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The Beyond Veg Litmus Test: Taking yourself a bit too seriously these days? You'll know soon enough once you've made your way through the...

29
Common Reasons Why
Your Vegetarian Diet Isn't Working


a cataloguing of 18 years of
conversation with the faithful
--or--
some fond remembrances from
someone who has been there

Satire by Wardolfski
Copyright © 1993 by Ward Nicholson. All rights reserved.
Contact author for permission to republish.


1. You haven't reached the magic 2-year mark yet. (Or if you have, then you haven't reached the 11-year mark yet...) If you aren't getting results, you simply haven't been on the program long enough. Just hang in there awhile longer. (After all, natural methods take more time.)

2. You aren't sick, you're just going through a healing or detox crisis. There is no such thing as being sick if you're doing the program right. When you are getting better the body has more energy for "toxic elimination episodes." Be patient, wait it out some more. (And some more, and some more...)

3. If you are feeling bad, that's actually good. It means your body is making needed adjustments and detoxifying years of bad habits that have gunked your body up. Do you really expect that to feel good? The worse you feel the better you are getting, and the more it means needed good things are happening to set your body straight.

4. You aren't trying hard enough. You just gotta have more discipline and be more pure! Even one chocolate bar a year could be too much junk and block your body from succeeding.

5. You're trying TOO hard. You could be doing everything right, but if your mental attitude is too uptight your body won't be given the chance to heal properly.

6. You've got bad heredity or weren't breastfed long enough. The damage has been done. (You poor sucker.)

7. If your body is adversely reacting to things more than before, it is only because you are becoming more refined and sensitive. Don't forget, the more cleaned-out you get, the less your body can handle the bad stuff--which is as it should be. Your body is trying to tell you something: you should take the hint and move to Guam where you won't have to be bothered by anything at all.

8. You're not doing things the RIGHT WAY (which is the ONE TRUE WAY I subscribe to). You should be eating more fruit in your diet--humans were originally fruitarian, you know. And fasting for 7 days really isn't long enough--you've got to go for at least 10 to 14 days to get into the truly rejuvenative phase. Also, you're eating too many dead, cooked foods--gotta eat more live, raw stuff. But some people should try LESS fruit in their diet--too much can wreak havoc with your blood sugar making you tired all the time. Or DON'T fast at all--perhaps your reserves are too low and you need to rebuild your body first before you ought to attempt any fasting. Or maybe you need to try MORE cooked foods like potatoes and squashes in your diet--you can't get enough energy from an all-raw diet, the calories just aren't there.

9. You need to be combining your proteins correctly. All essential amino acids have to be present at the same meal to ensure utilization. Combine beans with rice, potatoes with pasta, papayas with pumpkins, and so on.

10. Nope, don't do that, because if you are combining proteins with starches like potatoes and pasta, none of it will digest efficiently. Different foods require different digestive secretions which are sometimes incompatible. You need to be combining foods for best DIGESTION, not for PROTEIN complementarity. Besides, more modern research has shown the existence of a recirculating amino acid pool in the body that makes protein combining obsolete.

11. You're not getting enough trace minerals. Modern farming methods have eroded and stripped our topsoil and depleted it of essential elements. Spend more money on premium-priced organic foods raised with regenerative agriculture.

12. Grow your own SPROUTS! It's the only way you can ensure you're getting REALLY live, unadulterated foods with a high vitamin content.

13. No, you should eat ALGAE instead! Sprouts grown in jars aren't getting the benefit of minerals in soil or if they are grown in trays the soil is probably depleted. Algae is the richest source of all known elements since everything drains into the lakes and oceans including the topsoil destroyed by modern farming.

14. Pollution. You can't expect to feel perfect if you live in a city.

15. You need to move to the tropics. The human species originally evolved there and is not suited for the temperate zones everyone lives in now.

16. You're overlooking the crucial importance of vigorous exercise. Get out and walk, run, bicycle, swim, do aerobics, whatever. (But don't breathe the city air if you live there.) You can't expect to have energy if you don't exert it.

17. Huh-uh. You're doing TOO MUCH exercise! Anything more than slow walking is excessive. The body wasn't meant to run long distances or do unnatural exercises like bicycling that weren't around when the species was evolving. Too much peak performance depletes you and siphons off energy the body could be using for healing purposes. Walking is better than running, sitting better than standing (causes varicose veins), reclining or frequent napping best of all. (Remember, cats sleep 18 to 20 hours a day, and look at the bursts of energy they are capable of.) Be nice to yourself, slow down, relax, sleep more, do nothing.

18. Modern life is too stressful. Quit your job, learn to meditate. In general, tune in, turn on, drop out, and trust things to come to you. If you love enough, the universe will support you. If it won't, it's proof you're selfish and thinking about yourself too much.

19. Insecticides and herbicides are poisoning you. Make sure to wash your produce carefully!

20. You might be low on vitamin B-12 so DON'T wash your produce! When eating natural unwashed produce you get B-12 from the microorganisms in the dirt on it. Since vegetarians don't get B-12 from animal sources, and all B-12 is ultimately manufactured by bacteria anyway, it's important not to wash your food TOO carefully.

21. Drink only distilled water. Even bottled spring water has inorganic minerals dissolved in it that the body can't assimilate and that will only clog up your system. Distilled water leaches out toxins and helps purify your system.

22. No, no, no! You shouldn't be drinking ANY distilled water! It's artificially man-made and like a solvent that ROBS your body of important minerals. Drink spring water!

23. Wait! Don't drink any water at all--eat a high-water-content diet! Humans are NOT drinking animals. (Do we lap like dogs? Of course not!) Having to drink any water at all is a pathological sign. If you eat enough fresh fruits and vegetables you will get all the water your body needs, and in a purified form perfect for your body.

24. You might be getting too much protein at the expense of carbohydrates in your diet. Protein doesn't give you energy--carbohydrates do! Human breast milk is only 5% protein--and growing babies do fine on it! Too much protein requires calcium to metabolize the excess, which robs your bone reserves and leads to osteoporosis anyway. Don't worry about protein, focus on carbs!

25. You may need to add several ounces of nuts or seeds to your diet since you might NOT be getting adequate protein. Vegetarians have pooh-poohed protein for too long. Newer research shows it really is important after all. Nuts and seeds are the only ALL-RAW high-protein source.

26. You shouldn't be eating ANY nuts and seeds. Actually, you can get enough protein without them if you are doing other things right. And in addition to causing all that bad mucus, nuts and seeds overstimulate the sexual system, leading to excessive sexual activity (any is probably too much) which drains your energy.

27. You're eating too much. Overeating is the worst dietary sin and overwhelms the digestive system so it can't absorb nutrients efficiently. Also, since even the best of nature's foods have naturally occurring levels of toxins, you should eat as little as you possibly can of them to make sure you aren't ingesting anything more than is absolutely necessary.

28. You're probably not eating enough. Many vegetarians get too few calories because they don't eat enough. If you eat mostly all raw foods, it is impossible to overeat anyway.

29. You aren't spiritual enough. Finally, never forget that vegetarianism is an entire way of life. You can't focus just on food and expect to get complete results. Only people who are really evolved can be vegetarians.


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