Eating; What’s Feeding Your Belief?

“People with beliefs don’t shift beliefs based on scientific evidence. The key is to get at what is driving and feeding the belief.” Rudi Verspoor I have served a number of clients who are staunch vegans, vegetarians or animal activists.  When the topic of resonant regimen comes up and we discern that the person is an “O” Blood type, or suffering a weak immune function (scientific code for “sense of self”) and eating as a vegan, I brace myself for the emotional reaction before I suggest that they are potentially going to run into health issues if they don’t introduce red meat into their diet. I had one mystical ‘peace and love’ patient react so angrily that she told me that she was going to meditate on changing her blood type from an “O” to an “A.”  I wished her luck in that regard, however, in the interim, I suggested that she needed to look at the the consumption of red meat for the digestive issues she suffered.  She suffered gall bladder attacks as a result of harbored anger and the weekly volatile arguments she was having with her boss were clearly destabilizing to her.

Having the heart of a farmer, and a love of human beings over animals, I have chosen to be a steward to the animals in my care.  Yes, we named our beloved pets, even when they were designated for humane slaughter.  Our ducks, chickens, lambs, donkey and horses were a source of pride, nurturing myself and my family with eggs, raw milk and beautiful meat for our table.  I gave thanks each time I assumed their offering into my consciousness to furnish me with the thoughts it takes for me to fashion this blog article or researching the book I’m writing.  I am very fortunate to know such abundance in my life and on my table.  However, an angry fired up vegetarian will tell you that the animals in my care had no choice in the matter at the time I covet their eggs or slaughter them for meat.  When it comes down to it, animals don’t want human choice, or they’d be born with an ontic organization (sense of self).  As per Rudolf Steiner, each animal species shares a group soul, as opposed to the individual soul that each human being has.  That’s how dogs know to wag their tail … one doggy-mind tells them to.

One patient, who used to come to my home, once told me it was cruel for my Samoyed dog to live outside in the Winter, although her breed hails from Siberia and she is designed for the cold, he would not listen.  I tried to explain that her three layers of downy fur would thin if I brought her in doors causing a compromise in her health and well-being.  I began to wonder where the animal rights activism line begins and ends?  What I realized is that it doesn’t end and if the animal rights folks, and environmentalists, actually had it their way, they would exterminate the human race.  They are in fact anti-human! Thomas S. Derr, a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of FIRST THINGS, is a Professor in the Department of Religion and Biblical Literature at Smith College.  He wrote an article entitled, Animal Rights, Human Rights where he states, “Although many advocates of animal rights do argue that this revolution in ethical consciousness is for the benefit of the human race as well as the animals, there is nevertheless a persistent strain of anti-humanism in their movement, particularly, as we have seen, when it is joined to deep ecology. We human beings are not necessary to nature, which would be better off without us, evil creatures that we are. Nor is the defense of civilization an acceptable excuse for placing human concerns ahead of the rest of nature. “What I detest is humanism,” says Clark bluntly. Human personality and civilization “seem frankly psychopathic.” No doubt.  In his mind, he’d rather cancel out the complications associated with diverse human emotion.

It is interesting to me that animals represent our desire function, our astral body, as per Rudolf Steiner, and are a great barometer to discern our level of fulfillment in our lives.  Animals living in captivity will even take on our human diseases as they operate through our consciousness, being devoid of their own, and I’ve had patients react with surprise to realize their their symptoms show up in their animals if we transfer human qualities onto them.  For example, animals in the wild rarely die of cancer, heart disease, or arthritis.

In Lecture IV of the “Anthroposophical Spiritual Science And Medical Therapy” Series, Rudolf Steiner talks about the dangers of fanaticism and the long term effects on the human organism with regards to consuming purely a raw diet becoming so prevalent today: “There must really be no fanaticism of any kind in medical art—for example, fanatical adherence to an uncooked diet. A raw food diet also entails the exclusion of cooked plant substances obtained from the part of the plant lying toward the root, and this generally has definite consequences for the human organism: it slowly undermines the health of the respiratory system. A destructive influence on the human organism of this kind can continue for a long time, since it is not so easy to destroy this organism, but fanatical adherence to uncooked food will in time lead to shortness of breath or similar symptoms.”  As far as we can ascertain, resonance, principled science and balance are key to a healthy regimen.

A colleague of mine also observed the long term negative effects of an “O” Blood Type trying to go successfully without animal protein long term: “My son is a raw food vegan.  He is studying with Dr. Gabriel Cousens in Arizona at the Tree of Life.  He is an A blood type and we have had many discussion and debates regarding the O blood needing red meat protein.  I am O blood and tried the raw food diet and felt as if I was dying to say the least.  Now I do agree that Americans eat way too much meat, but am sold on the fact that O blood needs animal protein.  When I was at summer school and saw the [live] blood [analysis] with my own eyes, it was not only convincing, but fascinating to say the least.  Thank you Roxanne [Harris]!  Recently, Dr. Mercola discusess this subject and I sent it to my son and he won’t budge on his belief that we can all get the protein we need from plants and that there is no need for animal protein.   Can someone please give me more scientific proof on this?  It would be greatly appreciated.”

It is thought provoking to read in Dr. Mercola’s article above and find that he cites, “Interestingly, most of my initial failures were related to encouraging many thousands of patients to eat too many vegetables in relation to fats and animal protein.”  He cites that even popular books like The China Study by Dr. T. Colin, “will invariably cause harm and suffering in many whose biochemically and genetically determined nutritional type requires large amounts of fat and protein.” Mercola goes on to say that The China Study is fundamentally flawed in that it was never tried on real live human beings. Also, the data actually indicates that carbohydrates and sugars are associated with high incidences of cancer, not animal protein, as it set out to prove.  In fact, in 1985 Mercola tried to adhere to the regimen prescribed in the popular book, Fit for Life, due to its compelling arguments derived from The China Study, where he found that over time that increasing his consumption of raw fruits and vegetables he found that,  “After a few weeks I tested my blood work and was shocked to find my fasting triglycerides were nearly 3,000. That is not a typo. Nearly three thousand…This was surprising because they had never been over 100 in the past.  Clearly this diet was killing me and I am convinced I would have died long ago had I remained on it. I now realize that this approach probably helps some, but was a disaster for me personally.” Dr. Eades also concluded the same thing with his patients that Dr. Mercola did, “Interestingly, we both observed the same results, namely that large numbers of sick people failed to improve when they implemented vegetarian or vegan diets.  Many of these patients significantly worsened and nearly died. Many even left our practices because they lost faith in our ability to use diet as a tool to help them regain their health. What we both realized after these well-intentioned efforts is that . . . There is No Perfect Diet that Works for Everyone.”

I too can personally substantiate similar results.  When, 20 years ago, I went on Weight Watcher’s Fat and Fibre Diet, eliminating most all fats from my diet, I became so sick and hypoglycemic, I almost died.  In fact, my sugars measured so low during a fasting blood test, I passed out, having to be revived by the nurses and doctors in the clinic.  The doctor told me that I was measured at less than 1 and that 0 was death.

Arcanum’s own Jeff Korentayer is also an “O” blood type and lived as a vegetarian for 8 years, causing a host of symptoms he still has to manage including a permanently damaged thyroid and an enlarged goitre.  He still can feel a compromise in energy on occasion and needs regular doses of iodine to keep his system bolstered.

Mercola goes on to say, “It is sad to see that many staunch vegans and vegetarians fail to even acknowledge that anyone is designed to have animal protein.  Unfortunately they are able to convince many with seemingly compelling information like Campbell’s China Study and as a result, many people continue to suffer from not including vital nutrients in their diet — nutrients they were designed to eat. 

Ultimately, if you are sincerely honest and seek to understand what diet is best for you, it is my recommendation to abandon any previously held convictions you might have about diet and listen to your body.” While “A” Blood Types will generally do well with a mostly vegetarian fare, a “B” blood type thrives on foods higher in purine like lamb, venison and rabbit.  They also thrive on raw dairy.  Again, I will often hear fears towards this super food that has been consumed safely for over 6,000 years.  Dr. Mercola suggests, “My recommendation to everyone is to try cheeses made from raw milk and compare them to cheeses made from pasteurized milk. I’m willing to bet that most of you would agree the taste of raw cheese is far superior. This is so well known, no self-respecting cheesemaker would ever choose pasteurized milk over raw when making cheese, because the properties are entirely different – it’s basically damaged goods.” Enzymes and nutrients are actually destroyed in the pasteurization process, although necessary to protect folks from harmful bacterias associated with cows wrongly fed on brewer’s yeast and treatment with antibiotics for infections in udders and hooves, indicative of cash farming.  A lot of your pasteurized milk from grocery stores comes from cows who have never seen the light of day, standing in their own feces for hours at a time causing them to suffer hoof rot.  My friend and raw dairy farmer, Michael Schmidt, who raises cows naturally, walking them to pasture year round after every milking,  states that you want to pasteurize the milk that comes from cash farming as it would be dangerous to consume otherwise.

In summation, it is best to eat based on typology and science as opposed to fad or belief.  One humorous example of this can be found in the Guinness World Book of Records, where you can find a story about a man who ate an alarming amount of metal over a two year span. Until he died in 2007, France’s Michel Lotito had eaten two pounds of metal every day for more than 40 years, and he still holds the Guinness record for the world’s “strangest diet.” To cement his title, he dismantled a 1,111-pound Cessna 150 airplane and ate it — piece by piece — over two years. Apparently though, bananas and hard-boiled eggs made him sick to his stomach.  This is just an example that it takes a strong sense of self to be able to metabolize any type of food.  We can make it easier on ourselves by eating out of knowledge, typology, and resonance in order to maximize our health before we start working on eating a Cessna!

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