I received a letter today that caused me to be filled with words and thoughts faster than I could ever begin to speak them, much less write them. I'll leave the identity of the author of the letter private since I'm not sure they would wish me to be screaming their name from the roof-tops. Just because, let's called this friend Chelsea. (I'm choosing them name because I don't personally know someone by the name of Chelsea, but I like the name.)
Chelsea opens her letter by saying:
"This is one of those questions I'm almost afraid to ask, because everyone means well but Gods can it spark a fight.
"I recently read of one couple who were jailed for the murder of their infant. The infant died of malnutrition because they were vegans so they refused to feed their baby anything but apple juice and soy milk."
Right there at the start I was set on fire with many responses. Before I could even bare to read further I began to furiously type out my reply:
"What idiots would feed their baby soy milk and apple juice? For one thing, soy milk isn't even good for you. Secondly, I'm planning on breast-feeding my baby for the first year, if not a bit into the second year. There is no comparison from pasteurized store-bought apple juice and genetically-modified degraded cooked soy milk to raw fresh home-made nutrient-rich green smoothies. Just no comparison at all.
"Second thought is, I wasn't vegan before I went raw. Eating meat or not is a fairly minor point when it comes to how healthy you are. People who go crazy for soy products are just replacing one fairly unhealthy thing (processed meat) with another fairly unhealthy thing (processed soy.)"
After typing that much out, I went on reading Chelsea's letter:
"Now, from reading this article and a few others, I'm led to believe it wasn't so much what they fed the child, but that they fed him far too little and never took him to a doctor.
"I don't believe there's any one right way to raise a child. But I know the human body needs certain nutrients to grow and be productive. Most people who choose a vegetarian or vegan diet (I tend to stick you in the vegan category. I know you're into the raw foods thing and you're trying to do it for 3 full months, which to me equals a raw detox diet then a return to the vegan lifestyle. Possibly not so true but it's how I think.) make sure that they supplement the nutrients that they are loosing with their other food choices. I know a vegetarian who didn't do that once and she was always sick and loosing her hair and stuff because her body didn't have the nutrients it needed. But most do take the time to research what they need to replace in order to live healthy. "
Once again I immediately began to write out my reply to this part, before continuing on. It's one reason I write such long replies to people's letters -- when something strikes me as reply worthy, I reply that part in full first, before reading on. I replied to that part:
"A vegan who is losing their hair is undoubtedly eating too much soy. Almost all the soy crops in the world are owned by Monsanto, a company that started out a manufacturer of chemicals, namely RoundUp - a chemical that kills everything. They got into genetic modification of plants and started altering plants to not die when sprayed with the highly toxic RoundUp. Bugs who eat these GMO crops die. Tell me that's healthy. And that is what the soy stuff is. GMO-soy crap. I don't eat ANY soy or corn, because I never know if it's contaminated. Very little soy and corn in the world is still natural the way nature made it."
Chelsea's letter continues:
"It got me thinking about you and whether or not you ever wanted kids and about your choices and how those choices affect others. Mostly, I thought about how as teenagers or adults, we think through what we need to do if we change our lifestyle. But small children and especially infants don't have that choice and they need a lot of nutrients to grow properly.
"My wondering was whether or not you think that, as a parent, regardless of your lifestyle, whether you should force that on your child? I can see being a vegan parent but knowing that your child needs more and letting them come to the decision to join you or not. I understand it might compromise your beliefs, but is that something you should force on your offspring? Like religion or political stance, should it be something you live with under your parents until you make the choice to stop, or should you make the choice to do it as you grow older?"
My reply continues:
I would not do anything to my children that may hurt them. Soy and corn may hurt them.
It's been revealed that potatoes go through a chemical change when cooked that caused free radicals to be formed which are toxic to the body. So I wouldn't eat them, or feed them to my children.
Many studies show (and many people I know personally, including my husband) that drinking pasteurized milk is harmful. This is because it alters the enzymes required to digest the milk. These chains of amino acids that have been altered are no longer able to be broke-down by the body and are not recognized as food by the body, which is what caused allergies to milk products in many people. I have met over nine people personally (and read about countless others) who switched to un-cooked milk and discovered they were not lactose-intolerant after all. So I wouldn't feed my children pasteurized milk, or drink it myself. However, I don't drink raw milk either, since I don't see it as being a highly beneficial thing to drink. I'm sure when men were hunters and gatherers they didn't go around sucking on cow udders.
Most fish are shown to have high levels of mercury. I've seen videos that show ho brain cells are destroyed my mercury. I've actually been seriously poisoned with mercury before (I bit a thermometer with mercury in it at a young age), and I suffered symptoms of it for years of my life. Many people have gotten those same symptoms from amalgam tooth-fillings also know as "silver fillings" including my mother. It causes serious damage that takes years of recovery. Many people have gotten over the "safe" amount of mercury from fish alone. So I am dubious of feeding my children any fish, and I abstain from eating fish.
Because all of the air we breath in America (and many places in the world besides) is tainted with jet fuel, we are all in constant need of detoxification. The most potent way to get rid of toxins from the body is combining the following: not eating refined sugar in any quantity (because this hampers the body's natural ability to rid itself of toxins), eating plenty of fruit and vegetable fiber (in order to flush things out of the intestines), drinking lots and lots of water (because dehydration causes every part of the body to work less efficiently) and getting large amounts of nutrients and enzymes which can only be found in high density within dark green plants such as kale, chard, various forms of sea-greens, broccoli, etc. So, as a result, I would feed my children accordingly in order for them to flush toxins out of their bodies that they will breath in every day of their life.
I wouldn't force any religious beliefs on my children. My parents took me to multiple different churches so that I could get a wide source of information and make my own choices, and I intend to do the same for my children.
My parents have explained to me the republican standpoint, the democratic standpoint, libertarian, progressive, etc. They told me the pros and cons as best as they could and then left the final choice up to me, and I will do the same for my kids.
But feeding my children things that will make them unhealthy and sick and miserable like I was growing up makes them less able to do anything at all. Without your health you have no freedom of choice, you have no ability to choose anything for yourself whatsoever. Being sick means being in bed. Being sick means foggy thoughts. Being ill means you can't do what you want, regardless. So no, I won't give my children the choice to go and eat what other American children are eating because it will make them have an array of chronic disorders.
If they want to get into music, that's fine. If they want to become a lawyer, that's fine. If they want to get circumcised (when they are old enough to choose that for themselves) that's okay. If they want to get their ears pierced, that's fine too. They can declare themselves any religion. They can love whomever they like. They can decide to live as bums on the street if they want. I will support them and help them achieve their goals whether they are writing books, or selling cameras. But when it comes to feeding them poison, I won't do it. I'd be an idiot to know what I know and then go ahead and give them candy, soda, monosodium glutamate, aspartame, splenda, maltodextrin, high fructose corn syrup, white flour, fried potatoes, diet foods, alternative foods like soy products, genetically modified products, conventional produce, etc. Not just an idiot, but a heartless idiot.
I want my children to be strong, healthy and able to do the most for themselves. For that, they must be sharp in their wits, and have the full use of their body. They can do that if they have candida, diabetes, attention deficit disorder, or some other "disease" that people claim is not curable, or only treatable through medication.
Chelsea's letter went on with the following appeal:
"One of the other things I thought of too is how the child is going to feel growing up. If you grow up in a house that allows nothing, and go to school and see kids eating burgers and the like, what do you think? I know I as a child always wanted what I couldn't have, which seems to be the norm for most kids. But how does that affect you? Do you make it off limits? You can't watch the child 24/7. Do you punish the child if you found out they ate a burger at school because they were curious? Or would that border on the realm of ridiculousness and in some cases cruelty?
"And think of the feelings of the child. To me, your child has more of a chance not only growing up feeling ostracized but the stricter your rules, the more likely you'll have a very rebellious teenager. Are you actually making parenting more difficult down the road?
"Okay, I'll stop rambling now, but I wanted another opinion."
And I replied the end of her letter thus:
As for the feelings of my child -- that's my greatest concern of all. I felt so alone as a kid because I was so constantly sick and absent from school. I felt alone because teachers and doctors accused me of lying, and of making my symptoms up. I was accused of "faking" my coughs, and "faking sick" to get out of school when inside I felt like every part of me was falling apart.
And nobody could help.
I was told time and time again that it was "all in my head" and that there was "nothing wrong" with me. I had to do years and years of research to get better, and to find happiness. I suffered from depression at the age of nine years old and my school required that I see a psychiatrist or attend a different school because they feared I might be a bad influence on the other children.
That is how I felt. I was miserable.
It was learning about foods that stimulate happiness and health that made my life good. I will do the same for my children. I will teach them to never take anything anyone tells them for granted, not even what I tell them. They must research for themselves as well. They must always question, always seek the truth, always research and ask questions, questions, questions. If we're not relentless in seeking the truth, then we will be decieved, and will suffer from it, as I did. So many things that I thought were true that were not true. If I had known, so many years of suffering would not have happened.
If you read through my health blog, you'll see that I am relentless in the search for answers and for truth now. I have no interest in hype or the opinion of just one or two people. I don't care what the FDA says because they've been proven time and time again to be liars. I disregard information found on websites selling their own products and piping them up to be hot stuff. Instead I read blogs by doctors, books by people who have recovered from serious illness, blogs by ordinary people writing their experiences who blog because they want to help others, not because they want to sell something.
I'm going to home school my children up until high school, so it is unlikely that they should happen to eat a burger at school. Even so, my response would not be to punish, but to educate. Obviously if the child wanted to eat a burger they must have had a reason to want to do it. I would first ask them why they wanted to eat it, before anything else. I'd ask them how they felt after eating it, if they wanted to eat another one in the future.
After asking them many questions and getting to the bottom of their motives and feelings, then I would share with them some of my experiences and research and probably prescribe watching a documentary that shows about meat in America is processed, such as Food Inc, or if they were old enough for the mature content, perhaps Fast Food Nation.
PS: I'm sorry my response was somewhat strong/harsh and not at all softened by my knowledge of who you are. I was anxious to go eat lunch, but wanted to finish writing the letter first, so I sorta spat out the facts as fast as they came to my head.
For lunch I had a home-made guacamole made from sunflower sprouts, tomato, tamatillos, bell pepper, hot pepper, avocado, lemon, cucumber, and lots of fresh onion. I had it on top of spinach and lettuce and a dehydrated cracker made up of sprouted sunflower seeds, celery, carrots, and other seeds and vegetables. Today I've also eaten two clementines, and drank four cups of tea made from fresh rosemary. I'm not exactly bragging about this, but just making the point that I eat a much more nutrient-dense diet than 90% (or more) of Americans. It's not just a choice between wearing red, blue or purple. It's not a choice between watching anime or reading fan-fiction. It's not the same as picking out the camera made in this country over the camera made in another country. It's more than that. It's choosing to not be ill, ever. That's huge. The impact makes ripples that last for years and years and years.
It's a tough debate for some folks, but the question is not whether or not you should feed your children meat. That is a very small question indeed. The bigger issues is within the importance of not feeding your children (or yourself) toxic junk-crap (aspartame, splenda, high fructose corn syrup, etc). A little meat, even if not the best quality, will not harm an otherwise healthy human. A dose of some of the toxic chemicals put into packaged foods however can cause significant damage even to someone who is otherwise quite healthy.
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