drug (noun): any exogenous substance, other than water or air, that when introduced into one's body is not recognised by the body as food and which alters one's mental and/or bodily processes


Nutrition:​

There are many ways, many researches, many studies made up about diet... Here we try to extract from it something useful, but the key is to not to overcomplicate it. Living closer to the nature gives you many keys to try, to feel you body's needs and to experiment with new things. We have to be flexible and aware of what is being processed through our bodies, as its also affecting our energetic essence and the whole environment around us. Growing selected foods and mainly superfoods is one of the basic steps. Adapting to different climates, lifestyles and individual body needs is another thing, so it's not about some stable dogmatic rules, as nothing is stable in the cosmos, neither in our bodies nor our environment. Classic permaculture production models and diets, even in only vegan forms, will be very different in the tropics than closer to the poles. Transporting food over large distances is nonsense and not environmentally-friendly, so we know that we must eat mostly local stuff. What if there is not much vegetation growing here, or what if there is almost nothing that can grow here?? ...Then we should maybe live somewhere else. Here at 600 meters above mean sea level, our microclimate of mild super-humid tropical weather affected by the foggy humid mountain slopes is special. Not many classic vegetables, but rather many very strange fruits abound. This is a worthy challenge and an opportunity to adapt and shatter the traditional diet concepts. So we are breaking through, as we'd otherwise be buying stuff brought from other climates that is not even organic. Local food will even help you to adapt to the local climate and nature – the body will recognize where it is and will better react and function in challenging situations. We are planting strange fruit trees (producing or not) and unusual foods that in many cases cannot even be categorized or named in basic food groups, finding different edible leaves and sprouts, and being creative but simple. It's all about balancing... not easy but fun and a learning experience...

...And so we have learned, through too much suffering and dis-ease, that disregarding our physiology and rationalising suboptimal habits does not change the needs of the body and of the mind. Try as we might, we can deny this simple fact no longer: The single form of alimentation perfectly suited to the human organism, offered freely and with zero negative side-effects, is whole, fresh, ripe, raw fruit.

Fasts and cleanses and fruit festival retreats make poor substitutes for a healthy everyday diet. Fats, proteins, and starches make poor substitutes for sugar. We have found these truths to be self-evident. It has been said that the four nucleobases of DNA are the building blocks of life. If that is the case, then so too are glucose, fructose, maltose, and sucrose the building blocks of a diet fit to sustain our life. How convenient for us that the angiosperms have packaged these and countless other essential nutrients into a ready-to-eat[1] morsel that requires no adulteration or modification!

Despite its propensity toward a frugivorous alimentation, the body is highly adaptable and can take nourishment from many sources if fruit is scarce. Leaves, sprouts, seeds, and all manner of tender plant parts can be utilised by the body to nourish itself if necessary. Digestion is more difficult, and the nutrient content is not aligned as well with the needs of the body or mind, but consumption of these suboptimal foods does not seem to cause any acute negative effects so long as they are in their fresh, raw form. However, should a processed, heated, denatured, adulterated substance be introduced to the body, it is digested not as food, but as foreign invader. Unlike raw foods in their fresh form, cookery and other denatured substances trigger the immune system to respond to the presence of its proteins which are not recognised by the body as food[2]. Poor assimilation of nutrients (despite generally easier digestion), a feeling of heaviness, more "cloudy" thinking, constipation, dehydration, excess mucous, tooth decay[3], and many other issues can and do result from the short-term and long-term consumption of these non-foods. As such, these substances can be properly classified as drugs, which have no place in a healthy lifestyle except perhaps when necessary in certain medical emergencies.

Nutrition is simple. Does it hydrate you? Is it sweet? Does the colour pop out to you? Do you feel more energised after eating it? Sophisticated claims of health benefits are made by marketing agencies every day, but nutrition really is as simple as eating a variety of whole, fresh, ripe, raw fruits.

...more coming soon(er or later).

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[1] Some fruits do require additional time to soften before consumption.
[2] The immune system recognises all substances, friend or foe, by their proteins, which are irreversibly altered by temperatures as low as 46°C, by extremes of pH, or by irradiation.
[3] Starch is the primary (dietary) cause of tooth decay, as unlike sugar, it does not fully dissolve in saliva and therefore adheres to teeth and ferments. See "Cereals and Tooth Decay" in Ross Horne's Improving on Pritikin: You Can Do Better (Chapter Ten, page 128) for more information. This effect may be exacerbated when starch is mixed with fat, or when the body is circulating the acidic metabolites of toxic substances.

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Body and Soul Hygiene:

Forget about your shampoo, toothpaste, creams and all the cosmetic industries... There is absolutely NO need for that if you live in the nature... It's all here around us. We are experimenting with various homemade washing mixes and many times just using simple river water.

