All the human organs have a store of natural reserve energy. Usually, they work at a quarter of their potential capacity, keeping the rest of their energy for later use in a special emergency or during old age.
Thus, in “normal” circumstances the pulse rate of the heart is 70-72 beats per minute (while that of a raw-eater is only 58-62), which in exceptional circumstances may be raised to over 200 beats per minute.
Again, during normal respiration 500 c.c. of air passes into and out of the lungs, but by a special respiratory effort we can inspire as much as 3700 c.c.
The raw-eater makes use of his digestive organs at one-quarter their potential capacity, as a result of which his organs are never overloaded or fatigued.
The cooked-eater, on the other hand, after stimulating his appetite by means of conditioned reflexes, irritating spices, aperitifs and other absurd stimulants, fills his stomach to such an extent that the digestive organs are forced to bring into action all their reserve energies and even then they are unable to cope with the demand placed upon them.
Whereupon man is forced to return the loathsome food by the same channel as he sent it down or to expel it from his intestines with purgatives.
Surprisingly, enough such nauseating acts are not considered strange by a cooked-eater.
By the overloading of the digestive organs a great many accessory organs are set to work, too, such as the heart, the liver and the kidneys. The additional work performed by these organs soon has the effect of tiring them out and putting them out of action prematurely. It is not surprising, therefore, that as a result one’s life is shortened several times.
By feeding on useless, harmful and poisonous substances the food-addict gratifies his passions, paralyses the action of his stomach, and creates for himself the illusion of being satisfied, whereas his cells are, in reality, moaning with hunger for lack of essential nutrients.
The stomach of a raw-eater is always at rest, even though it is generally empty, but his body is indeed full and satisfied in the true sense of the word.
When a cooked-eater decides to change over to raw-eating, at first he never feels satisfied, no matter how much he eats. Usually instead of feeling happy, food-addicts feel discontented with that condition.
In their opinion, the reason for their continuous hunger lies in the fact that the foodstuffs which they consume are of low nutritional value and are worthless as nourishment. This is a terrible misconception. On the contrary, those foodstuffs are both nutritious and fully-balanced. The human cells have suffered for years from their absence.
The capacities of the human digestive organs fully correspond to their composition and the arrangement of their constituents.
That is why the stomach gladly welcomes those foodstuffs, softens them quickly and passes them to the intestines without much delay, while the cells in their own turn, emaciated and weakened as they are with starvation, avidly absorb those valuable substances and repeatedly demand more and more of them.
The diseased cells are healed, the emaciated ones recuperate, the inactive regain their vitality. The fat cells, on the other hand, begin to melt away through starvation, the accumulations of poisons gradually disappear and the superfluous water leaves the body.
Then normal, active cells take the place of those sluggish cells that were fattened with indolence and inaction. The quick loss in the weight of the body is a sure sign of regained health and vigor.
This fact should fill the heart of a man with joy and happiness. For those nutrients immediately spread throughout his body and grant him health, strength, vigor and energy. It is the first time in his life that although all his organs and glands obtain a most copious supply of nourishment, they are able to work in comfort and ease.
Even if on that day, he takes a greater quantity of raw food than his organism requires, or his intestines and cells are able to absorb, his stomach will not refuse it, nor will it generate in him a feeling of nausea, causing him to expel it with violence and force.
The foodstuffs in excess of his normal needs will not stay in the stomach to cause putrefaction; they will not be turned into poisons or bring about any digestive disorders.
Instead, without undergoing digestion they will at once pass form the stomach into the intestines and will then leave the body with the feces on that very day, not having caused the least harm to the organism.
Thus, his stomach will always be light, while his intestines and his blood will be loaded with fully-balanced nutrients.
Then in such a moment, let him just try to eat a few morsels of cooked food. His stomach will indignantly refuse those strange and unwanted substances. In spite of the extreme pleasure that his palate feels, those morsels will lie in his stomach for a long time, they will act as a stopper to close his appetite and will paralyze the normal course of his digestive activities.
But a cooked-eater is quite contented and happy with that condition, because he has satisfied his passions, he has stuffed his stomach and is now “full.”
The man who realizes the value of raw-eating dreads that condition. He fully comprehends that it is the raw vegetable nutriments that nourish the body, while the dead corpses that come out of the fire are mere fuels, and sources of various poisons and diseases.
Human Nourishment Should Consist of Living Cells and Not Corpses of Dead Cells
Fully-balanced foodstuffs consist of living cells. Now vegetable bodies, after leaving the earth, remain alive for a long time. A rosebud continues to blossom in a vase, while grains sprout on being planted years after they are gathered. But the cells of animals that are killed or those of milk that is removed from their bodies die at once, and then they begin to disintegrate and turn into poisons, while cooking converts them into something really terrible.
To regard animal proteins as superior to vegetable proteins is a most unfortunate error of judgment, a manifest proof of the short[1]sightedness of meat-worshipping biologists.
If we admit that the animal organism transfers vegetable proteins and turns them into fully-balanced nutrients, then the flesh of those animals such as foxes, wolves, dogs, cats and tigers that feed on such “fully-balanced” proteins should be of the highest nutritive value; whereas the poisonous character of the flesh of such beasts is so obvious that even the most devoted meat addict does not dare to feed on it.
Those biologists who are urged by their personal predilection to look for special advantages in meat, in discovering the so-called irreplaceable amino acids have not taken into consideration the act that those amino acids are formed from the commonest grasses consumed by animals.
By what rule of science has the organism of a cow the capacity to make amino acids from the meanest weeds and grasses, but the organism of a man has not the means to prepare the same compounds from vegetable foodstuffs of the highest nutritive quality? How do millions of Buddhists live in the absence of the amino acids provided by meat?
Short-Sightedness Is the Greatest Defect of Medical Science
The greatest mistake of biologists who are addicted to cooked food is their short[1]sightedness. They close their eyes to those harms that appear small and do not foresee the serious consequences that sooner or later result from seemingly negligible causes.
Let us illustrate our statement by a few examples. Cooked meals, especially meat dishes, are full of poisons. Now, nobody takes any notice of the chronic poisoning that goes on imperceptibly all the time and even when as a result of such poisoning the liver, the heart or the kidneys are damaged in time, the condition is attributed to unknown causes.
When the poisoning is still severer and is accompanied with diarrhea and vomiting, it is regarded as a gastric disorder. By poisoning they understand only that condition which affects the whole organism and threatens the victim with immediate death. How many innocent lives are sacrificed in this way!
Men do not see the filth that passes into their arteries and veins through the medium of food every day, and when it sits layer after layer on the walls of the vessels, narrows their passages and suddenly stops the circulation of the blood one day, short-sighted people regard the occurrence as “unexpected.”
Men do not notice the terrific pressure exerted by heavy floodwaters rushing towards a mammoth dam that has a capacity of millions of tons. But when that dam, tottering for long under the impact of those floodwaters, collapses at last, the cause of its final breakdown is ascribed to the stone that was accidentally thrown at it by a little child. We have already seen the correct conception that a raw-eater holds as to the causes of cancer.
Against this, the 400 “carcinogenic agents” presented to us by research scientists, who are addicted to cooked food, among which there are such items as mechanical irritations and cigarette burns, have no greater value than the stone thrown by the child.
Every organ has millions of cells by the concerted labors of which the work of that organ is carried on. When the nourishment forced up on those cells lacks certain essential constituents, the cells begin to lose their vitality and fall into disuse.
The energy reserves now come into the field, but they, too, are soon exhausted. So long as the organ carries on its functions somehow or other, short-sighted people do not see the red light; but when at last it lags behind in its activities, they say that such an organ is ill and have recourse to medicines.
But, is it possible that a little pill or a dose of poison could ever replace the nutritive constituents of foodstuffs that have been burned over fire for years on end and return to the disabled cells their lost capacity for specialized work?
After lying in the alimentary canal for days, masses of meat, eggs, butter and cheese undergo putrefaction and cause inflammation of the intestines, the most common symptom of which is diarrhea. But when a child does actually show signs of diarrhea, the whole blame is placed on a few fruit skins seen in the feces.
Nobody asks how fruit-skins can cause any inflammation in the bowels of the child when, without undergoing any putrefaction or decay, they leave the body unchanged within a few hours of their entry. The whole tragedy arises from the fact that people regard eggs, meat, butter and cheese as normal and essential foodstuffs, but fruit as something secondary, which may be either eaten or not eaten. Sometimes, it is even considered necessary to forbid children to eat fruit so as “not to put their stomach out of order.”
A. T. Hovannessian