Healing with Nature

There is a guy named Brian Dunning who posts on a web site called skeptoid.com. He includes podcasts of every post. The one I am addressing here is number 28 posted on February 19, 2007 which pertains to Natural Hygiene. If you have not read or heard this then go to the article and read it or listen to the podcast here: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4028 then return to read my rebuttal.

For anyone who is already familiar with natural hygiene, this blog entry is a complete moot point as Brian is so off of the mark with this article that it is not even worth a rebuttal. For those who are less familiar with natural hygiene and who might be open to the article or even possibly believe it, this is for you.

First of all, Brian doesn’t understand natural hygiene at all. He stresses that natural hygiene’s basis is that medicine and vaccinations are harmful to the body and should be avoided. Never in the article does he ever mention that natural hygiene is a totally different lifestyle from the popular or standard lifestyle that the vast majority of people choose to live. Nothing is further from the truth.

Natural hygiene is a lifestyle that includes the avoidance of medical procedures, medications, herbs, supplements, and vaccinations. Avoiding these without living within the natural laws of nature is not at all natural hygiene and no hygienist would ever live the standard life and simply avoid medications unless they are in transition to a complete natural hygienic life.

Consuming toxins on a daily basis, not getting enough sleep, exercise, positive stimulation, sunshine and all the other necessary inputs that a natural hygienist requires and then refusing medical treatment doesn’t make any sense for one and second, doing so can actually be more harmful than helpful unless the person is ready to transition fully into a hygienic lifestyle. 

I am not saying that the medicines and medical procedures that people use are helpful, no, not at all, but I am saying that if a person is already so toxic that their body doesn’t know how to react to more toxins, then taking these medicines might make the person feel like they are recovering from whatever they were suffering from. It is only after these people detox and completely transition to a natural hygiene lifestyle that they should avoid toxins, many of which are called medicine, herbs, supplements, and vaccinations.

Also Brian fails to mention that everytime that someone ‘miraculously’ gets healed from a dis-ease that it was their body that healed them (in all cases, 100% of the time) and not the medicine or other modality. He seems to think that some medicines or other sources can actually do something helpful to the body that the body could not do itself. He fails to mention that adding the medicine will usually if not always actually get in the way of the body’s natural healing systems.

His example of getting a cut and applying some disinfectant can heal the cut faster and with less risk of infection has no references and there isn’t even a piece of evidence that this is a fact. He also never discusses the fact that someone who practices natural hygiene rarely if ever gets a serious illness in the first place. He also doesn’t mention that most hygienists will go through a period of fasting if and when there is a need to in order to heal any substantial illness or dis-ease.

Brian mentions that child mortality is to blame for a substantial increase in life expectancy over the years. He implies that this is due to child inoculations to prevent childhood dis-eases. Natural hygienists’ children rarely suffer from these childhood dis-eases as their body is non toxic and they do not harbor the environment internally that is attractive to the germs and mirobes that cause these dis-eases.

It is also mentioned that ‘modern day non-civilized native tribes’ lack access to modern medicine and thus are the only large groups ‘practicing natural hygiene’. This is a complete inaccuracy as most of these tribes do not practice natural hygiene at all, they only do not have access to modern medicines, which as I mentioned is not practicing natural hygiene by any means.

I also have no idea where he pulled that number of having a life expectancy of 34 years from. There are no references of how he arrived at that number, and even if it was correct, these tribes are not practicing natural hygiene so it really is nothing to do with natural hygiene at all.

Brian mentions that modern natural hygiene practitioners choose to become natural hygienists after they reached adulthood and therefore are past the vulnerable childhood years when they can contract dangerous and deadly childhood dis-eases. There is some truth to the first part as most children in the world are being raised by parents who have no idea about the laws of nature and natural hygiene.

It is not the children’s choice to be raised in such a toxic lifestyle at all. Still there are many parents who do live within the laws of nature and do practice natural hygiene and do raise their children with natural hygiene and most of these children are thriving beyond human belief. Many of them never even see one sick day in their life and never have the childhood inoculations or dis-eases, ever.

In summary, there is nothing in Brian’s article that even remotely refers to the actual natural hygiene lifestyle. He seemed to have made up a new definition of natural hygiene for his own purposes and then goes on to prove that it (the incorrect definition of natural hygiene) is not helpful. Even his arguments for this are full of holes and nothing is referenced. 

Anyone who actually knows what natural hygiene is and understands it will surely get a good laugh from this inaccurate folly of made up blunders. Thanks for the laugh, Brian, it will help my readers get one of the important factors necessary for living a natural hygiene lifestyle, laughter!

I’ve been meaning to write about this for the longest time. I have been a practising natural hygienist for more than 1 1/2 years already and when I first started on this journey I lost a few pounds (which is normal since I shed water weight). I heard many comments from people at that time about my weight. Most people would say that I lost too much weight and that people need some extra weight just in case they get sick. I have to say that this must be the most ridiculous idea that I have ever heard. Why would someone keep extra weight on their body just in case they get sick? What is that all about?

First of all the extra weight on most overweight people (if not all overweight people) is not always fat but water. The reason why overweight people retain water is to dilute the massive amounts of toxins that they choose to consume each and every day. Toxins are dangerous to the body and since there are so much of them and more are coming in every day there is no physical way to remove them as fast as they are coming in.

In self defense the only reasonable means to stay alive for the body is by diluting the toxins. The toxins do not go away as with removal but they do a lot less damage when they are diluted. This is similar to drinking alcohol. Alcohol is extremely toxic, it is a poison that kills most everything alive. If it is drunk in 100% pure form in any substantial amount the drinker will surely die. The reason why so many people drink alcohol but survive is because they do not drink it in it’s purest form.

There is not one type of drinking alcohol that is sold at 200 proof (100% pure), this will create huge law suits for the company supplying the drink as it will kill most consumers. The strongest alcoholic beverage I have ever heard of is about 150 proof (about 75% pure). This is still a strong poison but it is diluted enough that it still can be consumed and not kill the consumer.

The same ‘protection’ is used by the body to keep the toxins from killing it. The body dilutes them and retains this water in all of the cells of the body as long as the toxins are still present. This is what you will see on most overweight people (who by the way make up over 75% of the US population). These people are harboring so much toxic material in their body that their body is doing the only thing possible to stay alive which is retain water.

If you know someone who is overweight they will probably be thirsty a lot. They will generally drink a lot and that is where their body will get most of the water it needs to dilute their toxic material. If these same people choose to live a healthy lifstyle and follow a natural hygiene life, one of the first things they will notice is that their body will shed a lot of water weight. As long as the toxins are not coming in every day their body will see no need to retain a large amount of water and they will automatically lose most of the excess water weight relatively early on in their transition.

This proves that they were not retaining fat but water, sure there is also fat stored up in the body due to overconsumption of fatty food and complex carbohydrates as well as from other sources but most of the visible excess weight is due to water.

Natural hygienists believe that toxins are the primary cause of dis-eases. Most chronic and acute dis-ease is due to an imbalance of toxins in the body. That is there are too many toxins for the body to remove and these toxins cause dis-eases. If toxins cause dis-ease and being overweight is due to having too much toxins in the body which causes water retention, then why would someone want to have extra weight on their body just in case they get sick?

Wouldn’t it be much better to just have nearly no toxins in the body, be a normal weight and not worry about getting sick? Would someone who is nearly toxin free get sick if the toxins are the cause of dis-ease? Since the cause of sickness is toxins and extra weight is a symptom of having toxins in your body then this is a self-fulfilling prophecy isn’t it?

Keeping a little extra weight on you will ensure that you do get sick. It is absurd believing that extra weight can have any advantage to someone except if your goal was to get sick or worse. Anyone who believes in this myth needs to forget it and start living a healthy natural hygenic lifestyle, you will feel great, look great and not have to worry about getting sick, health is the absense of sickness.

This entire web site is devoted to the laws of nature. Several of the others postings have covered this topic to some degree but this one will explain more precisely what the laws of nature really are. What is an immutable law? Immutable means that there are no changes, once set or created there can never be modifications. The laws of physics for example are immutable because they explain how matter and energy interact no matter where it is in the universe, no matter how big or how small the objects are, no matter what other influences are existing at the time, they exist for both organic and inorganic matter in exactly the same way.

Most people fail to understand that the laws of nature are immutable, they are always the laws and they are constant through time and location. Before advanced life forms existed on earth the same laws of nature existed. Throughout the history of life on earth, the same laws of nature have always been in place. Nothing can or ever will change the laws of nature.

New discoveries, new technologies, new species, changes in the atmosphere, changes in the climate, etc. do not and will never change the laws of nature. Man can create all the pharmaceuticals possible, all the food additives possible, all the genetically modified food possible and still the laws of nature will not change. Medical technology will also never change the laws of nature. People might be able to create a machine that keeps a living organism alive for hundreds of years, but that will not change the laws of nature.

Life as we know it on earth is opportunistic in nature. This means that when there is a condition or environment that is formidable to a particular life form, the life form will find its way to exist in the environment, either by evolving into it or by transitioning from another environment. If the environment is stable enough for the life form, the life form will not just survive but it will thrive and flourish.

The important parts of all of this are the environmental inputs which must be the correct ones for the life form. This carries over for human life as much as any other life form. Humans must get certain environmental inputs in order to live, but in order to thrive and flourish they need stable and reliable inputs in sustainable amounts.

The inputs that a human needs to maintain life, which includes health are the following:

1. Good quality diet which the human digestive system can use without the expense of vast amounts of energy, science and archeological evidence prove that the ultimate human diet is a raw unprocessed diet that is comprised of mainly plant foods including ripe and fresh fruits, leaves, shoots and a few nuts and seeds with minute amounts of other forms of life like certain bacteria.
2. Exercise, humans as well as most advanced life forms need to continuously keep active. The muscular, skeletal, respiratory, and even nervous systems need to have activity on a daily basis to stay tuned and in good condition.
3. Mental state needs to be positive and there needs to be useful and meaningful thoughts and thought patterns. Long periods of negative thoughts or an idle mind can create health issues.
4. Positive relationships, humans are social beings and they need to have strong social relationships.
5. Sleeping is an often neglected activity in the modern world. Many people will opt to consume strong caffeinated foods or beverages in order to artificially have a feeling of being awake. This deprives the body of essential sleep which is the only way to refresh the body, regenerate and heal tissues and the mind.
6. Sunshine on exposed naked skin is critical to human health. Vitamin D as well as other essential nutrients are only manufactured by the body when it is exposed to the rays of the sun. The sun also helps with mental state and helps with many other functions throughout the body.
7. Rest is also an essential component of health. It is often over looked and many people will not take enough time to relax even when they have faced constant stress in their life.
8. Clean fresh air is essential as humans breath air.
9. Comfortable temperature in the range of 68 degrees fahrenheit to about 85 degrees fahrenheit.
10. A natural habitat where there are many kinds of natural species and beauty. Humans use their eyes which see in color for most of their senses of the outside world. A beautiful natural setting stimulates the brain and creates positive feelings.
11. Feelings of security and no fear of harm.

There are other environmental factors necessary for humans to thrive but these are some of the most important ones.

Our body is so well adjusted to the changes that have occurred in the past due to ice ages, natural disasters, fire, floods, and droughts that most of us can survive without these optimal inputs for a certain length of time. We can still stay alive without clean fresh air for a time or without easy to digest food for a while but if these sub-optimal conditions last for too long the body will suffer and dis-ease results. A thriving human must have a balance of all of these inputs available to them all the time.

The world’s environment today is such that getting the inputs that are necessary for thriving is nearly impossible. Most people live in large high density populated cities with low quality air, little if any natural areas. Most people consume a diet that is so far from the optimal human diet that it is a wonder they can even survive. Most people rarely exercise, have negative and dangerous relationships, work in a job that they hate, many smoke tobacco products, is it any wonder that humans seem to be having more and more chronic and acute illnesses and premature deaths? If you disobey the municipal law you might get caught and get fined but if you disobey the laws of nature you will have a much worse fine to pay.

Everyone knows that fruits contain sugar. Is that a surprise? Human’s have taste buds that cause us to enjoy the taste of sugar. Most young children love to eat fruit. Some adults will shun fruit because they damaged their taste buds with bad food selections for years. These bad foods include salt, spices, fats, grains, cooked food, onions, garlic, and other unhealthy food. Other issues are negative conditioning, many people hear negative information about sugar from the news, their doctor, their coworker, the neighbor, etc. There is a problem with most of the western societies when it comes to sugar as most people consume highly refined sugar and a lot of fat. This has caused a lot of health related problems such as diabetes, cancer, obesity, and heart and cardiovascular issues to name a few. Blaming fruit for these problems is like blaming the drug dealers for the drug user’s habit.

Fruit is the most natural food for humans and other primates. It is the most abundant kind of plant growing in the tropical regions of the earth, which is where humans and all the other primates originated from. If consuming fruits was dangerous and caused so many dreadful diseases there wouldn’t be the huge population we have today of humans on the earth.

Our ancestors had no other choice but to consume fruit as it was easy to find, there were no farms, no grains, no weapons to kill animals, and no other large sources of food available. Many of the high-fat, gourmet, superfood and toxin (condiment) filled diet supporters will warn of the terrible things that happen when one consumes fruit. Often they say that excessive amounts of fruit causes diabetes, cancer, fermentation, and other medical problems. I do agree with this statement as an excessive amount of anything is implicitly a bad thing. Excessive water, excessive love, excessive anything is always a bad thing.

The only problem is that it is nearly impossible to consume excessive amounts of fruits if you consume the appropriate kinds of fruits. The appropriate kinds of fruits are the ones that are fresh, ripe, unsprayed with chemicals, grown in chemical-free soil, and raw. Most varities of fruit are appropriate except for a small number that have toxins in them or are too fatty. Since fruits generally contain loads of fiber and water, their bulk will fill you up way before you can eat excessive amounts of them. Before that excessive amount is reached your stomach will be physically full and you just will not be able to eat more.

The fruit nay-sayers all generally come from the same camp. They are the gourmet high-fat (often as much as 80% of their calories), superfood, supplement, and toxin raw food dieters. They keep eating inappropriate foods like fermented cacao nibs or other fermented superfoods but they are so concerned about fermentation of fruit.

I really do not understand this logic? Why is it okay to eat fermented food with known toxins to the human nervous system in them like cacao and it is dangerous to eat a meal of bananas? These same people push the ‘healthy’ fermented foods like raw sour kraut, kambucha, and other similar food but then turn around and say that fruits ferment in the body which causes disease. I wonder how the already fermented food like sour kraut knows that it is healthy and will not cause disease but fruit that ferments will cause disease. I just suppose that the already fermented food is more intelligent than the dumb fruit. I think it is more related to the amount of money they earn from selling these fermented foods versus what they can earn by selling fruit.

Many people do have serious problems with blood sugar and fruit consumption. This is almost always due to the other foods that they consume. If your blood is full of difficult to digest fats it will cause problems with insulin and therefore the assimilation of sugars into the body. This is a medical fact. It is not the fruit but the fat that is causing the problem.

My advice is to ignore the scare tactics and enjoy all the sweet ripe and fresh fruits that you can. Eat a well balanced diet with as little fat as possible (at least under 10% calories from fat sources) and save your money by buying fruits instead of the toxic fermented ’superfoods’.