Thoughts and emotions... hmmm... transforming, cleansing, staying present, meditating, activating, and more... Easy to say... but it doesn't make much sense to pursue health by eating well only to disregard this. It's not so much about doing, and no overcomplicated ceremonies and techniques are needed. The most essential things are not complicated. Breathe...​

...These ideas are not new. For most of human existence, there were no soaps, creams, pills, potions, moisturisers, electronic brain-wave activators... Perhaps first practised in "modern" human history by Pythagoras of Samos and described at length many centuries later by Herbert Shelton, what we are discussing here is Natural Hygiene. This science of biologic law is the study and application of demonstrable facts regarding health and illness and of the laws that govern and connect these facts. Natural Hygiene posits that nearly all human ailments are the result of ignorance or willful disobedience of the laws of one's own biology. The solution offered by Natural Hygiene consists not of the treatment of symptoms using experimental substances, but rather of providing the body and mind with what is lacking or by reducing or removing what is present in excess. What aligns with the needs of the organism? Fruit, fresh air, sunlight, intention, physical activity, rest... The relationships are often highly complex, yet the application is so simple.

...more next time...


Why?:

From the first philosophers in ancient Greece, minds such as Thales, Heraclitus, and Pythagoras tried to find a single commonality which connects all of existence. They all posited that everything must be connected to everything else. This concept of integration has become an essential tool for all thinkers, for it is only through finding connections in conscious experience that we may abstract from the concretes to form our own concepts. These concepts in turn guide our decision-making. What is there to decide? Existence exists. Sentient beings experience existence and must survive within it. Every being and every thing has a particular nature that gives it an identity. By identifying (determining the nature of) what we experience, we can begin to integrate experiences into concepts. In making decisions, these concepts are weighed against the standard of our own individual pleasure, which must include our survival and well-being. Decisions are necessarily a matter of preference, and the only basic preference is that of pleasure rather than suffering. While the term "pleasure" has been used by some to describe only shallow sensory pleasure, lasting but a moment and of little to no long-term benefit to anyone, we use the term here to mean pleasure in the most pure sense: the bliss of physical and psychological well-being, freedom from suffering, an inner sense of satisfaction, and all experiences of love and deeper fulfillment. (To put it another way, we mean something closer to Epicureanism than to the hedonism of Jeremy Bentham.)

The idea of "rational selfishness" or "rational egoism" simply takes into account that the standard against which all commoner things are judged is and must be one's own life, one's own nature, one's own pleasure first. It should NOT be confused with the nihilism of the so-called "selfishness" or "egoism" typical to mainstream industrial society, which is usually nothing more than the reckless pursuit of momentary sensory pleasures above all else. "Rational selfishness" considers the full range of effects and consequences of any object or action and how they affect the individual themself in both the immediate moment and long-term. This is the only course of action for a successful thinker in this universe, save for survival by random chance. If one's own life is the standard, then of course nothing else can be as valuable as one's own life. It is therefore paramount to take care of oneself first and foremost, for without oneself, one has nothing. Wanting to help others to increase their pleasure depends first on helping oneself. Fulfilling a desire to help others triggers one's own satisfaction/pleasure and deeper fulfillment, encouraging further participation in the pleasures and well being of other living forms.

Once survival is taken care of, it soon becomes clear that certain behaviours favour pleasure and minimise suffering more than others. If one's basic preference is for pleasure over suffering, then it follows that suffering, a subjective experience of the sentient individual, is undesirable in whichever form it occurs. The universe is a vast expanse of unfeeling space, but each of the countless sentient creatures experiences suffering when harm befalls them. This could be considered the very definition of harm. Veganism, which seeks to reduce the suffering of these sentient creatures as much as reasonably possible, therefore strikes the most preferable balance in terms of increased pleasure and decreased suffering, even if only due to the sheer number of creatures involved. Veganic agroforestry is a step further, increasing one's own pleasure by providing basic needs such as food, the joy of optimal health, building materials, and a suitable environment in which to live, while at the same time minimising suffering for oneself (from malnutrition, from stress, from unsuitable conditions...) and others (from habitat loss, from fruit scarcity, from predation...) in a way that industrialised non-food production never could. It also creates an entire self-sustaining ecosystem comprised of and home to many living forms...

This is a much-simplified account of just one of the many thought processes that brought us to veganic agroforestry. May it start you along the same path...



Note that we try to learn what we can from whatever source we can. In no way are we suggesting that ALL of the ideas or behaviours of any person or group are worth adopting. Any inaccuracies or recommendations that lead to net-suffering are those of their respective authors. That being said...

Recommended Reading:

Natural Hygiene: Man's Pristine Way of Life by Herbert Shelton
Orthotrophy by Herbert Shelton
The 80/10/10 Diet by Douglas Graham
Improving On Pritikin: You Can Do Better by Ross Horne

Béchamp or Pasteur? A Lost Chapter in the History of Biology by Ethel Douglas Hume
Left in the Dark / Return to the Brain of Eden by Tony Wright and Graham Gynn
Global Burden of Disease study: #1 cause of preventable death is not eating enough fruit
Destination Eden: Fruitarianism Explained by Mango Wodzak
The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand