste. Todrink juices is the same as to eat, as far as the body’s metabolic processes go. Juices, being devoid of fiber,simply require less energy to process. Being on juices-only, therefore, is not properly termed “juice fasting.”Rather, being on juices-only is properly defined as “fasting from whole foods” and “juice dieting,” both.

Following are 12 distinctions between The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast on water-only and the juicediet of 8-ounce glasses of raw juices-only, 3 - 4 times a day or more as needed. These distinctions have beennumbered to indicate their correct, chronological order.

(1) During the fast on water-only, eating and digestion halt. But during juicing, eating continues with thenutrients simply in a liquid form.

(2) During the fast on water-only, hunger is absent after 1 - 3 days, more or less. But during juicing, hungercontinues until the call for food every second becomes compelling — and sometimes excruciatingly so.

(3) During the fast on water-only, the revitalization, cleansing, body chemistry balancing, and repair are anestimated 3 - 5 times greater or even more than during juicing.

(4) During the fast on water-only, sodium-chloride is rapidly eliminated the first 2 - 3 days. But duringjuicing, the sodium-chloride elimination is far less dramatic, if even noticeable.

(5) During the fast on water-only, weight loss is an estimated 3 - 5 times greater or more than during juicing.

(6) During the fast on water-only, nutritional balance is maintained. But during juicing, one or more nutri-tional imbalances can occur within days or weeks.

(7) During the fast on water-only, much physiological rest is secured. But during juicing, the physiologicalrest secured is more than when eating solid foods but much, much less than when fasting.

(8) To be on the safe side, the longer fast on water-only of 7 - 10 days and more requires a retreat setting andsupervision or assistance. But a period of time spent juicing, in virtually all cases, does not.

(9) During a fast on water-only, energy levels drop which necessitates complete bed rest. But during juicing,energy levels normally allow modest activity and even a modest workload, as long as rest breaks are taken.

(10) After a fast on water-only, an equal number of days feeding are required to regain full strength. Butafter a juice diet, far fewer days are required to regain full strength because so little strength was ever lost.

(11) The fast on water-only is not necessarily superior to juice dieting. The 2 physiological modes of CorrectNatural Hygiene care are employed for different reasons and in different cases to achieve different results.

(12) It should be noted that in certain, rare disease situations, the Health Seeker cannot get well on juices-only and will need a longer fast on water-only or a series of short fasts before health is recovered.


The 5 Kinds of Rest Taken on The Natural Hygiene Fast

Item (3) above is crucial to The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast, it needs further emphasis for the Health Seekerwho is mildly interested in further study. And item (3) is also what distinguishes The Correct Natural Hygiene Fastfrom other alternativists’ forms of fasting. During The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast, the faster must, by definition,secure complete rest. She must not be going on hikes and swims, driving around, spending hours on a computer, orseeking other such distractions and entertainments. Doing so is not fasting: it is just not eating! The Natural HygieneFaster is a complete rester. Her sole focus is to revitalize her nervous system, and that only occurs during Rest & Sleep.The revitalization, however, can be accelerated while resting or sleeping — and fasting! Remember: “IT’S ALLABOUT ENERGY!” And during The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast, the Health Seeker increases energy by securingrest on these 5 levels.

(1) REST FROM PHYSICAL ACTIVITY: The faster makes as few demands on her musculoskeletal sys-tem as possible and takes as much bed rest as possible. She goes to bed to rest, relax, and/or sleep. Or shelounges around during a minimum of her waking hours. She secures as much physical rest as possible,interspersing her day with naps and then retiring very early. A leisurely walk or brief period of mild stretch-ing may be allowed for all but the very weak fasters.(2) REST FROM PHYSIOLOGICAL DUTIES OF PROCESSING FOOD: During a fast, the tremendouslyenergy-expensive processes of digestion, absorption, assimilation, and elimination of food is brought to anend with the processing of the last meal. To repeat, physiologists speculate that 75% of our Nerve Energy isspent on the daily processing of food. During fasting, however, the entire gastro-intestinal tract rests! Thebasic metabolic activity is at a healthful, restful minimum. The energy normally used to process food whileeating is thus freed up to repair, restore, and renew the body, mind, emotions, and spirit. Deep, physiologicalrest is secured during fasting for most of the body. But some organs/systems work overtime carrying out themany eliminating and healing activities. The more toxic the Health Seeker, the more energy is needed tocarry out these activities — thus, the importance of securing physiological rest.(3) REST FROM SENSORY INPUT: During a fast, the Health Seeker retreats from the sensual and senso-rial onslaught of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell that makes up the excitations and fabric of daily life.The faster should use her eyes, ears, and other sensory systems as little as possible and stay in a quiet placeto secure a rest and respite for all the senses.(4) REST FROM EMOTIONALISM: Ideally, the faster retreats to a Natural Hygiene school and sanctu-ary setting, away from all the emotional input and output of daily life. A quiet setting is one of the foremostconsiderations! Experts estimate that upwards of 90% of all illness has a stress-related factor. Therefore,this emotional rest is truly beneficial for minimizing psychosomatically induced symptoms.(5) REST FROM MENTAL ACTIVITY: The faster puts away concerns and projects that demand mentalefforts and concentration or that present distractions. The brain is the center for all mental activity. It is alsothe housing for Nerve Energy regeneration. In order for the revitalization that brings health and energy, thebrain and entire nervous system need this mental time-out period of rest, sleep, and fasting.

Obviously, the properly assisted or supervised Natural Hygiene faster is not watching television, noton the phone, not at the computer, not reading, not at hobbies, not taking regular exercise, not exchangingrecipes with other fasters all day and night, not conducting business affairs, and not engaging in endlessconversations or carrying on long-distance romances or differences-of-opinion feuds with family or friends,or engaging in legal battles! Ideally, the Health Seeker is securing deep, complete rest on all 5 of these levelsand taking part in any of the above activities minimally or only because of emergencies.

Believe me: I know! To so abstain is very hard for the thrill-seeker! Even the Health Seeker who ismore relaxed and not a stimulant junkie can get very fidgety. But your knowing just what a “correctlysupervised/assisted fast” is now can help you prepare mentally and emotionally for a fast you may decideto undertake later. It is best to get your affairs in order before checking out from daily routines. You wantto be able to let go and to enjoy complete rest with a brain flat-lined into peacefulness and pleasantries!


MAJOR CONSIDERATIONS IN PICKING A FACILITY CONDUCIVE TO COMPLETE REST: If at allpossible, avoid all The 10 Energy Robbers. (See page 17.) Especially avoid the following: Uncleanliness tobefoul and demoralize you, Impure Air to pollute you with every breath you take, sheer curtains that letlight in to keep you from Rest & Sleep, noise pollution of cities and sirens to disturb your Rest & Sleep,Wrong Temperatures with high humidity to distress you, hospital-type settings with unnatural environs tokeep you out of touch with your healing mind and body and to disrupt your Emotional Balance, 3 or morepersons in one bedroom to disrupt your Emotional Balance, grumpy or otherwise inappropriate staff per-sons offering Toxic Relationships to disconcert you. (As you can see: “I been there, done that!” in my healthretreat hopping days! The worst was when I fell prey, in my weakened state, to a young, immoral, sexualpredator intern back in the day. But that is another story!) And finally — exorbitant rates to drain you.

How to Break The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast

Dr. Scott once warned me: “You can undo all the good of a long fast in just a few days by doing all thewrong things.” To end the fast on the right track is absolutely essential. All Natural Hygiene doctors typi-cally select fresh, raw fruit or fruit juices in small amounts and times a day for breaking a fast. After a fewdays of whole fruit on this frequent feeding schedule, larger amounts and more variety of fruit and the 3meals a day are served. Raw vegetables, nuts and seeds, as well as avocado, are typically added after a fewdays or a week.

Except for special situations, and with Drs. Shelton and Vetrano and Drs. Tosca andGreg Haag behind me, I start Health Seekers with the following break-fast schedule:

DAY 1: A variety of whole melons 6 times a day: 4 ounces starting at 8:00 A.M. and every 2hours until 6:00 P.M. (If it had been a long fast, 2 days of this schedule are used.)

DAY 2: Same as Day 1: only serving 8 ounces of fruit each time

DAY 3: 3 meals of 12 ounces total and serving the following: tomatoes, cucumber, celery,lettuce, and red bell pepper

DAY 4: Same as Day 3, only serving meals of 16 ounces total

DAY 5 and on: regular meals with veggies, nuts and seeds as well as fruit are given, as servedin The Health Seekers’ YearBook’s “Chapter Nine: The Year in Live-Food Menus.”Melons are the preferred break-fast fruit! They are the very easiest to digest, since most are 96% -

98% water. Dr. Scott not only breaks virtually all fasts at his Institute with watermelon, he also serveswatermelon with lettuce for all breakfasts for virtually all patients! The low sugar content of the water-melon does not set up too much excitement for the post-faster’s tastebuds and does not entice him to drinkor eat beyond genuine hunger. Other juicy fruits are also favorites used by other practitioners: oranges,sweet grapefruit, and grapes, for examples. All break-fasters are encouraged to take many minutes to drinktheir juices or eat their meals. If breaking your fast on juices, a teaspoon at a time or slow-sipping with astraw is ideal. It takes as much as 10 - 20 minutes to get the digestive system reactivated after a fast. Like-wise, eating the whole food slowly will get the live food connoisseur off to the best start.

I remember Dr. Vetrano breaking my very first fast of 17 days on a 4" square piece of heavenlywatermelon! I took 20 minutes to eat. And it knocked me out! Full of energy when I sat down to eat the littleblock of red melon, I immediately passed out into a 2-hour deep sleep and then became exhausted through-out the day after each 4" square. I was so impressed. This was proof of how the body uses so much energy forthe digestive/eliminative processes! Some fasters have gone through hell during some point in their fasts.Now, breaking those fasts can be a heavenly delight of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell! Dr. Vetrano andI have always taught Health Seekers to learn to “eat sensationally.” A better time never presents itself to doso than upon the break-fast!


Questionable Candidates for The Natural Hygiene Fast

Most people in acute and chronic disease are prime candidates for fasting to get well. Dr. Vetranoand I must caution Health Seekers who, for whatever reason, are not prime candidates for The NaturalHygiene Fast not to undertake one. Although each Health Seeker’s condition is different, it is questionablewhether certain patients should fast on water-only, even under the best of monitoring/assisting. Certainly,these questionable fasting candidates should never fast on their own. Self-conducted, extreme fasts outsidethe boundaries of proper supervision/assistance can be extremely dangerous! And since proper care observ-ing The 10 Energy Enhancers, including refeeding and exercise schedules, are crucial to getting well, thefollowing Health Seekers in their special situations need guidance with these post-fast activities, as well.

Dr. Vetrano next presents her list of those who are questionable candidates for the Natural Hygienefast, prepared for The Health Seekers’ YearBook. She points out: “Every case is unique, and whether or notan individual should fast is up to the doctor to decide. Without question, if a Health Seeker is on this list andthe doctor recommends a fast, the patient must be closely supervised from beginning to end.”

· Those who are extremely thin & undernourished (These persons may go on shortfasts of 1 - 3 days with definite benefit. And with doing right between fasts, thesepeople may be restored to health.)

· Those who are in extreme weakness, depending on its cause(s)

· Those who are in extreme stages of chronic, degenerative disease

· Those who have some cancers, especially of the liver & pancreas

· Those with inactive kidneys accompanied by obesity

· Those with difficult breathing due to cardiovascular disease (Caution &supervision must be taken with any abnormal rhythms of the heart.)

· Those taking insulin (Insulin-dependent Health Seekers must be fasted undercompetent supervision. A fast provides time for the body to eliminate the toxinsthat impair normal function of tissues & organs & time for the pancreas to repairthe beta cells so that metabolism of carbohydrate, fat & protein is normalized.)

· Those who are afraid to fast (They should not undergo a fast until they have welleducated themselves & lost their fears.)

· Pregnant women (In a state of good health, they may safely fast 3 - 4 days.)

Dr. Vetrano and I conclude this crash course on the wonderful benefits of The Correct NaturalHygiene Fast with this primary caution: In cases of many acute and most chronic diseases, for thefullest rest and greatest healing to take place, a longer fast is almost always required, making theretreat setting and assistance or supervision essential. For any Health Seeker deciding to take afast of significant length, therefore, proper assistance and/or supervision by a trained specialist isabsolutely necessary. Fasting in either acute or chronic disease is a serious undertaking. Fasting is not atoy for playtime. Nor is it a time for novices and the ill-informed to monitor themselves and decide theirown care. Most persons in relatively good health with no serious complaints can fast safely 7 - 10 days.But even with this general rule of thumb, in some rare cases, the less serious conditions in Health Seekerscan develop into very serious situations once a short fast progresses into a longer fast and as cleansingand healing crises become intense and heretofore unknown disease symptoms in progress surface.


If you are in reasonably good health and intend to take yourself on The Correct Natural HygieneFast at Our Hygiene Homestead in The Woods with me as your assistant, as soon as your reservation ismade, I send you a gift copy of Fasting for the Health of It: 100 Case Histories Selected from Over 200,000Clinical Records to inspire you to best prepare for your great adventure! Dr. Shelton’s most famous bookFasting Can Save Your Life recently came back into print. It is excellent. And you can order a copythrough me or wait until you arrive at Our Hygiene Homestead to read a library copy. I have dozens ofbooks there on fasting for you. Dr. Vetrano considers our crash course given you here on The CorrectNatural Hygiene Fast so clear and thorough — and “correct” — that we are using it in its entirety asprefatory material to her new book I am currently editing: Astounding Case Histories to Put NaturalHygiene on The Worldwide Map! (Susan now reviews case histories from Fasting for the Health of It.)

Natural Hygiene Fasting Case Histories from Jean Oswald’s & Dr. Shelton’s Fasting for the Health of It:

100 Case Histories Selected from Over 200,000 Clinical Records

These 6 reports are real case studies from Dr. Shelton’s and Dr. Scott’s clinics, taken fromthe book Fasting for the Health of It: 100 Case Histories Selected from over 200,000 ClinicalRecords by Jean Oswald and Dr. Shelton. This book is terribly exciting! You can get it only fromVictoria BidWell, who had stocked up on the last few cases of this now out-of-print book.

Among the 100 Health Seekers whose conditions improved or who healed completely afterfasting are case histories on the following acute and chronic diseases: abdominal tumors, alcohol-ism, bursitis, breast tumors, varicose veins, headaches, back pain, ovarian cyst, brain tumor, ec-zema, hemorrhoids, osteoarthritis, angina, glaucoma, Hodgkin’s disease, spinal meningitis, over-active thyroid, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, ulcerative colitis, schizophrenia, appendicitis, lupus,anemia, snoring, breast tumors, drug addiction, and more. Susan summarizes 6 case histories.

Kidney Stones Passed with Fasting(Therese, age 44, fasted under the supervision of Dr. Scott for 10 days in 1977 and 14 days in 1978.)

After Therese’s first fast, she returned to the same X-ray specialist who stated that 2 kidney stones wereclearly visible on her X-rays. On her new pictures, no remnants of the stones remained; the stones had autolyzedand passed. In 1978, Therese and her “health nut” son, as she called him, returned to Dr. Scott’s Natural Health Institute.Both fasted 2 weeks. Therese told me her improved health was worth the effort to overcome her former bad habits. She eatsno dairy products, fried foods, or meat, and is still changing other dietary habits such as implementing proper food combin-ing to prevent the formation of more kidney stones. “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Therese explained to me.

Cataracts Gone with Fasting(Helen, age 54, fasted 14 days in 1979 under the supervision of Dr. Scott.)

Helen put away her honey, aspirin, and Darvon after the fourth day of her fast. She discovered there was nouse trying to mix The Hygienic System with the drugging system: it was like trying to mix oil with water. Helendiscovered that the fundamental principles of the 2 systems are the exact opposites of each other, just as theirmeans of care are opposites. If she attempted to use both systems and relied upon drugs for part of her remedialresources, she would fail to make full use of Hygienic means. After Helen developed full confidence in NaturalHygiene, both in its power to preserve and restore health, she recovered. After fasting 12 days, her eyesight hadimproved tremendously. And the cataracts were gone. The eyes are just as much a part of the body as the skin,lungs, or heart. Helen had to change her former toxic habits to change the health of her eyes. “The disappearanceof the cataracts seemed like a miracle!” Helen exclaimed to me.


After a Fast, Woman Finally Able to Carry a Fetus to Full Term(Rachelle fasted under the supervision of Dr. Shelton for 10 days in 1932.)

There are different reasons for sterility. Many Health Seekers respond favorably to the fast, others do not.In this particular case, Rachelle had 28 spontaneous abortions. After a 10-day fast and a 4-month diet of raw fruitand vegetables, she became pregnant and later gave birth to a healthy boy.

Insanity Lost after a Fast(Mr. S.A., age 35, fasted 39 days under the supervision of Dr. Shelton in 1940.)

Natural Hygiene care greatly improved Stan’s mental condition. I have used fasting in cases of mentaldisease and have no doubt that fasting is distinctly beneficial. And I am convinced that when the insane personrefuses food, this is an instinctive measure designed to assist the body in its reconstructive work. Many peoplehave lost their abnormal mental conditions while fasting. All who have had extended experience with fasting haveseen cases of insanity recover health while on the fast and many others make great improvement while fasting.

Parkinson’s Tremor Gone after Several Fasts(Monica, age 39, fasted 3 times under the supervision of Dr. Shelton:

30 days, 14 days, and later another 14 days in 1941.)The developments in this case are typical, with the exception that Monica completely recovered. Full

recovery is not the general rule in cases of Parkinson’s. The majority of fasters make sufficient progress to becomeuseful again, but retain part of the existing tremor. Monica was at the Health School for 9 months and had previ-ously suffered with Parkinson’s disease for 6 years. After she had fasted 30 days, the tremor immediately reoc-curred, but not as severely as before the fast. After the second fast, the tremors were less. After the third fast, thetremors were gone. For more than 10 years, I remained in contact with Monica. She has had no reoccurrence of thetremor.

Deafness, Impotence, Enlarged Prostate& Sinus Congestion Gone after Fasting

(Mr. A.B., age 70, fasted 42 days in 1960 under the supervision of Dr. Shelton.)On the 36th day of fasting, Art regained hearing in his deaf ear for the first time in 6 years. His prostate

gland had shrunken to nearly normal size. After he fasted, he spent 3 weeks on a raw fruit and vegetable diet. Hewas no longer impotent, his sinus congestion was relieved, and the recovery of hearing was permanent.

I have conducted a number of fasts in people from 70 years to over 85 years of age, and I have found noreason to consider aged persons to be in a class by themselves. Adult animals of any species, including HomoSapiens, can fast much longer than the young of the same species. Old people actually stand fasting best. Growingchildren stand it least, although they stand it well. People do not get too old to use fasting as a method for healing.The regenerating effects that come about during a fast are especially apparent in the old. So I do not hesitate toplace old people upon a fast; but I watch them more closely than I do younger people, not because they do notstand fasting well, but because they are often possessed of hidden weaknesses that render it inadvisable to carry thefast to great length.

Fasting in Extreme EmaciationDr. Shelton related the story of one young man who was so emaciated that the medical and naturopathic

doctors attending him for months while getting no results were at their wits’ end. Dr. Shelton was called in forconsultation as a last resort. To the astonishment of the doctors, Shelton recommended a fast, to which theyreluctantly agreed. Following the young man’s fast, his digestive capacity returned. He went on to achieve acomplete recovery.


Study The Fight-or-Flight Response to Conquer Fear of FastingBy Victoria BidWell

I am a student of Dr. Hans Selye’s exciting, ground-breaking Fight-or-Flight workthat laid the foundation for psychoneuroimmunology and for addressing and treating allpsychosomatically induced disease. Now, all Health Seekers can be the beneficiaries of hisscience and teachings to conquer any harbored fears of fasting on water-only.

The Fight-or-Flight Response is initiated by a triggering event, at which moment themind, emotions, spirit, and entire body undergo a sequence of events that end with exhaus-tion — when taken to extremes. When the body goes into the alarm mode because somethingis perceived as terribly wrong or threatening and frightful or borderline fearful/exciting/thrilling, every cell in the body is affected, mostly by the nervous and glandular and circula-tory systems! In fact, all systems are readied for extreme action! The body mobilizes itself tofight the foe or to flee the situation so that the person can get back to life-as-normal as soonas possible. While in the Fight-or-Flight mode, a tremendous amount of energy is exerted.Some documented cases of an individual’s dark-colored hair turning completely white withinan hour have been documented! The body naturally seeks homeostasis and its calm mode ofoperating as soon as possible. But the individual can undergo great havoc and cause damageto mind, emotions, spirit, and body if the response is chronically activated, even at a low-grade level. Following is the profile of The Fight-or-Flight Response.

Skin vessels constrict, and goose bumps appear. Sweat glands pour out sweat.Secretion of digestive enzymes and insulin stops. Digestion halts. The mouth goes dry. Adrena-line and other stress hormones and neurotransmitters flood the body. Bowels and the uri-nary bladder relax, and their control is often lost. Blood flow to the heart and musclesincreases. Voluntary muscles dilate to accommodate powerful action. Blood vessels to thebrain constrict. Muscles in the brain constrict and cause headaches and fear for some andeuphoria and fearlessness for others. Much more is going on in the body’s 75,000,000,000,000cells. But you get the idea: Emotional Balance and the capacity for rational thought for allwho do not possess extreme self-mastery is lost to some degree — or completely.

All of this heightened neurophysiology throws the person without safeguard copingmechanisms into a state of great fear — or excitation! They start trembling, literally “like aleaf” and begin entertaining dreadful — or dangerously thrilling thoughts. They can makevery bad decisions. They can actually see things and hear things that are not there and thenact upon them. They can get paranoid. If these fearful imaginings and very bad choices areallowed to play out and then are acted upon while in this unique, physiological state of alarm,the situation can be made much, much worse. This is why knowledge of how the body, mind,and emotions work during The Fight-or-Flight Response and use of self-control are so im-portant. While considering to undertake a fast or when in any stressful situation, knowingyourself and practicing self-mastery are all-important. Keeping cool and maintaining En-ergy Enhancer #9: Emotional Balance could very well save your life — or, at least, the natu-ral, youthful color of your hair!


The Details of Drug WithdrawalBy Susan Schenck with Victoria BidWell & Dr. Vetrano

Susan continues: If you have been taking recreational, prescription, and/or over the counter drugs(Your body doesn’t know the difference.), you could go into an intense drug withdrawal and a moredramatic elimination of toxins in general than would happen if you had never used these drugs — espe-cially for a prolonged period of time. Medical doctors at their very best and who are well-trained andexperienced in The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast never advise Health Seekers to fast while on drugs orimmediately after quitting drugs and still going through withdrawal. This is where supervision/assistanceis absolutely crucial for an easier time of it.

Dr. Vetrano cautions: “Natural Hygiene doctors cannot take people off meds. Natural Hygienedoctors must ask their clients to have their medical doctors tell them how to get off prescriptions. Onlyafter several weeks of quitting medications should a fast be taken. With steroids, however, it is best to waita year before fasting. This permits the adrenal glands to return to full function. A crisis could occur. Andwith too little cortisol, death could result unless the client took his steroids again at the onset of the crisis.”

Legally, a medical doctor is the only primary health professional who can tell you to stop takingdrugs or reduce your drug dosage. Holistic physicians, such as chiropractors, acupuncturists, homeo-paths, and naturopaths, know how toxic these drugs are. But they cannot tell you to cease taking them atthe risk of being taken to court for practicing medicine without a license and being sent off to jail. (Formore on how the medical system works, see Appendix B.)

Therefore, Victoria BidWell and Dr. Vetrano and I cannot advise you to stop your prescrip-tion medications, either. For going through drug withdrawal once you have made your decision togo of meds, we do recommend consulting first with a holistic doctor or, better yet, a Natural Hy-giene doctor or health educator trained in fasting supervision/assistance. As Victoria BidWell makesvery clear: “While referring all who are deep into chronic degeneration to Dr. Scott and Dr.Goldhamer, I can assist virtually all other Health Seekers through The Correct Natural HygieneFast with whatever their needs!”

Our Final Fasting Farewellsfrom Susan Schenck, Dr. Vetrano & Victoria BidWell

The time you set aside for undertaking The Correct Natural Hygiene Fast isa very special experience in your life that will move you way forward. It should bea complete rest for the mind, emotions, spirit, and body: rest from food and drink,drugs, emotional stress, mental tasks, excitement of the 5 senses, and all physicalactivity except moving about as needed. It’s even best to stay in bed sleeping orwith eyes closed 24/7, or as close to that as you can manage, for the duration of theentire fast. This permits the body to focus as much of its attention and energy onrevitalizing, cleansing, and healing as is humanly possible.

What good does it do to detoxify and heal if you simply go out and re-intoxi-cate yourself? In our next chapter of The Live Food Factor, we will look at how tostay raw in a world that caters to cooked fooders. The answer begins in correctlyidentifying the doors of perception through which to pass. It all begins in the mind.



PROFILE OF THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST!#1 — THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST & THE HEALTH SEEKER are 1 in the same! They actually see highenergy, a youthful appearance, emotional health, mental clarity, nurturing relationships, freedom from addiction &a long, rewarding life — when casting eyes upon Live-Foods from The Ideal Diet. Likewise, THE LIVE-FOODENTHUSIAST turned HEALTH SEEKER actually sees creepy, diseased personifications of Enervation, Toxemia,brain fog, emotional despair, toxic relationships, slavery to addiction, canes & wheelchairs & pain & misery & ashortened lifespan ended by an early grave — when casting eyes upon The Suicide American Diet dead foods.

#2 — THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST... because of this vision, is committed to Live-Foods, to the best of his orher ever-improving ability. SAD foods give him or her the creeps! Moments of weakness may bring backsliding.But Live-Food commitment brings self-correction! There comes a time when we can’t going back to dead food.

#3 — THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST... is not unhappy about turning away from dead foods & turning to TheLive-Food Track. The Live-Food Enthusiast does not go about with an attitude or look on the face or in the bodylanguage that reads, “I’m deprived! I’m miserable because I cannot have cooked Suicide American Diet food!”With this mindset, The Live-Food Enthusiast experiences... “NOT PUNISHMENT! NOT DEPRIVATION! BUTLIBERATION & RELIEF & GRATITUDE & JOY — HIGH JOY!”

#4 — THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST... man or woman, never feels a need to ever be on the defensive about hisor her Live-Food choices — nor does either feel a need to degrade the Suicide American Diet choices of theirfriends. Furthermore, they do not push The Ideal Diet on others: they just joyously enjoy their Live-Foods!

#5 — THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST... knows he or she has discovered “THE IDEAL WAY OF EATING” that isadding untold pleasures & riches to their lives. In this spirit, therefore, both feel privileged to have discovered theinestimable blessings of The Live-Food Diet. A blessedness & a specialness & an excitement for life & a glow ofhealth & happiness — all go with THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST! Their giants go with them wherever they go!

#6 — THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST... does feel powerful urges, which come from the natural human inclinationto share a good thing, to teach the many truths of Natural Hygiene as “The Superlative, Alternative Health CareSystem” to others who express an interest. The motto of Live Food Enthusiasts? “SHARE! SHARE! SHARE!”

#7 — THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST... feels so privileged & blessed, so healthy & happy, that her or his enthu-siasm is not only apparent for all to see — it is actually contagious! When dining with others, consequently, this“HIGH JOY” causes others to take interest in what he or she is on: Natural Hygiene & The 10 Energy Enhancers!THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIASTS frequently find themselves sharing. They invite others to Live-Food picnics anddinners. They loan out &/or give out Natural Hygiene literature, especially recipe books. They prepare the tastyLive-Food beverages as a way of gently showing others how wonderful the Suicide American Diet beveragealternatives can be! They sponsor Live-Food lectures and support group meetings. They becomes teachers tothose who ask what it is that is making him or her look so good and feel so energetic, so happy, so alive!

#8 — THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST, remember, is also a HEALTH SEEKER of the first order! He & she seeThe Ideal Diet as only part of a total, healthful living, 10-point program. Both are committed to a non-toxic lifestyle— in its totality — “THE 10 ENERGY ENHANCERS.” Both turn away from all “THE 10 ENERGY ROBBERS.”Both embrace all of Natural Hygiene, in striving for their highest health & energy & creativity potentials!

#9 — THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST... seeks health even in the middle of stumbling & falling, backstepping &backsliding, getting off The Right Track & ending up in SAD food! THE LIVE FOOD ENTHUSIAST is also a realistwho understands that he or she is not perfect, that going off the raw foods happens & that doing so is part of theprocess of transitioning to all-raw or mostly all-raw foods. THE LIVE FOOD ENTHUSIAST never gives up & haslearned to “COUNT IT ALL JOY” — being on the Live-Foods perfectly and falling off terribly, both. Forgiveness &self-correction are part of THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIAST mentality! Joyful forgiveness & self-correction!

#10 — THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIASTS — women, men, children — all value their own health & well-being. They are free from The Disease Industrialists’ brainwashing. They are not set in the “self-destructmode.” Ultimately, THE LIVE-FOOD ENTHUSIASTS, that is, THE HEALTH SEEKERS, are proud of theirpurposeful lives with far-reaching, love-one-another, Save-the-Planet goals. They see taking care of them-selves as a means to best enable them to serve & to be of best use to all their brothers & sisters, to allforms of plant & animal life & to Our Great Planet Earth! Grateful, Joyful Stewards are what we are! AMEN!


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